ISIS and the Sex Factor
Thomas McNamara
American Members of ISIS, By the Numbers
The exact number of Americans who have joined ISIS is unknown, but in late February, the Director of National Intelligence, General James Clapper, testified in front of Congress that roughly 180 Americans have traveled or have attempted to travel to Syria in order to fight with extremist organizations. This marked a steep increase as six months prior to his testimony the number was estimated to be only 100. As of April, over 30 people had been charged with trying to join terrorist groups in Syria over the previous 18 months.
Also of note is the fact that since the beginning of 2013, a mere seven American residents are known to have conducted a grand total of five terrorist attacks inside the United States that were possibly linked in any way to either ISIS or some other form of Islamic extremism (the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, the October 2014 hatchet attack on four NYC police officers, Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s December 2014 murder of two NYC police officers,*[i] the May 2015 attack in Garland Texas, and most recently the July 2015 shootings in Chattanooga).
If we accept the above numbers to be generally correct, we can then make several useful deductions. First, likely between 75% and 90% of Americans who attempt to join Jihadi organizations in Syria are successful in doing so. Second, only a small fraction, less than five percent, of Americans who do decide to wage Jihad end up doing so within the United States. The pertinent question to analysts is not merely why individuals decide to travel to Syria to wage jihad. Equally, if not more important is the question of why these individuals are deciding not to wage jihad in the United States. This question is particularly puzzling since ISIS leadership has repeatedly called for potential jihadists inside the United States to do just that, wage Jihad inside the United States. Keep in mind that the lowest standard for carrying out such a terrorist attack is obtaining a hatchet and swinging it at random people while yelling Allah al-Akhbar, a far easier feat than linking up with jihadists in Syria. Why then do more than 95% of said jihadists not follow this call?
The Sex Factor
To answer this question, I offer a Mancur Oslen-esque Rational Choice Theory based answer. Sex (and also not dying so that one can enjoy such sex) is likely a largely overlooked primary explanatory factor that lies towards the top if not at the top of the long list of explanatory factors associated with the perceived splendor of the jihadi experience in Syria. Simply put, Americans who have decided on jihad have two main options. First, they have the option of traveling to Syria, fighting in the jihad, and enjoying up to four wives and countless sex slaves while doing so. If they die, then they will enjoy 72 virgins in paradise. The other option is to stay in the United States, forgo the multitude of wives and sex slaves, wage the jihad, enjoy a near 100% chance of death while waging such jihad (of the seven individuals cited above, only one survived the attacks, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and he has since been sentenced to death), and then enjoy the 72 virgins in paradise. To over 95% of those Americans who have entered the jihad, option one seems to be the preferred option, and one can certainly appreciate why.
ISIS’s “Pamphlet on Female Slaves” (released on 4 December 2014) coincides with the swell of American jihadists into ISIS’s and other Islamic extremist organizations’ ranks. In it, the rules of dealing with sex slaves are outlined. It explains that having sex with prepubescent females who are “fit for intercourse,” partaking in coitus interruptus with them, having sex with female virgins immediately upon their capture, having sex with non-virgins once their uteruses are cleaned, and beating sex slaves are all permitted within ISIS’s caliphate. Another circulated document with similar effect is the actual price list of such sex slaves. It outlines the price of Yazidis and Christians between the ages of one and fifty and the policies regarding their sale as sex slaves. These documents, whether intended to or not, seem to have been far more effective in pushing potential recruits into joining the jihad in Syria than ISIS’s repeated calls to wage jihad in the US were in convincing potential jihadists to stay inside the United States.
Of course, documents alone can only be marginally effective in influencing people’s decisions. Sadly enough, a morose reality accompanies such pamphlets. We continually hear and read accounts of mostly Yazidis and Christians, either in Iraq or Syria, being captured and sold as sex slaves. Just last Friday, ISIS captured more than 200 Syrian Christians near the town of Qaryatain, many of whom will likely become sex slaves. These accounts confirm the viability of the “wage jihad in Syria” option to potential jihadists.
Implications
It is extremely important to understand the potential threats that the U.S. faces and the magnitude of the sex factor. When ISIS captures large swaths of people and converts many of them into sex slaves, the act is not merely a representation of ISIS’s barbarism and the suffering of its victims. ISIS’s sex slave trade both demonstrates its success as well as creates more success. ISIS’s sex slave trade helps to fund the organization, but more importantly it very likely has a tremendous impact on recruiting. The ranks of ISIS are swelling as a result.
Changes to any of three components within this paradigm (changes to the “wage jihad in Syria” option, changes to the “wage jihad in the U.S.” option, or changes in perceptions of either option) will likely bring about fundamental change to current trends as jihadists decide how to wage jihad. A more permissive environment for deviant behavior or increased terrorist survival rates within the United States could lead to more potential jihadists selecting the “wage jihad in the U.S.” option. The continued expansion of ISIS’s caliphate and its sex trade could lead to jihadists continuing their influx into Syria. However, the end of hostilities in Syria and Iraq however, would lead jihadists to pursue other options, and the “wage jihad in the U.S.” option very well may be one of them. Finally, changes in extremist indoctrination practices (increased isolation or potency), both in the United States and abroad, could alter jihadi actors’ perceptions. As a result, they might be more apt to tolerate higher risks, forego potential pleasures, or not be able to correctly identify and evaluate such utility.
As we continue to formulate strategies to defeat ISIS and protect the homeland, understanding how potential jihadists think is of paramount importance. I submit that sexual factors likely play a key role as potential jihadists decide both what they will do and what they will not. Our strategies should reflect this reality.
