In an earlier life, I played a fake news man for some years. The character, which shared my name, was a slightly dumber Colbert-type rightwinger, though it pre-dated Colbert. (As I’ve previously noted, the line between fake news man and real one is uncomfortably thin.) At one point during that period, there had been an epidemic of well-publicized shootings. One of them was the Columbine Massacre. I remember using the satiric character, even at the time, to rail against the media for making the killers famous by headlining their names and plastering their faces on front pages and magazine covers, etc. In other words, for giving them exactly the infamy they likely sought in the first place.
You may have noticed we haven’t written much about ISIS here. One of the reasons is because that’s precisely what they’d like us all to do. And, since they emerged as the latest big scary menace on the world stage a few months ago, along with glossy and often horrible PR videos and a fairly sophisticated social media presence, the mainstream media and the political world seem to be all too happy to grant them every last bit of the very publicity they seek.
As of Wednesday night, it looks as though President Obama is similarly happy to take the ISIS bait and grant them the honor of being elevated as the latest Public Enemy #1 of the United States of America. The precise direct threat they pose to the U.S. at this time remains unclear. At least I haven’t been able to figure it out and Obama’s speech on Wednesday night made it no clearer. But the GOP war hawks seemed to be thrilled with it all, and party-line Democrats seem to be offering few, if any, objections either. The military industrial complex is certainly rejoicing over their newest apparent windfall.
To be clear, all available evidence suggests that ISIS or ISIL or the Islamic State is most certainly dangerous (at least to those within their expanding vicinity), extremely ruthless, and extraordinarily barbaric. Still, granting them the fame or infamy they seek — be it in the mainstream media or from the U.S. Government, much less from the bully pulpit of the Presidency — seems to be playing precisely into their hands. I’m not interested in doing so.
It’s also, at least according to this report from Associated Press published just hours before the President’s speech on Wednesday, exactly what their PR masterminds have been working towards. Another very public over-reaction to a most-likely “exaggerated” threat described by the AP as “no unstoppable juggernaut” and “wield[ing] outsize influence” thanks, in no small part, to their mastery of social media…
But while the group has been successful at seizing parts of Iraq and Syria, it is no unstoppable juggernaut. Lacking the major weaponry of an established military, it wields outsize influence through the fanaticism of a hard core of several thousand, capitalizing on divisions among its rivals, and disseminating terrifying videos on social media.
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It is useful to remember, though, that while it is a formidable force that controls roughly a third of Iraq and Syria, there also has been an inclination to exaggerate the group’s capabilities.
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According to a senior Iraqi intelligence official, more than 27,600 Islamic State fighters are believed to be operating in Iraq, about 2,600 of whom are foreigners.
Most analysts, however, estimate the number of Islamic State fighters in both Iraq and Syria to be about 20,000.
In any case, the group is dwarfed by its foes in the Syrian and Iraqi armies — both in numbers and firepower.
The Iraqi military and police force are estimated at more than 1 million. The Syrian army is estimated at 300,000 soldiers. There are believed to be more than 100,000 Syrian rebels, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the powerful Islamic Front rebel umbrella group, currently fighting the Islamic State group in Syria. Tens of thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga forces are fighting the group in Iraq.
Publishing the same AP article on Thursday, Talking Points Memo headlined it by asking: “Has The World Been Bamboozled By The ISIS PR Machine?”
The foreign policy expertise needed to determine the precise danger of the ISIS menace, or, more precisely, the threat they pose to the U.S. or its interests, is well above my pay grade. (Though, interestingly enough, it seems to be well within the pay grade of virtually every yutz on Capitol Hill and talking head in the media.) But I do know that this nation has spent the last 48 hours or so — and even weeks before it — breathlessly publicizing gruesome details of the group’s murder of two American journalists and other unspeakable horrors in the region, as if it was all happening just outside the window of every American household. In the bargain, scaring the crap out of virtually every completely unthreatened American and granting these idiots precisely the notoriety they had hoped for.
The only thing that would likely make them happier is a ground war with the U.S. And the way things are going, that should be coming along soon enough as well.
