‘ISIS’ is Spelled ‘H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D’

Islamic State fighters have executed the director of antiquities for the city of Palmyra. Eighty two-year-old Khaled al-As’ad was beheaded, and his body hung on an ancient column in the city’s main square.

The Islamic State group has made a name for itself with more than just its extreme violence. Anyone can be cruel, but most countries, organizations and people hide their cruelty. They hide it even if they’re not ashamed. The Islamic State group, on the other hand, makes a show of its cruelty.

That’s not news to anyone. So what if someone killed, beheaded, blew up or chopped up someone else? Is anyone surprised? People hang each other in town squares, behead each other in parking lots, send each other to gas chambers, and put each other in electric chairs.

The Islamic State group isn’t different from other executioners just because it has turned death and brutality into a show. It’s different because it has turned that show into an art form. The Islamic State group isn’t shy about the fact that it is evil. It isn’t hiding that. It presents its evil, its hatred, its inhumanity — even its anti-humanity — with a Hollywood flourish and Broadway pizzazz.

What the Islamic State group does isn’t run-of-the-mill evil. It’s not evil for profit, nor for power. It’s evil for the sake of a show. The Islamic State group is a nation of evil artists, poets, directors, producers and costume designers.

There’s such a thing as “trademark style”, and the Islamic State group’s trademark style is all Hollywood. The orange jumpsuits, the convulsions of a person burning alive, blood spurting at the camera, endless firing squads … it’s all the passionate design and high-quality work of a filmmaker. The script, staging, costumes and camera all betray the work of Western professionals.

What does evil look like to a Western person? It comes from above and destroys the symbol of Western civilization, freedom and might. Evil throws down the gauntlet.

Remember the chilling footage of planes flying into skyscrapers? Remember the speechless cries of people fleeing from the collapsing buildings? Remember how they fell? They sank to the ground as if slowly, smoothly, majestically, all filmed from multiple points of view.

Two symbols of American greatness: the twin towers. The towers of money. The towers of freedom. The towers of might. Potent. National and masculine pride.

Both the Islamic State group’s showy executions and the attacks on the twin towers have the same audience, Western viewers, and the same trademark style.

I doubt anyone will be surprised if I say that al-Qaida and the Islamic State group were both spawned by the West. That’s nothing new, just a reminder. However, the trademark style of their most recent actions shows that they have the same target. It’s not the Libyan, Iraqi or Afghan governments. The target is the West.

If disparate groups can’t be united by a common goal, then it is possible to unite them against a common enemy. If there is no enemy, no problem; just create one. You can give it the chance to grow, arm it, allow it to act with impunity and set it loose.

The most important thing about creating an enemy is that it must be terrifying. It must be so obviously terrifying that everyone, no matter how dull, understands that this blood-covered enemy with a human leg in its hand is the only alternative to an alliance with the U.S. People must understand that live immolations, mass executions, beheadings and legalized rape are the only alternative to gay marriage, feminism, pervasive surveillance and American extraterritorial justice.

The Western establishment is raising the Islamic State like an attack dog. It’s feeding it, training it to have a taste for human blood, and planning to set it loose. Once it’s free, they’ll give others a choice: Either let it kill them, or hide behind the global capitalist fence. However, there is a price for entry. It’s not money. At least, not only money. The price is freedom. The price is the right to decide right from wrong for yourself. Whoever wants to enter must give up that right to their master. And they really are master to those who enter.

The 1930s are repeating themselves. The only difference is that this time it isn’t backward Nazism opposing the forces that want to reform the world order. This time, it is backward, or postmodern, radical Islam: an archaic character with a torch, a knife and a video camera. Its job is to force all humanity into one project, to deprive the world of alternatives. It must replace or destroy everything that can offer the world an alternative path to development.

In this case, the methods say a lot about the goal.

The goal is power at any price. For them, power is the ability to set the price of admission. Needless to say, there is no exit.