When I saw the headlines on Friday that Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John”, was likely killed by a US airstrike near Raqqa, Syria, it was the first time I’d thought about the man who crowed over my friend Peter Kassig’s dead body in months.
I afforded my friend’s would-be executioner – most analyses of Pete’s “beheading” video indicate that he fought back and was likely only beheaded after his death – so little attention before because, to me, Emwazi was like an actor in a revolting commercial. He may have starred in Isis’s twisted play about killing unbelievers, but he was nothing more than a symbol – a stupid fanatic with an English accent that they used to rub western incompetence in our faces.
Don’t get me wrong. He clearly reveled in his gruesome assignment and treated my friend’s life as a prop in his bosses’ production. But before we go congratulating ourselves on possibly killing this man, here’s a sobering thought: how many other eager Emwazis are waiting in the wings to be the next Isis propaganda star? Something tells me his absence will not be felt too deeply by the men who pulled his strings.
Every time we carry out a “limited” airstrike against Isis targets, they have another propaganda video to show their eager recruits. I can imagine the message being something like: “See what the godless Americans are doing to us; come help us fight them, because actually they’re not doing very much at all and you probably won’t die if you join in.” Our lukewarm efforts may actually be helping them draw replacement Emwazis into their deluded, disgusting version of what the world should look like – probably not the best course of action. But they do make for good soundbites, as does Emwazi’s death.
Following news of the airstrike against Emwazi, Diane and John Foley, parents of James Foley, one of Pete’s fellow hostages who was also forced to take part in one of Emwazi’s videos before being killed, said this in a statement: “If only so much effort had been given to rescuing Jim and the other hostages who were subsequently murdered by Isis, they might be alive today.”
I second that bitter observation and would prefer that our governments not pretend that Emwazi’s alleged death is a “strike at the heart of Isis”, as UK prime minister David Cameron boasted in his own statement today, but a move that might play well on TV but will do little to damage the men who killed my friend.
In the meantime, the war in Syria rages on, millions have died and been displaced by the bloodshed, and the US continues to devote resources to pursuing the questionable policy of limited airstrikes and arming rebels who – as Friday’s peshmerga defeat of Isis in Sinjar, Iraq, demonstrates – are having some success in their quest to liberate their land from the invaders.
But chipping in so these people can fight and die to protect their homes from mass murderers makes me feel somewhat ashamed, especially when I hear US Secretary of State John Kerry or President Barack Obama trumpeting our commitment to destroy Isis and all the success we’re having doing so. I tend to think that it’s unfair for us to take credit for someone else’s fight when they’re bleeding and we’re not.
I generally dislike the idea of US military involvement, but perhaps having someone I care about murdered by terrorists has made me somewhat biased in this case. We need more than piecemeal, symbolic efforts if we’re going to prevent more civilians, and more Pete Kassigs, from dying.
This all aside, I wish the last headlines I read about Emwazi from July about him being on the run from his former comrades had proven to be true rather than thinly sourced tabloid fodder. It would have been much more fitting for him to have died a small and shameful death at the hands of the creatures who made him their mouthpiece than with the aggrandizement we are now affording him.
