The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (55 page)

Read The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS Online

Authors: Robert Spencer

Tags: #Religion, #Islam, #History, #Political Science, #Terrorism, #Non-Fiction

                
So rejoice in your transaction which you have contracted. And it is that which is the great success.

                
(Quran 9: 111)
68

Like
Black Flags from Rome, How to Survive in the West
begins on a note of self-pity, claiming that Muslims were being unfairly targeted in the West:

           
A real war is heating up in the heart of Europe. Many Muslims are putting a lot of effort into showing the world that we are peaceful citizens, we’re spending thousands of Euros to do Da’wah (invitation to Islam) campaigns to show how good we are in society, but we’re miserably failing. The leaders of disbelief repeatedly lie in the media and say that we Muslims are all terrorists, while we denied it and wanted to be peaceful citizens. But they have cornered us and forced us into becoming radicalised, and that will be the cause of their defeat and be the cause for the conquest of Rome.
69

Islam and Muhammad are being insulted, and it’s time for Muslims to fight back:

           
As Muslims, we need to be prepared for what is coming our way. Media propaganda is the first step to justify what will happen later. So if Muslims are portrayed as evil terrorists, then the mass killing which happens to us afterwards will not be a big deal, infact it will be a sigh of relief for the fooled masses of people.

                
So what are Muslims supposed to do? Are we supposed to petition to a deaf ‘free press’ because our Prophet is being insulted day and night? Are we supposed to sit back until the
police raids our homes for having the Quran and surah al-Tawbah on our shelves?
70

                
We as free Muslims cannot sit back and get locked up for something which is not a crime in the sight of Allah. In the Ummah (Nation) of Prophet Muhammad (saws), we have been taught to physically fight to defend ourselves and our religion, no matter where we are in the world.
71

So
How to Survive in the West
teaches Muslims “how to live a double-life, how to keep your Secret life private, how to survive in a threatening land, how you can Arm and strengthen the Muslims when the time for Jihad comes to your country, and neighborhood.”
72

A great deal of subterfuge will be needed: “If you are a convert to Islam, you should try to hide your Islam as much as possible. . . . If you are a born Muslim: then don’t make it too obvious you have become a practicing Muslim. . . . if you are a practising Muslim, and you have a beard already, then don’t remove it if it will bring unwanted attention to yourself. I.e. your family, friends and colleagues will get more suspicious why you removed it, forcing them to spy on you more.”
73

This is all part of an effort at “making yourself look more friendly and open minded to the Western public. For example: Muslims who call themselves by a Western nickname gain more acceptances by their non Muslim colleagues. This can be an advantage because it reduces their suspicion of you as they consider you more open minded and less ‘extreme’ (religious.).”
74

To get money, the jihadi-in-waiting should steal from non-Muslims: “Do not feel guilty if you take back a small amount of what they have stolen from us. Easy money Ideas: If you are an expert in credit card fraud, paypal/ebay scams, Phishing, hacking, or you know the secrets of a big company, then take advantage of your skills. If you can claim extra benefits from a government, then do so. If you can avoid paying taxes, then do so.”
75

How to Survive in the West
details how jihadis should use the internet carefully, how they should communicate with each other, how they should keep in shape, and even how they should undertake weapons training using “Toy guns (Nerf guns), or Pellet guns or Paintball guns for target practice.”
76
It also includes bomb-making instructions and tips on how to make sure one is not under surveillance. It goes into the
Charlie Hebdo
jihad massacre, explaining how the Kouachi brothers got their weapons and carried out their attack—making it clear that the Islamic State intends to train new cadres of jihadis to carry out an increasing number of jihad massacres in the United States and Europe.

They are coming.

Chapter Ten

HOW TO DEFEAT ISIS—AND WHY WE MUST

T
he Islamic State is nothing less than the foremost evil force of our time.

It is, as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said, an “apocalyptic death cult.”
1
In an age when the entire U.S. and European foreign policy establishment is geared toward negotiation, compromise, and accommodation, it is fanatically intransigent. The idea of reaching a negotiated settlement with ISIS is inconceivable.

 

Did you know?

       

 
For lack of good intel on targets, U.S. bombing runs on the Islamic State are returning without dropping their bombs nearly 75 percent of the time

       

 
Defeating ISIS risks empowering Iran

       

 
The Pentagon published a map that showed ISIS losses of territory, but left out their gains

       

 
Japan’s post–World War II constitution provides a clue to how ISIS might be stopped

The Islamic State wants the death of the United States and the free West. Many of its members want to die in the process of killing us. Like other jihadis, Islamic State members loudly proclaim their love for death.
Black Flags from Palestine
contains what it says is a quote from a Russian general, speaking of the jihadis in Chechnya: “How can you defeat an enemy who looks into the barrel of your Gun and sees Paradise?”
2

This faith rules out the possibility that Islamic State jihadis will be deterred by the threat of death. They want to be killed, so that they can receive Allah’s rewards for martyrs: the virgins, pearl-like boys, cool breezes, and non-intoxicating wine of Islamic Paradise. The old Cold War–era concept of Mutually Assured Destruction will not work in this context.

