Provide a path to clarity for those who have low ambiguity tolerance. — Bitter Crank

I do like this quote. (Y)

The DIY approach using the means at hand leads to clear results. The goal of terrorism is NOT to attack our deepest, dearest values (like Liberté, égalité, fraternité). That's too big, too complex. Rather, it's to instill a sense of vulnerability, instability, insecurity. It's a way to "bring the war back home". "You too should suffer." It works. — Bitter Crank

It does this by being unpredictable and untraceable to any collective governing agency.

The easiest way of gaining notoriety without skill is martyrdom (paraphrasing Schopenhauer)

Ideas? — Bitter Crank

Tighten immigration and restrict the availability of firearms.

I find these acts morally indefensible ... — Bitter Crank

When our boys give their lives in our cause, they are heroes. When our bombs indiscriminately kill civilians, we call it collateral damage, a price worth paying.

It is not that hard to understand the state of mind that sees the world to be run by a tyrannical, exploitative, monstrous cabal equivalent to the Nazis, against which every and any means of resistance is morally defensible.

There are only two possible solutions; dismantle the poisonous regime from within, or else the final solution. So far, we are going for the second.

It is not that hard to understand the state of mind that sees the world to be run by a tyrannical, exploitative, monstrous cabal equivalent to the Nazis, against which every and any means of resistance is morally defensible. — unenlightened

In what way is this state of mind which
a. sees the world run by a tyrannical, exploitative, monstrous cabal
b. sees any means of resistance as morally defensible
not itself rather like the Nazis? And where is the "within" wherein the poisonous regime might be dismantled?

Islamic States is not an anomaly. Running roughshod over other peoples, causing much deliberate and collateral damage is a human modus operandi. Our fellow 'paragon of animals', those with whom we share the 'apex of creation', pretty much all behave the same, given the opportunity. It's who we [humans] are, it's what we [humans] do.

Fortunately, it is also in our collective common interest to rein in roughshod horses as often as possible, be they ours or someone else's, lest we end up in Armageddon or some other sort of final "kill them all" solution.

So... how do we rein in Islamic State? How, without or within?

In what way is this state of mind which
a. sees the world run by a tyrannical, exploitative, monstrous cabal
b. sees any means of resistance as morally defensible
not itself rather like the Nazis? And where is the "within" wherein the poisonous regime might be dismantled? — Bitter Crank

It is rather like. As we are rather like. And we are alike in our refusal to understand the humanity and morality of the other. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends, and takes a few of his enemies with him. Our morality is his morality.

It really isn't difficult. Stop bombing my country, and perhaps I will stop driving trucks into your parades. To stop a desperate man, help him out of his despair instead of making it greater. First let's take the hatred and violence out of our eyes, and then we will see better how to remove it from IS.

Count up the innocent deaths, and you will find that we are way ahead in the race to barbarism. I find all this outrage highly inappropriate; "How could they?" "How can they be stopped?" are the wrong questions. Replace 'they' with 'we'.

Count up the innocent deaths, and you will find that we are way ahead in the race to barbarism. I find all this outrage highly inappropriate; "How could they?" "How can they be stopped?" are the wrong questions. Replace 'they' with 'we'. — unenlightened

Is this about a body count? Because if it is, let us not leave out the MILLIONS of people who are fleeing their homes by land and by sea, many times losing their lives in the process. Must there be a body count? It does us no good my friend.
People, rational, logical people, people like you AND me, are weighing the safety of staying in their homeland, being killed and crucified or sending their loved ones off, on overloaded boats, with fake life vests, on the open sea, headed for what? A chance to live and not die at the hands of barbarians.
Pardon me if I give those fleeing the benefit of the doubt.

I found this helpful:

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/17/falling-into-the-isis-trap/

____

Falling into the ISIS Trap:


Special Report: The Islamic State has entered into “phase two” of its plan. After establishing a rudimentary “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq (phase one), it is now seeking to provoke the West into a self-defeating overreaction, a trap that “tough” politicians are falling into, as historian William R. Polk describes.

By William R. Polk

The terrorist outrage in Paris has brought the reaction that “the ISIS strategist” assuming there is such a singular person expected and wanted, a massive, retaliatory bombing raid.

The strategist knows that such military action by the West has proven self-defeating in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. These predictable reactions and overreactions not only did not stop the insurgents, but helped them recruit more supporters by hurting a lot of uncommitted bystanders. ISIS learned the lesson; our leaders apparently have not.

Anger and revenge are emotionally satisfying but not productive. The issue we face is not just how to retaliate against ISIS, which is easy, but how to achieve affordable world security. The first steps are to understand where these extremists come from, why some people support them and what they want. Only then can we cope with them.

But, as I read the press, listen to the statements of world leaders and watch the takeoff of fighter-bombers, I see little sign our leaders have found the road toward security. I do not find the satisfactory beginnings of a careful and sophisticated analysis in what is now being said or done. So, drawing on many years of observation, discussions and research, I here offer a few notes on terrorism and our counterinsurgency policies and will focus on ISIS (also known as ISIL, Daesh or the Islamic State).

I cast my comments in five areas: (1) our assets and those of our opponents; (2) their strategies and ours; (3) what drives their actions; (4) the results of our actions; and (5) our options. I begin with our advantages and weaknesses and theirs:

—The United States, the major West European states and Russia employ large intelligence services that are informed by a variety of surveillance devices (telephone tapping, radio intercepts, code breaking, aerial and satellite imagery and other, even more esoteric, means of tracking, observing and identifying people).

