ISIS beheads British aid worker
David Haines, 44, father of two and aid worker captured in Syria, was beheaded by ISIS, as shown in a video released by the group. He had previously worked for aid groups in Libya and South Sudan.
Haines’ killing was no surprise, because he had been threatened by ISIS at the end of the Steven Sotloff video. At the end of the Haines video, another (as yet unidentified?) hostage was shown and threatened.
This will continue. It’s clear that ISIS is determined to offend and outrage the west to the maximum. This time they chose a humanitarian worker who could not possibly be argued to have a single thing to do with any violence. It doesn’t matter; the more offensive and evil and unmotivated their actions are the better, as far as ISIS is concerned.
I have previously written about the terrorists’ motivations for their behavior, here. I will just quote myself, because it still applies:
The audience ISIS hopes to reach is multifaceted. One segment of that desired audience is the people in the community where the perpetrators currently reside. For the ISIS terrorists, knowing that they engender fear is its own reward, but it also has the more practical goal of attempting to gain the locals’ cooperation, or at least their capitulation, through their desire to avoid a similar violent fate.
Then there’s the audience in the larger Muslim world. ISIS believes there are many potential jihadis, both local and distant, whom they hope to inspire to join up by demonstrating the intensity of their bloodthirstiness and therefore their dedication to the cause. The majority of people in the Muslim world are not going to become jihadis, of course, and many Muslims find such videos repugnant (as al Qaeda discovered some time ago). But as long as a significant number join and most of the rest are cowed, ISIS would consider the videos great successes. The Muslim world has a long history of bitter and violent disputes between factions, and ISIS’s brutality is also an effort to intimidate those it sees as its enemies within the greater Muslim world.
Last but far from least there is the entire west, both individuals and governments, those weak horses whom ISIS hopes will tremble and then appease them out of fear. Although we can probably safely say that most ISIS members have not read Yeats, the message they are delivering to the west is that they are the ones filled with passionate intensity, and the west is the one that lacks all conviction. ISIS is counting on the fact that the west is reluctant to unleash the full force of its arms against them, and that whatever retaliation it mounts will be tepid and limited and ultimately unsuccessful.
But even if the west somehow finds the will to fight back more forcibly, the jihadis are betting that, between their own dedication to their holy cause and the assistance of a deity they see as supporting them, they will prevail. It is sometimes said that terrorists such as those in ISIS are nihilists. But that definition isn’t a good fit, because ISIS members don’t believe in nothing. They profess belief in something, and that something is fundamentalist Islam and the return of the caliphate, with ISIS at the helm.
The west had better find its will, because these people can taste weakness, and they feed on it like sharks on blood.
[ADDENDUM: The next hostage to be threatened has been identified as another British aide worker, Alan Henning.]
Excellent analysis, Neo. I cannot understand the lack of will on the part of the west. Unfathomable. It is hard to believe only 75 years separate us from the time of WWII.
Yep. “Strong Horse” vs. “Weak Horse”, and more and more so-called “Westerners” are joining them.
As I said before, one way or another, this is going to be a war of extermination.
To put it more plainly, “Islam delenda est.”
If Obama’s lying and ROE don’t get in the way of the military in the field then we’ll see. But he’s certainly not going to be transformed or transform himself into a strong leader in any sense other than what we’ve come to know.
You can expect more beheadings, at regular intervals. ISIS is taunting us, because broadcasting our weakness to the world is a recruitment tool.
The only change will come when the jaded public becomes used to beheadings. Then, ISIS will have to figure out some new way to shock the west.
Things will get much worse, I’m afraid.
Even if the west finds the will, where will they find the means? Most of western Europe has gutted their military forces in order to fund the welfare state. As Greece and France have recently illustrated, social subsidy reduction will be vehemently resisted.
As long as nothing gets into the USA my level of preoccupation with the ISIS phenomenon will remain low. Atrocities in Iraq are merely Atrocities in Iraq. If we ever see something here in the States then the country may begin to pay close attention and the MSM may finally turn on Obama in response to popular demand.
