Article: How Western Militarists Are Playing Into the Hands of ISIS

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Reprinted from Alternet

After Paris, politicians and pundits clamor for more force and repression--just as ISIS wants them to.

The Islamic extremists who killed over 125 Parisians on November 14 were heartless murderers, but they were also political operators implementing a carefully conceived strategy. A February 2015 article in Dabiq, the official magazine of ISIS, offers a clear window into their agenda. Published in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the essay was titled, "The Extinction of the Grayzone."

"The presence of the Khilafa [Islamic Caliphate] magnifies the political, social, economic, and emotional impact of any operation carried out by the mujahadin [freedom fighters] against the enraged crusaders," Dabiq stated. "This magnified impact compels the crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves, the zone in which many of the hypocrites and deviant innovators living in the West are hiding..."

Here, ISIS revealed its intention to unravel the fabric of Western civil society -- what it calls the "grayzone" -- by provoking governments into carrying out disproportionate military reprisals and adopting draconian security measures.

Once repression and Islamophobia in Western societies reaches sufficiently unbearable levels, the author wrote, "The Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize and adopt the kufri [infidel] religion propagated by Bush, Obama, Blair, Cameron, Sarkozy, and Hollande in the name of Islam so as to live amongst the kuffar [infidels] without hardship, or they perform hijrah [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the crusader governments and citizens."

In the mind of the Dabiq author, who appeared to be among the ideological vanguard of ISIS, the West's descent into full-blown fascism would force Muslim immigrants to flee for the sanctuary provided by the Islamic State.

To bring this scenario to fruition, IS has aimed to cultivate favorable terrain for the Western political elements most likely to incite against Muslims, campaign for repressive surveillance laws, and ultimately play out an apocalyptic clash of civilizations. Indeed, IS is doing everything in its power to propel the militarists also seeking to extinguish the grayzone.

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