The Islamic State has published numerous calls for jihad terror attacks in the United States and the West, along with manuals to explain to young Muslims how they can carry out such attacks without being caught and imprisoned. They mean to drain our economy dry with counter-terror measures against an increasingly numerous and aggressive foe. They mean to kill us by means of the death of a thousand cuts.

As long as the Islamic State exists, the West will not have peace. As long as the Islamic State exists, the United States will not have peace.

Either the Islamic State will die, or we will.

But how to kill it?

Barack Obama’s Foredoomed Plan

The Obama administration has been striking the Islamic State from the air and claiming great success. Of course, airstrikes alone have never won a war, and Obama is relying on Kurdish and other forces, supported by the U.S. from the air, to roll back the territory that the Islamic State controls. At the end of May 2015 it emerged that almost “75 percent of U.S. bombing runs targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria returned to base without firing any weapons in the first four months of 2015, holding their fire mainly because of a lack of ground intelligence and raising questions about President Obama’s key tactic in pushing back an enemy that continues to expand its territory in the war zone.”
3

In September 2014, the
New York Times
had reported that Obama “said he envisioned the Free Syrian Army’s providing the ground presence needed to confront ISIS in Syria.”
4
Obama told Chuck Todd of NBC, “We
have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted. They have been on the defensive, not just from ISIL, but also from the Assad regime. And what—you know, if you recall, at the West Point speech that I gave, I said, we need to put more resources into the moderate opposition.”
5

There were at least two problems with Obama’s plan:

1. The Free Syrian Army are allies of the Islamic State, not of the U.S.
The “moderate opposition” to which Obama wanted to devote more resources was not actually opposing the Islamic State at all. Two months before Obama stated that he was depending upon the Free Syrian Army to fight against the Islamic State, several Free Syrian Army brigades had already pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
6
And it was the Dawood Brigade, another group that had been aligned with the Free Syrian Army, that originally captured American journalist James Foley; when the Dawood Brigade pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, Foley fell into the hands of ISIS, and they beheaded him.
7

The day after Obama said that he was depending on the Free Syrian Army to defeat the Islamic State, Bassel Idriss, the commander of an anti-Assad force aligned with the Free Syrian Army, declared, “We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front [al-Qaeda’s representatives in Syria] by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in . . . Qalamoun. . . . Our battle is with the Assad regime, and it is on Syrian lands only.”
8
In other words, they were not fighting against the Islamic State, either in Syria or Iraq.

Harakat Hazm, yet another group that was aligned with the Free Syrian Army and had received training and weapons from the United States, far from welcoming and helping to coordinate the U.S. airstrikes in Syria, denounced them as “an attack on the revolution.”
9

One Free Syrian Army fighter who joined the Islamic State and then labored to get others to follow suit observed in November 2014, “Isis now is like a magnet that attracts large numbers of Muslims.”
10

2. There are no “moderates”—and fighting the Islamic State is aiding Iran.
There is no significant force in either Iraq or Syria that wants to establish a Western-style secular republic. The nation that stands to gain the most from the removal of the Islamic State from Iraq and Syria is Iran, where throngs chant “Death to America” at Tehran rallies as the tanks and rockets roll by. The U.S.-backed government in Baghdad is a weak client government of Iran, as is Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. Shi’ite militias have gone into action against the Islamic State in Iraq. The Islamic State must be removed, but if it is, the Iranians could end up controlling an arc of territory stretching from Baghdad to Beirut. There is simply no easy solution to this problem.

The Pentagon Becomes a Ministry of Propaganda

Apparently aware that Obama’s plan, such as it was, to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State had no chance of accomplishing that goal, and that any successes it did have would play into the hands of one of America’s most vicious enemies, the Pentagon began to reassure the American people that all was well: the airstrikes were a huge success, and combined with ground forces from the area, they were recapturing large segments of Islamic State territory.

The mainstream media, always eager to make Barack Obama look good, began announcing the Islamic State’s imminent demise late in 2014. The articles came in a steady stream: A CNN headline asked in November 2014, “Has ISIS Peaked? Terror Group Suffers Setbacks in Iraq.”
11
The
Atlantic
announced in January 2015, “ISIS Is Losing Its Greatest Weapon: Momentum: Evidence Suggests That the Islamic State’s Power Has Been Declining for Months.”
12
Not to be outdone, CNN followed a few weeks later with “For ISIS, Tough Times as It Seeks to Regroup.”
13
The
New York Times
announced on February 4, 2015, “ISIS Is Losing in Iraq.”
14

All this speculation about the Islamic State on its heels appeared to be confirmed on April 13, 2015, when the Pentagon announced: “ISIL is no
longer the dominant force in roughly 25 to 30% of the populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once had complete freedom of movement.”
15
On April 15, Vox buttressed this claim with its own report: “ISIS Is Losing.”
16

Just two days after this announcement, however, the U.S. military spokesmen had egg on their faces as the Islamic State placed the key city of Ramadi, just seventy miles from Baghdad, under siege, demonstrating all the characteristics of a confident, advancing force rather than a shattered, defeated, retreating one.
17

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