Hyperlinked Sites
http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-sells-child-sex-slaves-for-124-2015-8
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-numbers-foreign-fighter-total-keeps-growing-n314731
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/hundreds-christians-feared -captured-isis-syria-group-n405871
http://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-pennsylvania-woman-allegedly-join-group/story?id=30086440
http://www.memrijttm.org/islamic-state-isis-releases-pamphlet-on-female-slaves.html
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/17/seven-islamic-terrorist-attacks-in-usa-in-seven-years-for-obama-administration/
End Note
[i] Brinsley’s ties to Islamic extremism is questionable, as police believe that he was revenging the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
About the Author(s)
Comments
Bill,
Thank you for your comment.
In the article, I focused on U.S. foreign fighters, as the data suggests, but I do think this explanatory factor almost certainly applies to a broader range of fighters. Thank you for the other examples of similar atrocities through time. It would be fascinating if we could find metrics that gauge and compare the effects of such behavior or motivation on war machines over time.
As for your question about expounding on strategy implications, for one thing I think that this factor underscores the importance of protecting vulnerable population centers or supporting elements that provide such protection in order to curb the benefits of the sex trade to ISIS. The Kurds come right to mind. Heck, it is even in the name, YPG, “People’s Protection Units.”
The Kurds are natural allies, and as I look at the limited support that has been offered, I can’t help but feel a little frustrated. It seems to me that our sensitivities to Turkey’s concerns, our reluctance to re-write or contribute to the re-writing of borders, and our perceived need to go through Baghdad inhibit the expansion of our support to the Kurds.
I would simply point out that ISIS and others are already re-writing the ME borders, and that the Turkey of ten to fifteen years ago (in spite of Turkey’s recent pledges of cooperation against ISIS) is gone. We need to recognize this new reality. Maybe I should write my next article on “The Death of Ataturk’s Turkey.” Thank you for the prompt.
Tom,
Are you focused on U.S. foreign fighters joining ISIL or a broader range of fighters? While it is sickening that slavery, especially this type of slavery exists in 21st Century it isn't unique to the psychopath clowns in ISIL.
Just off the cuff,
The Japanese Army conducted mass rape and kept sex slaves.
The Red Army committed more rapes than the Nazis as they "liberated" areas from the Nazis who committed their share of rapes.
Numerous incidents throughout Africa
Pakistani soldiers raping Bangladeshi women during the civil war there
and so on, and so on . . .
Individuals with power and weak character are a bad combination anywhere, as demonstrated by ISIL today. Getting more to your point, what are the implications of this for strategy?
It is depressing to realize that of the tens of thousands of essays I have read that attempt to understand the way our opponents think this is one of the very few that IMHO accurately reflects upon what motivates many, if not most, of the ‘jihadi’ we are attempting to deal with.
IMO the fact that we fail to appreciate why so many of the 20,000 or so active fighters across the globe are primarily motivated by sex and not some lofty spiritual, tribal, racial sentiment is the root-cause of why we are getting nowhere against such a feeble-minded and poorly resourced opponent.
I would argue sex and money are first and second in their motive-set. These two interchange on a day to day, week to week basis. As this essay suggests, I too am doubtful as to how someone who is attempting to shape a meaningful strategy that prioritizes God, governance, terrain, ethnicity and other behavorial energies but omits the enemy’s primary primeval desires.
On a scale of one to ten I would place sex, money, an AK, food, gang membership and a good pair of boots as the top six when we attempt to discern ‘what war we are getting into’.
In my experience if we pass over these prime motivators and attempt to glean an understanding of how our opponents think by vectoring in God, tribe, ethnicity, terrain etc. we lend our actions to what is meant by ‘screwing the pooch’.
Thirty years ago I found myself having to read Relief In Place doctrine written by junior officers stationed in the NW Frontier during the 18th and 19th centuries as I attempted to ramp up an understanding of the mindset of the ‘jihadi’ opposing the Soviet Army in AF. For a period longer than I care to admit, thep classical approach espoused by CvC, Jomini, Mao, the Arch Angel Gabriel no less, was met with laughable contempt.
I hazard to say, unlike the vast majority of military personnel and many a SWJ reader, Tom McNamara would not be surprised to learn that his essay reads much the same as the insights recorded by those junior British Raj subalterns so long ago.
( Tom I have to ask, are you related to your famous namesake?)
I find it staggering that instruction booklets on how best to rape prepubescent children (McNamara doesn’t mention both male as well as female victims) being handed out to fruitcake does not give pause to many folks suggesting the IS are the vanguard of some sort of Sunni inspired movement. The offense this causes to over a billion peaceful Muslims indicates those arguing such a position possess a complete lack of a basic understanding of the causal nature of the conflict and the nature of any possible solution.
As if we need convincing, I see in today’s newspaper the tragic fate of Kayla Mueller was compounded by the desire for rape by the top IS fruitcake.
So what?
Leaving aside the international implications of a militant organization that attracts violent sexual deviants from across the globe, the threat posed by such a large and diverse organization has grave implications for the homeland. As McNamara points out in his essay the numbers of young Americans who embrace this disgusting organization are tiny. However their born and bred in America persona means they can pass in and out of the US without attracting much attention.
As ALQ; and now IS, doggedly insert their forces deeper into the fabric of Pakistani society it is my belief that ALQ and/or IS intend to use these young American ‘skins’ to deliver a rogue nuclear weapon into the US when Pakistan inevitably falls apart.
RC