IS stands for ‘Islamic State’. But is it really?

Doubtless the majority of followers in IS are muslims. And the official ideology that IS proffers can be traced back to Islam – the same way a sausage can be traced back to a cow.

But I think that referring to IS as an islamic organization misses the point. Who cares what a murderous band of barbarians believe in? Some may be fundamental muslims, others not. What unites them are their deeds, not their beliefs. We have seen this before.

Most of the Khmer Rouge who murdered themselves through Cambodia didn’t really believe in Communism – not by a long shot. The IS is similar in many regards. In fact, IS are the Khmer Rouge of the 21st century: a brutal, genocidal, unscrupulous organization that pretends to follow higher goals while plunging a region into dread, death, and decay.

I contend that few men today have become members of the IS’s fighting force for religious reasons. The more we learn about what they do, the more we come to realize a disconcerting fact: those who join IS do so because the IS promises them three things:

• that they will be given a weapon to prop up their ego
• that they can rape any women and feel good about it
• that they have the cheap excuse of being pious

To many men, this is a surprisingly simple sell: it’s easy to become someone important: hold a gun and pray to god. Then you can screw any woman you want.

That’s way more attractive than what the West can offer: work your ass off and still be poor.

Small wonder that losers from all western societies flock to the killing sands in Syria and Irak.

So is the IS really a religious state?

No.

They are an unchecked manifestation of men’s primal desires: sex and violence.

Religion merely serves as their fig leaf.