Saturday, July 16, 2016

Events

A tumultuous couple of days. A few thoughts.

1. [and yes, this is from an old post] We keep being told that ISIS has come up this new strategy of urging its followers in western countries to mount their own attacks. Left, the summer 2010 edition of the magazine of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; the magazine's name is Inspire.

2. Nice. French interior minister is saying that the truck atrocity attacker looks to have radicalized very quickly. Not so good for any deterministic theory of Islamist terrorism. This is a virus that finds particular hosts.

3. Turkey. If ever there was an illustration that two countries around the corner from each other with a common heritage can be very different that was it. Egypt's military got rid of an elected Islamist President. Turkey's military could not.

4. Has TV rolling news ever lost interest in a story as quickly as they have the Turkish coup attempt? Sky News did a decent job last night but is now back predominantly to Nice, and CNN International, despite its Turkish affiliate having a major role in the story, is already back to feature programming as of Saturday morning. A Friday evening in summer with resources already committed to Nice and a complicated narrative-defying context (he's Islamist and he's popular?) -- BORING.

No comments: