The next time you hear Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or any of the phony journalists and sneering pundits of Fox News claim that Muslims have failed to speak out against extremism and terrorism, remember the faces of Naji Jerf and Ruqia Hassan. These determined, anti-Isis activists are just the latest victims of a targeted assassination campaign waged against journalists and filmmakers who are putting their lives on the line to bear witness to the human-rights abuses of the Islamic State in Syria.

Jerf and Hassan, along with three other Syrian journalists murdered by Isis since October 2015, had their lives taken from them because they refused to keep silent. A recently released video shows another five men—who were falsely accused of spying—recounting the crimes that ultimately led to their executions. What exactly did they do? The first crime was operating an Internet café. The second was sending photos of life in Syria to Turkey.

It’s shameful that American media provides a seemingly unlimited platform for pundits and politicians spreading unsubstantiated claims of widespread Muslim acceptance and support for terrorism. It is even more shameful to witness how the narrative of hatred and fear is successfully exploited to gain airtime and rack up a few more polling points, while courageous Muslims are risking—and losing—their lives to protest the violence and let the rest of the world know the truth.

Naji Jerf was a Syrian documentary filmmaker, anti-Isis activist, and editor-in-chief of Hentah, a magazine reporting on Syrian life.

The 38-year-old father of two made films documenting massacres by the Islamic State in Syria. According to reports from the Committee to Protect Journalists—a non-profit organization promoting press freedom world wide—Jerf was shot and killed just one week before traveling to France where his wife and children had already been granted asylum status.

Jerf had been working with the citizen group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which in recent months has lost three other members of its staff by assassination.

Ruqia Hassan was killed by Jihadists in September of 2015. Thirty-year-old Hassan was the first female journalist and activist killed by Isis.

Hassan, who studied philosophy at Aleppo University, used social media to post information about everyday life in Raqqa, Syria, and the challenges of women living under the rule of the Islamic State. She also shared information about coalition airstrikes on social media using the pseudonym Nisan Ibrahim.

Confirmation of Hassan’s execution on charges of espionage was only recently announced, even though she had been killed in September.

According to The Independent, for months Isis claimed that Ruqia, who was imprisoned, was still alive. During the interim Isis hijacked her Facebook account and continued posting in her name, hoping to entrap other dissidents.

Two months before her murder, Hassan tweeted these defiant words:

“I’m in Raqqa, and I received death threats, and when Isis [arrests] me and kills me it’s ok because they will cut my head and I have dignity its better than I live in humiliation with Isis”

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What if a [limited] Islamic caliphate became a reality? How awful would that be? I don’t know, and I’m having trouble figuring out how to think about that possibility, because this is a topic that, apparently, is not to be discussed. Only war against those wanting a caliphate—ISIL/ISIS/Daesh—is on the table. The only option we contemplate is to prevent the establishment of an Islamic state. This topic is the Voldemort of geo-politics.

Oh, wait. There already is an Islamic state in the Middle East: It’s called Saudi Arabia. Like the caliphate that we’re so dead-set against, it is brutal to its citizens. It oppresses women. It beheads its opponents. But we—meaning the U.S. and our allies—tolerate its existence. No, we don’t just tolerate it, we consider Saudi Arabia our ally—mostly because of, you know, the oil. So we sell it weapons and war planes. We had military bases there, until 2003, when Saudi Arabia decided it didn’t want them anymore. We entertain the Saudi royal family at the White House. We handle them with diplomatic kid gloves and give them special privileges, while winking at their abhorrent domestic policies.

Even more hypocrisy: Our “friend” Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim state, which is what our “enemy” ISIS/ISIL/Daesh wants, too. Would an ISIS-run state be more brutal and oppressive than the theocracies that we currently tolerate and support? That’s a question that is not being asked–publicly, at least.

Maybe we should consider the possibility of letting a limited caliphate develop—and seeing whether it can stand on its own, or whether it would fail. [Just to clarify, I’m not advocating for the reinstatement of the vast 7th Century caliphate–just as I wouldn’t advocate for a new Christian empire, or an empire based on any religion or politicall ideology.]

We don’t really know how ISIS might behave if it actually had a defined territory to govern full-time, but we have some indicators. One study, published by the Brookings Institution, observes that while ISIS has been relatively benevolent in the early stages of its takeover of Mosul, Iraq—establishing a more stable economy, providing full-time electrical power, and offering basic services for free—the honeymoon has not been everlasting. As time has passed, people under the ISIS caliphate have experienced a more brutal enforcement of Islamic law and more oppressive taxation and social policies. We need to ask ourselves if 1) ISIS rule is that much worse than that in other Islamic nations; and 2) Is ISIS rule sustainable, or will it burn itself out and/or create its own counter-revolution?

I don’t know the answers. But can’t we at least look beyond our own propaganda and talk about it?