We will then experience a rampant overplus of fear.
This will continue indefinitely, there is not downside to their actions. This administration will do little to oppose them, meaningless rhetoric is worse than nothing. Becoming weak and averting our gaze will not save our country from Jihad.
Yesterday you had a question about why Obama still has support. Today you answer a question about why ISIS will do what ISIS does.
Obama has done far more harm, and will continue to do far more harm to America than ISIS will ever do.
We are settled and steeled on the one thing. We plead ignorance and befuddlement about the other.
It’s just a defense mechanism to avoid admitting the truly horrible. Understandable, okay. But it is what it is.
Maybe I am too hopeful; But, after the Carter White House (thank God it was only 4 years, and not 8) with his weak foreign policy (“I’m not leaving the Rose Garden until the American hostages in Tehran are released”) we got one of our best Presidents ever – Ronald Reagan. I believe that Reagan won because Americans were fed up with Carter’s weakness (among other reasons as well)
So, maybe after Obama’s weakness Americans will wake up and elect a President who will not be afraid to deal with these savages in a stronger way.
Or maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part?
The targets of propaganda Neo mentioned are correct but perhaps the biggest propaganda targets are Western leaders and intellectuals on the left. The Islamists have to convince the left that Islam is worthy of their support. Above anything else the left believes that Christianity is the ultimate evil and anything which is able to exterminate Christianity is good.
Muslim infiltration and power within Western institutions has been greatly facilitated by 9-11. The Muslims have also seen a surge in Western proselytes. This has taught Muslims that the more violent their behavior the more the left will support them and the more rapidly they can conquer the West. The motivation is simple. ISIS is blessed by Allah because they have returned to the original pattern of violent subjugation set out by Mohammad and the original Muslim Caliphs.
In order for the left to expunge Islam from the behavior of self proclaimed Islamists the left have to (pretend to) ignore Islamic history, they have to (pretend to) ignore the contents of the Koran and of the Hadiths, and they have to (pretend to) ignore what Muslims themselves say. The left is determined to deny the link between Islam and terrorism no matter what happens. Even when Muslims chop off heads shouting allahu Akbar, the left denies that their behavior has anything to do with Islam.
The truth about Islam is not difficult to discover for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Muslims are eager to explain their beliefs to anyone who is willing to listen. The Koran and Hadiths are readily available for anyone who cares to read them. It is not ignorance that motivates the left to deny the connection between Islam and violent jihad. They deny the inherent totalitarian core of Islam for the same reason that in the past they denied the connection between Communist dictatorships and the gulags, because they are just as committed to the ideology of Islamic Marxism now just as they were committed to pure Marxist ideology in the past.
Knowing that the left supports Islam in all its manifestations, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi instinctively knows that beheading Western hostages is a win for his movement even if he himself is killed in a drone strike. He knows Obama and the Islamic facilitators in the West will do everything in their power to ensure that Muslims in the West are not inconvenienced in the least by the behavior of their coreligionists. He knows that beheadings and violent theater will make Islamic efforts to undermine the West from within easier since each time a beheading occurs the leftist leaders will rush to the nearest “moderate” Mosque to wail about Islamophobia and will demonize and criminalize all criticism of Islam.
Bastards. There’s nothing more to say. Bastards.
Sharon W., I’ve been convinced for years that if we had to fight WWII today, we could not win.
These barbarians must be stopped. The quicker the better.
Here’s what I would do. Immediately begin a strategic bombing campaign (B-52s baby) against all their supply, training, command/control, and oil production facilities. Deny them the “beans and bullets” that any army needs to conduct ops.
Start an intensive tactical air strike program against anything that moves on the roads in the ISIS held area. Make them keep their heads down and immobile as possible.
Go after their financial backers in detail. That means going after rich oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, etc. who are ponying up cash. They all have financial resources. Go after them. Impound their bank accounts and sanction their financial activities wherever they are. Confiscate their property in the U.S.