In addition, our security services continue to employ traditional covert activities and have virtually unlimited funds to buy information, encourage defection and “rent” temporary loyalty. Plus, the bulk of the community from which the attacks are mounted wish the attacks would stop. Thus, our most important asset is the desire among the vast majority of people in all societies who simply do not want their lives deranged. They want to live in peace.

Picking Sides

–Resident populations in rebel-held areas are probably neutral. But they are caught between two dangers: ISIS and us. What we do and what we do not do will sway them in one direction or the other. The “ISIS strategist” understands this and seeks to get us to harm or frighten the bystanders. When and where they can, many will run away from the near danger (as hundreds of thousands have).

But, in today’s counterinsurgency weapon of choice aerial bombing there is little difference between “near” and “far.” Targeted killings may kill leaders (and people in close proximity), but aerial bombings are more massive and less discriminating. The “ISIS strategist” knows that the heavier our attacks the more they will rally support to the ISIS banner.

—ISIS’s major asset is the asymmetrical nature of the targets that the two sides expose to one another: modern industrial states like ours are highly articulated and are, necessarily, complex whereas ISIS’s organization is loose, inexpensive and scattered. We saw this contrast clearly, even before the rise of ISIS, in the Sept. 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attack on America. The attack cost the lives of only a couple of dozen terrorists and probably less than $100,000 but killed several thousand victims and cost the American economy perhaps $100 billion (a cost compounded by the long-running follow-on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In addition, there were the psychological, legal and political costs. Al-Qaeda had little to lose in terms of law and morality, but it pushed the United States into activities that weakened its traditional values and created distrust among its citizens. For al-Qaeda, it was a very cheap victory.

–ISIS’s vulnerability is that the vast majority of Muslims want, as people everywhere have always wanted, to go about “mundane affairs,” gathering and consuming, working and playing, competing and procreating. They are not fanatics and do not want to be martyrs or heroes.

Indeed, the “ISIS strategist” takes a dim view of these common people. In the document that forecast ISIS strategy Idarah at-Tawhish· (The Management of Savagery) the strategist or strategists wrote:

“Notice that we say that the masses are the difficult factor. We know that they not generally dependable on account of [how the foreign imperialists and native turncoats have shaped them and we realize that there will be] no improvement for the general public until there is victory. [Consequently, our strategy] is to gain their sympathy, or at the very least neutralize them.”

How does the “ISIS strategist” propose to do that? His answer is a socio-political program aimed at “uniting the hearts of the people” by means of money, food and medical services and by providing a functioning system of justice to replace the corrupt system of its domestic rivals. That program has had some success but is vitiated or potentially undermined by ISIS violence and the terror it projects.

(Sayyid Qutb, an Islamic theorist who was executed in Egypt in 1966, may be taken as the philosopher behind Muslim Fundamentalism, and Abu Bakr Naji, perhaps a nom de guerre or even a committee, may be — or may have been — what I call “the strategist.” For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Understanding Islamic Fundamentalism.”)

Ill-Advised Wars

–The American-European and Russian strategies against guerrillas and terrorists have both relied primarily on military action. This was obvious in our campaigns in Afghanistan. The Russians are now at least in part repeating in Syria the strategy they employed in Afghanistan just as we repeated much of our Vietnam war strategy in our engagement in Afghanistan. The U.S., our allies and Russia are now apparently embarked on the same general strategy in Syria and Iraq.

The supposedly more sophisticated strategies (such as encouraging training, anti-corruption campaigns, “security” programs, jobs creation, various forms of bribery and other economic activities) are given relatively minor attention. Least attended is the political dimension of insurgency.

Yet, at least by my calculation, the reality of insurgency is the reverse of how we are spending our money and devoting our efforts. I have calculated that in insurgency politics accounts for perhaps 80 percent of the challenge; administration is about 15 percent; and the military-paramilitary component is only about 5 percent. A look at the program numbers shows that our allocations of money, political savvy, administrative know-how and military power are in reverse order.

–Three reasons explain why these allocations which, although proven ineffective, are still employed: the first is failure to understand the political dimension of insurgency as I believe most of the counterinsurgency “experts” fail to do; the second is that “standing tall,” beating the drum and calling for military action win plaudits for political leaders; and the third is that arms manufacturers and the workers who make the weapons want to make money.

On that last point, President Dwight Eisenhower was right: the military-industrial complex (to which we have added the lobby-corrupted Congress) is “the tail that wags the dog” of American politics.

We don’t have to guess what the strategy of ISIS is. Their leaders have told us what it is. The Management of Savagery (using the Arabic word tawhish, which evokes a sense of dread and is applied to a desolate area, the haunt of wild beasts, where there is no humanity or softness but only savagery, terror or cruelty) specified the long-term campaign to destroy the power of those societies and states that ISIS calls “the Crusaders,” i.e., the Western powers, which ISIS identifies as imperialists, and to cleanse Islamic society of the turncoats who support them.

The Three Stages

–The ISIS campaign falls into three stages:

The first stage is “vexation” of the enemy aimed at creating chaos in which the forces of the foreign powers and their local proxies are distracted and exhausted while Muslim terrorists and guerrillas learn how to use their power effectively.

