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Lew Rockwell
The Beheading: Some Words of Caution
By Eric Margolis
August 23, 2014
The alleged beheading of freelance journalist James Foley by the shadowy ISIS (or Islamic State) has sparked outrage and horror around the globe.
I say “alleged” because we are not sure if the decapitation was real or faked.
After three decades of covering wars in the Mideast, Africa, Latin America, and Afghanistan, my reaction as a journalist was also outrage – but cautious outrage.
We westerners have a charming and quaint belief that killing people from the air by using bombs, rockets, shells, napalm and cluster munitions – or even nuclear weapons – is somehow not really as bad as ramming a bayonet into an enemy, blowing him to pieces with heavy artillery, or slashing his throat the way sheep are killed.
Air warfare is clean. Air warfare is the American way of war.
Furthermore, on the same day Foley was allegedly being decapitated, 19 people in Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, were publicly beheaded for various crimes. One of the men was executed for witchcraft. There was no outcry at all over this medieval horror. Saudi Arabia is suspected of charging political opponents of the monarchy with drug offenses, which carry the penalty of beheading by a sword-wielding executioner. Not a peep about this in the US media trumpeting the Foley story.
I’ve long travelled the same road as this courageous young man and countless other field journalists, covering extremely dangerous places all on my own, with no backup or support system. It’s very lonely and often demoralizing work.
When I was in the southern Angola bush covering pro-western UNITA forces fighting the Soviet-backed Angolan Marxists, I accepted the risk of being killed. But what, I asked myself, would I do if wounded or become desperately ill? The answer: crawl out 200 kms to South African Army lines.
As I relate in my book “War at the Top of the World,” I had to run Afghanistan’s Khyber Pass at night in a Toyota Land Cruiser, headlights off, pistol in hand, dodging roadblocks raised by Afridi tribesmen hired by the Communist regime in Kabul to kidnap me. Had I been taken, I would have been thrown into a 10-meter deep hole in the ground filled with snakes and ferocious biting insects until transferred to be tortured and likely killed in Kabul.
In this and a score of other hair-raising adventures in scary places like Syria, Albania, Kashmir, Iraq, Libya, or Burma, no one would have been able to get me out if I was jailed. No one really cared because I was on my own, working for numerous newspapers. Even al-Jazeera can’t get its jailed journalists out of Egypt.
Newspapers used me, and other young, reckless beginner journalists like Foley, to cover the really dangerous places. No medical or pension coverage for us: we were expendable.
I was usually more scared of diseases like hepatitis or meningitis than of bullets.
Meanwhile, pampered correspondents from the TV networks reported from four-star hotels, surrounded by a support staff and gophers.
Was Foley’s head really cut off? Hard to tell. We have been fed so much fake government war propaganda in recent decades – from Kuwaiti babies thrown from incubators to Saddam’s hidden nukes – that we must be very cautious.
Look at the horrifying pictures of victims from Gaza: babies with heads blow open and bodies torn into pieces by heavy 155mm shells. What’s the difference between this and a decapitation? Only distance between killer and victim.
Of course I’m outraged that any journalist would be kidnapped and held for ransom, a specialty of ISIS and other jihadist gangs in the Sahara region. Europe has paid ransom and got many of its hostages back.
The US apparently refuses to do so. “We’ll never deal with terrorists,” goes Washington’s mantra, though it deals with plenty of terrorist governments. Problem is, any group today that opposes the US abroad is likely to be branded terrorists. No wonder terrorists are popping up everywhere.
Having myself come close to being taken hostage, I would have hoped to have been ransomed in the event I was captured. That seems a more civilized and effective way to deal with hostage takers and bandits, distasteful as it may be. And yes, paying ransom will encourage more kidnappings. Hobson’s choice. But I prefer bad choices that have happy endings.
Democracies should not allow themselves to be provoked by malefactors. But that’s just what ISIS members are now doing by mounting its video horror show. We must ask, why? Why are they trying to goad the US into broader and deeper military intervention into Iraq and Syria, where they live?
