Who Are Those Guys?

ISIL

The citizens of the civilized world, as well as those of us who live in the once-civilized world, are understandably appalled by the atrocities committed by ISIL. We find ourselves asking whether such brutal and inherently evil acts can be committed by sane people. Equally troubling is the obvious enthusiasm with which these men carry out these vicious acts. These young jihadists actually appear to enjoy murdering innocent men, women and children. Can this be motivated solely by religious belief or is there something else at work, something deeper, some form of mass psychosis? Such evil is evident in individual serial killers, but to encounter it wholesale in large groups of young men is profoundly disturbing. We have, of course, seen it before -- in the Nazi death camps, in the Soviet gulags, in Mao's cultural revolution, in the killing fields of Cambodia -- and we will doubtless encounter it again, long after ISIL has gone the way of its evil predecessors.

Daniel Hannan

In the meantime, though, the questions remain. Perhaps the most interesting answer is that given by Daniel Hannan, one of the few sane voices in the European Parliament. In a recent blog entry he asks, "What makes some British Muslims become jihadis?" His comments are worth reading and his advice worth heeding.