The second stage is the “spread of savagery,” which begins locally with small-scale attacks and metastasizes. Individuals and local groups take up the cause and act either on their own or with limited coordination. Those who carry out ISIS programs will do so because they have adopted its ideas not because they are directed by any central authority.

As their campaigns spread, ISIS’s enemies, and particularly the United States, will seek to retaliate but will be frustrated. “America will not find a state on which it can take its revenge, because the remaining [states] are its clients,” according to the plan. “It has no choice but to [occupy] the region and set up military bases. [This will put it at] war with the population in the region. It is obvious at this very moment that it stirs up movements that increase the jihadi expansion and create legions among the youth who contemplate and plan for resistance.”

“So,” the “ISIS strategist” writes, the correct tactic is to “diversify and widen the vexation strikes in every place in the Islamic world, and even outside of it if possible, so as to disperse the efforts of the alliance of the enemy and thus drain it [of energy, will and money] to the greatest extent possible.

“For example: If a tourist resort that the Crusaders patronize in Indonesia is hit, all of the tourist resorts in all of the states of the world will have to be secured by the work of additional forces, which [will cause] a huge increase in spending.”

As though implementing this plan, ISIS claimed that its supporters downed a Russian airliner in recent days in the Sinai Peninsula as it returned from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Shaikh.

The plan continues: “If a usurious bank belonging to the Crusaders is struck in Turkey, all of the banks belonging to the Crusaders will have to be secured in all of the countries and the draining [that is, the costs of security] will increase.

“If an oil interest is hit near the port of Aden, there will have to be intensive security measures put in place for all of the oil companies, and their tankers, and the oil pipelines in order to protect them and draining will increase. If two of the apostate authors are killed in a simultaneous operation in two different countries, they will have to secure thousands of writers in other Islamic countries.

“In this way, there is a diversification and widening of the circle of targets and vexation strikes which are accomplished by small, separate groups. Moreover, repeatedly (striking) the same kind of target two or three times will make it clear to them that this kind (of target) will continue to be vulnerable.”

The attack on Paris was not, as The New York Times announced on Nov. 16, a change of ISIS tactics; it was an event that fit exactly into the second stage of the long-range strategy.

‘Fighting Society’

The third stage is the “administration of savagery” to establish “a fighting society.” To minimize the air power of its enemies, ISIS has turned itself into an almost nomadic state, virtually without frontiers. But within the areas it controls, it has set out a socio-political program that aims at “uniting the hearts of the people by means of money, food and medical services and by providing a functioning system of justice under Sharia [Islamic] governance. From this base it will become possible to create a rudimentary state.”

The “ISIS strategist” draws a lesson from the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan. Since the Afghans could not defeat the Russians in formal battles, they aimed to provoke the Russians so that their forces over-extended themselves and they were caught in a wasting, unwinnable conflict. This conflict bankrupted the Soviet economy while the harsh tactics the Russian army employed cost the Soviet Union the support both of their own people and the Afghans. America and Europe, the “ISIS strategist” believes, can be lured into a similar trap.

In this struggle, the “ISIS strategist” believes, violence is the key. It weakens the enemy while it performs as the school almost the social “hospital” needed to transform corrupt societies into tomorrow’s Islamic “true believers.” In this policy, ISIS may have been inspired by Frantz Fanon, the Afro-French-Caribbean psychiatrist, whose book, The Wretched of the Earth, reached a vast audience in the Third World.

As Fanon wrote, violence is a “cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.”

The “ISIS strategist” thought of violence both in those terms and in the impact of violence on its opponents, writing: Jihad “is naught but violence, crudeness, terrorism, frightening (others), and massacring.”

It also must be conducted ruthlessly: “Jihad cannot be carried out with softness. Softness is one of the ingredients of failure for any jihadi action. Regardless of whether we use harshness or softness, our enemies will not be merciful to us if they seize us. Thus, it behooves us to make them think one thousand times before attacking us.

“Consequently, there is nothing preventing us from spilling their blood; rather, we see that this is one of the most important obligations since they do not repent, undertake prayer, and give alms [as required in Islam]. All religion belongs to God.”

Making the enemy “pay the price” can occur anywhere: “if the apostate Egyptian regime undertakes an action to kill or capture a group of mujahids [combatants] mujahids in Algeria or Morocco can direct a strike against the Egyptian embassy and issue a statement of justification, or they can kidnap Egyptian diplomats as hostages until the group of mujahids is freed.

“The policy of violence must also be followed such that if the demands are not met, the hostages should be liquidated in a terrifying manner, which will send fear into the hearts of the enemy and his supporters.”

As we know, liquidating captives in a terrifying manner is an ISIS specialty. But, as we look over guerrilla wars, we see it to have been generally practiced.

Guerrilla Playbook

–The ISIS politico-military doctrine that the “strategist” lays out can be described as a religious version of what Mao Zedong and Ho Chi-minh proclaimed as their kind of war: a combination of terrorism when that is the only means of operation, guerrilla warfare when that becomes possible as areas of operation are secured, and ultimately — when the conflict “matures” — the creation of a warlike but minimal state. This sequence often has played out in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries all over the world as I have reported in my book Violent Politics. It is ugly, brutal and costly, but it has nearly always eventually succeeded. ISIS has adopted it.