Put enough (Whatever figure the Joint Chiefs says is enough) Special Ops people on the ground in Iraq to direct the activities of the Iraqi Army and the Kurdish Peshmerga. Use these ground forces to follow up the aerial bombardment and take back northern Iraq.
Continue to degrade ISIS in Syria primarily through both strategic and tactical air strikes. Eventually Assad will finish them off. Yes, Assad is a bad guy, but less bad than ISIS. We can take down Assad anytime we want to and he knows it. Push him to liberalize his regime.
Such a demonstration of our willingness to use our power would be a start in re-establishing our bona fides as the strong horse. A fact that cannot be stressed enough. Being the strong horse may not gain their love, but it would gain respect.
Unless we are willing to put a stabilization force on the ground for many years, Iraq may have to be broken into three parts – the Shia section, the Sunni section, and Kurdistan. The Shias have most of the oil now, but there is big potential for more oil in the Sunni and Kurdish areas. The oil potential of Iraq has never been fully tapped because of the retrograde effects of Islam. Western companies drilled the easy prospects back in the 50s and 60s, but after a military coup in 1968, new oil exploration ended as Saddam managed to work his way into power and nationalize the oil industry. Saddam was like most Muslims. He didn’t know that oil infrastructure needed to be maintained and new production added from time to time. Iraqi oil infrastructure was a mess after we took over in 2003. The infrastructure has been repaired and some tentative new exploration has taken place, but Iraq could be a much bigger oil producer than it is. Islamic terrorist violence has been a major factor in holding that back. With independent religious entities, the terror might be reduced and exploration could proceed.
If all three parties in Iraq have oil wealth, it makes a partition of the country much easier. At least a partition of the country should not be taken off the table.
The problems ahead are difficult and solutions murky. Inaction and proving we are the weak horse will not help us in any way. Decisive, overpowering force and a resolute will would be a start to solving the problem of Radical Islamism. But it would only be a start. The struggle is much like the Thirty Years War and will take at least thirty years to bring it to an end.
AMEN, Neo. Or, as the Evil Cheney & the Evil Rummy were repeatedly known to say: IF HISTORY HAS TAUGHT US ANYTHING, IT IS THAT WEAKNESS IS PROVOCATIVE.
The weakness that Obama and his amateurs are broadcasting to the Butchers & Ravenous Bullies on our globe is Weakness On Steroids. Whether it’s ISIS or Putin or China or Iran. And, nearly as important, our friends and allies have long since stopped trusting us.
ISIS needs to go in their sandy ground with bloody pigs for sleep mates. Drones, my arse.
The targets of ISIS propaganda are recruitable Muslims.
ISIS actually does not give a DANG about the emotions of the infidels — other than a general desire to induce fear and terror.
Al Baghdadi is Napoleonic.
He’s totally unlike the other fanatics that we’ve come to know and loathe.
For those with short history texts: Napoleon Bonaparte was NOT taken seriously straight through all of his early years. You will find that absolutely none of his opponents thought that they were dealing with a military genius.
Yes, they ALL though they could handle him.
The record is clear, it took an entire generation for Europe to produce generals of his caliber… and these were still but few.
&&&&
Al Baghdadi is charismatic in Muslim circles. He is almost certain to utterly destroy al Nusrah within the next twelve months. A caliph can have no rivals. That’s part of the ground rules.
There is plenty of blather about al Baghdadi’s ISIS going far afield. These idiotic rantings are strictly from money lust.
Al Baghdadi does not want, and will not sanction, any additional pole of Muslim authority. He is destined to expand his caliphate like an ink spot.
So, northeastern Jordan and western Syria are his next targets, do doubt.
If all goes well, then al Baghdadi will push further into Arabia, almost certainly in lightning moves that follow recon and battle space preparation.
Al Baghdadi is the UN-Saddam. A genius has replaced a tyrannical fool. Perfect.
