They came from the Dungeons of Tyrants. The Dungeons are still there.

According to someone belonging to an earlier generation of radical jihadists who now resides in a maximum security prison in the US and views shared by others who are critical of present policies pursued, there has to be a different narrative from the “them or us” zero sum game of war.

   

ISIS are not like the jihadists recruited from all over to fight as it was in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. They are the Sunni Muslims that have lived through 25 years of wars, torture, and rapes. They are the Iraqi that have suffered from unjust wars started by the US. They are Syrian people tormented, barrelled bombed and massacred by Bashar Assad.

When the US pulled out of Iraq in 2010, the Shia led by Maliki’s government started killing and torturing the Sunni day and night.

The US and the world’s response was that it was an internal problem. It seemed that they are trying to spin it like ISIS are aliens from another planet. Arab and Muslims know ISIS are the native people of Iraq and Syria. Some were incarcerated in American prisons in Iraq during the occupation for years.  And nothing nurtured the growth of ISIS as much as the marginalization and humiliation of Iraq’s Sunni community in the gloomy dungeons of Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca. Guantanamo is still the living glaring grotesque image and lingering dread of human degradation of Muslims rendered and designated arbitrarily as enemy combatants.

They had tribal support which are very big families in Iraq. The Iraqi people are the most stubborn of the Muslim world. They will not accept occupation or dishonour.

The recruits for ISIS are Muslims from all over the world that have seen an injustice of nearly a century, seeing only defeat, powerlessness, hopelessness, indignation and humiliation. They want to help and be able to do something. They apparently see an organization that is effective and winning battles. They want to be with their brothers and sisters in their time of need. They wish to do their part in the jihad.

Imagine the plight of Iraq and Syrian people. After a year of bombing, they see their people killed, their land and homes destroyed, children so scared that they hide all day. Bombs come from the sky and they are unable to stop it. US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James speaking about replenishing munition stocks said, "We're in the business of killing terrorists, and business is good." This is business to them. But it is human life. Human life has the right to exist.

So, the question should be who is the first to be blamed? We have to tell both sides of the story.

Arabs are not radicalizing themselves but action by US and its allies including its rival Russia is radicalizing them. People see the pictures, days and nights of bombs, the refugees, and the millions running away from war.

Arabs want to live the way they want to live. For a century they have suffered under dictators and tyrants strongly backed by the West. They want to live a decent life, that is all. The West want them to live under their law, their order, their control. But the West will not give them freedom.

They cannot live like the West. They are different from them and the only thing that keeps them just and sane is Islam.

If they have an Arab leader without Islam which is not superficial, he turns out to be  a dictator.

Out of the deepest and darkest dungeons of these despots, ISIS came and declares an Islamic State after a century of living under cruel dictators who were tolerated, encouraged, nurtured, collaborated and supported by the West.

ISIS thus came forth and the problem of Muslims got even worse.

More important than a competition for strongest terms to denounce ISIS (or insisting on calling out the Arabic acronym Da’esh because of an alleged derogatory connotation in Arabic) Europe and the US need to think about some real policy changes.

In order to solve the root of the problem, everyone has to become human again. They need to engage, to talk to one another, however bad it maybe. No person must be regarded as sub human or unter menshen nor infidel.

A retired veteran jihadi made this plea, “We have to let the people decide what they want. We need to leave them alone. We cannot go on fighting and killing for the rest of our limited lives.”