You really do have to wonder who is in charge of PR for ISIS. Because this looks like a sure-fire way to turn everyone against them including fellow Muslims in the Middle East:
CNN — Pictures published on ISIS’s official al Furqan media site apparently show Jordanian military pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh being burned alive while confined in a cage. ISIS militants seized al-Kassasbeh after his jet crashed in Syria in December. The terror group said it captured him after he ejected from his crashing F-16 during U.S.-led coalition airstrikes near ISIS’s de facto capital, Raqqa. In January, video messages apparently from ISIS said that al-Kassasbeh would be killed if Jordan didn’t release Sajida al-Rishawi, a female jihadist imprisoned in Jordan for her role in a 2005 suicide bombing.
Jordanian officials just reportedly released a statement saying they believe this pilot was actually executed back around the first of the year.
I guess we should be guarded on that last statement. There have been recent reports that ISIS and Jordanian officials were in negotiations for this pilot and that those negotiations broke down. Given how ISIS has behaved, it wouldn’t be a bit surprising if they were negotiating the life of a pilot that was already dead. But it would also get Jordan off the hook for any blame that they failed to secure his release. Regardless, Jordan deserves the benefit of the doubt more than ISIS and that’s saying it nicely.
Whenever ISIS posts another snuff film there is a back and forth along the lines of these asshole don’t represent ‘real’ Muslims and here’s why we shouldn’t hate all Muslims. And there are those who argue the opposite, that they’re ‘real’ Muslims and therefore all Muslims deserve contempt. Are people really not capable of recognizing that, yes indeed, this is a ‘real’ version of Islam (I’m not sure if the term denomination or sect or whatever is accurate) replete with edicts and religious apologetics issued by clerics within ISIS justifying all sorts of barbaric behavior and the vast majority of Muslims the world over do not share those specific beliefs and are sickened by the practices of ISIS?
I think that the point of the gruesome murders which ISIS is committing is to terrorize the people who have the misfortune to live under their control. Of course, you couldn’t rule out a certain fraction of the population that just likes snuff flicks.
I do not in any way, shape, or form, approve of how the pilot (or anyone else that ISIL has killed or hurt) has been treated.
He was a prisoner of war, not a “hostage” who was picked up like they’ve picked up journalists. He ejected from a plane that he had been flying from which to rain death and destruction from the skies. Since the beginning of aerial bombing, pilots have often been singled out for mistreatment. Snipers, too. Presumably because of their mission, which is to cause sudden death, generally with impunity.
The narrative around his capture and killing has avoided calling him a “prisoner of war” in spite of the fact that he was, because that would raise ugly questions about how the US has treated prisoners of war in the war on terror. We haven’t burned any of them alive, though we’ve frozen them, beaten a few to death, electro-shocked and anally raped others, etc. And it also really pisses me off that the media has studiously ignored the message ISIL is sending by dressing their captives in Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuits.
The US and its allies are studiously trying to act as if ISIL are just crazy killers (ditto Boko Haram) when in fact they think they are a military force engaged in an actual war. And, in the case of ISIL, we’re bombing them as if they were a military force engaged in an actual war.
This is why we need to talk seriously about war crimes. And, unfortunately, the US has dug itself into a pretty deep hole on that topic. I really hope that no American pilots are captured alive. I’m sure they’ve already figured that out.
Spot on, Marcus Ranum.
@ ^ Marcus Ranum : ” I really hope that no American pilots are captured alive. I’m sure they’ve already figured that out.”
One good reason why the US air force uses UAV’s, aka drones, so much these days I suspect.
I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive – Daesh (IS-IS/L) and Boko Haram (& other groups too eg. Al Quadea, Taliban, Hamas) are probably best described as crazy killers who are fighting actual war(s). I ‘m not sure exactly what you are trying to imply here or how you think things should be done differently – do you mean to imply that Daesh etc.. deserve to taken as somehow legitimate international actors or that we should accept their declarations of statehood as legit?
Why? What’s wrong with the media ignoring Daesh propaganda points? What do you want and expect the media to do here? Not sure that they are even doing what you suggest anyhow, I think it gets mentioned that Daesh Jihadists dress their victims that way frequently, do you think it needs what .. a media call to emphasise it more because it somehow does /says something really worth noting? Like this somehow justifies or makes right or I dunno. What do you think and want them to say here exactly?
So .. ? I think ‘hostage’ is as good a word as POW here because of how the Jordanian pilot, First Lieutenant Maaz al-Kassasbeh was being used here and let’s not forget the death and destruction was started by and being rained upon Daesh. Maaz al-Kassasbeh’s mission was to free people from Daesh Jihadist rule and prevent Deash from committing more atrocites and human rights abuses and destroy their extremist movement and its horrendous ideology. I think that mission was a just and legitimate one; wouldn’t you agree?
BTW. Latest news of Jordan’s response here :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-04/jordan-executes-iraqi-female-militant-after-pilot-murdered-by-i/6069644
Jordan has executed two Jihadist convicted criminals including a female would-be homicide-suicide bomber who the Daesh terrorists wanted to exchange for al-Kassasbeh’s life.
If I heard right, the Jordanian pilot was executed over a month ago while ISIS was still claiming he was alive and negotiating a prisoner exchange. Today, 02/04, the prisoners executed in Jordan had been previously tried, sentenced to death, and had been awaiting execution for months.
One of the many limitations in using manned aircraft are the risk and likelihood of success undertaking a rescue operation if a manned aircraft is shot down or otherwise fails. There are typically contingency plans for deploying everything from a couple of helicopters backed by close air support, to deploying a full platoon of marines. The limitations are usually a matter of having air superiority, a compliant airspace, local areas of friendly or neutral forces, and a lack of concentrations of hostile troops. Failing other options with a pilot down we might do as the Israelis sometimes do and, without announcing we are doing so, lavishly pound the area with ordinance to make sure the pilot/s are dead.
Drones largely eliminate those sorts of issues.
Via BBC news – a good article I think :
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31129416
Well I was shocked and disgusted and angered. I hope this backfires on the scum. Bigtime.
Needless to say (?) Most Muslims are NOT Daesh scumbags and don’t deserve to be treated as such.
Any more than most Christians are Westboro homophobe cult members etc ..
Also what no answerf romMarcus Ranum yet?