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23.09.2016 Opinion

The Illusory Islamic State

By Clement Kpeklitsu
The Illusory Islamic State
23.09.2016 LISTEN

ISIS is allegedly an Al Qaeda-linked Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant, known for its ruthless tactics and suicide bombers and who currently poses a threat throughout the Middle East. It is also known as a militant group “Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham,” (ISIS) or the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL). Allegedly, according to mass media this group has declared its intent to restore the Islamic Caliphate, renaming itself as simply the Islamic State (IS) and naming a leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Caliph.

The declaration by ISIS to restore the Islamic Caliphate under their new caliph Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi is one of the silliest stories that have ever been sold to the gullible western public. This story sounds like a cheaply produced Hollywood movie that targets Islam and Arabs and attempts again to dehumanize them by portraying them as evil killers. Maybe, the Christian fundamentalist and previous Karate champion Chuck Norris should produce one of his low grade movies where he can eradicate all of ISIS and its caliph with his iron fist and as a result will save the taxpayers millions of dollars defending against the ISIS threat to America.

ISIS is allegedly an off-shoot of Al-Qaeda who actually was the constellation of the previous fighters who played a key role in defeating the soviet troops during their war in Afghanistan. These well-trained mercenaries were mobilized, and utilized in every conflict where Islam is viable from Chechnya to Iraq and from Syria to Bosnia.

Many different entities in the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and the Arab world have tried and largely failed to combat the ISIS propaganda machine. Even the single most credible voice on jihad «al-Qaida» failed to reign in the Islamic State. So governments and even terrorist groups have not been successful in quelling its advance, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t valuable elements in all these approaches.

Many of the counter-propaganda efforts have been limited in scope and funding, and have lacked clear political goals. Many of them were created to fight al-Qaida, not the Islamic State. It is difficult for risk averse governments to match the Islamic State’s advantages in volume and originality. We need to view the problem of the Islamic State as a political problem with a media dimension, not the other way around. All too often we think that these are public relations or messaging issues. But they’re related to the real world: there is a real war in Syria and Iraq, there’s real violence, there are real people being killed. Mosul did fall to the Islamic State, it wasn’t imaginary. So we need to realize that when we talk about messaging, it is intrinsically linked to a political reality. We cannot divorce propaganda from the political reality on the ground.

In order to understand why the Islamic State has grown and flourished so quickly, one has to take a look at the organization’s American-backed roots. The 2003 American invasion and occupation of Iraq created the pre-conditions for radical Sunni groups, like ISIS, to take root. America, rather unwisely, destroyed Saddam Hussein’s secular state machinery and replaced it with a predominantly Shiite administration. The U.S. occupation caused vast unemployment in Sunni areas, by rejecting socialism and closing down factories in the naive hope that the magical hand of the free market would create jobs. Under the new U.S.-backed Shiite regime, working class Sunni’s lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unlike the white Afrikaners in South Africa, who were allowed to keep their wealth after regime change.

As a result, the creation of an illusory ISIS state might ensue in a prearranged conflict with neighboring Iran, creating another war like the one that Saddam Hussein was encouraged and financed to launch against the Ayatollah and his Islamic State of Iran in the 1980s.

The struggle among the Muslim sects will serve into killing thousands of them and the remapping of the countries involved. Once again, the Muslim Jihad (struggle) against each other will lead to new homogeneous states such as a Sunni state, Shiite state, and Christian state in addition to other ethnic states.

It happens quite often that actions of Washington and the West in general in various regions of the world contribute to creation of serious problems, including drug trafficking, religious extremism and terrorism, after which Washington heroically mobilizes the international community to neutralize the problems.

In general, under the slogan of struggle for ‘pure Islam’, international terrorism is becoming a form of transnational crime. In fact, it has become a lucrative business with capital turnover running into billions, with drug trafficking, hostage taking, smuggling weapons and precious metals. Islamic State and its brand of fiery ideology is only one facet of this broader conflict, which involves dozens of countries with mixed motives and interests. Not all converge with the common goal of ending that artificial experiment that only exists because it has backers who find it convenient. What is clear is that bombs in Raqqa will not end imminent attacks on European soil.

The US ruling class alongside its European allies saw the terrorism as opportunity to remodel the global politics and political economics in its contrived project of US-led hegemony. The War on Terror, started by George Bush, saw not just destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq and partly Pakistan, but has also led to more destabilization of not just Middle East and Africa but the whole world.

The situation in Libya is a product of both Washington and Wall Street in their ongoing drive to dominate Africa and its resources. The all-out attacks leveled against various independent and anti-imperialist governments and movements throughout Africa and the Middle East is part and parcel of western objectives to extend their economic and political stranglehold over former subject nations and emerging states.

Under the false pretext of fighting terrorism, US and European Union is striving to secure its hegemony over Africa, launching ever more wars of aggression in an effort to exclude the European colonial powers from their former spheres of influence. The US Army has already deployed its troops against “ISIS in the north (Libya), Al Shabab in the east (Somali) and plans to send in the center and the west against Boko Haram and A.Q.I.M..

America will become more vigilant as a result of the ISIS creation. Domestically, more government control will be enforced and implemented to allegedly reduce the risk of terrorism on the homeland and to protect the public. Meanwhile, anti-Middle-Eastern/Muslim feelings will continue to be fostered while more Muslim immigrants flock to the gates of the Europe. Unfortunately, the public never understands that for every U.S. intervention in another country, the end results are more immigrants for whole world.

With the fall of Fallujah in 2014 which occurred at roughly the same time that President Obama called ISIS a junior varsity team after the war in Syria changed. It became the first social media war, the war that attracted western Muslims in an unprecedented number, the first tweeted war. The right cocktail of forces elevated the ISIS media presence from good to great: the Islamic State of Iraq’s encounter with Syria, the global emergence of Twitter, and the more widespread knowledge of English all turbocharged ISIS propaganda.

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