Warriors of the so-called \u201cIslamic State\u201d
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A couple of days ago, someone sent to\u00a0me, on Facebook, an item about an ISIS fighter who had allegedly been involved in child sex trafficking but who has recently been killed by the Russians in Syria.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since, as a few readers of this blog may know, I have some slight interest in the Middle East, and since I assumed the item to be accurate \u2014 after all, ISIS does engage in child sex trafficking, on a mass scale, so it was immediately plausible \u2014 I shared it on Facebook. \u00a0(I didn\u2019t post it here, though. \u00a0Partly because I deemed one of the photos in the shared item to be just a tad graphic.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ensuing\u00a0Facebook discussion soon indicated, however, that, while ISIS does engage in child sex trafficking \u2014 and in the wanton destruction of ancient treasures and in torture and in gruesome executions and genocidal mass murders, and so forth \u2014 this particular<\/em> man, although he was, so far as I can tell, clearly an ISIS fighter, had not in fact been engaged in child sex trafficking in the particular photo that purported to show him so engaged.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I thought that the Facebook discussion covered things pretty well. \u00a0I assumed that the people who looked at the item on Facebook could read, and that they would soon be able to discover, just as I had quickly been able to discover, that there was a major inaccuracy in the item that had been sent to me on Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One Latter-day Saint woman, though, made an effort\u00a0to correct my supposed belief that \u201call\u00a0Muslims are evil, intent on the destruction of us all,\u201d by sharing with me a pair of quotations (from Elders George A. Smith and Parley Pratt) that are very positive about Muhammad and Islam. \u00a0She took them from an article in the Ensign<\/em>\u00a0that was written by my friend and colleague Professor James Toronto. \u00a0In fact, I myself have used\u00a0them in books, multiple articles, and many lectures\u00a0over the past thirty years or so. \u00a0(I think that she and I now have things worked out on that score.)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another apparent member of the Church, though \u2014 this one a fellow named Rick Douglas Richards, of Flower Mound, Texas \u2014 has proven more implacable. \u00a0Mr. Richards has demanded that I publish a retraction of \u201c[my] post.\u201d \u00a0I pointed out to him that it wasn\u2019t<\/em> my post, that I\u2019d merely passed it on, that the subsequent discussion had pretty clearly demonstrated that the relevant photo in it had been inaccurately identified, and that I thought that everybody else could read this and understand it as well as I could. \u00a0Moreover, I tend to regard previous publications and posts and so forth as part of the historical record, in a sense, and I\u2019m generally disinclined to alter them without powerful reason. \u00a0Finally, in that very light, I saw no great urgency in correcting the piece, since the man is dead and cannot be slandered, since I didn\u2019t give (because I don\u2019t know) his name, since he was in fact an ISIS fighter, and since ISIS does in fact engage in precisely the kind of child sex-trafficking activity mentioned in it.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr. Richards\u00a0weighed in vigorously, with the same personal warmth and charity that he\u2019s repeatedly shown to me at Facebook over the past year or more.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
First, he pronounced\u00a0an ironic comment that I\u2019d made\u00a0earlier (and that he\u2019d completely misunderstood)\u00a0\u201cabsolutely mind numbingly ridiculous\u201d \u2014 which was what I had intended it to be \u2014 and then, with considerable exaggeration, declared the Facebook item \u201cblatantly false.\u201d \u00a0\u201cThis is very typical of the \u2018Daniel Peterson\u2019 way of doing things,\u201d he wrote. \u201cPost something inflammatory regardless of its accuracy just to get a rise out of your minions. Dude your credibility is in the toilet.\u201d \u00a0\u201cYou are perpetuating a lie, a fabrication, propaganda,\u201d he observed in a follow-up post. \u00a0\u201cHave you no respect for truth?\u201d \u00a0(He\u2019s claimed for\u00a0a very long time\u00a0that I don\u2019t, though, so the seeming tentativeness of his question surprised me just a bit. \u00a0Is he softening?)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHey,\u201d he continued, generously undertaking to speak\u00a0on my behalf. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll just post this because it will wind people up and stir up controversy, I don\u2019t know if it is accurate or not. WHO CARES?!!\u201d \u00a0\u201cThis,\u201d he said, \u201cis your modus operandi. You don\u2019t recognize this?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fact that I haven\u2019t yet made a public announcement that the Facebook item that\u00a0I had initially accepted as authentic is actually inaccurate, said Mr. Richards, is evidence of either\u00a0\u201cpride or a lust for deception\u201d on my part. \u00a0Obviously deeply\u00a0concerned for my good name, he warned me that \u201cI don\u2019t think your reputation can take this kind of blatant evidence of your folly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
More importantly, though, there have<\/em> evidently been a few who, not reading through the Facebook comments, have taken at face value the item that I innocently shared. \u00a0I don\u2019t happen to think that the very worst thing in the world, or even very important, since ISIS remains probably the single most evil organization of which I know, but . . . well, it\u2019s true that the photo isn\u2019t accurately identified.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Accordingly, I hereby announce to everybody out there who may have seen this item on Facebook \u2014 including all my brain-dead \u201cminions,\u201d as Mr. Richards labels them \u2014 that, although ISIS engages in child sex trafficking, this particular man was not<\/em> engaging in child sex trafficking when the particular photo of him was taken that appears in the Facebook item.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I next indulge my \u201clust for deception,\u201d I think it will be on a different topic. \u00a0Maybe something a little more spectacularly false and unjust. \u00a0Stay tuned!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 A couple of days ago, someone sent to\u00a0me, on Facebook, an item about an ISIS fighter who had allegedly been involved in child sex trafficking but who has recently been killed by the Russians in Syria. \u00a0 Since, as a few readers of this blog may know, I have some slight interest in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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