As ISIS leaders tells us, they regard their struggle “not as an economic, political, or social battle” with state-like opponents for territory but “a battle for minds,” underwritten by a determined proclamation of Islam. Nothing quite like it has been on the world stage since the great wars of religion in Europe some 400 years ago.

Why would Western nations today plunge into the kind of battle? If we cannot answer that question and ultimately cope with the answer we have many painful years ahead of us.

–The ISIS guidebook, Management of Savagery, begins with an interpretation of the world Muslims inherited from imperialism and colonialism. Not only Muslims but most of the peoples of the Third World suffered grievously. And their descendants harbor painful memories of “the ghastly destruction of souls.” According to ISIS, the great powers and their native proxies “killed more people than have been killed in all of the wars of the jihadis in this century.”

Is this just hyperbole, designed to inflame hatred of us? Unfortunately, it is not. Whether we remember these events or not, the descendants of the victims do.

Memories of the years beginning after Columbus led the way across the Atlantic become increasingly bitter. As first the Europeans, then the Russians and later the Americans — the world’s “North” — gained in relative power, they thrust into the “South,” destroying native states, upending societies and suppressing religious orders. Imperialism, with the resulting humiliation and wholesale massacres of populations, although largely forgotten by the perpetrators, remains today vivid to the victims.

The numbers are staggering: in one relatively small part of Africa, the Congo, where one in ten is a Muslim, the Belgians are estimated to have killed about twice as many natives as the Nazis killed Jews and Roma — some 10 million to 15 million people.

Hardly any society in what I call “the South” lacks memories of similar events inflicted by “the North.” Look at just the more recent military record:

In Java, the Dutch imposed a colonial regime on the natives and, when they tried to reassert their independence, killed about 300,000 “rebels” between 1835 and 1840; they similarly suppressed Sumatra “rebels” between 1873 and 1914.

In Algeria, after a bitter 15-year-long war that began in 1830, the French stole the lands of the natives, razed hundreds of villages, massacred untold numbers of natives and imposed an apartheid regime on the survivors.

In Central Asia, the Russians and Chinese impoverished or drove away previously thriving populations. While in a bitter war in the Caucasus, as Tolstoy recounts, the Russians virtually wiped out whole societies.

In India, after the attempted revolt of 1857, the British destroyed the Mughal Empire and killed hundreds of thousands of Indians. In Libya, the Italians killed about two-thirds of the population of Cyrenaica.

Old Grievances and New

One may reasonably say that these things are long in the past and should be forgotten. Perhaps, but there are other slaughter, just in the last few decades, that cannot be so excused. In the American campaign in Vietnam (a non-Muslim society), napalm, cluster bombs and machineguns were followed by defoliation, cancer-causing chemicals and assassination programs that, in total, killed perhaps 2 million civilians.

In Afghanistan, the numbers are smaller because the population was smaller but, in addition to about half a million deaths, a whole generation of Afghan children have been “stunted” and will never grow to their normal size or, perhaps, mental abilities. Afghan casualties in the Russian war are unknown but could not be less than half a million. In Iraq, as a result of the U.S. invasion in 2003, estimates run up to about a million Iraqi deaths.

Death is only one result of war; the survivors face continuing terror, starvation, humiliation and misery. As the structure of societies is severely damaged or destroyed, civic life has often been replaced by gang warfare, torture, kidnapping, rape and desperate fear.

Studying these events, I am reminded of Thomas Hobbes’s description of mankind before civilization, “poore, nasty, brutish and short.”

Collectively these and other results of imperialism, colonialism and military intrusions into “the South” of the world constitute a holocaust as formative to current Muslim action as the German holocaust has been to Jewish action.

The scars still have not healed in many societies. We see the legacy in the fragility or complete destruction of civic organizations, the corruption of governments and the ugliness of violence.

As the “ISIS strategist” writes, and as I have heard from many informants in Africa and Asia, we of the “North” practice racial and religious double standards. When “they” kill a European, we rightly react with horror. Any killing is abominable. But when “we” kill an African or Asian, or even large numbers of Africans or Asians are killed by ISIS or another terror group, we hardly notice.

On Nov. 13, the day before the attack on Paris, a similar attack was carried out in Beirut, Lebanon, in which 41 people were killed and about 200 were injured. Almost no one in Europe or America even noticed. This is not merely a moral issue although it is certainly also that but cuts to the quick of the issue of terrorism.

Memories of events such as these go far to explain why young men and women, even those from relatively affluent and secure societies are joining ISIS. To “airbrush” the record, as an English journalist with wide experience in Asia has recently written, is to fail to understand what we are up against and what we might be able to do to gain affordable world security.

Successful Insurgencies

–The results of insurgency are described in my book Violent Politics. There I have shown that in a variety of societies over the last two centuries in various parts of Africa, Asia and Europe, guerrillas have nearly always accomplished their objectives despite even the most draconian counterinsurgency tactics.

Consider just one example, Afghanistan: the Russians and then the United States deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, large numbers of mercenaries and native troops and used unprecedented amounts of lethal force over nearly half a century of warfare.

While the outcome is not yet definite, it is obvious that, at minimum, the guerrillas have not been defeated. Afghanistan has been called “the graveyard of imperialism.” Its role in destroying the Soviet Union has been well-documented. It is not through with us yet.

