British photojournalist John Cantlie, held hostage by the Islamic State, appeared in a new propaganda video attacking the West’s plans to use Iraqi troops and Syrian rebels to fight ISIS. In the video, he appears in a Guantanamo-style jumpsuit.
The video, titled, “Lend me Your Ears”, was read out by the prisoner, similar to a lecture. The video is the third video featuring Mr. Cantlie who has been held prisoner for the last 22 months. The previous two videos were released on September 18 and September 23. In the latest video, Mr. Cantlie’s beard and hair appear to have the same length as the second video and there is the view that both may have been filmed the same day as there is no reference to recent action against the Islamic State.
The latest video focuses on U.S. President Barack Obama’s September 11 speech where the president had criticized ISIS as unislamic. The speech is described as “prideful chest banking” and “disappointingly predictable.”
At the end of the five-and-a-half minute video he indicates that there will be more messages to come.
The transcript:
Hello, I am John Cantlie, the British citizen abandoned by my government and a long-term prisoner of the Islamic State.
President Obama’s address on the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks finally stopped all of the ninnying around and and laid down his four-stage strategy for confronting the Islamic State.
There were no big surprises. U.S. aircraft will provide the air power while a mix of Iraqi army and Iraqi national guard – not yet formed – peshmerga fighters and Iranians – not mentioned – will do the ground operations.
The borders between Iraq and Syria will be opened and Syrian rebels will be armed and all of this with only 475 U.S. advisory personnel doing the job, and not a single U.S. combat solider with his boot on the ground.
‘We will be lead a broad coalition to roll back the Islamic State’, said Obama. ‘We are hitting ground targets while Iraqi forces go on the offense. I will not hesitate to take action against the Islamic State in Syria’, he said.
Now, when exactly Gulf War Three will start and how long it will take is not covered.
U.S. advisors working with the Iraqi army have described their performance as ‘consistently grim’ while arming and training a effective national guard of supposed Sunni fighters in Western Iraq will take months to achieve.
The Free Syrian Army have proved to be an undisciplined, corrupt and largely ineffective fighting force. As recently as September 11 a serving U.S. intelligence official said ‘our intelligence assessment has no serious consideration to working with the FSA’.
Giving the FSA $500million now is a completely pointless exercise, never mind that fact that the FSA sells the weapons the West gives them to arms dealers and smugglers and much of it then ends up with the Islamic State.
Air power is good at taking out specific targets but it is not much use at taking and holding ground. For that you need effective and disciplined troops and it is hard to see how this hotch-potch army with a long history of under-performing is going to be any form of credible infantry.
After that speech Peter Baker of the New York Times observed that Obama is ‘plunging the United States into one of the bloodiest, most vicious conflicts now in existence. He will hand his successor a volatile and incomplete war, much as his predecessor left one for him.’
Mr Baker goes on to comment that while previous presidents enjoyed a surge of public support when they took the nation to war, the public is not rallying behind Obama this time around.
Now polls indicate that while the American public support military action against Islamic State, they do not think that Obama is the man for the job.
Which goes a long way in explaining the simplistic language he used in his last speech. Obama was a pains to point out that ‘groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm, that was the case before 9/11 and remains so today.’
If this reality was not changed by two arrogant wars before, why would a third change it now?
Obama described the Islamic State as ‘not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of their victims have been Muslims. Islamic State has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in their way.’
Now if by innocents he means women and children, then the Islamic State did not kill the Christian and Yazidi women and children of Mosul and Sinjar. This is an undeniable fact. And they do not regard the Shias as Muslims at all.
In fact, according to them, the Shias are considered worse than Americans as they are apostates claiming to be Muslims while worshipping the dead.
And the Islamic State does have a vision. They have created an autonomous and functioning caliphate.
But expanding on the complex social and political issues of the region isn’t going to work when it’s war you want. And so the speech was full of hyperbole about how America was saving innocent men, women and children.
‘This is American leadership at its best,’ said Obama. ‘We stand with people who fight for their own freedom,’ he said, before the speech descended into prideful chest-beating about how the U.S.A. always saves the world single handedly.
It was all disappointingly predictable. America is good, the Islamic State is bad and they will be defeated using aircraft and a motley collection of fighters on the ground.
For their part the Islamic State say they welcome meeting Obama’s under-construction army.
Join me again, for the next programme.