During Wednesday’s BradCast, I asked listeners to call in and talk about what they think should be done about ISIS, if anything. The phone lines lit up from top to bottom. Everyone had a suggestion. None of them good. Or at least without likely even worse consequences in the bargain.
I don’t know what to do either. But I am not inclined, inasmuch as I have control over it in this itty-bitty corner of the world, to give them any more “favorable” publicity than necessary. We won’t be running their videos or scary photos of their atrocities or their triumphant parades with their pirate flags. We will, if we cover them at all with photos, likely be using some variation of the one at the top of this article: a photo still from the bad (though I thought it was great at the time!) early-1970s Saturday morning live-action superhero show called Isis (later, The Secrets of Isis). If this media outlet is to give these idiots any publicity, it will largely be by mocking them with comparison to a scantily-clad female super-heroine based loosely on an ancient Egyptian goddess, from a cheap, nearly-forgotten, short-lived Saturday morning kids’ show.
I might suggest the Obama Administration and this government borrow a similar tactic. Do whatever they feel they need to do to protect Americans, within Constitutional bounds, but do as much of it as they can with as little fanfare as possible. That said, as of Wednesday night’s prime time address from the White House, it seems far too late for that, at this point. Obama has seemingly taken the bait. Too bad. I suspect the bad guys who’ve been begging him to take it, are very happy about that. I know they’re all a helluva lot more famous now.
Let’s ask the next logical question. If the government and the media know that ISIS is a paper tiger, why are they lying to us? Again? Who profits from this perpetual war in Southwest Asia?
Or is it all a giant distraction from domestic issues? The billionaires are buying our government out from under us. The financial class is strip mining our economy. There’s an election coming up. A scared public is a conservative public….
I agree. Once again I find myself in the distinct minority of calling for doing nothing in response to a supposed terrorist “threat”. Yes, the deaths of the two journalists is tragic. However, this morning on Democracy NOW!, Amy Goodman interviewed the famed director and cinematographer Haskell Wexler (now 92!), who worked with James Foley on a new documentary he made. They played an interview Wexler made with Foley in 2012, which makes it very clear that Foley would be appalled that his death is being used as an excuse for more military action in the region. He was very much against U. S. intervention over there.
No, we are once again being stampeded into spending more money on behalf of the bottom line of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. The more we stir this fecal pot, the more it stinks. We need to quit stirring. I don’t know what will happen if we do nothing, but I know that past history proves that our further involvement will most likely make things worse.
Ralph Crown asked @ 1:
I don’t know that ISIS is a “paper tiger”, nor that the media or government, believe that to be the case. While the AP article I cited above points out the appparently exaggerated nature of the ISIS threat, at least in terms of boots on the ground numbers (and weaponry), I have no reason to believe that the bulk of the media, or even most in government — certainly not the bulk of the idiots in Congress — even realize the threat is likely much less than everyone has stirred themselves up to believe.
In other words, as the headline of the article says, the bulk of them have “fallen for the ISIS PR scam”. Yes, these are easily frightened people. While some may be smart enough to appreciate the lack of direct threat posed to the U.S. and the seemingly-lesser-than-publicized threat to the region (where ISIS is certainly a threat, though less than advertised) — and are, thus, using whatever fear they can conjure up to be manipulative towards whatever nefarious ends they might — I’d guess that the bulk of them, to paraphase Scarface, have gotten high on their own supply. In other words, they’ve actually convinced themselves and each other to be terrified. ISIS’ mission accomplished.
As to…
I think I spoke to that in the article above.
How do we go to war against an Egyptian Goddess?
BTW Brad, Thank You for bringing back the media icon that was the “Mighty Isis” from my childhood.
Wait shouldn’t there be an echo when we say that…
Oh Mighty Isis (Isis, Isis, Isis) and a thunderclap?
Every time the media says Isis or Isil I think there should be an echo and thunderclap so we can experience the proper level of fear, then buy into the war mongering.
I believe that the statistical chances of being attacked by a terrorist is still similar to our chances of being hit by lightning.
But all of us everywhere on the planet will feel the effects of global warming and climate change. To pull the wool over our eyes and believe the hype there must be a Goddess at work somewhere.
