Less than a week after the 9/11 attacks, Bill Maher got in considerable hot water for his remarks on his former show , Politically Incorrect, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2000 miles away, that's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, not cowardly! " Say what you want about Maher, or the wisdom of speaking disparagingly of our soldiers and airmen at that sensitive time, you've got to admit he kind of had a point there somewhere. If sacrificing your life for the sake of a chosen cause isn't courage then what do we call it? How does that type of courage compare to the valor and self sacrifice of those who are injured and killed trying to thwart another's fanaticism?
Soon after the events of Septmber 11 2001 many have speculated over the motivations of the terrorists. For westerners, especially those of us who are not religious, it's especially hard to wrap your head around it. Learning that many the terrorists were not particularly religious themselves, further muddies the water. Why would people who can't be bothered to live their religion be so happy to kill for it?
I believe that a better explanation for their behavior is found in the premise of Eric Hoffer's 1951 book the True Believer.. Hoffer saw a common thread leading to fanatical identification with extreamist religious cults and political crusades, even those that vary considerably in their dogma. The people they attract are often life's loosers. They share a need to dissolve their own miserable selves by immersion into some great cause. Some who appear otherwise successful also give themselves over to powerful mass movements in order to feel whole and justified at last. Once inside, they find meaning to their lives where they felt none before.
ISIS is a that sort of cult. It branched off from Al Qaida in Iraq after the death of its founder. Under the leadership of its former second in command, Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi it soon spread to Syria and co-opted Al Qaida forces waging war there. In 2014 Al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph of the entire Muslim world and changed the organization's name to the Islamic State. They now hold territory in Syria and Iraq with affiliates and operatives worldwide. Through greater success on the battlefield, and a keen appetite for atrocity it has surpassed all rival jihadist movements in recruitment, wealth, arms ,and notoriety. The beheading of captives, rape, and the sale of captive women, terrorist attacks in Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, and now Europe ,are not ends in themselves . The underlying motive is to so horrify and anger infidel nations that they will commit their military strength to destroying them. We are being set up for Armageddon. Their ace in the hole is that God is with them and hates infidels just as much as they do. From their perspective it's a battle they cannot possibly lose. Sounds like the crazy premise for a second rate movie, but that's really what they are all about. Once the infidel is vanquished the Caliphate will rule the world. It may seem ridiculous to most of us, but to ISIS this is deadly serious stuff. Emphasis on deadly.
So that in a nut shell is the cause. Is it a cause worth dying for? Absolutely, if you're into that sort of thing. Will your dying for this cause mean that you are more courageous than your enemies? I don't think so. There is, you may have noticed, a certain nihilism to these beliefs, and an utter denial of humanity to those outside the cult, also an utter lack of humanity in their values from start to finish. True courage is not a stand alone virtue. It must be in support of other virtues or it is not virtue at all. Courage in behalf of evil is itself evil. It is counterfeit. You can call it audacity, recklessness, a pathology ,or nerve., but not courage. If I find myself depressed and self loathing, in a pretty awful state of mind, taking my own life, you wouldn't call me a hero. Neither should we consider martyrs in behalf of an evil cult courageous. Desperate, deluded, and miserable wretches is a better description. I can think of a few other adjectives but I'll spare you.
I hasten to add that the cult in question is not Islam but a spin-off perversion of that faith. Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple movement of the 1960s and 1970s considered himself Christian as did his followers ,but that didn't make them so. When 900 of them took their own lives in the jungles of Guyana on a single afternoon, they did it without honor, courage or any sense of Christian values. They acted in a state of depravity ,under the influence of a depraved lunatic. ISIS is to modern Islam what the People's Temple was to Christianity.
Soon after the events of Septmber 11 2001 many have speculated over the motivations of the terrorists. For westerners, especially those of us who are not religious, it's especially hard to wrap your head around it. Learning that many the terrorists were not particularly religious themselves, further muddies the water. Why would people who can't be bothered to live their religion be so happy to kill for it?
I believe that a better explanation for their behavior is found in the premise of Eric Hoffer's 1951 book the True Believer.. Hoffer saw a common thread leading to fanatical identification with extreamist religious cults and political crusades, even those that vary considerably in their dogma. The people they attract are often life's loosers. They share a need to dissolve their own miserable selves by immersion into some great cause. Some who appear otherwise successful also give themselves over to powerful mass movements in order to feel whole and justified at last. Once inside, they find meaning to their lives where they felt none before.
ISIS is a that sort of cult. It branched off from Al Qaida in Iraq after the death of its founder. Under the leadership of its former second in command, Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi it soon spread to Syria and co-opted Al Qaida forces waging war there. In 2014 Al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph of the entire Muslim world and changed the organization's name to the Islamic State. They now hold territory in Syria and Iraq with affiliates and operatives worldwide. Through greater success on the battlefield, and a keen appetite for atrocity it has surpassed all rival jihadist movements in recruitment, wealth, arms ,and notoriety. The beheading of captives, rape, and the sale of captive women, terrorist attacks in Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, and now Europe ,are not ends in themselves . The underlying motive is to so horrify and anger infidel nations that they will commit their military strength to destroying them. We are being set up for Armageddon. Their ace in the hole is that God is with them and hates infidels just as much as they do. From their perspective it's a battle they cannot possibly lose. Sounds like the crazy premise for a second rate movie, but that's really what they are all about. Once the infidel is vanquished the Caliphate will rule the world. It may seem ridiculous to most of us, but to ISIS this is deadly serious stuff. Emphasis on deadly.
So that in a nut shell is the cause. Is it a cause worth dying for? Absolutely, if you're into that sort of thing. Will your dying for this cause mean that you are more courageous than your enemies? I don't think so. There is, you may have noticed, a certain nihilism to these beliefs, and an utter denial of humanity to those outside the cult, also an utter lack of humanity in their values from start to finish. True courage is not a stand alone virtue. It must be in support of other virtues or it is not virtue at all. Courage in behalf of evil is itself evil. It is counterfeit. You can call it audacity, recklessness, a pathology ,or nerve., but not courage. If I find myself depressed and self loathing, in a pretty awful state of mind, taking my own life, you wouldn't call me a hero. Neither should we consider martyrs in behalf of an evil cult courageous. Desperate, deluded, and miserable wretches is a better description. I can think of a few other adjectives but I'll spare you.
I hasten to add that the cult in question is not Islam but a spin-off perversion of that faith. Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple movement of the 1960s and 1970s considered himself Christian as did his followers ,but that didn't make them so. When 900 of them took their own lives in the jungles of Guyana on a single afternoon, they did it without honor, courage or any sense of Christian values. They acted in a state of depravity ,under the influence of a depraved lunatic. ISIS is to modern Islam what the People's Temple was to Christianity.
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