My Sunday EOZ Column: ISIS Unveiled

Michael L.

It will be a discussion of part one of the VICE News documentary entitled, The Spread of the Caliphate:  The Islamic State.

Visit the Elder of Ziyon blog to read it in its entirety, to be published 11 AM, EST, Sunday, March 8.



Here is a tid-bit:

They honestly believe that torturing people, burning them alive, chopping off their heads and putting it on video to music is a good thing, because it is what Allah wants of them.  It is so good, in fact, that such videos serve as a recruiting tool for others, all throughout the world.  This obviously flies in the face of normative western (and Jewish) values that tend to view unnecessary cruelty as horrible, even unholy.  Nonetheless, different cultures are different and it is only western arrogance that inclines many of us to see all cultures as reasonable, as rational, and as fundamentally like our own.  Not all peoples or cultures are alike, however, and if anyone doubts the truth of this observation, I simply invite you to watch the video above.

Part 2 is entitled, Grooming Children for Jihad.

Part 3 is entitled, Enforcing Sharia in Raqqa.

Part 4 is entitled, Christians in the Islamic State.

Part 5 is entitled, Bulldozing the Border Between Iraq and Syria.

The so-called Islamic State is one of the more fascinating, revolting, and violently bigoted political movements since the National Socialists.

I have been warning for years that the rise of militant Islam is the most significant international political development since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Much to my horror, this is turning out to be correct.

ISIS is an army of around 50,000 strong.  It has taken two huge bites out of two Middle Eastern countries, Iraq and Syria.  It has done so, in part, because its cruelty - in terms of modern history - is rivaled only by the Nazis and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and let's not even discuss Africa... we never do, anyway, now do we?

One significant difference between Nazi and Communist atrocities of the twentieth century versus the current Islamist variety is that the Islamists are advertising their horrendous cruelty as a moral virtue in the name of Allah and getting a significant response from Muslims around the world.

The majority Muslim response is, nonetheless, I am certain, horror.  But Islam is a big religion with many strands and influences, some of which are quietist and some of which are not.

The guys in Raqqa, Syria, are of the "not" variety.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State's Iranian competitor is gaining on nuclear break-out capacity and the Obama administration has gone back on its word to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.

Let us not forget that Obama promised to prevent Iranian nukes.

He has obviously gone back on that promise and this needs to be acknowledged.

In the mean time, enjoy twenty times when Obama administration officials, vis-a-vis Iran, said that "no deal is better than a bad deal."



Now, I could be wrong, but is that not precisely what Netanyahu said?

{A Big Tip 'O the Kippa to my buddy Ian over at the EOZ.}