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American journalist James Foley reportedly beheaded by ISIS

American journalist James Foley reportedly beheaded by ISIS

Evil.

ISIS has released a video purporting to show the beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley, who had been missing for almost two years. The video, which also threatens to do the same to a man identified as American journalist Steven Sotloff, will not be linked to on this blog.

Foley had gone missing in northwest Syria in November of 2012, and Sotloff, a reporter for Time, had disappeared in mid-2013, perhaps in Libya. ISIS accompanied the video with a message that:

…U.S. President Barack Obama’s authorization of strikes against the group places the United States “upon a slippery slope towards a new war front against Muslims,” according to BNO.

“Any attempt by you, Obama, to deny Muslims liberty & safety under the Islamic caliphate, will result in the bloodshed of your people,” the ISIS person added.

Foley also speaks in the video, saying: “I call on my friends, family members and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government.”

There is a longer version of Foley’s statement here.

Apparently he was reading it, and it is difficult if not impossible to know whether he meant his words or not. Perhaps Foley thought that if he read the statement his captors might spare his life, although his words indicate that he fully expected them to kill him. If the video is for real—and so far there is no indication whatsoever that it is not—his statement would have to have been made while he was under an extraordinarily extreme form of coercion and dread.

Ever since the video of the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl was released in early 2002, the world has known that Islamic terrorists are fully capable of such things and are extremely eager to brag about them.

The purpose of such acts and the publicity that follows is manifold: to inspire other jihadis with the extremity of their savagery, and to intimidate the west by sowing widespread horror and fear and ultimately capitulation—and, if not capitulation, then retaliation, which can then be used to fire up even more terrorism, in an ever-increasing spiral of blood and gore.

This is barbaric evil, and although it has the purposes described in the previous paragraph, it cannot be really “understood,” only fought:

If it were necessary to fully understand evil in order to fight it, World War II would have never been won by the Allies. What is necessary is to be able to recognize evil and see it for what it is quite early in the game. Those are the important first steps. The next steps are finding the will and the tools to fight it. Evil is very strong, because it doesn’t know the same restraints and limits as morality or good.

To the family of James Wright Foley, deep and heartfelt condolences. To the family of Steven Sotloff, hopes and prayers that he will not meet the same fate. But ISIS is not just their enemy. It is an enemy to all civilized people.

[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]

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Comments

nordic_prince | August 19, 2014 at 7:24 pm

At this point does anyone really buy that whole “religion of peace” shtick? It appears that no amount of Westernization can overcome centuries of barbarism.

    Oh, come now. Islam is the “religion of peace”…

    As long as we’re talking “peace through intimidation and brutality,” it can/will only be overcome via “peace through superior firepower.”

ISIS has threatened to drown each and everyone of us (citizens of the US) in blood. It’s time to take this extremely seriously (if you haven’t before), and we need to win this war by applying all the tenants of Sun Tzu. Unfortunately, by looking at Sun Tzu’s Art of War, I can already tell who’s going to win this fight as long as our leadership doesn’t change. Change it must, or our country will suffer the effects for generations to come.

The only way to curb this sort of stuff is a massive over reaction. What is “massive over reaction”? I don’t know. In WWII, we fire bombed places like Dresden & Tokyo. Finally, the Germans and Japanese were ready to agree to anything if the bombs would just stop coming out of the sky?

I am glad I don’t have to make the call; there are two choices–no response and more of this stuff, or take actions that probably none of us would support.

The sad fact of war: the most brutal side wins.

    Ragspierre in reply to lichau. | August 19, 2014 at 8:27 pm

    I’ll disagree slightly.

    We never need to be brutal in the sense these pirates are. We will never use rape as a tactic, or sell people into forced marriages or labor.

    We need to be resolved and ruthless. Most of all we need to be indefatigable. That’s a word we forgot. But we cannot become “war weary” or permit anyone to argue that we should.

    War is the only thing that has made and kept us free in the face of movements like this one, and we’ve faced them and won before.

      mumzieistired in reply to Ragspierre. | August 20, 2014 at 2:17 am

      Absolutely.

      Never give in. Never, never, never.

      pst314 in reply to Ragspierre. | August 20, 2014 at 9:37 am

      On the other hand, during WWII it was commonplace for American soldiers to kill SS troops out of hand. And especially to summarily shoot concentration camp guards. Nothing immoral about that.

    tom swift in reply to lichau. | August 20, 2014 at 12:05 am

    the most brutal side wins.