BTW, the FSA is nothing but a Western propaganda construct — it’s a FRONT. It has less fighting power than Sergeant Shultz or Barney Fife.
EVERY time Barry Soetoro gets Congress to fund the FSA — the assets shift right on over to Barry’s jihadi brigades in the desert. There are no stinking Muslim moderates. Such a critter is rarer than a Jewish Nazi.
McCain is senile, and has been led around by the nose in Syria. Hence, Barry has come to ‘love’ him. His counter-factual ‘analysis’ is going to be injected into the news cycle — like fabric finish — in the final spin. Don’t inhale its perfume!
%%%
More generally, all Western humanitarians gifting food aid to Muslims ARE the enemy.
While they’re doing so with the best of intentions, you’re never going to get positive results feeding Africanized honey bees — or Muslims.
The attack swarm comes from their nature. They have no other function.
Islamic economics consists of piracy and robbing camel caravans. THAT’S IT.
It’s so hopeless for the modern world that the fanatics have adopted Communism — in the Stalinist vein.
Hence, the bulk of jihadism is ISLAMISM.
Islamism = Islam + Communism => 30% :: 70%
Is it ANY wonder why Putin is backing the Islamist movement? Most were launched BY the KGB. (Try the PLO, for starters. Say, did you notice that the PLO NEVER targeted Soviet economic interests?)
@@@
Upsetting Westerners is strictly a secondary factor for al Baghdadi.
BTW, even the CIA is finally admitting that ISIS has 30,000 in the ranks. This figure is probably a minor fraction of the true figure. Based upon al Baghdadi’s priorities, you should figure on 120,000 men and boys — the vast bulk of whom are still in boot camp.
He’s getting ready for the campaign season — which is dead ahead. He probably has only 7,000 cadres. (A cadre is NOT a soldier. A cadre is at least a non-com — typically rating E-5 or better in any Western army… plus officers. Keep that in mind when reading civilian written military analysis of a jihadi army.)
At the height of the caliphate, the caliph could muster swarms of 500,000 souls. Most of these would be hangers on. It was hordes like these that besieged Vienna.
(Relief 9-11-1683 — said action constitutes the final battle of Lord of the Rings — The Two Towers. Tolkien lifted the one to drop into the other.)
J.J.
Listen to your complex and impossible plan…
The War was won. Bush won it. Obama surrendered the victory. Where do we put our efforts, against Iraq or against Obama?
If the West or Israel took a single prisoner off the list the terrorists wanted, and executed them per day or per week, the next time they needed a prisoner exchange, the Islamic Jihad would need to find a shorter list.
For some reason it has not penetrated the popular consciousness: the Muslim Middle East lives or dies on Western food.
One should forget entirely about bombing them.
The strategic ‘attack’ is to simply cut them off from cheap food.
This will COMPEL Muslims to focus their efforts on feeding themselves — at home.
Further, all immigration from Muslim lands has to completely stop. All possible evictions must begin. Since most Muslims in the West live criminal lifestyles, there are plenty of legal reasons to evict them.
Common Muslim crimes:
False immigration affidavit
False welfare affidavit/ fraud
Polygamy
Street crime
Income tax violations — a faithful Muslim is prohibited from providing tax revenue to an infidel government — this is settled Islamic law
Sedition — a faithful Muslim must advocate sedition — this is settled Islamic law
Conspiracies — all faithful Muslims must work together to over throw infidel government — this is settled Islamic law
Illegal immigration — over staying visas, etc. This is retail jihad
Discrimination against all infidels — this is required of the faithful — this is settled Islamic law
And, of course, passing on American state secrets to Muslim powers (Iran, KSA) — these days the Internet is the route of choice
Giving false testimony under oath — settled Islamic law WRT infidel powers
Plotting cyber attacks against the infidel powers — which falls into the mix listed above
It is IMPOSSIBLE for a Muslim to be a faithful Muslim and a law abiding American. These are two mutually exclusive behavior sets.