And while we’re on the subject of objectionable theocracies, let’s look at some of our own politicians’ pronouncements. It has become a mantra of many fundamentalist-Christina politicians to say that the U.S. is a “Christian nation.” Echoing a sentiment expressed by many right-wingers, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio [R-FL] recently said:

“We are clearly called, in the Bible, to adhere to our civil authorities, but that conflicts with also a requirement to adhere to God’s rules. When those two come in conflict, God’s rules always win. In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin, violate God’s law and sin, if we’re ordered to stop preaching the gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. We cannot abide by that because government is compelling us to sin.”

In other words, he believes that any Constitutional right given to Americans that he thinks goes against “God’s rule” should be ignored – because “God’s rule” supersedes Constitutional law.

When U.S. politicians use that kind of rhetoric, what right do we have to denounce anybody else’s theocracy, anyway?

I just wonder why this topic doesn’t seem to merit consideration. Back in 2006, Joe Biden suggested that Iraq be allowed to split, naturally, into three parts—Shia, Sunni and Kurdish—with a federal-style central government over all. By simply bringing up the idea, Biden became the object of outrage. He was merely pointing out reality: Iraq was never really a country. It was a geo-political construct, offhandedly sketched out in back-of-an-envelope style, by the winners of World War I, who were probably not motivated by humanitarian concerns. And now, after thousands of lives lost fighting, ostensibly, to “save” Iraq, it’s essentially breaking up—organically– just as Biden had suggested, but no one wanted to acknowledge as a contingency.

So, when the generals, and the politicians. and the corporate oligarchs sit around gaming strategies for the fate of the Middle East, wouldn’t it make sense to include all options in the discussion?

I think it’s fair to say that what’s we’ve done so far has made things worse, not better [invading, destroying and occupying Iraq with no clear plan as to what would come next, or how to get out; invading and occupying Afghanistan, with the added ingredient of mission creep/nation-building; arming rebels we know little about to try to oust Assad from Syria; bombing people we think are ISIS and creating more resentment and more radicals].

So, in light of how massively screwed up the situation is with our current “strategy,” what would be the harm in just looking at the possibility of getting the hell out of there and seeing what happens?

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Below is a letter in the May 30th, 2015 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, from a retired US Air Force officer. He says what many of us have been saying since the Bush administration lied us into the 2003 war in Iraq, but this man has the credentials the rest of us do not have.

Millions of Americans and others around the world protested the march to war in late 2002 and early 2003. But Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons had their eyes on Iraq come hell or high water. WE need to repeat what this retired officer says in his letter over and over during the coming debate about what to do or not do in the Middle East.

The hawks are circling again. This time we have to shout them down.

Here is the letter:

It now should be pretty clear that the Iraq government and its soldiers are incapable of defending their country. For those anxious to put thousands of American soldiers on the ground again in Iraq, I would remind them that the reason we don’t have more troops there now is that former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted that a new status of forces agreement would include the authorization for Iraqi courts to try American soldiers for alleged offenses against Iraqi civilians. That has always been, and hopefully always will be, a nonstarter for conflicts involving American forces in a foreign country.

So now what? If we send troops back in, who will we use? How about the ones who have already been over there several times? And what happens when all of those are dead, maimed or insane? Or do we mobilize the U.S., build up a million-man force, and declare Iraq the 51st state? Maybe it’s time to look back at lessons from other wars. Just as in Vietnam, we got involved in Iraq without knowing who we were fighting, what the goals were, and what the exit strategy was.

And Iraq had the additional complication that we stepped right in the middle of a 1,000-year-old religious conflict between two Muslim sects that we didn’t even recognize at the time. And all we could do to solve that was build walls between communities to try to separate them.

So what’s been the net effect of our incursion into Iraq? ISIS has formed and is probably worse than Saddam Hussein. While we trained an Iraq army to fight, it’s probably not possible to train them to want to fight. The government continues to separate Shiite and Sunni Muslims. So, things are pretty much back to square one.

Maybe with the assistance of air power from the U.S., the Iraqi government can salvage part of what used to be Iraq, or maybe not. In any event, whether it’s in our best interest to waste any more money or lives in pursuit of ambiguous goals set by old men who simply want younger men to fight their battles is pretty debatable.

-Miles Barnett • High Ridge Lieutenant colonel, U.S. Air Force (retired)

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I recently watched a segment on Rachel Maddow’s show about how the US State Department is seriously trying to combat the propaganda ISIS puts out online. They’ve hired a full time social media/policy wonk, who happens to be Muslim, to manage what I guess they call hackers to take down and otherwise interfere with ISIS websites, Facebook pages and twitter accounts.

Another purpose of the State Department program is to counter ISIS propaganda and explain how much damage ISIS is doing to innocent people, most of whom are Muslim. The State Department “messaging” team is working overtime to convince anyone tempted to join ISIS or help them financially not to do that. ISIS plays off grievances that young people have, especially their lack of economic opportunity in the societies where they find themselves. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims and folks of other religions have been displaced by civil war and find themselves helpless and frustrated.

