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...

[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?