Making people’s lives better, even by a jot or a tittle, is a beheading offense.
What’s the worst that can happen?
Americans who value freedom and constitutional government are confronted with a difficult choice: that of saving the worthless bathwater along with the baby; or risking the baby in the probably unrealistic hope that the dirt will slowly drain away. We’ve gotten ourselves into a pretty extreme wheat and tares situation.
Michael Moore’s wish that conservative Americans would have borne the brunt of the terrorist onslaught, is unlikely to redound exclusively on his own head.
And as many have speculated, there seems to be just as good a chance that the leftists in charge of manning the walls would join another totalitarian minded movement if things get tough for them, as there would be of their standing up and taking it on the chin in order to defend what’s left of the system of liberty they have been so busily and deliberately undermining.
I just wonder who will be the first left-wing academic to suggest such a capitulation or convergence of interests.
It’s the nature of the collectivist being – even the chest thumpers among them -to relentlessly seek social shelter. If they are treated liberally in the classical liberal sense and by a classical liberal polity, they will eat the system out from the inside as they have nearly done here in the US. If they are regimented within a totalizing regime but guaranteed a place and social esteem and support, they will be just as, if not more, content.
‘A place for everyone and everyone in their place. (with us in charge)’ That is the great thing for the collectivist.
Yet it always ends the same: determinedly dependent and insistently weak.
Speaking of the metaphor of walls, it reminds me of this:
Bede, on the Britons of the past:
That part about the timorous defenders being pulled off the walls with hooks, always cracks me up. One of them at least must have survived to become Robert Fisk’s ancestor.
Bede on his own people, and speaking of current events:
Lindisfarne was sacked by the Vikings in 793.
Mike: “The War was won. Bush won it. Obama surrendered the victory. Where do we put our efforts, against Iraq or against Obama?”
Yes, my plan will not happen under this C-in-C. My purpose in delineating the plan here is to show that there is a path to aggressive, effective action, if only we have leaders who will lead. It may take something really awful (nuke attack, biological attack, or??) to get the leaders we need.
My efforts are always in opposition to Obama. The start would be a Republican Congress in November. Not perfect, but less bad than the Reid – Obama partnership that ties the hands of the House.
Iraq will be important as long as oil is important. Iraq, Kuwait, KSA, UAE, etc. cannot be allowed to fall into Islamic hands. The Gulf sheikdoms are awash in corruption but they want the money that oil provides and are wiling to suppress the jihadis so they can deal with the West peaceably. They may be despicable but they are less of a problem than such places as Libya, which is an oil state now in the hands of the Islamists. There will be more trouble coming from Libya soon.
Father of two.
Good grief. What in the world was a father of two doing aid work in Syria.
I’m sorry folks, I am fast becoming unable to grieve for these western aid workers and journalists. These men have done this to themselves by going to these places.
Neo, is there a theological or religious component to your analysis?
blert:
There is more to the crime thing, I strongly suspect. I was selling some car parts through Craig’s List. I got an offer, almost immediately, that looked very suspicious. Their reply used the future tense in ways not at all familiar in English, but still in some use in Spanish. (although less so, as the Spanish language changes)and more so, if I understand correctly, in Arabic. The scam involved giving me a check, and letting someone pick up the part from me. Why the pick-up guy could not bring me the cash was never explained. I have learned elsewhere that the check eventually bounces, and the part is long gone. I reported the matter to my local P.D.’s cyber crimes unit. What they did with the information, I could not say. However, I can say that I did not deal with the crooks, preferring cash, in person.
Refuel Extreme is SPAM.
Sorry to agree with you, NEO, because I can’t stomach more beheadings or whatever IS eventually does to grab Obama’s attention.
According to Obama, IS should have just returned Foley and Sotloff w/a note pinned to them that said: “Stay out of here; this is none of your business.”
