The Business of Emotions

The blog of Dr.Richard Marsden

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s near death experience Reblogged from November 16, 2014 in the light of Isis leader "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 'seriously wounded in air strike'"

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So you think ‘Jihadi John’ is Mohammed Emwazi?: Lessons in Emotional Deception

So you think ‘Jihadi John’ is Mohammed Emwazi?: Lessons in Emotional Deception

This is a link to a pdf of a short book I have written on this issue:

So you think ‘Jihadi John’ is Mohammed Emwazi?

If you click on the above link you can download the entire book.

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Islamic State's hot emotions and cool calculations

Islamic State’s hot emotions and cool calculations

In the case of ‘Islamic State’ there is a marked contrast between the emotions necessary to commit the atrocities for which they are known and the emotions necessary to create those staged videos of the deaths of their captives.

Islamic State is a swirling vortex of disgust, contempt, anger and hate which cuts a swath wherever it goes. What connects these emotions is a negative evaluation of…

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'Did ISIS doctor the footage of Japanese hostages?' No way!

‘Did ISIS doctor the footage of Japanese hostages?’ No way!

‘Did ISIS doctor the footage of Japanese hostages?’  asks the Daily Mail here. ‘Experts’, they say, suggest that it is. No kidding.

Allthese ISIS videos are, not ‘doctored’, because that implies that there is a core of authenticity to them, but simulations—composites comprised of people and things at different times or different places assembled using video deception techniques. They could be…

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Comment on ‘The race to save Peter Kassig’ by Younes et al (Guardian, 18 December, 2014)

Comment on ‘The race to save Peter Kassig’ by Younes et al (Guardian, 18 December, 2014)

Comment on ‘The race to save Peter Kassig’ by Younes et al (Guardian, 18 December, 2014) by Dr. Richard Marsden

On Thursday, December 18, 2014, The Guardian published ‘The race to save Peter Kassig‘ by Ali Younes, Shiv Malik, Spencer Ackerman and Mustafa Khalili. To refresh memories here is the preface to the story:

The American aid worker was killed by his Isis captors on 16 November. Here, for…

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ISIS Lessons in Terror Marketing: How to Change the World by Deception

ISIS Lessons in Terror Marketing: How to Change the World by Deception

The story so far: a handful of videos, which most of us have never seen, featuring a man-in-black whose face we cannot see and whose voice we cannot authenticate, together with four strangely fearless hostages, whose beheadings we do not witness, and whose divorced torso and head could be created by any half-decent theatre or opera company, have facilitated the once unthinkable return of…

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's near death experience

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's near death experience

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s near death experience

When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had a narrow brush with death a week ago, I wasn’t at all surprised. He was due for one. The best way of breathing life into a fictional character is to threaten it with death. The timing was right too. What better way for a President to sell an unpopular decision—the announcement of 1500 more US troops bound for Iraq—than by reminding Americans of the price of not doing…

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Objective achieved: Anglo-America returns to the scene of the crime

Objective achieved: Anglo-America returns to the scene of the crime

[This post assumes you have read the preceding posts on Islamic State. The argument is cumulative.]

The argument I’m developing is that the ‘beheading’ videos that are attributed to ‘Islamic State’ are not what they seem. They are creations of a military deception (MILDEC) operation targeted at Western public opinion.

The immediate objective of this deception was to create the conditions in the…

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When the Enemy is Us: MILDEC and Islamic State

When the Enemy is Us: MILDEC and Islamic State

That ‘All warfare is based upon deception’ (Sun Tzu, The Art of War) is well known and accepted. Less well known and, no doubt, hotly disputed is that the same techniques used to deceive an external enemy can be turned upon the civilian population of the armed forces’ host country and ‘allied’ countries. A modern day Sun Tzu might write, ‘All warfare is based upon deception, but not all military…

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A comment on Alan Henning and 'Another Message to America and its Allies'

A comment on Alan Henning and ‘Another Message to America and its Allies’

This post examines the video ‘Another Message to America and its Allies’ which purports to show the decapitation of the British taxi driver Alan Henning. As with previous videos in this series I look for evidence of emotional authenticity and emotional deception. Is this video what it claims to be?

Another Message to America and Its Allies ►

JavaScript required to play Another Message to…

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Serena Shim sees behind the Islamic State deception and is killed

Serena Shim sees behind the Islamic State deception and is killed

This fine map is courtesy of Akhil Kadidal of Hermes’ Wings. Click to enlarge.

A week ago, the Lebanese-American journalist Serena Shim reported that she had evidence that Islamic State combatants were being smuggled back and forth to the besieged town of Kobane from Turkey in the back of convoys of vehicles of the World Food Organization and other aid organizations.

If true, the implications of…

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Islamic State is not the Iraq Resistance: A comment on 'A Message to the Allies of America'

Islamic State is not the Iraq Resistance: A comment on ‘A Message to the Allies of America’

MILDEC-Haines ►

JavaScript required to play MILDEC-Haines.

This post examines the video ‘A Message to the Allies of America’ which features the apparent beheading of David Cawthorne Haines, a British citizen, by the Islamic State. The video was ‘discovered’ by the SITE Intelligence Group on September 2, 2014, who released it ahead of the media wing of Islamic State. Imagine that. Rita Katz…

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The Secret of Islamic State's beheading videos revealed

The Secret of Islamic State’s beheading videos revealed

Do these two characters remind you of anyone? At first glance, you might think that the two images above document the gruesome death of the latest victim of Islamic State. But you’d be wrong. They are screen shots I took of an episode of the Turkish TV action drama Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu(Valley of the Wolves Ambush), episode 230. The show focuses on the adventures of a Turkish agent working under…

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The Stephen Sotloff and Jihadi John Morality Play: A comment on 'A Second Message to America'

The Stephen Sotloff and Jihadi John Morality Play: A comment on ‘A Second Message to America’

MILDEC-sotloff ►

JavaScript required to play MILDEC-sotloff.

Preamble

This post examines ‘A Second Message to America’ from, we are told, Islamic State. The video features the testimony and apparent death by beheading of Steven Joel Sotloff, a citizen of both the United States and Israel, who plied his trade as a journalist most recently in Syria where he was captured a little over a year ago.

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On the trail of Islamic State

On the trail of Islamic State

Between my last post and this I’ve been away and busy with other things. In the interim, here in Hyperborea, migration is well underway and the icy claw of winter beckons.

Further afield, Good declared war on Evil in the Middle East.

This war is not to be missed. It is, as they say, is a teachable moment. To better understand this war, then, I’m going to resume my analysis of the series of videos…

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The Pistorius Disorder

Introduction

Re the trial of Oscar Pistorius for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, Judge Thokozile Masipa, will render her verdict on September 11. This post reflects on the influence of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders on the trial.

The court has been presented with two competing explanations of what happened that night. Either:

Years of accumulated stress caused by the…

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