ISIS criminals must be held accountable
Ensuring Socio-economic JusticeIbrahim Vawda
Dhu al-Qa'dah 27, 1441 2020-07-18
Daily News Analysis
Those responsible for the unimaginable acts of mind-numbing destruction and bloody atrocities against the Syrian people are criminals and should be held accountable.
The impediment to bringing to justice those principally responsible, however, is the fact that they are the chief architects and designers of foreign policies of western imperialism.
ISIS are the chief culprits masquerading as the founders of the new Islamic Caliphate.
In the process they embarked on an orgy of death and destruction and laid waste to one Middle Eastern country after another, while working with other rebel forces to carry out their wars of regime-change on behalf of western imperialism.
The historical precedent for these acts of wanton destruction and barbarism was set in the mid-seventies of the 20th century by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Pol Pot destroyed the cultural heritage of Cambodia while carrying out a reign of terror and mass murder against the Cambodian people.
The preconditions for both ISIS and the Pol Pot regime to carry out these atrocities were prepared by western imperial hegemonic powers.
The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US in 2003 is an illustration of western supremacist designs.
This invasion led to the killing of over one million Iraqis and created five million refugees.
The implications of this policy have long since spilled across national borders.
Increasingly it has had calamitous consequences, all driven by Washington’s resort to militarism to advance its hegemonic aims over the energy-rich regions of the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.
Donald Trump once referred to Hillary Clinton as the “founder” of ISIS.
The media lambasted him for making that accusation, but soon had to eat “humble pie” when Hillary admitted to doing just that.
Who is funding ISIS? The veteran British journalist Robert Fisk opines that the answer depends upon the degree to which the world believes that the “Islamic State” is self-financing.
The number of oil wells, supposedly under their control is hardly sufficient to sustain ISIS as an “Islamic State” as well as a military force.
There are other worrying developments.
Media reports have alleged that large deposits of natural gas and fossil fuel have been discovered in the Northern Mozambique province of Carbo Delgado.
If that be the case and there is no reason not to believe it, the United States empire building machinery sees it as another opportunity to secure more natural resources for hegemonic agenda.
To be able to do so it applies its tried and tested method of creating instability in the region, using ISIS as a pretext.
The ISIS invasion will be followed by AFRICOM, whose presence is felt all over Africa.
Fast forward to Carbo Delgado. Unfortunately, it is this type of biased and double-standard reporting by media outlets and their “terror experts” that adds fuel to the Islamophobia fire.
When it comes to violence perpetrated by ISIS, no moral agency or rationalization is sought.
Entire groups are stained with immoral activity, such as terrorism, gangsterism and criminality.
Media consumers must be cautioned against this form of demonization of Islam and Muslims.
Using ISIS in its campaign to sully the image of Islam is disingenuous and goes against the principled position of “giving the other side of the story”.
When the terrorist activities of ISIS gangsters and criminals are conflated with Islam, terms such as ‘radical Islam’, ‘fundamentalist Islam’, ‘Jihadist Islam’ are used.
These terms are used to suit the objectives of western imperialism.
It is unfortunate that such reminders have to be regularly restated.
The outlandish and often barbaric behaviour of the so-called Islamic State (IS) has given greater impetus to long entrenched western prejudices and propaganda.
Ibrahim Vawda is with the Media Review Network in Johannesburg, South Africa
