A Strategy for Defeating ISIS, a Vargas Girl and a Short Story

From my archives, here's a short story I hope you will enjoy.  If you have one that you have written, send it to me (riart1@aol.com) and it will be included in a future posting.

 

Sacrifice

Jack Lippman

It was the tribe’s custom to sacrifice a teen-age virgin to the Fire God each year on the day of the vernal equinox.  This, the elders recounted, was necessary to show their obedience to the Fire God, appeasing his hunger, and result, they hoped, in a year of good crops, good weather and victory over hostile neighbors.

“I hear, dear wife, that the council of elders will be asking us to provide our daughter for the annual sacrifice to the Fire God this year,” the agitated husband said to his equally disturbed mate.  ”Because she is our only child, that disturbs me.  I know it is a great honor to be asked to do this, but I would have preferred that they would have asked someone else.”

“I know, I know,” the wife answered, “and I had so looked forward to having grandchildren.  Is there anything we could do about it”?

“The standing rule is that if a family refuses to provide a sacrifice, they must leave the tribe and wander forever through the valley.  No other tribe will take us in and in fact, we probably would perish or be massacred in short order.  So we really aren’t in a position to decline, are we?” the husband responded.

“I guess not, but let’s ask our daughter what she thinks.  After all,” the wife added, “she’s the one who will be sacrificed to the Fire God.”

That afternoon, when the daughter came home from the schooling hut where the tribe’s children were taught the skills they would need to survive in the valley, the parents explained the situation to her.  To their surprise, she wasn’t bothered at all.

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll be happy to be offered as the sacrifice this year.  I know all about it.  It’s one of the things they teach us about at the hut.  No problem at all. Glad to do it,” the girl cheerfully explained, to her parents amazement.

“But you’ll be killed,” both parents simultaneously warned.

“Like I said, don’t worry.  I can handle it!  Now forget about the whole thing,” the girl added.

A few weeks later, the entire tribe assembled in the broad ceremonial clearing in the center of their village.  Everyone was wearing their gaudiest and most elaborate finery.  Colored feathers and polished bones were everywhere to be seen.  The gleaming blades of the warriors’ spears sparkled in the sunlight.

In the middle of the clearing stood a pile of boulders, forming a small pyramid-like structure, rising about ten feet in the air.  At the top rested a flat rock where the sacrificial virgin was to be chained to two metal rings on its upper surface.  Branches and straw were stuffed into the openings between the boulders, so that the pyramid, once the fuel was ignited, would function as a stove on top of which the virgin would be roasted.  The sound of drums added to the scene’s somber atmosphere.

The mother and father occupied two seats directly in front of the pyramid, and were garbed in robes festooned with silver ornamentation.  The high priest, in a similar robe, but one decorated in gold, led the procession of the tribe’s elders

into the clearing.  They proceeded to a small tent, off to the side of the pyramid, where the sacrificial virgin was waiting to meet her fate, and opening a flap in the tent’s wall, called for her to come out.  There was no response, so they called again, this time louder.

From the opening in the tent emerged a figure, but it was not the girl who was intended to be sacrificed to the Fire God.  It was instead an older woman, the priestess who each year was charged with preparing the girl for the sacrifice.  She seemed to be in an agitated state and pointed back into the tent, calling out, “Call off the ceremony, we cannot proceed’! 

“Why not,”? asked the high priest.

“Because this girl is not a virgin,” the woman answered.  “I have examined her and can attest to that fact.  To sacrifice other than a virgin to the Fire God would anger him, so the ceremony must be called off.”

In the front row, the girl’s confused parents breathed a sign of relief.

Indeed, the ceremony was postponed, and under the supervision of the priestess, a search to find a replacement teen-age virgin in the tribe ensued.  None could be found, and as a result of the investigation which followed, the teacher from the schooling hut was executed. 

                                                  


Fading into History

If these items haven’t disappeared from your life already, they probably will in the near future.   They already are ancient history to many younger people. 
Can you add to this list?