Oh Mighty Isis (Isis, Isis, Isis) (Crack!)
She is quite the media phenomenon.
1. You can say anything you want about a fake threat, because it’s fake. The media won’t check your facts.
2. You get all the same funding for your boondoggles and your pork projects with a fake threat as with a real threat.
3. A fake threat, unlike a real threat, cannot actually hurt you.
Obviously, the war machine much prefers fake threats to real threats. Wouldn’t anybody?
Nemo, what is it that you consider to be fake? Are you saying that the journalists, and now the humanitarian aid worker, were not actually beheaded? Do you think the outrage of most reasonable people in the worlds population at the videos ISIS has released to be fake? Do you consider the threat to America’s homeland to be fake? Is it okay with you that real journalists and aid workers trying to make a difference in our world are treated so savagely on a world stage for their loved ones to see? Who else is to defend these people, who else has the capability to try and ensure another family doesn’t have to watch their son or daughter die such an agonizing death on a youtube video? Or do you simply not give a shit?
I think there is more to fear in our homeland from corporations that want to gut our government funding of social programs to increase their profits, from domestic terrorists, from a lack of jobs, from a lack of a plan to get us out of the financial morass that we are in (besides letting the rich get richer), from idiots on Capitol Hill who are more concerned with projecting their power internationally than in solving problems here. That is what is fake. The proportionality of the media coverage is ridiculous. What is really affecting us at home gets superficial coverage while attention seeking terrorists get much of the headlines.
You could say it’s the media covering the loss of a member of the media. But that’s not it either.
If you want real problems internationally (for journalists) how about looking at Honduras. Honduras has had more journalists killed there than any other country in the past few years. But we don’t care about that because it was the US that helped with the coup that put the current government in. We don’t want bad press on killing the press there because it would shine a light on our screwed up policies there. But we can shine a light on a media savvy terrorist organization, and blame it on their religion or whatever the current fear/war mongering tactic is.
WingnutSteve asserted @ 6:
Just curious. What precisely is the “threat to the homeland” from ISIS? Please be specific, if you don’t mind, since the President wasn’t. Thanks in advance!
Does anyone else feel nauseated at the use of such a Nazi-sounding word as homeland to refer to the (former?) land of the free and home of the brave?
I don’t know what the specific threat is from ISIS on our shores aka the very naziesque sounding homeland which used to be the land of the free and home of the brave. Btw I used “homeland” meaning “in” America, there’s already a clear threat to America from ISIS as evidenced by their crimes against our journalists. I just never imagined that I would be compared to a nazi for typing that word, proof of the left gone utterly mad IMO. Actually cambridge, I believe the nazis used the term fatherland.
The specifics I have other than journalists getting their heads sawed off: ISIS has given warning that they are coming here, Hagel among others has stated they are a threat unlike any we’ve ever seen, and finally the known conspiracy theorist Brad Friedman is trying hard to downplay it as a non-threat which typically means there’s an uncomfortable truth in there for you somewhere.
CambridgeKnitter asked @ 9:
Yes. Since it was first uttered — on the day of (or shortly after, if I recall) 9/11.
WingnutSteve, as is his wont, slashed wildly at the wind @10 with:
And yet you lashed out at someone else here — and now at me — for questioning what the actual threat was that you described, with certainty above, as a “threat to America’s homeland”?? The response to which by Obama and friends is likely to cost American lives and certainly plenty of treasure.
After losing some 4,000 U.S. troops in the pretend defense against the “threat” posed by Saddam Hussein, you’re not even just a little itty-bitty leery about risking more American lives to defend against a threat that nobody, not even you, can define?
Are you skeptical of anything, Steve?
Saudi Arabia saws off heads too. Are you also calling for war against Saudi Arabia as well? If not, why not? Don’t you even question for a second why some beheadings are, apparently, perfectly fine, while others call for risking thousands of American lives to avenge??
Oh, noes! They’re coming here?! Well, let me get out the duct tape and saran wrap again!
(And you call me a “conspiracy theorist”, dude? Seriously?)