I wish I were kidding: http://preview.tinyurl.com/lfydvbu
Mike: “The War was won. Bush won it. Obama surrendered the victory.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/29/blame-the-obama-doctrine-for-iraq.html#
Author:
http://www.siwps.org/faculty/stuartgottlieb/
Near enemy. Far enemy.
Strong horse. Weak horse.
Well said, Neo. Well said!
“As I said before, one way or another, this is going to be a war of extermination”
With any luck, Leftists and Moslems will exterminate each other, leaving the West to survive.
The west had better find its will, because these people can taste weakness, and they feed on it like sharks on blood.
perfect descruption of soviets..
note that ISIS is from them, trained and supplied by them, their caliph is from them… so you CANT win by defeating their proxies… any more thany you can defeat dandelions by cutting their flowers (and refusing to acknowlege the roots)
While I’d like to see the whole tree of Muslim Brotherhood Islamist organizations exterminated I just don’t get why any westerner is in the mideast. It is worse then a medieval cesspool, soaked in blood, torture, death.
They can’t get any jobs at home.
Artfldgr:
The Soviets (and now Russia) have been using proxies around the world for as long as I’ve been alive, and longer. The difference is that the US used to be well aware of it.
Harold, they’re climbing to the top of THEIR Maslow-ian pyramid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Without a doubt, each and every one of these fellows thought that they were making a difference in the Muslim Middle East.
Such is vanity.
Their true contribution has been their blood.
One can only hope that the massive publicity throttles the desire on the part of do-gooders everywhere to enter the sandbox.
&&&
The hope that the Third World can adopt ‘best social practices’ from the United States of America is totally in vain.
That’s why the Peace Corps has been such a total bust.
This is compounded by the nature of those souls who enter on such vanity campaigns.
My sister got my nephew to join the Peace Corps. He’s pretty fresh out of college.
Because he was an Eagle Scout, the Peace Corps sent him into dying’st South Africa: the epicenter of the HIV nightmare. I will spare you the gruesome details. Suffice it to say that all of his efforts went for naught.
He became an ugly American by exposing the local matriarch as a skim-thief — in the Chicago style.
[“That’s nine for me, one for everybody in the village…”]
The average IQ was — and remains — so low that no-one thought it really odd that she was living the high life… while the rest of the population went entirely without.
Because of the rampant pandemic, no-one from the central government dared visit — during his entire tour. De facto, he became their eyes on the pit.
%%%%
The bottom line: he just could not get ANYONE to change their ways… such as refraining from drinking water from mud puddles. Yes, yes, yes, you read that right — most of the local water supply consists of rain puddles. (!)
His efforts to establish a well succeeded. He just couldn’t get the locals to stop drinking out of mud puddles. (!)
Detoxifying the local water supply is where one always must start. Across the planet, even today, most people are drinking hazardous waters.
&&&
So, two years in, it was time to go — and he was not able to prevent the ills of foul water — which had become his primary focus. He dropped all other schemes once he realized just what a battle he had getting the retards to drink clean water.
I say retards, because the entire village was intellectually stunted to an astounding degree. Foul water leads to countless diseases that degrade brain growth and brain function.
The locals normed to IQs down around 70.
(Throw in inbreeding, and horrific prenatal nutrition.)
As you might guess, their language was easy to master. Everything they did was only a few steps above feral.
%%%
The Muslim Middle East has much in common with South Africa… starting with cousin-marriage and rotten prenatal nutrition.
It’s got all of South Africa’s troubles — with AK-47s tossed on top — and countless teenage boys with war fighting as their career aspiration.
So, it’s high time that the Western do-gooder abandon folly — and the fake ethos of “Three Cups of Tea.”
There are some things that you just can’t do. Changing an entire culture is entirely outside the power of even the best intending Westerner.
This goes double when the local imam preaches every day that no-one is to trust the infidel!
Everyone would be much better off if we stopped trying to perfect our neighbors.
If it’s impossible to get ones neighbor to drop 0bama — what chance exists to change a hostile, crazed, society?
But, yet, they come.