californiagrownThere is a difference between the dogma and the individual belief system. If the west had been super nice and/or isolationist there would be no one to join ISIS, because there would be no large population base of hate for us.
Ever thought that ISIS propaganda is well thought out? The heads of the organization know their path to success is by turning the west against ALL Muslims in order to gain a ton of new disaffected recruits they wouldn't otherwise have. They have a 3 billion person recruitment base... in order to leverage that base, they need to motivate it. But their doctrine sucks so the vast majority stay away.
However, if they can bait the west into actually turning this into a war against islam, they now have a motivated recruitment base. Ya dig?
Isis leaders want power. They are leveraging islam to gain this power. Why islam? No other reason than half the world's population is a possible recruit if they can manage to turn the other half of the world against them.
Badically, a false flag strategy of baiting the west to hurt Muslims is a big theme of their overall, long term strategy.
...IMO.
It's totally true that there is a difference between dogma (the Islamic ideology & holy texts) and what individuals believe. But the point of my post is directed at people who say that ISIS is not Islamic. ISIS is SUPER Islamic and their actions stem from a direct reading of the Qur'an and the Hadith. Their actions are supported by scripture and the recorded life of Muhammad, which they love to talk about and quote at length.
They are giving us explicit motivation for their actions, specifically against what you claim. Our foreign policy blunders for sure exacerbated this, but they did not create it. Islamic extremism is not new, it is not primarily caused by foreign policy. What foreign policy mistake did Denmark make to cause the murder of their cartoonists and violent protests against Denmark all over the Muslim world? These beliefs exist because of the religion, not because of foreign policy mistakes, and such believers will continue to exist even if there is lasting peace and harmony in the Middle East.
Now, the leaders of ISIS could be lying and just going for a power grab. But their actions are 100% in-line with their explicit motivations. Why try to find another explanation that is less plausible and one that presumes you can read their minds and extract their true intentions? It doesn't make any sense to do that. When a neo-Nazi tells us why he hates black people and the reason he killed a black person is because he hates black people, we don't make up other reasons as to why he did it. We take him on his word because his motivations completely agree with his actions. This is no different.
Their propaganda is extremely well thought out. If you read the magazine, it is incredibly clear this is not written by 16-year old, uneducated activists. These are well thought out arguments and carefully planned. Of course there is a goal behind the propaganda- to get people join ISIS (or at least turn them into the right kind of Muslims). But to assume that the leaders of ISIS are not true believers and are more interested in power is a huge leap on your part that is not supported by any facts. We don't have any evidence to suggest that the ISIS leaders are just slimy politicians out for power.
Many of these jihadists aren't poor, downtrodden, educated peasants. Many have university degrees, are doctors, are lawyers, etc- they are not suffering any grievances and they live a comfortable life (such as the 9/11 hijackers, and many others). But they are true believers who honestly dream of the afterlife, of paradise, and think that one of the greatest goods they can possible achieve in this life is to martyr themselves in the name of Allah. If you don't believe this is possible or plausible, then of course you think there is some other motivation at play. You aren't a religious fanatic, so maybe you can't understand how this is possible. But to think others are not capable of this is very mistaken. And it definitely makes sense as to why they would want to bait the West into waging war against them- martyrdom is one of the greatest things a Muslim can achieve. It's not mere propaganda- it's a hope that comes directly out of their holy books:
Quran (9:111) - "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme."
Muslims 20:4635 - "Nobody who enters Paradise will (ever like to) return to this world even if he were offered everything on the surface of the earth (as an inducement) except the martyr who will desire to return to this world and be killed ten times for the sake of the great honour that has been bestowed upon him."
