NOVANEWS
By: Arun Gupta
A still from the Islamic State group video showing men in orange jumpsuits purported to be Egyptian Christians, made available on social media Feb. 15, 2015
The Islamic State’s gruesome propaganda serves its purposes well, and those of the United States too.
The U.S. government and the Islamic State were made for each other. Each portrays the other as sadistic tyrants. Each has grand power ambitions. Each uses slick propaganda to sell their war to supporters.
The main difference is this is not a contest of equals. Western media claim the “terror group’s tentacles now reach from Algeria to Afghanistan,” but the United States is a global power and ISIS, as the group is commonly known, is little more than a paper tiger. As analyst Gary Brecher points out, ISIS is a relatively small fighting force with little ability to defeat a conventional army, which is how nearly all wars are won, or govern a population, which is how the peace is secured.
Nonetheless, ISIS has used propaganda to hone an image at once terrifying, effective, and resolute. It’s helped ISIS draw recruits from the West, financing from wealthy Gulf State patrons, and the allegianceof militant groups from Egypt to Indonesia. But ISIS’s real skill lies in exploiting power vacuums in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, resulting from Western intervention and weak sectarian states.
The main difference is this is not a contest of equals. Western media claim the “terror group’s tentacles now reach from Algeria to Afghanistan,” but the United States is a global power and ISIS, as the group is commonly known, is little more than a paper tiger. As analyst Gary Brecher points out, ISIS is a relatively small fighting force with little ability to defeat a conventional army, which is how nearly all wars are won, or govern a population, which is how the peace is secured.
Nonetheless, ISIS has used propaganda to hone an image at once terrifying, effective, and resolute. It’s helped ISIS draw recruits from the West, financing from wealthy Gulf State patrons, and the allegianceof militant groups from Egypt to Indonesia. But ISIS’s real skill lies in exploiting power vacuums in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, resulting from Western intervention and weak sectarian states.
