American Outrage over ISIS’ Burning of Jordanian Pilot — Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh — Reflects in Equal Measure Our Own Killing Hypocrisy

© 2015 Peter Free

 

04 February 2015

 

 

Blindly indulged outrage misses karma’s teaching purpose

 

ISIS, one of history’s more brutal forces, burned Jordanian pilot, Lieutentant Muath al-Kasaesbeh, to death some weeks ago. The news surfaced yesterday in an ISIS video.

 

Predictably, everybody on the anti-ISIS side was hysterically outraged.

 

Overlooked in our visceral aversion was the symbolism of ISIS’ reported burying of Lt. al-Kasaesbeh’s body in alleged bombing rubble, which the Islamists attributed to the Jordanian pilot’s fighter mission. In short, among other things, his death was payback.

 

 

When we do not understand why our adversaries are so pissed off, we are unlikely to find effective means to defeat them

 

Execution by burning is little different (in morality or outcome) than burning and blasting people to bits from the air.

 

In Vietnam, for example, the United States made a practice of dumping napalm and phosphorus onto Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army combatants. Today, we drone murder militants and innocents with impunity.

 

As ISIS advances across Iraq and Syria, Americans generally think that it is okay to engage them from the air, without putting our troops significantly at risk. Yet, when adversaries engage in symbolically equivalent payback, we are outraged.

 

Our insurgent, terrorist, militant opponents undoubtedly feel the helplessness that comes with not being able to engage their opponents man to man. Even when our troops do engage, Western air power tilts the fighting balance indomitably against them. It is understandable, given the nature of guerilla combat, that they will take their passions out on the captives they take.

 

This is especially so because the United States has already set a reprehensible example of nation-sponsored torture.

 

 

The moral? — When we ignore our own contributions to cultural hatred, we outrage our adversaries that much more

 

War is brutal. We started this one under President George W. Bush, and we should be prepared for its violent aftermath to bite our coddled asses. The West’s hypocritical histrionics are ethically unbecoming.

 

I loathe ISIS, but I have no difficulty seeing how the arrogant violence of American stupidity created and sustains them. Karma is an unwelcome bitch for people too spoiled to see their contribution to it.