Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who is known for his conservative stance on several social issues, became a target in a glossy, full-color publication produced by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria under the heading: “In the Words of the Enemy.”
During an appearance on the Fox & Friends early morning news show on Wednesday, Santorum found a silver lining in the grim situation: "Well, the difference is ISIS actually quoted me accurately, as opposed to the New York Times, which is a remarkable comment on the state of the media today.”
On a page of the Dabiq magazine, comments from the former senator were listed on the left, with a picture of him on the right.
The introduction stated: “Over the last month, a number of crusaders voiced their concerns over the power and drive of the Islamic State, its revival of Islam and the caliphate, and its eventual expansion into Europe and the rest of the world.”
“The Catholic crusader and American politician Rick Santorum” said the following during a February 27 appearance on Fox News Channel’s The Kelly File:
This is a caliphate that has been established, and that means they are calling people from all over the world to come and fight this battle. As long as they hold ground and continue to expand that ground, more and more will come.
The fact that we are delaying means that the caliphate continues to exist. They are not losing ground. They are not being discredited in the eyes of the Muslim world. They will get stronger.
“This is really important to understand,” he asserted. “The reason the West had a thousand-year war with Islam is that Islam is ever expanding. When Islam began to contract, it collapsed, and the caliphate was eliminated."
“Now they have established a caliphate,” Santorum continued. “They are dead serious about expanding it. Unless we begin to take back that ground and make this caliphate just irrelevant in the eyes of the radical Muslim world, we are going to have a bigger and bigger problem.”
On Wednesday, Steve Doocy -- a co-host of the early morning newscast -- began the interview by stating that his guest “had been singled out by ISIS” because he has spoken out about militant extremists.
“When you heard that ISIS was quoting you” Doocy asked, “you know, it's one thing if the New York Times quotes you or we quote you on Fox, but when ISIS quotes you, what do you think?”
“Well, the difference is ISIS actually quoted me accurately, as opposed to the New York Times,” the GOP official replied, “which is sort of a remarkable comment on the state of the media today.”
Santorum continued by stating:
I described who they were, what they were about, what they wanted to accomplish, and they put it out there … which is again a comment on this administration and their unwillingness to deal directly with the truth about who ISIS is.
They're a global jihadist movement that has established a caliphate. They want to expand that caliphate, and I explained what that was about, so I took it as them actually finding an American politician who actually described them as to who they really are.
“So they were just reporting the facts,” Doocy noted.
According to an article written by Laura Vozzella in the Washington Post, Santorum wasn't the only person ISIS put in its cross hairs.
CIA veteran and author Gary Berntsen was also targeted for stating: “ISIS is truly the most successful Sunni terrorist group in history because they’ve carved out space for a nation-state.”
“And ISIS has been brilliant in its pushing out of propaganda,” Berntsen noted. “It has really sold itself to the hundreds of millions of people around there that are looking for a message.”
The final person on the enemies list was Virginia state senator Richard Black, who drew international attention a year ago by sending a letter to Syrian president Bashar al-Assada, thanking him for defending Christians.
“One thing is clear,” he stated in a recent interview: “If Damascus falls, the dreaded black and white flag of ISIS will fly over Damascus. Within a period of months after the fall of Damascus, Jordan will fall and Lebanon will fall.”
As part of its glossy propaganda operation, ISIS often quotes Western officials voicing concern about the rise of the Islamic State, taking their words as something of a back-handed compliment, said J. M. Berger, co-author of the book ISIS: The State of Terror.
“Basically, they’re looking for opportunities to show how much fear they’re striking in the West,” Berger said. “Sometimes they’re not very discriminating about who they pick. The nuances of American politics can be lost on them.”
