Nicolas Henin Reflects On ISIS

++Nicolas Henin was held hostage for 10 months by ISIS. During that time several of the international hostages were beheaded,including a few of his friends.

++He now is in Europe and works on The Syria Campaign, a non-profit organization that reports on the situation within Syria.

++Henin says that ISIS is an apocalyptic cult that believes a Wahhabist prophecy that Crusaders will invade Syria and that 80 armies of Moslems will drive them out. As his captor told hymn, we are like the Matrix but on another Matrix than you.

++He believes the bombing campaigns only reinforce their ideology and force Syrians to become radicalize and join ISIS. He says that every event around the world is seen through their ideological prism and that success can only come when that prism fails to incorporate the news. 

++When Henin was captive, the most earthshaking event was Angela Merkel's stated welcome to Syrian refugees. Here was a situation where thousands of Moslems were "fleeing their dreamland". It was not supposed to happen. Recruitments fell to 50 a month from a high of 1,500.

++What ISIS kept telling their people was that there could be no "grey zone" where Moslems and the West could co-exist. 

++Henin went on to say that the West has to give the Syrian people hope. He says that Assad's regime is still exceeding the death toll of ISIS. He said there is two catastrophes in the same space. And that the West must engage the people on the ground.

++Henin says that the only way to destroy ISIS is to destroy their idea. For instance, if the West had enormous number of flights of humanitarian assistance, the Syrian people would know they aren't abandoned to their fate from either oppressor.  

++Henin proposed that any no-fly zone should literally be a no-fly zone for all parties. 

++I like his idea of how the Moslem Dreamland was destroyed by the thousands leaving and then being welcomed in the West. Henin notes that in the Paris Attacks ISIS purposely left Syrian papers to stimulate a backlash in the West.

++Oh and how they succeeded. Look at the American reaction. 

++Clearly someone has to think more clearly when we are bombing Syria to smithereens.