Consider also results in those parts of the world where hostilities have been relatively subdued. When I was a young man, in the 1940s and 1950s, I could go into villages practically anywhere in Africa or Asia and been received cordially, fed and protected. Today, in virtually all of those places, I would be in danger of being shot.

So what are our options in this increasingly dangerous world? Let us be honest and admit that none is attractive. Public anger and fear will certainly make some of them difficult or impossible to effect. But I will here put them all “on the table” and evaluate them in terms of cost and potential effectiveness.

The first response, which was announced by both Presidents François Hollande and Barack Obama in the first hours after the Paris attacks is to engage in all-out war. The French Air Force immediately bombed areas where ISIS is believed to have training camps.

The next step, presumably, although neither leader was specific, will probably include the sending of ground troops to fight in Syria and Iraq in addition to the bombing campaigns now being mounted by both countries and Russia. This is an extension and intensification of current policy rather than a new venture, and, to judge by the Russian experience in Afghanistan and ours in Afghanistan and Iraq, the chances for destroying ISIS are small. Those chances will be lessened if we also attempt to “regime change” in Syria.

A second option, which I assume is being broached in Washington as I write, is for Israel to volunteer to invade Syria and Iraq as well as using its air force to supplement or replace the other air forces operating there. This option would be militarily painful for ISIS but would fit exactly into its long-range strategy.

Moreover, it would play havoc with the emerging anti-ISIS bloc of Iran, Russia and Syria. If Israel advances this idea, as I think likely, it will probably be rejected while Israel will be “compensated” with a large new grant.

A third option is for the United States to reverse its anti-Assad policy and join with his regime and with Russia and Iran in a coordinated campaign against ISIS. While this policy would be more rational than either of the first two options, and might be initially more successful, I do not believe that alone it will accomplish its objective.

Drone and special forces strikes are already being employed and will almost certainly be continued as an adjunct to whatever is adopted as the main thrust, but they have not proven decisive where tried elsewhere. Indeed, at least in Afghanistan, they have proven to be self-defeating.

As the “ISIS strategist” predicted, such attacks will increase local hostility to the foreigner while, if the ISIS combatants are wise, they will simply melt away to return another day. Worse, by “decapitating” scattered guerrilla units, they will open the way for younger, more aggressive and ambitious leaders to emerge.

Domestic Repression

Coordinated with any of the above three options, I think it is almost certain that the United States and the European powers will tighten their domestic security programs. Controls on movement, expulsion (particularly in France) of alien or quasi-alien populations, mounting of raids on poorer urban areas, increased monitoring and other activities will increase.

These tactics are what ISIS hoped would happen. Outlays for “security” will rise and populations will be “vexed.” But these policies are unlikely to provide complete security. When terrorists are prepared, as those in the Paris attack were, to blow themselves up or be killed, attacks can be expected regardless how tight security measures are.

So what about non-military and non-police measures? What are the options that could be considered? Two combinations of economics and psychology come to mind:

The first is amelioration of the conditions in which the North African Muslim community now lives in France. The slums circling Paris are a breeding ground for supporters of ISIS. Improvement of living conditions might make a significant difference, but experience in America and also in France suggests that “urban renewal” is far from a panacea.

Even if it were, it would be hard for any French administration to undertake. It would be expensive when the French government believes itself to be already overburdened, and French anti-Muslim feeling was strong long before the Paris attacks. Now, the public mode is swinging away from social welfare toward repression.

As in other European nations, the combination of fear of terrorism and the influx of refugees will make implementation of what will be described as a pro-Muslim program unlikely.

Perhaps even more unlikely is one that I think ISIS would most fear. The “ISIS strategist” has told us that the major resource of the movement is the community, but he recognized that, despite horrific memories of imperialism, the public has remained relatively passive.

This attitude could change dramatically as a consequence of invasion and intensification of aerial bombing. ISIS believes it will, turning increased numbers of now “neutral” civilians into active supporters of the jihadis or into jihadis themselves.

Obviously, it would be to the advantage of other countries to prevent this happening.

Some prevention of ISIS violence can be accomplished, perhaps, with increased security measures, but I suggest that a multinational, welfare-oriented and psychologically satisfying program could be designed that would make the hatred that ISIS relies upon less virulent.

Inadvertently, ISIS has identified the elements for us: meeting communal needs, compensation for previous transgressions, and calls for a new beginning. Such a program need not be massive and could be limited, for example, just to children by establishing public health measures, vitamins and food supplements.

Organizations (such as Médecins Sans Frontières, the Rostropovich Foundation, the Red Cross and Red Crescent) already exist to carry it out and indeed much is already being done. The adjustment is mainly in psychology the unwillingness for nations to admit wrongdoing as we have seen in the German “apology” for the Holocaust and the failure of the Japanese to apologize for the Rape of Nanking. It would cost little and do much, but, in these times, it is almost certainly a non-starter.

So, sadly, I fear that we are beginning to move toward a decade or more of fear, anger, misery and loss of basic freedoms.

