Shedding light on the beheadings

The Civilized World (saddly, apparently this does not include most of the Western Intelligentsia or the Europeans) has been shocked by the beheadings of hostages that have taken place in Iraq, a practice whose motives are as hard to understand as they are revolting.

Michael Ledeen offers keen insight on the matter. The monstruos acts are not addressed to us, but to them; they are recruiting tools, not attempts to make us cower:

This is not about us -- it is about them. The beheading films are recruitment tools. They've been around for a long time, part and parcel of the first generation of "jihad" home movies, circulated mostly in North Africa to excite homicidal fanatics and lure them into the Islamist bands. The main difference between then and now is that their marketing and distribution have improved, thanks to their comrades at al Jazeera and al Arabiya, and the Internet.

[...]A movement that draws its foot soldiers from people who dream of beheading one of us is clearly a barbarous phenomenon, one that puts the lie to the notion that our enemies in this terror war are human beings driven to desperation by misery and injustice. Not at all: The recruiting films are aimed at subhuman homicidal maniacs who revel in bloody brutality. Given the human capacity to rationalize most any ghastly behavior, some of the killers' supporters ? even in the Western intelligentsia ? include misguided souls who are so confused they can accept and even justify barbarism in the name of the cause of the moment. There is nothing new in invoking ends to justify dreadful means. But in this case, the means ? the beheadings ? define our enemies and their followers.

[...]It follows that there is no policy that will successfully end their jihad against us short of total surrender and mass conversion to their brand of Islam. They see us, quite explicitly, as animals who deserve slaughter. The terrorists' recent response to Tony Blair's statement that he would not negotiate with them was eloquent: We are not interested in negotiations, they said. Either the British withdraw or we will slaughter the hostage.

Do not think for a moment that the beheadings are a unique form of viciousness aimed only against Americans or American allies. Beheading has been a common form of execution of Islamic (and Christian, and Bahai, and Zoroastrian) enemies, and I have no doubt the jihadists have beheaded more of "their own" than of ours. It is not about us, it's about them.

Clearly, as it was the case more than sixty years ago with the previous form of Fascism the world faced, compromise, dialogue and "nuance" will only embolden the enemy; uncompromised, total war is the only way we have to confront the death-loving Islamofascists of today.