"Islamic State" Murders 2nd Journalist, But Still Lags Behind U.S.

With the execution of an Israeli-American journalist, Steven Sotloff, "IS" has tallied its second dead journalist. But the U.S. has wracked up many more dead journalists. IS will have to hustle to close the gap and catch up with the U.S.'s lead.

The U.S. has been killing journalists for years, of course, such as Al-Jazeera employees in Afghanistan and Iraq, when it deliberately bombed their headquarters in those places (which Al-Jazeera naively provided the locations of to the Pentagon, hoping they wouldn't be bombed "by mistake"). Then there was the infamous U.S. army attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, targeting "unembedded" journalists.

Maybe IS thinks they did something special by killing American journalists? Hell, the U.S. has killed at least as many American journalists as IS has! Danny Casolaro and Michael Hastings are two that the U.S. killed, and they were inside the U.S.

Then there are the scores of journalists still being killed with U.S. blessing by the Colombian and Honduran governments, oftentimes horrendously mutilated.

We've heard over and over in the U.S. media the words "horrible," "horrendous," "brutal," and so on, about the IS murders. I can relate. But I have this sneaking suspicion that these particular executions are "horrendous" and "horrifying" and all the rest because of WHO DID IT. After all, the U.S.' Good Buddy Saudi Arabia is RIGHT NOW chopping off people's heads, exactly the same as IS. The U.S. media is keeping it secret.

For example, there was a discussion of those awful IS people on a radio propaganda show that originates in the capital city of the empire, Washington, D.C., called the Diane Rehm show. Her habitual guests are members of the D.C. "opinion leader" set: "inside the Beltway" "journalists" and "think tank" habitues and the occasional government apparatchik. Today Rehm wondered if IS would ever do anything so horrible as to behead a woman. One of her guests opined that such an act would be upping the ante by IS. Rehm and her guests conveniently pretended not to be aware that Saudi Arabia routinely beheads women- and not for murder, but for "witchcraft" and other such "crimes." "Apostasy" is another such capital offense- that is, refusing to believe in the awful Wahhabi religion of Saudi Arabia.

We're hearing from "terrorism experts" that IS is deliberately advertising their barbarism to spread terror. "That's why they're terrorists" one said today on another program. Would that be anything like how U.S.-sponsored military death squads in places like El Salvador and Guatemala dumped the mutilated bodies of their victims in the streets, to create terror? NAH! That was "defending freedom" and "anti-communism."

Well, consistency is never the strong point of propagandists. And moral integrity isn't much in evidence among imperialists. Rank hypocrisy and the most stunning double-standards are, along with shameless dishonesty in suppressing facts, twisting facts, and inventing facts when it's convenient.

Readers of my essays already know I consider IS nihilistic scum, and I have tagged them Islamonazis for their genocidal behavior and intentions towards Yazidis, Christians, Shiite Muslims, and everybody else, so I don't have to be defensive about any of this- I'm using the word "murder" to describe their killings of the two journalists. Of course, the kneejerk defense of establishment propagandists towards anyone who exposes their crap is to accuse the analyst/critic of being on "the other side," in this case, "the terrorists' side." They impose a Manichean, black and white worldview. You're either with them or against them. You either drink their poisoned Kool-Aid and fall in line behind their imperialist acts or you're an enemy. (They did it to Edward Snowden recently, branding him a Russian spy. One jackass even compared him to Kim Philby in a public debate.)

As far as IS vs. the U.S., a pox on both their houses. Both need to be destroyed for the sake of humanity. We should rejoice when our enemies fight each other. Leftists who wring their hands and squeal in protest when U.S. warplanes bomb IS columns are cretins, morally and politically. I hope the U.S. keeps bombing them, AND I hope IS gets its hands on some anti-aircraft weapons and shoots down some U.S. planes and drones. THAT would be good news.