Another one that hurts

I'd love to but I still have no idea what point you are trying to make.

Jihadist propaganda uses the loss of human lives to persuade people.If they hold life cheap, the loss of human lives would not be persuasive.Jihadist propaganda stands as evidence against your statement that 'they hold life cheap.'I'm not sure how to break it down any more. If you could explain to me what part is confusing, that would help me to help you. I am in danger of sounding patronising again, but I'm at a loss as to how this is complicated.

Correct. And for it to happen there are those amongst the enemy that are, in fact, 'pure evil'. The majority, of course, are not. And I've made a point of saying that repeatedly. Well it would be if that was what I am saying. But as it isn't .....? Well that's getting closer, but of course that too is exagerated. There seems to be a core group of many thousands of 'pure evil' with enough deluded suicide recruits to create a fascist, mediaeval state capable of doing the most hideous things to their fellow Muslims - like beheading the curator of a museum and hanging his headless body off a lampost just in case others missed the message. Those that do these things, may hold their own life dear like the rest of us, but not so much others. Particularly the infadel. Of course they do. Good. Not good. Those that do these wicked things are dehumanised and they should be denounced for it. What shouldn't be done is to tar all Muslims with the same brush. I disagree. I think they do the things they do for the reasons 'evil' people have always done evil things at a group level; power and dogma. They're opportunists filling a vacuum, this is not a people's revolution - it's the exact opposite, it's an attempt to create a totalitarian, murderous theocracy which they want to spread throughout the Middle East and onwards and so far they're doing quite well at it.We're in severe danger of downplaying and looking the other way on that.

From my perspective Jihadist propaganda is composed of murderers beheading captives, hanging bodies from lampposts and publishing their acts on the internet. They publish the murderers pre-death announcements proclaiming Allah to be great to recruit more fanatics willing to act for their cause.How does any of this suggest that they do not hold life cheap? They kill their own people and anyone that disagrees with their fascist dogma to further their cause or to persuade others to kill themselves. They have no concern for the loss of lives and some have no concern even for their own.

It doesn't suggest that.What you did was list a series of things which confirm your hypothesis.Unfortunately you neglected to tackle the evidence with challenges your hypothesis.

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"It's crucial for Muslims to keep in mind that the Americans, the British, and the other members of the coalition of terror have intentionally targeted Muslim civilians and civilian targets, both before, as well as after September 11. In both the first and second Iraq wars, as well as in their forays into Somalia, the Sudan, and Afghanistan, just to give you a few examples. And they've done this with the support and backing of their populations and electorates. I mean, even if there have been some feeble protests scattered here and there in the West, chiefly against the latest war in Iraq. All the same, the governments which started these wars have been reelected by the majority of the popular vote.

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"And their aggression against Afghanistan, which for Westerners and their mercenary sympathizers, is the least controversial of Bush and Blair's terrorist wars. They have targeted civilians for assassination and kidnapping. They kidnapped any non-Afghans they found, and shipped them off to Guantanamo or worse. Many were handed over to the American and British-backed despotic regimes of the Islamic world, to be brutally interrogated. And with the blessing and support of that notorious Afghan-killer Hamid Karzai, they've murdered thousands of Afghan civilians as they slept in their beds, traveled on the roads, attended weddings, and prayed at the mosques. I know they've killed and maimed civilians in their strikes because I've seen it with my own eyes. My brothers have seen it. I've carried the victims in my arms, women, children, toddlers, babies in their mothers' wombs. You name it, they've probably bombed it. I could go on and on - and that's just Afghanistan. We haven't talked about American and British atrocities in the two Iraq wars. Let's take a look at the latest to be revealed. In Mahmudiya, five American soldiers gang-rape an Iraqi woman, and then, to hide the evidence, murder her and three members of her family, and burn her body. Then, when our mujahideen take revenge on the unit which committed this outrage, and capture and execute two of its members, they're called terrorists, and Muslims are supposed to disown them or face the consequences.

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"And where is Britain in all of this? Coaching from the sidelines, and lending a helping hand whenever possible. I'd like to remind those who ludicrously claim that Britain treats Muslims better than America, that Britain is the one who taught America how to kill and oppress Muslims in the first place, by drawing on experience gained during hundreds of years of blood-soaked colonialist history. And lest you forget, Britain is today, besides prosecuting its occupation of southern Iraq, is the one heading the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, and relieving the bloodied and bruised Americans in the south and east of the country. And we haven't mentioned the fact that these actions of the Americans and British are prohibited by the same international laws and treaties, which they hypocritically claim to uphold and protect, and which they impose on others, even as they themselves violate them with impunity. And nor have we mentioned their unconditional support for the butchery and terrorism of their dear friend and ally, Israel, which I imagine everyone knows about.

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"So after all the atrocities committed by America and Britain and their allies, which constitute terrorism in every sense of the word, you want us to observe restraint and civility in our response, or better yet - not respond at all? You want us to target their soldiers and tanks only, which as we've seen, still makes us terrorists in our eyes. And why should we target their military only - because to do otherwise would violate the precepts of that idol, that false god called international law, which we've conclusively shown, they themselves violate? No thanks, we have our own law, the law of God, who says in His book: 'And if you punish, let your punishment be proportionate to the wrong that has been done to you.' And we have the Sunna, the example of our Prophet, peace be open him, who erected catapults against the people of Qaif, despite the presence of women, children, and non-combatants among them, and who excused the inadvertent killing of the unbelievers' women and children in night raids.

