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Fri, Aug 29th, 2014<\/p>\n
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by Annie Machon (UoI) :<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two hor\u00adrors have dwelt in my mind for the last twenty years, ever since I\u00a0read reports about ter\u00adror\u00adist groups while an impres\u00adsion\u00adable young intel\u00adli\u00adgence officer. The first involves the use of power tools as instru\u00adments of tor\u00adture; drills, indus\u00adtrial sanders, angle grinders.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This is no secret now and the meme has been much used and abused by Hol\u00adly\u00adwood and series such as \u201c24\u201d, but I\u00a0still feel uncom\u00adfort\u00adable every time I\u00a0am dragged into the \u201cboy toy\u201d sec\u00adtion of a\u00a0home improve\u00adment mega-store.<\/span><\/p>\n The second has recently hit the news as a\u00a0grim res\u00adult of\u00a0ISIS<\/span><\/a>, the ultra-violent Sunni sect that has swept across much of Syria and Iraq, impos\u00ading the most dra\u00adconian form of Sharia law in its wake upon the hap\u00adless cit\u00adizens of formerly sec\u00adu\u00adlar states.\u00a0 I\u00a0pity the poor women, and I\u00a0pity still more the men of these com\u00admunit\u00adies faced with the option of sub\u00admis\u00adsion or grue\u00adsome murder.<\/span><\/p>\n For this is the other image that haunts me: in 1995 six west\u00adern tour\u00adists were abduc\u00adted by a\u00a0Kash\u00admiri sep\u00adar\u00adat\u00adist group, Al Faran. One of the abduct\u00adees, a\u00a0Nor\u00adwe\u00adgian called Hans Chris\u00adtian Ostro<\/span><\/a>, was found decap\u00adit\u00adated, his head had been hacked off with a\u00a0knife. The sheer hor\u00adror,\u00a0 the ter\u00adror the poor man must have exper\u00adi\u00adenced, has haunted me ever\u00a0since.<\/span><\/p>\n You can prob\u00adably see where I\u00a0am going with this. I\u00a0have not watched, nor do I\u00a0have any inten\u00adtion of ever watch\u00ading, the ISIS video of the grue\u00adsome murder of US journ\u00adal\u00adist James Foley, whether the Met\u00adro\u00adpol\u00aditan Police\u00a0deems it a\u00a0crime to do so or not.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0I\u00a0just feel hor\u00adror, again, and a\u00a0deep well of sor\u00adrow for what his fam\u00adily and friends must be going through now.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet this is noth\u00ading new \u2014 we have known for months that ISIS has been behead\u00ading and cru\u00adci\u00adfy\u00ading people as they ram\u00adpage across Syria and Iraq. There has been a\u00a0steady stream of del\u00adic\u00adately pix\u00adil\u00adated heads on spikes in the west\u00adern media, and the out\u00adrage has been\u00a0muted.<\/span><\/p>\n And indeed, such behead\u00adings have long been car\u00adried out and filmed dur\u00ading the earlier insur\u00adgen\u00adcies in Iraq \u2014 I\u00a0remem\u00adber a\u00a0young film maker friend who had stumbled across just such a\u00a0sick pro\u00adpa\u00adganda video way back in 2007 \u2014 he could not sleep, could not rid his mind of the images either.<\/span><\/p>\n It is bar\u00adbar\u00adity pure and simple, but it is also effect\u00adive within the bound\u00adar\u00adies of its\u00a0aims.<\/span><\/p>\n So, what are these aims? I\u00a0just want to make two points before the West gets swept up in a\u00a0new wave of out\u00adrage to \u201cbomb the bas\u00adtards\u201d for behead\u00ading an Amer\u00adican \u2014 after all, many hun\u00addreds if not thou\u00adsands of people across the Middle East have already suffered this fate, to lack of any mean\u00ading\u00adful West\u00adern outcry.<\/span><\/p>\n Firstly, ISIS has clear aims (indeed it pub\u00adlished its\u00a0five-year plan<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to great media deri\u00adsion a\u00a0couple of months ago). It is effect\u00adively using hideous bru\u00adtal\u00adity and pro\u00adpa\u00adganda to spread ter\u00adror ahead of its war front \u2014 this is a\u00a021st<\/sup>\u00a0cen\u00adtury blitzkrieg, and it\u2019s work\u00ading. The sheer hor\u00adror of what they do to any who attempt to res\u00adist is so great that appar\u00adently whole armies aban\u00addon their weapons, banks have been left to be raided to the tune of half a\u00a0bil\u00adlion dol\u00adlars, and entire vil\u00adlages\u00a0flee.<\/span><\/p>\n This is the pure defin\u00adi\u00adtion of ter\u00adror\u00adism, and we can see that it is work\u00ading. ISIS is doing all this to build a\u00a0new state. or caliphate, in the way that their warped fun\u00adda\u00adment\u00adal\u00adist inter\u00adpret\u00ada\u00adtion of reli\u00adgion sets out for\u00a0them.