Isis is turning us all into its recruiting sergeants
As propaganda spreads terror and revulsion, calls for action grow louder – it’s the next page in the script
Owen Jones
The Guardian, 5 October 2014
EXTRACT
The fact is, we are playing the part Isis has written for us in an even more profound way. “We must do something” has too often proved to be the cry of a man pouring a can of petrol over a burning home. Isis knows that, which is why it is doing everything it can to incite western intervention. “Is this all you are capable of doing in this campaign of yours?” mocks the spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. “Are America and all its allies unable to come down to the ground?”
A British jihadi has called for the UK to “send all your forces” so Isis can “send them all back in coffins”. In the upsetting propaganda videos he has made under duress, the British hostage John Cantlie says Isis cannot be defeated by air power, but only with ground forces. As General Jonathan Shaw – the former assistant chief of the defence staff – says: “What possible advantage is there to Isil [Isis] of bringing us into the campaign? Answer: to unite the Muslim world against the Christian world. We played into their hands. We’ve done what they wanted us to do.”
