Posted on 09/23/2014 5:56:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
ISLAMIC STATE has made the beheading of victims a key element in its campaign of terror and conquest. Most conspicuous in recent weeks have been the murders of Westerners James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines, whose severed heads and decapitated bodies have been shown in threatening videos produced by the jihadists. In the years since 9/11, other Islamist terrorist groups have circulated equally ghastly beheading videos. Among the earlier victims were journalist Daniel Pearl, businessman Nicholas Berg, and construction contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong — all Americans beheaded by Al Qaeda.
Last week, meanwhile, Australian police arrested 15 suspects allegedly linked to Islamic State; they are accused of plotting to publicly behead a victim abducted at random.
Why this obsession with cutting off people's heads?
Clearly the terrorists relish the horror beheading evokes in America and other Western democracies, as well as the fear it inspires among Kurds, Shiites, or other local forces standing in the path of their juggernaut. Psychological warfare is an essential element in Islamic State's military strategy, writes Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. Even when heavily outnumbered, Islamic State has been able to leverage its reputation for implacable brutality "to dissuade Iraqi forces from ever seeking battle." And by killing American and British hostages with such sadistic relish, it aims to intensify the desire of many in the West to wash their hands of involvement in Iraq once and for all.
But there are other ways to terrorize, other gruesome means of mass murder — suicide bombings, poison gas, hijackings. Why the emphasis on beheading?
No doubt part of the explanation is that beheadings tend to draw more attention than suicide bombings and exploding cars. Deadly though they are, car bombs and shootings have lost much of their shock value in Western eyes. It takes an unusually high death toll for a bombing in Iraq to attract as much media attention as the decapitation of a single hostage by an English-speaking Islamist wielding a knife. Terrorists crave attention, more now in the digital age, perhaps, than ever before. Islamic State and other jihadist groups have many ways to commit mass murder. But for generating a spectacle that will be noticed — and shuddered at — the world over, sawing off the head of an American journalist or a European relief worker, then uploading the video to the Internet, is hard to beat.
Yet beheadings, too, can lose their shock value. It wasn't all that long ago that decapitation was a familiar punishment in Western culture. As late as 1977, the guillotine was still being used for executions in France. In the colonial era, severed heads of criminals were sometimes displayed on Boston Common. Plus, modern video games and ultrarealistic computer graphics make it easier than ever to grow inured to almost any image or scene, no matter how grisly or intense or intimate.
But the beheadings aren't just a fashion.
There is more to the Islamist passion for decapitation than psychological warfare and a hunger for notoriety. There is also Muslim theology and history, and a mandate going back to the Koran. In a 2005 study published in Middle East Quarterly, historian Timothy Furnish quotes the famous passage at Sura 47:4: "When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks." For centuries, Furnish observes, "leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse literally," and examples abound throughout Islamic history.
Yet Western leaders keep insisting that the beheading of "infidels" is unrelated to the jihadists' religious outlook.
 "When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks," the Koran commands. For centuries leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse literally. Examples of mass beheadings abound throughout Islamic history. |
Last week, after British aid worker David Haines became the third Western hostage to be decapitated by Islamic State, Britain's immigration minister, James Brokenshire, made a point of going to a mosque in London to declare that the "atrocious" beheadings "have nothing to do with Islam." At an international emergency conference in Paris the same day, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius likewise insisted that neither Islamic State nor its "throat-cutters" were "representative of Islam."
President Obama repeatedly makes the same assertion. When he outlined new military steps against Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in a televised address this month, he avowed categorically: "ISIL is not Islamic."
Alas, ISIL disagrees. And so do the radicalized Western Muslims flocking to the Middle East to join its brutal jihad, many of them stimulated by propaganda videos that feature the beheading of "unbelievers." To millions of moderate and peaceable Muslims the world over, beheadings in the name of Islam may seem a terrible defilement of the religion they love. To a fanatical Islamist minority, they are just what Allah demands.
It may take a long while to destroy that enemy, but surely the first step is to call it what it is.
I dont recall the author and I am paraphrasing:
A radical muslim wants to behead you.
A moderate muslim wants a radical muslim to behead you.
“Why Beheading?”
Because with this president, the Obama, they know they can get away
with it and infuriate American citizens who will be stopped
by said president from doing anything about it. I wouldn’t
doubt that the Obama has, through back channels, given these
animals the nod to do so.
“A moderate muslim wants a radical muslim to behead you.”
A moderate muslim is a radical muslim less the tactical
advantage. Otherwise they are all the same.
try an effing warning before you post sickening crap like that - you are no different than a pornographer
Not my fault if it doesn’t show up in the search
:)
How quaint and comical it must have been for the assembled muslim congregation to hear from the "muslim expert, Brokenshire.
Dan Hodges of the Telegraph today pens,
"Congratulations to James Brokenshire. Today he has delivered his first speech as immigration minister. And with that single ministerial intervention he is already able to claim the prize for most stupid, intellectually bankrupt and vacuous address of the year.
The muslims I saw in the pictures and video looked on respectfully, in true taqqiyah fashion.
HF
thank you - nonsense like that sticks in some folks minds and they can’t unsee it.
Jeff Jacoby is wrong - the vast majority of Muslims are fanatical and extreme. There is nothing moderate and peaceable about Islam. Its the extreme that's mainstream in Islam. But then again, this isn't the first time he's been simply dead wrong on Islam.
Islam as practiced and preached is blasphemy
http://www.theusmat.com/islamandfreewill.htm
Re-posting:
Mohammedism echoes that to die for Allah will make you a martyr. And martyrs go to heaven. Translation: be a victim, obtain saintliness.
Imagine a punk kid in the playground who consistently kicks you in the shins. Restraint holds you until one day you give him his due. Then, his like-minded buddies descend on you while the punk wales and cries how you hurt him - victimhood.
See how the mohammedans cry for special treatment in the workplace (prayer rooms, head scarves, etc.) - victimhood
See how the mohammedans whine that they do not have a “Good Friday” as a day off. - victimhood
In a land of religious freedom, the mohammedans want to enforce their Sharia law where they are prevented from doing so, because...they are victims. The mother of those vile Boston bombers pulled out the victim card for her sons, when confronted by reporters.
This ugly religion demands submission yet the natural response is a passive-aggressive attempt at self control - victimhood. In mohammedism, victims have the power of saintly righteousness. Victims can justify making their “aggressors” into victims.
Mohammedism is a suicidal death cult. The only way to handle these barbarians is to do what the West is reluctant even to mention, grant their wish with prejudice.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the “Beast” religion of Revelation practices beheading:
Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
It’s painfully obvious what the identity of that “Beast” religion will be.
Later reference
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