Well, if an American war official has said “they are a threat”, that’s good enough for me! IT’S WAR! Will you be signing up to fight the scourge, Steve-o? Or hanging back to hold your position as a courageous keyboard warrior, fighting with other peoples lives instead, like you similarly did over the past decade of war?
You’re amusingly desperate ad hominems aside, when did I “downplay it as a non-threat”? I made clear that they were a threat to the region, which obviously they are, and asked what was the threat worth risking American lives for. Apparently, you are unable to answer that question, so you are acting like a five year old. Again.
Sigh…Still sad.
The whole enchilada here is simply that these ISIS lunatics beheaded 3 US/UK people.
If these same 3 people would have been shot and killed and not on video then everything would be all hunky dory.
This is without any question a PR scam and it is working.
You know what is more of threat to the US than ISIS?
The PEANUT, there are billions of them already on our “homeland” and they systematically are killing about 200 people a year, mostly targeting children.
You know what else is far FAR more serious threat to the entire country than ISIS?
Reich wing nutbags, there are over 1000 hate groups in this country right now with FAR more members already on our shores, they are heavily armed, many would make ISIS blush with envy.
They are dug in, have hidden bunkers all over the country full of food and ammo, they are all just as equally out of their fracking minds because of RELIGION as any ISIS lunatic.
Most of them literally HATE the US government with the same burning passion as any ISIS nut.
They also HATE at least 55% of the entire population of the country, HATE blacks, HATE Mexicans and HATE Liberals.
Like all religious zealots they are just sitting there ready to SNAP at any moment over some unknown reason that will be only in their religious deluded minds.
What worse is that these HomeGrown Terrorist are allowed to VOTE and they are voting into power Reich wing Nutbags that for the past 5 years have been committing TREASON against this country.
The entire Tpublican Senate has committed treason by filibustering every single bill that could possibly help the economy (that they destroyed), purposely stopping every bill for helping Vets, Rebuilding Infrastructure creating millions of well paying jobs, improving peoples lives in any way is an affront to them an anathema to their very existence.
We have TODAY and for the past decade full blown TERRORIST in our Government committing treason, destroying the economy, doing unimaginable damage, keeping oil companies and multi Billionaires in totalitarian power.
ISIS is nothing but a BS distraction from the REAL terrorist that already have control over our government, have already brought the whole country to its knees and busily trying hard as they possibly can to make life even worse by getting rid of every safety net in the country while at the same time keeping the economy down as much as possible and inequality as high as possible while arming our so called “Police Depts” which are now really Paramilitary that are AT WAR with every US citizen.
They also have a “Social Media” that makes ISIS look like 2 cans a string.
Its epicenter is a full blown Propagandist network called Fox news and they feed lies and BS to the rest of the MSM which spreads it to every single household in the country.
If ISIS is what you are worried about then you need to open your freaking eyes.
Look up each and every debunked Bin Laden video/audio, Al Qaeda hostage video, and now these beheading videos. Every single time SITE (Rita Katz) is the only one who comes up with them. And the mainstream media just runs with it each and every time, never questioning the authenticity of SITE/Rita Katz “findings”. And look up Rita Katz/SITE links to Israel and U.S. intelligence. Unless I see the bodies and had a DNA test, I wouldn’t believe a word. Maybe these people did die, and maybe they were even beheaded, and maybe they weren’t. That’s the point: there is no proof beyond a doubt besides SITE/Rita Katz “saying” it’s so, and coming up with unauthenticated videos…just like the debunked Bin Laden videos and audios she came up with around 911.
Then add to it, these “beheading” videos CONVENIENTLY will lead us into more endless wars & bombings of “islamic terrorists” (lol), and there’s PLENTY to question about it.
It’s LOGICAL NOT to blindly believe this without question. That is how we ALWAYS get into these wars.
Then, after it’s PROVEN like Sadaam DIDN’T have WMD’s, what do we say? OH YEAH…we say, “WELL, WE’RE ALREADY THERE”. Yes, FAKE us into wars, then when we’re there, say, “WE’RE ALREADY THERE”.
LET’S DO IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ISIS has beheaded 44-year-old British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines, —>>> according to the SITE Intelligence Group