Paper newspapers bought at newsstands or delivered to your door

Telephone booths

Rotary dial telephones
Glass bottles for things like ketchup and salad dressings

Cameras which require the use of film

Postage stamps which must be moistened to affix to letters

Bills, statements and letters received in the mailbox of your home

Shoes that can be re-soled by a shoe repairman

Typewriters

Cars requiring an ignition key to start

Chinese restaurants that don’t also serve Thai and/or Japanese food

Nice thick city telephone directories

Magazines (other than in physicians’ and dentists’ waiting room)

JL

                                                      


A Vargas Girl

We haven't published a picture of a Vargas girl lately, but here is one from 67 years ago.  Alberto Vargas started painting these pin-up girls during the Second World War, and some have attributed our victory to their morale boosting effect on our troops.  Somethings, as the article above points out, are going out of style.  Happily, the subjects of Vargas' paintings will never.  Sixty-seven years ago!  Wow!

 
JL

                                                         

A Strategy for Defeating ISIS in Iraq - Why the Delay

In earlier postings, and in eMails to friends, I have advocated a carpet bombing on a 24/7 basis of all of the roads in Iraq and neighboring Syria.  Some say air power alone will not work in defeating ISIS,  I disagree.  Unlike Vietnam, where air power was not enough, there is no jungle there in which to hide.  Without roads, ISIS would not be able to mount military campaigns as they have done so far.  If you look at the areas in Iraq controlled by ISIS, you will find that they parallel these roads.  Unpaved trails and paths cannot support their forces, which utilize a variety of vehicles from tanks to pick-up trucks.   Of course, eventually there will have to be some troops on the ground but I feel that months of saturation bombing must come first.  Sadly, as there were in Gaza, there will be civilian casualties in the cities where ISIS is in control.

Here is a map showing the major highways in Iraq.  I am sure our military people have better ones, which include the roads in Syria to which they connect. Once these roads in both Iraq and Syria are destroyed, ISIS will be crippled.  Because their troop concentrations are clustered along these pathways, many of their "soldiers" will be killed as well.  Remember, the total number of ISIS jihadist troops in Iraq according to Bloomberg Businessweek is only 7,000! (In a recent column by George Will, he refers to the so-called "Islamic State" as having 20,000 troops, but even that is not a big number.)  Only then, after months of such bombing, would troops from a broad coalition of nations, including the United States, the UK, the Arab states, and Iran, be needed to mop up any survivors.  

Afterwards, a permanent UN trusteeship will have to be set up because it is clear that for many years to come, this desert area will lack the ethnic, religious and political commonality needed to be able to govern itself as a democratic nation.  And ultimately, this may be necessary for Syria as well, once we get around to dealing with Bashar al-Assad.

The real delay in developing our overall strategy for dealing with ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) comes not from determining how to defeat them militarily.  Rather, it is the result of the time it is taking to get our diplomatic ducks lined up in a row.  Beside the question of actually attacking ISIS within Syria, the United States must deal with the fact that smashing ISIS in Syria would put us on the same side as Assad, against whose government ISIS is rebelling.  Up to now, we have opposed Assad's dictatorial suppression of those opposed to him and have been seeking, in vain, a more moderate alternative than ISIS to support against him. Right now, there is none with any real power. I feel that on a priority basis, dealing with ISIS now trumps dealing with Assad.  Similarly, it would put us on the same side as Iran whose nuclear ambitions we oppose, but which fears the Sunni extremists running ISIS.  How closely would we be working with Iranian Shia "advisers" who are also attempting to bolster the Iraqi military?  As for Saudi Arabia, we must also deal with that country's reluctance to use military force against another Sunni group, ISIS, despite the political and theological threats which it poses to their regime in Riyahd.

Any such liaisons which we establish need not be permanent.  The West's alliance with Stalin during the Second World War dissolved once that war was over.  Such relationships "of convenience" will be necessary to defang and destroy ISIS.

  Joseph Stalin 

As for an independent Kurdistan, its future will depend upon negotiations with Iran and Turkey, where significant Kurdish minorities exist.  The borders of an independent Kurdistan can be a bargaining chip in assembling the coalition needed to defeat ISIS.   Once ISIS is defeated, the game of geo-politics will resume in the Middle East, where it has been played for centuries.

JL

                                                       

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Jack Lippman