If true, I'm glad we are talking about it....

[Streck-Fu]

Not...


LINK

Rep. Tim Bishop (D., N.Y.) warned during a recent speech that up to 40 radicalized U.S. citizens who have fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) have already returned to the United States, where they could pose a terrorist threat.

Bishop claims that of the 100 or so Americans who have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL’s ranks, some 40 have returned and are currently being surveilled by the FBI, according to his remarks, which were filmed and uploaded to YouTube last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5gPDpYSMyw&list

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

Not...


Rep. Tim Bishop (D., N.Y.) warned during a recent speech that up to 40 radicalized U.S. citizens who have fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) have already returned to the United States, where they could pose a terrorist threat.

Bishop claims that of the 100 or so Americans who have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL’s ranks, some 40 have returned and are currently being surveilled by the FBI, according to his remarks, which were filmed and uploaded to YouTube last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5gPDpYSMyw&list

I'm pretty sure they are on the White House amnesty list. And even if they are not on that list the FBI doesn't have time for them, they're too busy locating the hackers that stole the nude pictures of the CELEBRITIES.

[Pete]

No mater what terrorist act a Muslim does while shouting Alla Akbar the left and MSM will write it off as just some nut. After all Islam is a religion of peace.

[Flagg]

Has anyone found any papers written on international volunteers during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's and how it might relate to today?

I know a "little thing" called WWII got in the way that overshadowed it.

IIRC, I thing Hoover's FBI tried to limit American volunteers of the Spanish Civil War from certain roles in WWII.....but that American volunteers were otherwise perceived by the general public as neutral to positive.....until the post WWII Communist threat emerged more clearly.

I'm not that "up" on 1930's American history as it pertains to the popularity of Communist and Nazi/Fascist groups(which I understand all possessed some degree of temporary popularity during those turbulent times).

But could the Communist sympathizing volunteers of the 1930's Spanish Civil War represent an analog to the militant Islamic volunteers of today?

Is there anything of value to be learned in the comparison?

[Ape Man]

Originally Posted by Flagg

But could the Communist sympathizing volunteers of the 1930's Spanish Civil War represent an analog to the militant Islamic volunteers of today?

Is there anything of value to be learned in the comparison?

A major difference is that a lot of people who went to fight for the "republic" really did not know what they were going to fight for. A lot of them found out the hard way that the men they were fighting for were not the second coming of America's founding fathers (this is a lesson that Americans seem to have to learn over and over again). The bottom line is that a lot of people who went to fight in the Spanish Civil war legitimately believed they were fighting for democracy.

By contrast, the Islamic militants make it very clear what they are like and what they do. Truth in advertising is one of their few virtues. Those who go to fight for them can hardly claim ignorance as to the fact that they chop people's heads off or blow up marketplaces on purpose.

[mark46th]

"IIRC, I thing Hoover's FBI tried to limit American volunteers of the Spanish Civil War from certain roles in WWII.....but that American volunteers were otherwise perceived by the general public as neutral to positive.....until the post WWII Communist threat emerged more clearly." Flagg


So does this make the Lafayette Escadrille bad guys? The Flying Tigers? Eagle Squadron? Or any American vet returning from war for that matter...

[PRB]

Hell, they 'll end up being advisors to HLS in the near future.....

[pcfixer]

http://www.wchstv.com/news/features/...l#.VBuY8hbClbG

The Fusion Intelligence Center in Charleston has been on top of classified information coming in daily on ISIS and keeps tabs on how close the terrorist organization's activities might be to the Mountain State.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by pcfixer

http://www.wchstv.com/news/features/...l#.VBuY8hbClbG

The Fusion Intelligence Center in Charleston has been on top of classified information coming in daily on ISIS and keeps tabs on how close the terrorist organization's activities might be to the Mountain State.

If the Fusion Center is still getting its info from the SPLC, they will be looking for white Christian military veterans until ISIS destroys this country.

TR

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by mark46th

"IIRC, I thing Hoover's FBI tried to limit American volunteers of the Spanish Civil War from certain roles in WWII.....but that American volunteers were otherwise perceived by the general public as neutral to positive.....until the post WWII Communist threat emerged more clearly." Flagg


So does this make the Lafayette Escadrille bad guys? The Flying Tigers? Eagle Squadron? Or any American vet returning from war for that matter...

Not necessarily.

I wonder what official/unofficial US government opinion was for those examples as well?

