How ISIS "builds its brand"

How ISIS "builds its brand"

by digby

I don't think I've ever seen soulless corporate jargon applied to torture and mayhem before but why not?

ISIS has produced a large catalogue of media documenting its own atrocities. Last June, for instance, ISIS released photographs of its fighters committing a massacre of captured Iraqi army troops. In the gruesome images, approximately 1700 Shia Iraqi soldiers are gunned down en masse by black-clad ISIS figures. According to a recent UN report, ISIS has released other videos of mass executions, including one showing the murder of a group of Syrian government soldiers, and one of fighting-age men from the al Sheitat tribe. The videos of the murders of five western hostages, including, most recently, Kassig, are part of that broader media strategy.

ISIS forces civilians, including children, to watch the videos. For instance, the UN report found that in Raqqah city, ISIS gathered children for screenings of mass execution videos. In Aleppo, ISIS forced a group of 153 kidnapped Kurdish teenagers to watch videos of beheadings and attacks over a five-month period. ISIS also forces civilians to attend public executions, and publicly displays the corpses of its victims. That strategy is designed to instill terror in the civilian population of the areas ISIS controls, in order to coerce them into cooperating with the group's demands.

This is apparently their business plan to attract customers and "build its brand":

ISIS's media presence is also a way for the organization to build its brand. ISIS is struggling to claim the mantle of the global jihadist movement, and it's in competition with groups like al Qaeda for that status. Publicizing its brutality is a way to demonstrate its power and ruthlessness. The executions of Western hostages heighten that effect, presenting ISIS as the main opponent of Western imperialism and elevating the group's status in comparison to other jihadi organizations. That matters because ISIS is competing against other groups to attract recruits and funding.

I don't think they're exactly building a brand: they're just terrorizing a population into compliance. That can be very effective. For a while.  Eventually it ... isn't.

The one thing I would hope America and Europe don't do is delude itself into this kind of thinking:

[W]hen they look up and see an RAF, Danish, or American bomber coming in, they feel precisely as you and I would feel. That sight must seem like the answer to a prayer, a prayer that can be expressed in every faith: “Save my family, save my home, save my village, save me, from this evil.”
[...]

What all of these various hate groups have in common is a disdain for, and a wish to destroy, our Western way of life.

And someone needs to tell them that the meeting has already been held. It was decided, democratically, long ago – and by the way through great and heroic sacrifice – that our societies will be governed by Western values and Western laws.

Among those values are openness and tolerance. But to every extremist, it has to be made clear: we will not allow you to exploit our tolerance, so that you can import your intolerance. We will not let you destroy our peace with your violent ideas. If you expect to live among us, and yet plan against us, to receive the protections and comforts of a free society, while showing none of its virtues or graces, then you can have our answer now: No, not on our watch!

You will live by exactly the standards that the rest of us live by. And if that comes as jarring news: then welcome to civilization.

The Superhero Savior Daddy syndrome is not a solution. If we want to help ISIS we'll have more western leaders making speeches like that one from Rick Perry in London.

They are not space aliens with supernatural powers. Neither are we. They are a violent gang using medieval methods to frighten the population into submission. That's horrible enough. 


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