Thanks for posting this, I understand it’s an important piece. Ace of Spades gave it not on, but two posts, said it was the most important piece of US Journalism in 10 years (or something like that, too lazy to check).
I’ll read it tomorrow, I have to sleep tonight!
The time for euphemism and evasion has well passed. Even the archliberal Atlantic is now offering clarity.
Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State's countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate's supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of--and headline player in--the imminent end of the world.
The actual Biblical apocalypse, they mean. Not only are they eager fans of the apocalypse-- they hope to be the horsemen of the apocalypse.
The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.
We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways....
We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State's medieval religious nature....
The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State's officials and supporters themselves. They refer derisively to "moderns." In conversation, they insist that they will not--cannot--waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam....
The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, "the Prophetic methodology," which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn't actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it.
Long piece, and very good. Thanks to @bfwebster.
Meanwhile, our pathetically decadent and cowardly media proclaims the past week to have been a hellish one for the reputation of not Islam but religion generally.
The one grotesquerie they cite that isn't Islamist in origin is the shooting of the three Islamic students in Chapel Hill over a parking space. But even CNN confesses that the shooter there was a militant atheist.
How is this a bad week for religion, CNN? Seems it's a bad week for Islamists, or rather, those unfortunate to live within murdering distance of Islamists.
Meanwhile, our White House, which essentially now serves as a Public Relations firm for murderous, fascist Islamism --constantly spinning on Al Qaeda's or IS' behalf, telling us that what they've done isn't so bad (in the scheme of things) and reminding us "But the Crusades" -- declares that the Coptic Christians beheaded by IS were selected... randomly, I guess.
The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens. ISIL's barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.
This heinous act once again underscores the urgent need for a political resolution to the conflict in Libya, the continuation of which only benefits terrorist groups, including ISIL. We call on all Libyans to strongly reject this and all acts of terrorism and to unite in the face of this shared and growing threat. We continue to strongly support the efforts of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General Bernardino Leon to facilitate formation of a national unity government and help foster a political solution in Libya.
Note that when the President urges "political solutions" to the problem of IS, he means specifically that the people being slaughtered and sold into rape slavery by IS aren't doing a good enough job welcoming IS in the "peace process" or offering enough power-sharing with these psychopathic rapists.
Also note that, consistent with the President's worldview, which is radical, leftwing, and sympathetic to third-world revolutionary and terrorist movements, no people but third-worlders and non-Christians can have the exalted title of "Victim," so once again the victims of Islamist terrorism are not identified by the faith that got them murdered.