Center for Strategic Communication

Why is ISIS bad? It’s a basic question that I encounter a lot, along with the related question, why is ISIS so evil?

Good and evil are value judgments, so everyone will have a different opinion about what deserves the labels. But we can at least say that ISIS (aka the Islamic State) is out of step with mainstream morality in most Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

Still, that begs the question: why is ISIS so bad relative to mainstream culture? The answer lies in ISIS’s needs and desires.

  • ISIS wants to revive parts of Islamic scripture written in the early Middle Ages. Perhaps those parts reflected mainstream morality then but they’re out of step with today’s mainstream.
  • ISIS wants to terrify the local population to subdue it. As you’ll see in my book, ISIS could govern and fight differently but it doesn’t think the alternatives are effective.
  • ISIS needs to raise money, which is hard to do legally when everyone wants to destroy you.
  • ISIS needs to excite young men to fight for its cause. Sex and violence is one way to do it.

Most of what ISIS does arises from one or more of those needs and desires. They combine to motivate some of ISIS’s worst atrocities, like slavery, destroying and looting antiquities, and beheadings.

ISIS atrocities 9-15-2015 (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more on what motivates ISIS, read The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State.

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