<\/span><\/p>\n Secondly, and here\u2019s the con\u00adten\u00adtious bit, how pre\u00adcisely is this dif\u00adfer\u00adent from the ter\u00adror that the Israelis have been vis\u00adit\u00ading upon the many inno\u00adcents killed in Gaza?\u00a0 The\u00a0Dahiya Doc\u00adtrine<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of dis\u00adpro\u00adpor\u00adtion\u00adate viol\u00adence to stun and quash res\u00adist\u00adance was exposed by Wikileaks \u2014 the Israeli \u201cshock and awe\u201d.\u00a0 And also, how is this dif\u00adfer\u00adent from what the US has been met\u00ading out to the peoples of Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afgh\u00adanistan over the last few years with their drone attacks?<\/span><\/p>\n All the above examples show strong mil\u00adit\u00adary forces, ideo\u00adlo\u00adgic\u00adally motiv\u00adated, unleash\u00ading viol\u00adence and ter\u00adror on a\u00a0huge, dis\u00adpro\u00adpor\u00adtion\u00adate scale on inno\u00adcent pop\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions that have nowhere really to\u00a0run.<\/span><\/p>\n The dif\u00adfer\u00adence being? ISIS wields its own knives, does its own dirty work, and proudly films its grot\u00adesque bru\u00adtal\u00adity to cow its oppon\u00adents. This is prim\u00adit\u00adive ter\u00adror\u00adism inter\u00adsect\u00ading with social media, a\u00a0bas\u00adtard spawn of the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0cen\u00adtury.\u00a0 And it still seems to be effect\u00adive, just as ter\u00adror of the guil\u00adlot\u00adine res\u00adon\u00adated through\u00adout revolu\u00adtion\u00adary France in the 18th<\/sup>\u00a0century.<\/span><\/p>\n On the other hand, the US and Israel prefer to be a\u00a0bit more coy about their ter\u00adror\u00adistic strategies, hid\u00ading behind such phrases as \u201cpro\u00adpor\u00adtion\u00adate\u201d, \u201cself-defence\u201d, \u201cpre\u00adci\u00adsion bomb\u00ading\u201d and \u201cspread\u00ading demo\u00adcracy\u201d. But who, ser\u00adi\u00adously, falls for that these\u00a0days?<\/span><\/p>\n Their armed forces are not dir\u00adectly get\u00adting their hands dirty with the blood of their vic\u00adtims: instead, spotty young con\u00adscripts safely hid\u00adden in bunkers on the far side of the world, mete out death from the skies via sick snuff video games\u00a0 \u2014 offi\u00adcially called \u201cpre\u00adci\u00adsion\u201d bombs and drone attacks that take out whole fam\u00adil\u00adies. Heads can be blown off, bod\u00adies evis\u00adcer\u00adated, limbs mangled and maimed, and all from a\u00a0safe distance.<\/span><\/p>\n We had the first proof of this strategy with the decryp\u00adted mil\u00adit\u00adary film \u201cCol\u00adlat\u00aderal Murder<\/span><\/a>\u201d, where heli\u00adcopter pilots shot up some Reu\u00adters journ\u00adal\u00adists and civil\u00adians in Iraq in 2007. That was bad enough \u2014 but the cover-up stank. For years the Pentagon denied all know\u00adledge of this atro\u00adcious war crime, and it was only after Wikileaks released the inform\u00ada\u00adtion, provided by the brave whis\u00adtleblower\u00a0Chelsea Man\u00adning<\/span><\/a>, that the fam\u00adil\u00adies and the inter\u00adna\u00adtional com\u00admunity learned the truth. Yet it is Man\u00adning, not the war crim\u00adin\u00adals, who is serving a\u00a035\u00a0year sen\u00adtence in a\u00a0US prison.<\/span><\/p>\n Worse, by sheer scale at least, are the ongo\u00ading, wide-ranging unmanned drone attacks across the Middle East and Cent\u00adral Asia, as cata\u00adlogued by the\u00a0Bur\u00adeau of Invest\u00adig\u00adat\u00adive Journ\u00adal\u00adism<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the UK. Many thou\u00adsands of inno\u00adcents have been murdered in these attacks, with the US jus\u00adti\u00adfy\u00ading the strikes as killing \u201cmil\u00adit\u00adants\u201d \u2014 ie any male over the age of 14.\u00a0 The US is mur\u00adder\u00ading chil\u00addren, fam\u00adil\u00adies, wed\u00adding parties and vil\u00adlage coun\u00adcils with impunity.<\/span><\/p>\n And then the infam\u00adous pro\u00advi\u00adsions of the\u00a0US NDAA 2012<\/span><\/a>. This means that the US mil\u00adit\u00adary can extra-judicially murder any\u00adone, includ\u00ading US cit\u00adizens, by drone strike any\u00adwhere in the world with no trial, no judi\u00adcial pro\u00adcess. And so it has come to pass.\u00a0 Amer\u00adican\u00a0Anwar Al Awlaki<\/span><\/a>\u00a0was murdered in 2011 by a\u00a0drone strike.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Obama_Big](\"http:\/\/nsnbc.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/BigObamaBrother.jpg\")
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