The Eyes Have It

"'Foreign recruits in Iraq are vulnerable to Takfiri ideology [excommunication of Muslims and non-Muslims], which puts them on the wrong path', a leader of the first generation [of jihadists] told me. 'There is no other way to make sense of the proliferation of suicide bombings -- thousands of operations -- against fellow believers in Iraq.'
"In other words, foreign recruits to global jihad in Iraq are raw material easily moulded by Al-
Qaeda leaders there. They serve as human bombs, carriers of death and destruction. We are witnessing further mutation and militarization with every jihadist generation. Who ever thought that the Iraq generation would be more violent than the Al-Qaeda generation?"
"Both mainstream and militant Islamists whom I interviewed distanced themselves from the Iraq jihadists, who are a 'liability to the honourable resistance', as one Islamist put it. However, the Iraq jihadists are no longer reliant on foreign recruits, but are quickly winning many Sunni Iraqis to their cause. In the last year a dramatic transformation has taken place within the Iraq generation with the homegrown Iraqi contingent outnumbering Arab recruits. The Iraqi generation is becoming more Iraqi by the day."
Fawaz A. Gerges -- Journey of the Jihadist, Inside Muslim Militancy, 2006-07

The terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham are hooded, and face-masked, dressed in black, wearing automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. And although a scimitar is more useful for instantly beheading an enemy, using a butcher knife consumes more time, exacts more pain, reflects the kind of deadly torture that such bestial murderers feel befits the moment of revenge against a symbol of their enemy, exacting maximum suffering, and in the process satisfying the murderer's blood-lust.

The murderer escapes identification. Face shielded from recognition, only his eyes are shown, to identify him with, and good luck with that one. Still, the eyes have it. And the I's represent Islam, Infidel, Iraq, ISIS, Islamists and they all spell out triumph. Yet the world of gentle critics who believe that there is good, humanity and decency inherent in all men, even these galloping psychopaths embarked on their psychotic atrocities, claim that beheading is not an Islamic practise. Nor do the members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham represent in their reprehensible brutality, Islam.

Chilling: Barefoot and wearing a black balaclava, a young child appears to re-enact the brutal murder of the U.S. journalist James Foley by beheading a doll in an orange jumpsuit. The images were circulated on Twitter

Propaganda: A second image shows the doll decapitated and smeared with what appears to be fake blood

Which is beyond puzzling, since a swift parsing of their very name identifies them as Islamic, and they state repeatedly that theirs is the work of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed, who, after all, led the way in the manner in which he physically, violently, enforced prosetylization to expand Islam to the larger world. And who can then blame the Islamic State for doing the same? They represent the Islamic values and ideology in a most forceful manner, rather without diplomacy which they're not really big on.

The kind of medieval barbarity that the world was treated to with the proud release of the video demonstrating the values of Islamic jihad was as useful a demonstration as any, standing alongside the reality of the president of Syria ordering his military to drop chemical weapons on his Sunni civilians, along with barrel bombs and artillery attacks on crowded civilian enclaves, and using a blockade and starvation techniques in other situations, and helicopter gunships to persuade his Syrian Sunnis that their protests against the kind welfare extended them by their Shia government is not appreciated.

Screengrab from the ISIS video showing the execution of James Foley Photograph: Youtube

This is Islam. This is a religious war of sectarian hatred transcending human values. But the West surely does love to step carefully on the eggshells of religious sensitivity. And with fairly good reason, given the results when some comedic wag sketches a fairly accurate portrait of the Prophet Mohammed sporting a bomb-turban, expressing the understanding of how Islam spreads its good and kindly word of peace among humankind eschewing Islam who are not, after all, equal, but Infidels and Jews.

"Allahu Akbar!", the triumphant expression of doing the work of god when attacking and slaughtering the perceived enemy is as much an expression of Islam as Salaam Alaikum is, when peace be upon you is expressed toward one who shares belief in the Islamic version of god almighty, as opposed to doing the Almighty's bidding in actively pursuing the kind of jihad that strikes terror in the hearts and souls of the targeted.

One tries without success to imagine the foreboding fleeing through the mind and internal organs of journalist James Foley, who had already undergone the torture of earlier incidents of mock executions, knowing that this time it was for real, and the hooded, masked man who stood beside him as he was forced to kneel and brace himself against the prospect of a short bit of sharp steel sawing his neck away from his body would be the end of all his thoughts forevermore.

But look here, read any chronicle of Islamic history and it is the same; conquest by the sword. And this is precisely what we see before us today; in North Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and occasionally in Europe and North America; the heroic exploits of impassioned jihadists creating mayhem and slaughter is spoken of as being anomalous, unrepresentative of the religion its devout followers insist is one of peace and love.

Western military officials, government authorities, law-enforcement investigators, and journalists would rather choke on their words than admit that the atrocities they confront and investigate are incidents spurred by religious devotion of a fanatical perspective beyond belief. Perhaps at some time when they are personally confronted by a lunatic who shouts 'convert or die', they will admit, goodness gracious, is this an aspect of religion, who could have imagined?!

Osama bin Laden inspired and continues to inspire hordes of fervent followers. Among them Muslim men who were born and educated in Europe and North America. Some of whom have travelled to places of Islamic conflict to earn their Islamist military stripes, and who will at some future date return to their countries of birth which they believe should be Islamicized to convert it to decent moral and ethical values.

Bin Laden abhorred the Saudis, whose Sunni Wahhabist ideology as much as Iran's theological Shiite Islamism heralded the new Islamism and jihad, permitting American troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia. "This land is exceptional because it is the most beloved by Allah. How could it be that the Americans are permitted to wander freely on the Prophet's land? Have Muslim peoples lost their faith? Have they forsaken the Prophet's religion? Forgive me, Allah, I wash my hands of these [Muslim] rulers! Where is the Muslim ummah and its one billion believers? The ummah sees and hears that the Qur'an is being defamed, burned, and used by the Jews as disposable tissues, yet is stands idly by."

This is Islam. This is religion. This is Islamic jihad, a foundational principle of Islam. Believe it. Islamists do.