Given that I do quite often focus upon Islam it is perhaps appropriate for me to turn my thoughts towards the ISIS Jihad in Iraq.
First, the rather obvious details; Tarek Fatah writes about it in the Toronto Sun as follows …
The brutality of this mayhem was best captured in a deeply disturbing video released on the Internet by jihadis fighting for the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS).
It shows a bearded, young ISIS fighter in full battle gear posing for the camera with a decapitated head in his hand.
On cue from the cameraman, the jihadi fighter lifts the head, turns towards it and says, “Hello, my name is John.”
Both men then break into laughter, after which the cameraman derisively remarks, “Why doesn’t John look like he died of natural causes?”
The decapitated head is then thrown to the ground as another ISIS man can be heard off camera joking: “This guy died of natural causes by a knife … It cut his throat”, to which the cameraman guffaws, “Natural causes — the mujahedeen … Natural cause for an apostate,” before chanting the Islamic battle cry, “Allah O Akbar.”
This is one small example of the utter brutality that they claim they are inflicting, and remember this is the group that Al-Qaeda deemed to be too vicious.
Propaganda
The first point to make is that we need to be extremely wary of everything we are hearing and seeing at the moment, because it has all been sourced from ISIS. The one thing that is quite obviously true is that they are very very good at utilising social media. Pictures are streaming out of the group’s stronghold on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube depicting everything that they claim they are doing, and it is from this source that almost all of what we are seeing and reading about comes. In fact, their ability to use of social media has been one of the main reasons why it has become the single most popular organisation for fighters from foreign countries – including an estimated 2,000 from Europe, according to estimates from western intelligence agencies.
So when reading and seeing the claims, ask yourself this:
- Is this just based upon what ISIS have claimed, or has it actually been independently verified?
What you need to remember here is that one very powerful weapon of war that is being deployed in the field of Iraq is fear.
But what if it is all actually true?
If indeed it is, if the mass executions and cold-blooded executions of many who had surrendered, if those Shiite men with shovels really were being forced to dig their own graves, if drivers at ISIS roadblocks are being pulled out of their cars and shot, if it all has really happened, then they are guilt of war crimes and will be held accountable by the international community.
It will also backfire on them locally, the general population will in the long term turn against them and everything they stand for; such a truth can only result in a popular revulsion. In fact, it was their previous cold brutality that led to them being rejected by Al-Qaeda.
In fact I’ve blogged about these lunatics before …
- Back in 2013 they beheaded the wrong guy simply because of a misunderstanding
- In June 2013 in Syria they murdered a teen because he was overheard saying something they did not like about Mohammed
So yes, they do have an established track record for being very trigger happy.
Could their claimed brutality really all be actually happening?
Mr Fatah makes a rather compelling case in his article that it could and is. There is of course rejection of the idea, I’ve interacted with some Muslims who are in complete denial and reject the idea that ISIS are even Muslims and instead suggest that they are simply a group being funded and manipulated by the US / CIA / Zionists / etc… and yet Mr Fatah points out …
In Kenya and Nigeria Islamists are targeting Christians while in Iraq and Pakistan they are killing Shia Muslims, who Saudi-funded clerics have designated as “Kaffirs’”, non-believers in Islamic disguise whose founders, they falsely claim, were Jews.
The apologists among us claim these atrocities are not part of the Islamic rules of war, but that does not withstand scrutiny.
The fact is, no less a person than the grandson of Prophet Muhammad was beheaded in battle by fellow Muslims on Oct. 10, 680. His decapitated head was paraded in the streets of Damascus.
The eminent Egyptian Islamic reformer of the 20th century, Ali Abd al-Razik, writes in his book Islam and the Fundamentals of Authority that within a year of Prophet Muhammad’s death, political disputes among the Muslims were settled by public beheadings.
Raziq writes about one incident of early Islam when the celebrated Muslim general Khalid Ibn Walid made a cooking pot out of the decapitated head of another Muslim general, Malik ibn Nuwairah, after defeating him in a battle and beheading him as a POW.
Consequences
So I’m leaning towards the idea that their claimed brutality is factual, not just because fanatical beliefs can and do motivate such abhorrent behaviour, but perhaps also because in the past their brutality in Syria has been independently verified, and also the observation that even Al-Qaeda have rejected them because of their brutality, but I still at the same time harbour some doubts that it might all be propaganda.
What is well established is that the embrace of bad ideas such as Islamism has had some very real and rather dire consequences, and what is most probably happening right now is a prime example of that. Evidence based criticism of superstitious irrationality that does not have a single jot of credible evidence to verify any of the claims asserted truly does matter – silence really is not an option.
(It’s about here that I’d be very tempted to insert the rather famous Edmond Burke quote – slight problem, he never actually said or wrote it).