ISIS, Death and Taxes

An article in the New York Times raises the specter of Americans haring off to the Middle East to join ISIS and wreck havoc. It's supposed to be particularly shocking because several of these would-be terrorists are coming from white-bread Minnesota, where Somali immigrants have been settling for decades with very few problems.

The total number of ISIS sympathizers who have left the US is unknown, but is probably small. The FBI and concerned Somali Americans have been working together to keep these kids from going to certain misery and death in Iraq and Syria. They have been monitoring social media and have stopped many would-be terrorists from leaving the country. For example,

Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, took his younger brother and sister with him to O’Hare airport in Chicago, where agents intercepted them. He left his parents a long letter saying he could not stay in the United States because his taxes might be used to kill Muslims overseas.

It's interesting how the right-wing American objection to their taxes being spent on things they don't like -- such as abortion -- has now been wedded with Islamic fervor. Right-wing crazies are the same no matter what their religion.

The thing is, ISIS terrorists spend almost every waking moment in the Middle East killing other Muslims. This kid doesn't want his taxes to be spent killing Muslims, but he wanted to go to the Middle East where ISIS would make him kill Muslims. Huh?

Sure, ISIS terrorists have lopped off the heads of a few American, Japanese and British aid workers and reporters. But the vast majority of their victims have been tens of thousands of Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Tunisian Muslims.

By now it's clear that ISIS doesn't give a damn about Muslims or Islam. They're just a bunch of hoodlums and thieves who want to steal oil and land from real Muslims in the Middle East.

It's also clear that we can't defeat ISIS by declaring a war against all Islam. We must defeat them by exposing them as the hypocrites they are: a bunch of greedy scum bags flying a fake Islamic flag using Muslim kids to murder other Muslims to set themselves up as petty dictators, pedophiles and slave traders.

By characterizing ISIS as an Islamic entity and declaring war on all Islam, Republicans are blundering into the trap that ISIS has set. The more Republicans scream about the fight against ISIS being a war against Islam, the more American kids will want to join ISIS.

Because, you know, kids are contrary like that.