Hmm, so, for instance, Osama bin Laden attacked the United States because we bombed Saudi Arabia? And American citizen Omar Mateen shot up a gay nightclub because the U.S. was bombing Fort Pierce, Florida? And Nidal Hasan murdered his military colleagues in Fort Hood because the U.S. had declared an unjust war on Texas? That's news to me. (Shall we also discuss the would-be underwear bomber, the would-be Times Square bomber, or the couple who shot up their own workplace in Los Angeles?) The terrorist who plowed his truck into a crowd full of innocent people had dual French and Tunisian citizenship**; yet another person who enjoys the benefits of a Western life, and then bites the hand that feeds him.

The greatest threat to Muslims remains other Muslims. It is ISIS, not the Western militaries which you evidently so deplore, which is crucifying people, burning them alive, burying them alive, and taking sex slaves. You apparently see no distinction between civilians killed as a result of collateral damage versus the intentional targeting of civilians by terrorists (not that, of course, there isn't a Western precedent for this sort of thing, e.g. the firebombing of Dresden and the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; however, you'll notice that few terrorists these days seem to be of German or Japanese descent).

I agree we do need to understand these terrorists: so that we can better destroy them, not for some foolish, kumbaya nonsense which you espouse in your post.

**Named, shockingly, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. Never saw that coming.

Hmm, so, for instance, Osama bin Laden attacked the United States because we bombed Saudi Arabia? — Arkady

No, because you armed and supported a corrupt regime that did your bombing for you.

Etc, addressing other straw men.

...some foolish, kumbaya nonsense... — Arkady

That's the song of the happy natives under colonial rule. Not quite my theme tune. :’(

Nobody bombed Saudi Arabia. I say each person is responsible for his or her own actions. Reject that and the dominos fall back to the Original Sin and nobody is to blame for anything.

Should probably stop giving them money? Is that an option? No...? Well... more security theater then, that's sure to give the impression of greater safety.

I say that each person is responsible for each other's actions. I hit you, I am responsible for you hitting me back, or you hitting another. I refuse your need, I am responsible for your despair.

The next step, presumably, although neither leader was specific, will probably include the sending of ground troops to fight in Syria and Iraq in addition to the bombing campaigns now being mounted by both countries and Russia. This is an extension and intensification of current policy rather than a new venture, and, to judge by the Russian experience in Afghanistan and ours in Afghanistan and Iraq, the chances for destroying ISIS are small. Those chances will be lessened if we also attempt to “regime change” in Syria. — Saphsin

The idea of Putin and Trump making joint decisions gives me pause but Clinton and Putin making joint decisions stops my heart.

Ah yes, it's all America's fault, of course, because we support "corrupt regimes" (and I'm sure Egypt, for example, would have done just fine being ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood for the last 30 years). Just keep pressing that narrative. As you apparently make no distinction between intentions (e.g. trying to avoid killing innocent civilians but accidentally killing some versus intentional targeting of civilians) I can only conclude that you are stricken with the same cognitive derangement which afflicts Noam Chomsky and his ilk: America has killed people, al Qaeda (for instance) has killed people, ergo, America is no better than al Qaeda (worse, in fact, since al Qaeda are brave freedom fighters defending their homelands). (Chomsky's recent non-exchange with Sam Harris underscores this mindset brilliantly. To digress slightly, I know Chomsky probably views Harris as a bottom-feeding blogger who isn't even fit to shine his shoes, but why agree to play tennis with someone and then refuse to hit the ball back across the net?)

Western apologists for this sort of terrorism remind me of battered spouses who keep wondering what they did wrong to provoke such treatment. So sad.

Why? Trump is an ill-informed populist demagogue who has probably never read a book he hasn't written (and maybe not even then), and Hillary Clinton is a former first lady (who was heavily involved with healthcare policy), U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State who has orders of magnitude more foreign policy experience than Trump (who, in fact, has precisely none, unless building golf courses in Scotland counts).

Trump has in fact praised Putin, which itself should be cause for concern, as Putin is a strongman quasi-dictator with a history in the KGB who has, among other things, worked to limit freedom of expression in Russia, including freedom of the press. And Trump has had a dicey history with the press, barring certain newspapers from covering his campaign, for instance, and has stated he wishes to expand libel laws to make it easier to sue media outlets. This is not encouraging.

How exactly did any of the 84 dead in Nice (to say nothing of other terrorist attacks) "hit" the attacker? How did Boston "hit" the Tsarnaevs? By admitting them to their country and giving them a better life than they could even have dreamt of back home? If that's "hitting," then the West should be hitting a great many more people.

If Muslims (in the West or anywhere else) despair, they can place the vast bulk of the blame for that despair at the feet of their religion, their corrupt and authoritarian political regimes, and the religiously-inspired turn away from reason which has so degraded their society and left it behind in the middle ages.

Why do you bother to make up shit I'm not saying and then ridicule it?

And when did you stop beating your wife?

Nobody bombed Saudi Arabia. I say each person is responsible for his or her own actions. Reject that and the dominos fall back to the Original Sin and nobody is to blame for anything. — Mongrel

I say that each person is responsible for each other's actions. I hit you, I am responsible for you hitting me back, or you hitting another. I refuse your need, I am responsible for your despair. — unenlightened

How exactly did any of the 84 dead in Nice (to say nothing of other terrorist attacks) "hit" the attacker? How did Boston "hit" the Tsarnaevs? By admitting them to their country and giving them a better life than they could even have dreamt of back home? If that's "hitting," then the West should be hitting a great many more people.

