By Colonel (Ret.) Philip Lisagor

I was on a site visit to Abu Ghraib in 2004 after touring a medical treatment facility. One of my escorts asked, “Would you like to walk by and see the guy who beheaded Daniel Pearl.” I declined. I was on official business and sightseeing was not one of my duties. In 2004, beheading was a relatively rare act in comparison. Today, the means of execution used in political violence attracts more attention than the deaths themselves or the political context in which they take place.

Clearly ISIS is mounting what can be called an Information Operation in military terms, designed to stun, scare, and outrage Western audiences along with millions of Middle Easterners. The goal of terrorism is to cause political change in opposing states or groups by making them feel uncertain and unsafe and to destabilize or cause them to question established order. ISIS is certainly not the only actor using violent means. Yet, despite other large political events which could – and perhaps should – elicit attention and a response from the U.S. and the West, minds seem to be focused on ISIS. Why is this? What is the difference?

Violence We Cannot Look Away From

The group beheading of 23 Coptic Christians reports of live burials of Yazidi and Christian victims, and the burning to death of Jordanian Air Force Pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh by ISIS extremists have ignited outrage. At the same time, however, 39 Iraqi police were killed in a suicide bombing, eliciting little media response. The Nigerian school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, igniting the viral #BringBackOurGirls campaign, seem to have dropped off the map. The violent political turmoil which has enveloped virtually all of Yemen over the last year has been given little attention other than among area specialists.

A simple internet search will reveal a large number of other equally, if not more significant instances of violent conflict which have occurred at or around the same time or since. Russia – a conventional state actor and one-time arch Cold War enemy of the West – has invaded the sovereign state of Ukraine and claimed a significant piece of its territory as its own. Yet these events do not capture the public imagination as much as the decapitations, burials, and burnings undertaken by ISIS. This despite the fact that the varying figures of the number of deaths in the ISIS offensive in Iraq and Russian-instigated violence in Ukraine both hover around 5,000 each and climbing.

The means of execution used in political violence should not determine if or when America intervenes in armed conflicts.

Though there have not been any sensationally reported beheadings or live-burnings in Ukraine, it has not been wholly without outrageous events. A Russian-built and supplied BUK anti-aircraft missile system – likely crewed by Russian troops – downed Malaysian Airways Flight MH17 from “rebel” held territory – another event that is hardly given any mention despite the deaths of almost 300 wholly uninvolved civilians from across the world. Even shooting down an airliner is only worth a few weeks’ attention in today’s climate.

The qualitative means of execution in political violence seems to make the difference. Beheading by a knife-wielding executioner, alone or in a group, is a very personal, intimate, contact-oriented, and gruesome way to die. Despite the current outrage against ISIS, the West itself is not above nor far removed from this or similar forms of execution itself. Death, by beheading or otherwise, has been a common means of punishment for infractions against the state in societies across the world.

A History of Violence

Gruesome beheadings, once doled out by the black-hooded “axe man,” somewhat similar in appearance to the balaclava-wearing ISIS murderers, progressed to the less painful mechanism of the guillotine. The last person guillotined in France was Hamida Djandoubi, on 10 September 1977. As far as ISIS-style live burnings, Joan of Arc was burnt to death at the stake by the English in 1431 (for the crime of supporting Charles VII of France in his struggle for French freedom toward the end of The Hundred Years War). Hundreds of “witches” were burned at the stake across Europe in middle ages.

Only slightly more humanely, women found guilty following the Salem Witch Trials in the 18^th century were all hanged. More recently, the U.S. and Allied Forces hanged German and Japanese war criminals after WWII. In the U.S. — one of the last Western nations that still uses the death penalty — the death sentence is carried out by lethal injection. Stoning, both a biblical and quranic prescription for dealing death, continues to be used against women found guilty of adultery in Southwest Asia.

The means chosen by states to execute their enemies have often been part of a showing of force and righteousness by the executioners. Different means of execution may carry different political messages at different places and at different times. This is no different for ISIS, which considers itself an “Islamic State”, though the West considers it a non-state actor. ISIS’ campaign of public executions is designed to reinforce their power and image of brutality in territory they control in Syria and Iraq, but also serves to push the West into reactionary mode.

For states, execution of criminals and enemies is part of their sovereign power, though it is true that fewer of them – especially in the West – are choosing to use it today. However, for ISIS, claiming the power to execute enemies of its Islamic State serves not only as a means to do what is their interpretation of God’s will, but also the same power sovereign states claim, especially in the Middle East where the death penalty is still frequently used.

‘Civil’ War

Currently, the United States is faced with two violent conflicts, one with ISIS in Iraq and Syria and one with Russia in Ukraine. In both, in can choose to act or do nothing. There have already been many thousands of deaths in both conflicts, especially among non-combatant civilians. There are convincing arguments in both conflicts that it is in America’s interest to shape their outcomes, using armed intervention in varying forms if necessary.

However, the U.S. Congress is only considering an Authorization of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS, while the Western line in Ukraine continues to focus on a diplomatic answer. America’s ally Germany has insisted that a military solution in Ukraine is “off the table.” The U.S. appears poised to choose to fight an asymmetric war in the Middle East again despite the lack of stunning success against the same Islamic extremist foe over the same territory over the past decade. Also despite the fact that the American military was designed and would be much more comfortable fighting a conventional intervention against a Russian foe in Eastern European terrain it is much more familiar with.

So what’s the difference? Do the lives of those in ISIS-held territory matter more than those in the lands invaded by Russia? As far as American interests are concerned – something less clear today than ever – is a resurgent Russia more of a threat than an Islamic extremist terror group? Which is more of an existential threat? If America chooses to intervene against one or the other, in which case is there more prospect of success, measured in terms of clear goals and clear victories? There are no easy answers to these questions.

What is clear is that the means of execution our foes use against their enemy – especially when designed to be emotive – should not determine if or where the U.S. and its allies decide to act. That decision should be driven by a rational set of questions informed by our national values. The United States should not allow itself to be dragged into another fight in the Middle East with an unclear end-state solely because the enemy uses the most depraved means possible to execute its opponents. It should also not look the other direction when Russia causes the death of Ukrainians under only the flimsiest of covers because they are a state using the more “civil” means of machine guns and artillery barrages.

Colonel Philip Lisagor, US Army (Retired) served 3 tours in Iraq and was part of Charlie Wilson’s war in the mid-eighties, training Mujahedeen in Peshawar, Pakistan. He lives in Northern Nevada where he trains horses and skis when there is snow. He was educated at the University of Illinois and University of Chicago. He was an Ally Fellow at the Harvard-Kennedy School of Government and recently completed an MFA in writing at Brian Turner’s program at Sierra Nevada College thanks to his GI Bill benefits.

[Photo: Flickr CC: Cliff]