On a global
level, most people think ISIL members are heartless extremists. Whoever views the brutal videos disseminated
by ISIL can feel the chill of their greedy zeal to spread their hatred and
twisted rendition of Islam. Christians
are beheaded without mercy, and suicide bombers claim martyrdom tainted with hubris.
Jihadists
are perceived by the West similarly to how the Middle East
views American soldiers who were deployed in the Iraq War: Ruthless invaders, heartlessly killing
civilians, forcing their model of government on foreign nations; dying for
their country - rather than their god. In
numerous videos, American soldiers reunite with their tearfully happy
families. ISIL members, specifically at
the lower ranks, are much the same way.
They just want to be with their families, too.
What! No.
Just NO! How do you want to be
with your family if you’d rather die for your god! What kind of family man beheads people for
being Christian?
This
reaction is common and understandable given the information that the media
presents daily. In June alone, there
were three traumatic executions. ISIL
drowned five men in a cage by lowering it into a swimming pool. Another group was trapped in a car and shot
with a grenade launcher. ISIL watched
them burn alive in the vehicle. Prisoners
were chained together with explosives around their necks. There was no escape from the watery
suffocation, the fiery chokeholds of those chains, or the ignited gas tank. ISIL photographed and videotaped their fatal
exploits, all for global recognition of their ability to be cruel. There was even a time when ISIL ran over a
man with a tank!
What kind
of sick monster would commit these atrocities?
Is it safe to assume they don’t have consciences? If there is any good in them, why would they
commit these brutal acts? One answer is
that ISIL members are terrorized into terrorizing others. They act out of obedience to their superiors
who are the real psychopaths. The
underlings are just docile followers comparable to the participants in Stanley Milgram’s
experiment. The study was originally
done to explain the behavior of the Nazi soldiers. I believe it could also apply to ISIL.
Here is a
short synopsis of Milgram’s Obedience Study in the early 1960s. A man dressed as a scientist ordered
participants to administer electric shocks to a test taker for each incorrect
answer. The more questions the test
taker got wrong, the man in the lab coat would direct the person to increase
the voltage and administer another electric shock. Although the test taker was in a separate
room, he could be heard protesting and screaming in pain. The scientist would reinforce his commands to
anyone who questioned him. The machine
was not real, and there were no actual shocks.
Even under the deception of authenticity, the results showed that the
majority of subjects were submissive to the man in the lab coat.
Now imagine that man in the lab
coat pointing a Kalashnikov at your head.
That is ISIL.
ISIL will
execute anyone who denounces them, refuses to join them, or even over
ridiculous things like performing magic tricks. Reports of Christians being beheaded went
viral, while the deaths of Yazidis and Alawites were not as widely
broadcasted. While researching the
different religious minorities in last year’s genocide in Mosul, I was surprised to find that Sunnis
were among the fallen.
Last year,
24 Sunnis were executed by ISIL within a three month period. Two were Imams; one denounced ISIL, and the
other refused to join. Including the
latter Imam, 20 Sunni Muslims were executed just for refusing to swear
allegiance to ISIL. Three Sunni women
were killed for refusing to provide medical care to ISIL.
One female doctor who was executed showed
audacity by organizing a protest against women being forced to wear religious
facial veils while treating patients. Two
more Muslim women were executed, and their crime is unknown.
Other “crimes” worthy of the death
penalty included any form of adultery, which by our standards is probably not
very adulterous at all. The other
capitol crime was practicing “witchcraft,” which sounds closer to holistic medicine.
According to Al-Jazeera, two married couples were beheaded for practicing "medicine for magic." More ridiculously, it has been alleged that ISIL sees performing magic tricks common at American children’s
birthday parties as black magic and a defiance of God’s power.
Even people
who initially pledge loyalty to ISIL can be killed if they try to leave the
organization. A notorious case was the
death of Samra Kesinovic, aged 17. She
was considered the ideal ISIL recruit from Europe,
displayed in pictures with armed men.
She and her comrade, Sabina Selimovic, aged 15, were children of Bosnian
refugees settled in Vienna. Together they traveled to Turkey and then to Syria, where they may have married
jihadists at that point. Austrian
authorities blame Abu Tejda, a Muslim preacher, for recruiting the girls into
ISIL, which he denies.
Sabina allegedly died in a battle
against Syrian rebels. According to an unnamed
Tunisian woman who lived with them, Samra “disappeared.” It was later reported that Samra became
irritated with the Islamic State, and made a phone call home. Escaping a 13,000 square mile territory is
not an easy feat. When Samra attempted
to leave Raqqa, Syria, she was beaten to death.