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"I'm not saying that we should go and slaughter their women and children one by one, like they did ours, at Haditha, and Ishaqi, and Mahmudiya, and God knows where else, even if some of our legal experts have permitted that, and even if it is hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures, just pictures, of what the Crusaders did to those children, and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines' housing facilities at Camp Pendleton. But what I am saying is that when we bomb their cities and civilians, like they bomb ours, or destroy their infrastructure and means of transportation, like they destroy ours, or kidnap their non-combatants, like they kidnap ours, no sane Muslim should shed tears for them. And they should blame no one but themselves, because they're the ones who started this dirty war, and they're the ones who will end it, by ending their aggression against Islam and Muslims, by pulling out of our region, and by keeping their hands our of our affairs. And until and unless they do that, neither Forest Gate-style police raids nor Belmarsh or Guantanamo prison cells, nor the mosques and imams of the advisory council, will be able to prevent the Muslims from exacting revenge on behalf of their persecuted brothers and sisters."

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Adam Gadahn, al-Qaeda senior operative {deceased}

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To the non-Muslims of Britain: You may wonder what you have done to deserve this. You are those who have voted in your government, who in turn have, and still continue to this day, continue to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters, from the east to the west, in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Chechnya. Your government has openly supported the genocide of over 150,000 innocent Muslims in Falluja...

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"You have offered financial and military support to the U.S. and Israel, in the massacre of our children in Palestine. You are directly responsible for the problems in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq to this day. You have openly declared war on Islam, and are the forerunners in the crusade against the Muslims."
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"Allah, in Surat Al-Nisa, says: 'What is wrong with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah, and for those weak, ill, cheated, and oppressed, among men, women, and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors, and raise for us from among you one who will protect, and raise for us from you one who will help.'"
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"Oh Muslims of Britain, you, day in and day out on your TV sets, watch and hear about the oppression of the Muslims, from the east to the west. But yet you turn a blind eye, and carry on with your lives as if you never heard anything, or as if it does not concern you...You will never experience peace, until our children in Palestine, our mothers and sisters in Kashmir, and our brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq feel peace
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"Our blood flows across the earth. Muslim blood has become cheap. Where are those who will avenge the blood of our children in Palestine, and the rapes and massacres of our sisters in Kashmir?"

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Shehzad Tanweer 7/7 suicide bomberEdited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Correct How is my evidence challenged? The fanatics are merely doing what fanatics do - blame the other side. There are many things we should be heartedly ashamed of, we've made some catastrophic mistakes - some of them not even mistakes.But ISIS are doing this to their own people. When these lunatics take over a city they kill everyone that disagrees with their methods and dogma and impose a fascistic regime of repression of their fellow Muslims. They have no care at all who and how they kill - they do not care for even the lives of their own people let alone us.Propaganda is evidence of lies and distortion - it's a very tortuous argument you are trying to make.

What are they blaming the other side for doing?Taking lives of their people.This appeals to emotions, as part of the propaganda effort. Those emotions exist because they do not regard life as cheap.

So in your view, when ISIS massacres Yazidi men, children and those women they deem too old to rape enjoyably, are they regarding their lives as cheap or not ?

In plain words, I'm disappointed to see the tenor of discussion drop to the point where members are being labeled racist ("it was just you being a racist," Modulous, Message 353), and where members are condemned because the country where they live was once led by a supposedly immoral prime minister ("Sayeth a citizen of Britain whose repeated support of war-criminal Tony Blair had caused the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq which caused up to a million innocent civilian deaths." Dronestar, Message 352).This isn't the topic, so if that isn't plain enough then we can discuss it through PM. But remember, I'm just a participant here. You can ignore me.--Percy

'Those emotions' exist in the people they wish to influence - ordinary Muslims. They do not exist in the people that are promoting the propoganda and murdering their fellow Muslims.If you're just trying to make the point that ordinary Muslims have feling just like everybody else, we agreed on that about ten thousands words ago and many times since.

Does this emotive question attempt to elicit heat or light?I was discussing terrorism in the West.

They are not motivated by the loss of life. They are motivated by the lack of acceptance of their religious views and submission to their authority. It takes more than a few psychopaths to man all the road blocks and to execute people by the score because they are wearing the wrong clothes or belong to the wrong tribe. You cant execute doctors and aid workers under the banner of respect for life. It is not a respect for life but rather a fanatical devotion to religious belief. We don't need propaganda to dehumanize people who would execute a woman doctor who refuses to cover her face. Or who would put someone in a cage and then set them on fire or who would kill someone because of their sense of humour. It is not a distortion to say that these people are inhumane.No doubt that there are many who have been pressed into service and many more who are held captive in their territories with no rights of movement. No doubt that there are scores of children who have been indoctrinated and really can't be held accountable. I agree that we need to be specific about our condemnation and retribution.

In your view, then, we should separate our analysis of ISIS when it supports and promotes terrorism in the West, from our analysis of it when it operates in its own back yard in Syria/Iraq ? Does that not lead to a severely selective conclusion ?

I agree that there are leaders and followers.

Exactly. Do you suppose that once they are persuaded by the jihadists, they lose their emotions?

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Are you seriously proposing that ISIS is composed purely of psychopaths?

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Psychopathy (/saɪˈkɒpəθi/), also known asthough sometimes distinguished fromsociopathy (/soʊsiˈɒpəθi/), is traditionally defined as a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior.

Only the likes of psychopaths really value life cheaply, and I would imagine they rarely kill themselves for causes.