Could it be part of Osama bin Laden’s clearly expressed plan to drive the US out of the Mideast by luring it into a number of small wars, slowly bleeding the American colossus? So far, by invading Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and parts of Pakistan, the US may have stumbled right into Osama’s carefully laid trap.
Or is the orchestrated outrage over Foley the media prelude to direct US intervention in Syria where the jihadists backed by Washington are losing. It’s all very confusing. In Iraq, ISIS are demon terrorists. But across the border in Syria, they are on our side, fighting against the “terrorist” regime of Basher Assad.
We are tripping over our terrorists. Osama must be smiling.
82_28 » Tue Sep 02, 2014 2:18 pm wrote:May be nothing. But I am really suspicious about the various "names" of what is apparently going on and who uses what. Maybe because I once wanted to be a linguist/cognitive scientist.
ISIS
ISIL
IS
Anyhow, WHAT THE FUCK IS IT? Why cannot a name be agreed upon? Who the fuck are these people who hail from america and the uk and chop people's heads off? The passport angle (as far is returning to their country) is awesome because it shows a lack of creativity. Passports of the motherfucking terrorists found in the street of 100+ story towers that collapsed. People will believe anything.
This is such fucking bullshit. The ploy is in the fact that they had to "do it again". Too clever by half. Doing it again means (not that Foley didn't die) that the actual story is in the mystery and narrative they are weaving which was all pre-planned and they leveraged the use of the Internet to broadcast this probable magic show. Both of these mysterious stories of gruesome deaths are highly suspect as to being fake. But again, you're fucked if you "doubt" this shit because that means you don't care about "freedom". I thought that if you were to doubt the party line as far as this shit that you had to hate "independent journalists".
If I were to write it I would say that this was some sort of set-up the whole time.
I wish I could say, as I've done in the past, that shit has jumped the shark. I don't think I was correct. More is to come. Ugh. There's another shark. Probably many more sharks to come.
These fuckers are brutal who control all of this.
seemslikeadream » Tue Sep 02, 2014 12:30 pm wrote:Waiting for the elite pigs to come blow our sleeping brains out.
but they can never take our souls
According to the Helipolitan tradition, Osiris was granted the throne of Egypt rather than his elder brother Set. Set was none to pleased about this, but became enraged when Osiris left Egypt to travel the world and left Isis in charge of the Kingdom instead of him. Set decided to get rid of his brother and take the throne for himself. Although the myth of the origins of Anubis is a later development it was also cited as one of the reasons why Set was jealous of his brother Osiris and conspired to kill him. Set tricked Osiris into climbing into a wooden chest cut to fit him and then sealed the box and threw it into the Nile. Isis searched everywhere for her husband's body and found it lodged in a tamarisk bush which had grown into a huge tree on contact with the body of the god. She broke open the chest and carried his body back to Egypt.
She placed the body in the temple and transformed herself into a kite (a small bird) and flew over the body singing a song of mourning. She then used her prodigious magical talent to conceive Heru-sa-aset (Horus, son of Isis), whose destiny was to avenge his father and defeat Set. Isis then implored Thoth for his help in resurrecting Osiris. The two deities composed the "Ritual of Life", the spell which granted eternal life after death. However, Set discovered their plans and stole Osiris' body. He split it into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout the length and breadth of Egypt. Still Isis refused to be beaten. She enlisted the support of her sister Nephthys to find the pieces and the help of Anubis to prepared the body (in the first mummification). When the "opening of the mouth" ceremony was performed, Osiris's spirit returned to his body.
The video of Steven Sotloff's apparent murder appears to have been found by a private US intelligence firm before it could be released by the Islamic State.
News of Mr Sotloff's death was broken by the SITE Intelligence group, a private company that monitors jihadist activity and has close ties to the American intelligence community.
The group's analysts found the video on what a spokesman described as "a file-sharing site" and send it out to its subscriber list. SITE's subscribers include government officials, journalists and academics involved in analysing terrorism.