I suspect they were neither strongly opposed by government, nor prevented from future US military service as I think all three fighter pilot examples could(and did?) rejoin US forces for the big fight.

I recall reading a little bit about a few American servicemen/pilots who joined The Flying Tigers(Pappy Boyington I think?), from distant memory I recall it being unofficially sanctioned, perhaps?

The reason why I picked the volunteers for the Spanish Civil War was due to:

1)Very mixed bag of external actors with different agendas(Soviet Union, Germany, etc), much like ISIS and other groups and their respective funding/support streams. Not two sided, but quite a few sided in some respects.


2)Very large and mixed bag of international volunteers on the ground mixed with the locals.


3)The at least superficial similarities between recent Communist converts to the cause and recent Islamic militant converts to the cause.

4)The media emphasized it heavily then, as now.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by Ape Man

A major difference is that a lot of people who went to fight for the "republic" really did not know what they were going to fight for. A lot of them found out the hard way that the men they were fighting for were not the second coming of America's founding fathers (this is a lesson that Americans seem to have to learn over and over again). The bottom line is that a lot of people who went to fight in the Spanish Civil war legitimately believed they were fighting for democracy.

By contrast, the Islamic militants make it very clear what they are like and what they do. Truth in advertising is one of their few virtues. Those who go to fight for them can hardly claim ignorance as to the fact that they chop people's heads off or blow up marketplaces on purpose.

I hear what you're saying about the difficulty in avoiding the reality, rather than hearing just a carefully shaped perception.

It would be interesting to get a sense of recruiting then and recruiting now.

Surely there would be differences...some big differences that aren't just cultural.

Maybe it's a difference between back then appealing to the minority adventurer, whereas today it's appealing to the minority disaffected.

Are we more desensitized to violence today compared with 80 years ago?

If so, does that soften some of the damage ISIS create for themselves in their "Management of Savagery" related social media releases that could target the disaffected?

Instead of targeting adventurers, target potential school shooters maybe?

Having a search around, print books/Hollywood did produce a reasonable bit of romanticized content in the 30's.

It would be nice to have a couple hundred newspaper headlines/stories from the period to parse for historical perspective.

I wonder how the FBI looked at American volunteers of the Spanish Civil War Post WWII?

Surely, there was risk/threat potential from American Communists returning to the US.

Those American Communists that could potentially have been recruited/trained in Spain could have some similarities with American militant Islamists recruited/trained in an ungoverned space and return to the US.

I don't recall any big kinetic events related to Communism in the US in the 1930s, but it seems pretty clear that the Communist Party in the US, even with the poor decisions of Stalin, was closely tied to the non-kinetic unconventional war "long-game" of the Communist Soviet Union.

Maybe the question is:

What role, if any, did the Spanish Civil War have in recruiting and developing American Communists to provide direct/indirect value in the largely non-kinetic unconventional war long-game the Soviets played in the United States?

[Ape Man]

Originally Posted by Flagg

What role, if any, did the Spanish Civil War have in recruiting and developing American Communists to provide direct/indirect value in the largely non-kinetic unconventional war long-game the Soviets played in the United States?

How much have you read about that Spanish Civil War? Have you read any of the memoirs of those who went there?

I don't want to reinvent the wheel and rehash stuff you already know. I feel like we are hijacking the thread already. The bottom line as far as I am concerned is as follows.

1. It would have been the US interest (short term anyway) if the Republicans had won (And I say this as someone who thinks it was in Spain's best interest that the "Republicans" lost). Franco did aid the Aixs. I don't think a "Republican" controlled Spain would have.

2. I don't think the conflict in Spain increased Communist appeal. It already had a high appeal. The conflict in Spain just gave communist admirers a place to go and die (and many of them did. Causalities were quite high amongst the "internationals".). And at least some found the experience very disillusioning (A lot of George Orwell cynicism dates from this conflict and I don't think he was the only one).

3. Everyone who went over there to fight was known to the government and not trusted. The real harm was done by those who kept their sympathies to themselves and were too chicken to go over there but still got comfy civil service and or academic jobs. Moreover many of those who went over were honest anti-fascists not soviet tools. This was demonstrated when the surviving veterans split over whether to take the Soviet line that the fight against Hitler was an imperialist concern (this was before Hitler invaded Russia). The tools decided Hitler was all right when Stalin said he was. The idealist were against the fascists no matter what Stalin said.