First aired on The Final Straw

I’ve given a lot of thought to the issue of the Islamic State militants. Everyone in the world seems to have an opinion on this. The general consensus is that the Islamic State is violent, brutal, oppressive, patriarchal and sectarian. The general consensus is that they need to be stopped. Having an opinion on this seems to be the thing to do, so let me open my big mouth.
Anonymous issued a statement opposed to the Islamic State back in June. They pointed out that these militants have highjacked the idea of what Islam is, excluding all who disagree with them. Anonymous deferred to a cleric who issued a fatwah against the Islamic State.
I’ve got an issue with that. By deferring to a fatwah issued by a cleric, Anonymous is saying it’s okay for Muslims to kill Muslims who kill Muslims. This approach is exactly the problem. For decades, outside interests cheer on “good” Muslims to exterminate “bad” Muslims and, of course, these various outside interests always find a cleric’s fatwah to justify the bloodbath. I would suggest to Anonymous that we need to stop participating in that.
And please don’t melt down my website.
Look, the emergence of the Islamic State is our collective sins of the past making up for lost time. They didn’t pop up out of nowhere. These are people who grew up crawling through the rubble of U.S. extermination policy. Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, told them that the murder of half a million of their children under the age of six was a small price to pay for toppling some minor despot. This is a generation that lost loved ones, autonomy, and dignity to an imperial colonizer. The group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, spent time in U.S. custody and was released. One can only assume that his experience of Abu Ghraib ass-pyramids provoked his current resolve. Continue reading →