Matt Welch on the Reality and Propaganda of War

The threatening-looking man on
the January 2015 cover of Reason is an Islamic State
(ISIS) terrorist with a British accent who took the lead role in
propaganda videos showing the beheading of American journalists
James Foley and Steven Sotloff, acts of horrifying brutality that
helped propel the United States into war. So why did we put this
image on the cover of Reason? Because, writes editor in
chief Matt Welch, we are using a version of a startling image to
illustrate the foreign threat du jour. But unlike most, we also see
it as an indictment of the way foreign policy is conducted
nowadays.

View this article.