The news immediately spread across the world, and it appeared to catch some jihadists off guard when SITE began spreading the video and a transcript of the remarks by Mr Sotloff and his killer.
The Twitter account @JihadWitness, which tweets in English in support of the IS and other jihadist groups, expressed surprise when the video began to appear online.
"How did this leak out to news before the publication?" one tweet read.
The apparent leak of the Sotloff video is in stark contrast to the carefully choreographed release of the video showing the killing of James Foley, another American journalist, on August 20.
That video, entitled "A Message to America", was posted on Youtube and then publicised by accounts linked to IS.
It is not the first time that SITE has released jihadist material before the jihadists themselves.
In 2007, the group published a video of Osama bin Laden a full day before it was released by al-Qaeda's official propagandists.
The video was especially significant because it was the first time the terror leader had been seen since 2004, and his absence had led to speculation that he may have died.
The SITE spokesman refused to give more details of where the Sotloff video was found.
SITE was originally formed in 2002 and is led by Rita Katz, an Israeli who was born to a Jewish family in Iraq in 1963.
Her family was expelled from the country after Saddam Hussein seized power, and resettled in Israel.
Vocativ, a New York-based company which says it uses "deep-web technology" to report the news
EXCLUSIVE: ISIS Sotloff Beheading Video “Published by Accident”
Video leaked accidentally—British jihadi tells Obama "I'm back", and warns of further deaths, before beheading journalist
Authors: Sarah Kaufman and
Markham Nolan
Posted: 09/02/14 14:10 EDT
Additional Reporting By: Amit Weiss and
Gilad Shiloach
44
ISIS released a video Tuesday of the beheading of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff, formerly of Time magazine. The authenticity of the video, which took an unusually long time to reach ISIS forums, often the first sources for such videos, has yet to be confirmed. The video was titled “A second message to America,” and again started with footage of oratory from U.S. President Barack Obama, before cutting to a scripted anti-US monologue delivered by an emotionless Sotloff, draped in orange clothing (reminiscent of Guantanamo inmates) and on his knees in another arid hilltop landscape beside his executioner.
It appears from chatter on ISIS forums that the initial video release was an unintentional leak from within ISIS circles. An ISIS-affiliated twitter account (now suspended) published the video ahead of the prescribed time. Another ISIS-affiliated account, @Khattabyaz pulled them up on their error, but at that point it was too late, and the video was in circulation. The group then apologised to its followers for the lack of discipline in a text missive on Justpaste, saying:
“A clarification about the mistake was made by “Uyun al-Ummah” account, that has published the video before the official time.
The user saw a tweet with the video and thought it was published officially. We tried to remove the video after we understood that his was published by mistake, and we are sorry to the followers of the Islamic State.”
Again, the video featured a black-clad executioner with a British accent, who seemed to confirm that he was the same man as in the video of James Foley’s beheading.
“I’m back, Obama,” he said “and I’m back because of your arrogant policy towards the Islamic State.”
The executioner once again warned that there would be further killings unless U.S. foreign policy changed, and specifically said that Briton David Cawthorne Haines, who was shown after a gruesome picture of the beheaded body of Sotloff.
09/02/14 17:06 UTC@SITEINTELGROUP
#IS Beheads Steven Joel #Sotloff, Threatens to Execute Briton David Cawthorne Haines
| |
Sotloff previously appeared in the video of journalist James Foley’s beheading. White House Spokesman Josh Earnest says officials are evaluating the video. ISIS had been using Sotloff to ratchet up the pressure against U.S. President Barack Obama. They threatened to execute him if Obama did not meet their needs.
The execution of Sotloff, and the presentation of yet another journalist, the location of whom was hitherto unknown, raises the question of how many westerners ISIS have in captivity, ready to traipse out and murder in front of cameras for the sake of media prominence.
“A clarification about the mistake was made by “Uyun al-Ummah” account, that has published the video before the official time.
The user saw a tweet with the video and thought it was published officially. We tried to remove the video after we understood that his was published by mistake, and we are sorry to the followers of the Islamic State.”
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