In her
murders’ eyes, they probably saw her leaving Islamic State as equivalent to
leaving Islam, apostasy. A more
practical motive would be that she possessed too much information about IS,
their members, their territory, and other knowledge that intelligence agencies
would find very valuable. However, if
the latter were the case, they could have just imprisoned her.
Why would
any nice girl want to leave an Austrian utopia for a wasteland full of
terrorists? The media repeatedly says
that young women and girls are attracted to Islamic State for the romance and
adventure. I don’t think it’s that
simple of a mindset. In my opinion, you
have to hate your culture badly enough to join the enemy. Still, there is no way to ascertain Samra and
Sabina’s true motives. Their testimony
is lost to death.
Regarding
the reasons for joining ISIL, I found an article by Lydia Wilson to be
particularly eye opening. Inclusive to a
team, Wilson interviewed six captured ISIL members on death row. Most of them were illiterate. They couldn’t read their own holy book! They had little knowledge of Islam or Sharia
Law. Religious training is no longer a
requirement in ISIL. Most recruits do
not hold the extremist views that ISIL’s higher ranks have. Instead, they tend to have their own personal
perspective on Islam. All the ISIL
inmates had one primary drive in common, they hated America.
That’s no surprise, but it’s hard
to tell who hates who more, ISIL or America? Take a closer look at how these people became
resentful toward the United
States.
These ISIL
detainees and their generation grew up during the US
occupation in Iraq. With Saddam gone, they were ruled by the
harsh sectarian Shia government; hence Shiites have been targeted by Sunni
terrorist organizations. Civil war surrounded
these detainees in their early years.
They had no youth; no going out and having fun, no girlfriends. They lacked father figures at crucial points
in their lives. An ingrained sense of hatred
toward their government and the United
States developed over time.
By joining
ISIL, they had a means to regain their dignity as Sunni Muslims outside the
shadow of the Shia government. ISIL gave
them a sense of identity and solidarity.
They attained a feeling of belongingness that they lacked in their
war-torn environment.
So how does
burning people alive in a car give you solidarity? You might ask that. The answer is that all the mushy little
virtues advertised as promises are the bait.
Financial incentives are also bait.
The catch is the constant threat of consequences. It makes the “solidarity” less
promising. There is a sense of
belongingness that a hostage would feel.
The hostage is forced to commit surreal acts of violence.
The main
inmate interviewed was no exception.
Wilson’s article focused
on the ISIL inmate who was literate with the highest education; he had finished
sixth grade. He was from the town of Kirkuk. Between his father’s two wives, he was the oldest
of 17 siblings. As a grown man of 26
years, he had a wife, a son, and a daughter.
If he could spend any free time, it would be with his wife and
children. He prioritized his family over
everything else, including ISIL.
He used to
have a working class job, but he was fired after sustaining a back injury. Without income, he was in despair, since the
chances are, he was the sole provider for his family. His back injury made him less employable, so
he had fewer options. A friend, who was also
his distant relative, approached him with a job opportunity with ISIL. He could then financially support his
family.
While
operating in ISIL, he was a bomb maker. One
of his explosives was for a moped, but he specialized in car bombs. Four of his car bombs were set off in his own
hometown, Kirkuk. The bloodied money he was paid went to his
beloved family.
The interviewed inmate expressed
that ISIL controlled him with fear. They
terrorized him to terrorize others. Their
chain of command is linked with threats.
The higher ranks of ISIL manipulate their underlings like puppets and,
in the fatal sense, quickly cut off all ties when anything goes awry.
There was no defying ISIL. Last September, 27 ISIL members were
electrocuted for being suspected of conspiracy.
It’s a grimmer version of the Milgram experiment, where the participant
receives a shock for not shocking someone else.
A more accurate level of morbidity would be that the participant will be
killed for not killing someone else.
ISIL does not care about its own
members at all. If an ISIL jihadist is
critically wounded, they leave him for dead.
So much for solidarity! They
expect him to be happy because he is closer to paradise. Death equates to salvation.
Despite compelling
incentives of unity, monetary gain, and a possible mate, everything after
membership leads to death. Death comes
if they refuse to join. Death comes if
they try to leave. Death comes if they
disobey. Death comes in battle, and no
one will save them. Death comes if they
are captured.
At the
moment of apprehension, the interviewed ISIL member immediately surrendered,
collapsing to the floor. He wrote a five
page confession. The death penalty
awaited him. All he wanted was to be
with his family. Soon, he wouldn’t even
have that.
©2015 Caroline Friehs
Originally posted: December 22, 2015
Last updated upon blog renovation completion.
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