If Muslims (in the West or anywhere else) despair, they can place the vast bulk of the blame for that despair at the feet of their religion, their corrupt and authoritarian political regimes, and the religiously-inspired turn away from reason which has so degraded their society and left it behind in the middle ages. — Arkady

Why do you bother to make up shit I'm not saying and then ridicule it? — unenlightened

Either your "hitting" comment pertained to the discussion at hand, in which case my response was a propos, or it didn't pertain to the discussion, in which case I'd question its relevance.

And when did you stop beating your wife?

Last week. Keep your fingers crossed: I'm hoping to keep my streak going this time.

↪Mongrel I say that each person is responsible for each other's actions. I hit you, I am responsible for you hitting me back, or you hitting another. I refuse your need, I am responsible for your despair. — unenlightened

Neither extreme position "we are always responsible for others' actions" NOR "we are responsible only for our own actions" dissolves the opposite. They both apply. But it isn't appropriate to apply the standards for judging interpersonal actions to the much more complex history of relations between large groups of people over long periods of time. "You and me" doesn't map onto the relationship between "Tibet and China" or any other large and ancient relationship.

At some point we have to break off tracking claims and counterclaims.

Jews and Palestinians can debate who got to a particular strip of land first till hell freezes over, but the the alleged victories or defeats of 2500 years ago can't now be the basis of land claims. Maybe the baloney islamic state blames the Crusaders for their hatred; or maybe the much later French and British occupation of the Middle East, or maybe the recent (and ongoing) American military program (going back to 2003).

Everyone is responsible and everyone is guilty--back to Pope Urban II in 1095 who started the first Crusade? No.

I don't like the Islamic state, and I don't like Western Christian groups who have similar ideas:

IS seeks to eradicate obstacles to restoring God's rule on Earth and to defend the Muslim community, or umma, against infidels and apostates.

The group has welcomed the prospect of direct confrontation with the US-led coalition, viewing it as a harbinger of an end-of-times showdown between Muslims and their enemies described in Islamic apocalyptic prophecies.

Once people latch on to "holy causes" such as this, they generally start behaving very badly. They are to a large extent, "a-historical". Agree with them or not, the Palestinians at least have real historical grievances against the modern state of Israel. Pakistan and India have real historical grievances. Sham states that are trying to bring about the apocalypse can't have historical grievances, almost by definition.

Grievances they have; grievances for which I and my fellow Americans are not responsible. (We are responsible for some bad actions and outcomes, just like every country is, but we are not responsible just because some bunch of religious zealots decides to target us.)

The article by William R. Polk which Saphsin (above) cited and quoted is a better approach than just throwing a blanket of individual interpersonal responsibility over international relations.

I say that each person is responsible for each other's actions. I hit you, I am responsible for you hitting me back, or you hitting another. I refuse your need, I am responsible for your despair. — unenlightened

Vinay Lal says watch out for the hidden imperialism there. If you are responsible for my terrorist actions, then you have the qualities of an adult (responsible and able to choose), while I am like a toddler (lashing out reflexively, too immature to be held accountable.) Lal says adult/child is one way dominion is expressed and justified.

I think you need to read Great Expectations again. It's all about how a single act of abuse is like a pebble in a pond sending out waves of grief and rage through space and time. And I agree with John Fowles that it expresses the central thesis of Christianity.. that though this web of despair may be all you've ever known, it doesn't hold you. You're free.

Here's the topic I'm addressing.

So now the question is: what is the appropriate social response? More drones and Hellfire missiles? Nukes over Fallujah? Boots and Robots on the ground? Bombs, bombs, bombs? Or something completely different? Clever infiltration? Better propaganda? Systematic hacking of propaganda systems? Totally unexpected actions? — Bitter Crank

I'm making very general observations, which you have concretised in the most uncharitable ways possible. Actually, I have said nothing particularly original or even controversial. But I'll expand a little, since you are interested.

Of course the dominant economic and military power (formerly my country, currently yours) bears the dominant responsibility for the consequences of its interventions in foreign parts. No power, no responsibility. That's not hard to understand is it? I'm not saying that the US is entirely or solely responsible for anything or everything. Nevertheless the greater responsibility in general lies with the greater power.

As I write, I see another tragedy reported; three police officers gunned down in the US.Not Muslims I assume, but one of those other others in despair. One can perhaps be forgiven for making the connection between eight dead police officers, all innocent by definition, and one filmed black man shot while on the ground and well sat upon by police officers, guilty by definition. The perpetrators are dead, but there are always more desperate people.

It is a matter of the purest pragmatism and not requiring my lily-livered morality to observe that a man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous of men. And therefore, as a matter of pragmatic, hard-headed policy, both domestic and foreign, it makes sense to ensure that everyone has something more than their mere existence to lose.

Vinay Lal says watch out for the hidden imperialism there. If you are responsible for my terrorist actions, then you have the qualities of an adult (responsible and able to choose), while I am like a toddler (lashing out reflexively, too immature to be held accountable.) Lal says adult/child is one way dominion is expressed and justified. — Mongrel

I agree. I am an adult, because I have renounced the gun and the bomb, and and those who lash out on both sides are children. Therefore I am responsible, and they are not.

Do you see what I did there, with the word responsible?

Pacifism. Yep. I'm familiar with the concept.