    The most thorough side wins.

people won’t react as long as they are sheltered from the truth. people refusing to post the media helps shelter people from the truth.
posted the vid (youtube and other hosts been pulling it) on my site.

    Sanddog in reply to dmacleo. | August 19, 2014 at 11:42 pm

    Just saying the word “beheaded” doesn’t even BEGIN to convey the absolute horrific brutality carried out on Foley. As long as it remains abstract, people aren’t going to get nearly as angry as they should.

      since the prof hasn’t posted any links to video I won’t but the video is on my site, click username to get link to site itself.

      “Just saying the word “beheaded” doesn’t even BEGIN to convey the absolute horrific brutality carried out on Foley. As long as it remains abstract, people aren’t going to get nearly as angry as they should.”

      Agreed. “Beheaded” brings to mind images of a guy with a very sharp sword or ax. *Schunk*-*plop*-Done.

      It’s not. I’ve seen a video of the Mexican cartels “punishing” a pair of embezzlers, by beheading – one with a chainsaw and the other with a combat knife. The chainsaw took a good 10 seconds, the knife took … longer. And both men were 100% alive and cognizant when they started.

      I don’t have any doubts the terrorists can make it more horrific, and as such I don’t recommend anybody watch such a thing unless they have an exceptionally strong stomach.

      Then again, unless more people do watch these things, they won’t have any idea what kind of barbarians we’re dealing with. That’s why I watched it; I needed to know, beyond being told.

Please, let no whiny HuffPo child-journalists bleat about the brutality of having been kicked out of a McDonalds tonight.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Old West saying “he needed killing” applies to ISIS and all Islamo-fascist movements. Extermination.

Those stinkin’ muslims are gutless murderers who worship satan and we have a gutless government that will do nothing about it. #RIPJamesFoley

JackRussellTerrierist | August 19, 2014 at 8:31 pm

“Apparently he was reading it, and it is difficult if not impossible to know whether he meant his words or not. Perhaps Foley thought that if he read the statement his captors might spare his life, although his words indicate that he fully expected them to kill him. If the video is for real—and so far there is no indication whatsoever that it is not—his statement would have to have been made while he was under an extraordinarily extreme form of coercion and dread.”

Foley was a photo journalist for the Global Post, a far left online publication. It’s possible that he believes the U.S. is responsible for his coming death and didn’t need much coercion to make the remarks he did.

Actually, and I really don’t mean this unkindly, Foley looks like an “occupier” type. He may have absorbed enough anti-U.S. brainwashing to feel comfortable getting too close to the terrorists.

And then there’s Bo Bergdahl, of course.

Whatever the case, may he rest in peace. It’s very sad, and he was just young.

    I don’t know. When I lived in a couple of places where there were Islamist terrorists around, I used to think about whether I would read a fake “conversion” statement for video in an effort to be released. A couple of (Fox?) journalists did that in Gaza a few years ago. I’d like to think I would have chosen death rather than deny my faith, but it’s hard to say what we would do if placed in such horrible circumstances.

    RIP.

Prayers ascending for his family.

Thanks, Barack.

US didn’t kill him. He went to a high risk area, run by American hating monsters and got caught. Because we cannot be friends with them.

He got killed by them. Not US. And we will follow him if we let Obama lead us there- as he is idiotically doing.

Won’t our national debt prevent any military follow up even after Obama is out of office?

Just a thought looking towards the future, but I think we’re effectively broke.

If not, I think the U.S. is done being threatened by the ragheads. It’s long been time to go to war and put them out of business, permanently.

“I think the U.S. is done being threatened by the ragheads. It’s long been time to go to war and put them out of business, permanently.”

The only way to do that is to put Islam out of business, permanently. At the margin, that would require eliminating every believer, because as long as there are believers terror and atrocity will follow. We foolishly won’t even keep them from immigrating here, so we do not have the will to do this, and may never have the will. Islam will be a plague upon humanity forever.

Iraq needs to fight these guys with foreign contractors.

Contractors with ROEs that enable them to win.

Contractors who represent Iraq and not the United States.

I say a bounty system. 50-100 bucks a head or something like that. Set up some guidelines and let the market do the rest.