"Being Kidnapped, Tortured and Released in Syria"

This is an amazing, page turning read. But it lacks context. Iraq and Syria used to be politically secular countries where Sunni and Shia intermarried and Western visitors were welcomed with with excessive amounts of coffee. The very real apocalypse described in this article is the result of over 700,000 Iraqi and 150,000 Syrian deaths caused by the Wests sanctions, invasions and bombings of the region. Without the context, this amazing artilce is worse than worthless as it enables the reader to think of the people of the region as savages - discounting the fact that this is what happens when societies collapse, and that this collapse was of our making.

The ideas that the fighters in this story believe in have nothing to do with Islam in any recongisable form - especially in a region where non-islamic christians and other minorities have survived for over a thousand years, side by side. These are the ideas and attitudes of any group of people for whom there is no hope and no future. Where all stability is gone and violence is all that is left.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?smid=tw-share