As I watched that story, I couldn’t help thinking that our goal as Progressive Democrats is similar to what the State Department is doing. There are millions of American voters who are manipulated by Republicans, who prey on their fears and prejudices. As far back as Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” writers have pointed out how voters vote against their own best interest because they are inundated with lies meant to keep them ignorant of the damage being done to them by Republicans. Kansans re-elected Gov. Brownback despite the damage his policies have done to the state’s credit rating and employment rate. Why is that?

In Missouri, similarly, voters continue to put people in charge whose main goal is to destroy the middle class and push more and more wealth up the income ladder. Why is that? Republicans want to privatize everything regardless of consequences to the general population. They are adamant in refusing to expand Medicaid despite 300,000 Missourians without health insurance. They continue to weaken organized labor every chance they get. They cut taxes for the upper class and corporations and then say they wish there were more funds available to support education. Well, there would be more money available if they hadn’t overturned Gov. Nixon’s veto of their huge tax cut last year.

They play on the fears of people. They use the “big government” boogie man to convince voters that some nameless bureaucrat is coming to take their freedoms away. The biggest lie is that Obama wants to take away their guns. The next big fraud is that “illegal aliens” are going to take their jobs and marry their daughters. And, of course, there is always the threat of Sharia Law replacing the American Constitution.

Why do people fall for this stuff? Republicans haven’t beheaded anyone yet, but the damage they are doing with their lies is only a matter of degree.

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By now, the world has heard about the so-called caliphate set up around Mosul in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now simply calling itself the Islamic State (IS). The Telegraph reported that during its offensive against the precarious Iraqi state, the IS has executed more than a thousand civilians and wounded a thousand more. In areas under its control, it has restored a degree of order, but also implemented an extremist interpretation of Shari’a law so brutal that both al-Qaeda and Hamas are said to have balked. It is also worth noting that the caliphates of early Islam, upon which the IS is based, were hardly ever this arbitrary or intolerant. Regardless of historical precedent, however, most would agree that the rise of ISIS is both a humanitarian crisis and a tragedy. However, it also represents an opportunity.

This opportunity rests with the fact that major actors across the region all have a vested interest in seeing the IS defeated. For a useful visual representation of this, observe the helpful Middle East Friendship Chart, published by Slate. By Slate’s estimation, the IS has no major allies in the region, and more than a few enemies. The most immediate beneficiaries of the creation of the Islamic State have been the Iraqi Kurds. As Baghdad has pivoted towards dealing with the IS, the Iraqi Kurdish militia, the Peshmerga, has gained control of Kirkuk and other oil-rich areas. However, should Maliki’s government in Baghdad fall, the Kurds could be forced into conflict with a strengthened Islamic State. By assisting Iraq, the Kurds have a chance to win from them a peaceful separation or partial autonomy, a chance they would certainly not have under the hegemony of the Islamic State. There is evidence that this antagonism between the Kurds and the IS has started to crystallize anyway: BBC reports that the occupation of Kirkuk will probably draw the Kurdish Peshmerga into the fight against ISIS, and the militia has even been training female fighters to assist in the defense of Kirkuk.
Turkey, too, has a direct conflict with the IS: It has kidnapped over two dozen Turkish diplomats, including the Turkish consul. Turkey could also strengthen its ties with its Kurdish population. The decades-long war between Turkey and a Kurdish insurgency ended in 2012; that peace could be solidified through an alliance with Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi state against the Islamic State.

Iran, too, has much to gain from an anti-ISIS stance. The Islamic Republic, ideologically, is most likely concerned for the Shi’a in Iraq: the IS is extremely anti-Shia. Videos even show IS fighters rejoicing once they realize their executed victims were Shia. In more pragmatic terms, Iran should act to stabilize its western neighbor. A destabilized Iraq is simply more trouble than it is worth for Iran. The administration of President Hassan Rouhani may have realized this: Slate reports that Iran and the United States, bitter enemies only a few years ago, are “now tacitly cooperating in helping the Iraqi military fight ISIS”. Of course, there is also the matter of the United States, which has plenty of reasons to prop up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Baghdad government. The failure of the Iraqi nation-building project would be a major blow to imperial prestige.

The Obama administration in particular, having presided over the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, should hold an interest in maintaining stability for purely political reasons, if nothing else. However, direct military intervention is ill-advised: Regardless of the righteous, or not so righteous, intentions of the United States, the most probable result of military intervention is chaos. If the United States is to play any role at all in the defeat of the IS, it should be a backseat role, one of organizing coalitions and supporting alliances. Fortunately, this appears to be the way things are unfolding: President Obama and Secretary Kerry have opted for a soft-power, hands-off approach. This, alongside support from regional powers, might spell the end for the Islamic State.

The triple crises of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian Civil War, and the rise of the IS continue to rock the Middle East. We can anticipate that the first two crises will be protracted and bloody. However, the Islamic State is not an undefeatable problem: if the interested powers in the region are willing to work together for long-term stability, they may be able to put an end to the Mosul caliphate and its inhumane policies. This cooperation is perhaps not a likely scenario; but it is a possible course of action, and one the powers that be of the region would be wise to consider.

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