Of course the dominant economic and military power (formerly my country, currently yours) bears the dominant responsibility for the consequences of its interventions in foreign parts. No power, no responsibility. That's not hard to understand is it? I'm not saying that the US is entirely or solely responsible for anything or everything. Nevertheless the greater responsibility in general lies with the greater power. — unenlightened

It is a matter of the purest pragmatism and not requiring my lily-livered morality to observe that a man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous of men. And therefore, as a matter of pragmatic, hard-headed policy, both domestic and foreign, it makes sense to ensure that everyone has something more than their mere existence to lose. — unenlightened

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Allied Powers were primarily responsible for the conditions in Germany that led to the rise of the Nazis. We still hold Rudolf Höss more responsible for killing a million people at Auschwitz than the Allied Powers, no matter how much we might say that the punishment of Germany, and imperialism and nationalism in general, were causes. And although we might think that nationalism and imperialism and British misdeeds must be resisted and exposed, we also see that Nazi ideas are to be resisted and exposed, whether or not people fell for them owing to financial insecurity or humiliation traceable to Allied actions.

If you think Rudolf Höss is too privileged or empowered for the analogy, we could pick any number of formerly impoverished lumpenproletariat Freikorps, SA, and SS men, brutalized veterans of the First World War, who committed smaller atrocities throughout the 20s, 30s and 40s.

But the Germans are white and can be held responsible for their own actions, whereas the Muslims are brown and oppressed and can hardly be expected not to become genocidal murderers.

It’s what I call the racism of low expectations: to lower those standards when looking at a brown person if a brown person happens to express a level of misogyny, chauvinism, bigotry, or anti-Semitism, and yet hold other white people to universal liberal standards. The real victim of that double standard are the minority communities themselves because by doing so we limit their horizons; we limit their own ceiling and expectations as to what they aspire to be; we’re judging them as somehow that their culture is inherently less civilized; and, of course, we are tolerating bigotry within communities, and the first victims of that bigotry happen to be those who are weakest from among those communities. — Maajid Nawaz

I think one can oppose Western militarism and oppose Islamism and Jihadism at the same time (and incidentally I don't think the latter are a reaction to the former). One can seek to ensure that people have something to lose without at the same time treating Jihadist or Jihadist-inspired murders as inevitable, and without indulging the ideas of self-appointed conservative representatives of Muslim communities.

...we could pick any number of formerly impoverished lumpenproletariat — jamalrob

You can pick anyone you like; no one does what they do not have the power to do. The 'pawns in their game' are responsible for their own moves, and the players are also, and more largely responsible.

I think one can oppose Western militarism and oppose Islamism and Jihadism at the same time (and incidentally I don't think the latter are a reaction to the former). One can seek to ensure that people have something to lose without at the same time treating Jihadist or Jihadist-inspired murders as inevitable, and without indulging the ideas of self-appointed conservative representatives of Muslim communities. — jamalrob

I largely concur, but I seem to recollect that the radicalisation of Islam was nourished and promoted by Laurence of Arabia, back in the day, and thereafter supported by the West as part of the cold war in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

I largely concur, but I seem to recollect that the radicalisation of Islam was nourished and promoted by Laurence of Arabia, back in the day, and thereafter supported by the West as part of the cold war in Afghanistan and elsewhere. — unenlightened

Yes, but all the same, radical Islam is a genuinely reactionary theory of history and politics, and interpretation of Islam, that has been developed over many decades by Muslim thinkers. It is genuinely misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic, sectarian and violent, and while it is certainly not embraced by most Muslims, it stands substantially unopposed in the Islamic public sphere, and opposition to it in the West has tragically been left to the Right, who use it to victimize Muslims and immigrants in general. It's tempting for Westerners on the Left to portray it as merely a desperate lashing out, which is a view that helps nobody.

I've never been impressed with Nawaz's approach because he treats it as if change in Muslim culture is to be driven by what Westerners say and demand of it. Sort of an extreme extension of the patronising "Stop your guys blowing us up" that gets blasted all over the Western media whenever terrorist attacks are discussed.

The truth is the Muslim community has no more ability to stop such attacks than ourselves. By the time someone's performing attacks the are outside the influence of everyone just saying "don't blow people up."

Radical Islam might stand unopposed within many Islamic circles, but people are not usually considerate of how this occurs. Is because no-one condems terrorist attacks in the Western media? No, it's not. That happens all the time, even from Islamic leaders.

Rather, the issue is about Muslim cultures internally, about how they see themselves separately to Western societies and their values. Change is not a question of how loud the West can scream Radical Islam is terrible, but whether there is a change in Muslim culture, one which sees concern for social environment overtake the authority of tradition and text.

I imagine persuading the mujahadeen that they're actually going to end up in hell instead of a paradise full of virgins might have some impact.

As for a lot of the other nihlist killers out there, who try to kill as many as possible, and then die whilst so doing - same thing! Imagine if they really believed that they were going to hell and that their moment of 'glory' would actually be the doorway into a never-ending torment.

It might be feasible for the mujahadeen because they do after all believe in an afterlife. I'm afraid there's no such leverage with many of the others - like the Nice truck killer, or the Orlando killer - because they're psychopathic, and there's nothing you can use on them, other than force.

Also, the Western media ought to have given much more attention to the fatwa on terrorism than it did. That was a movement within Sunni Islam to condemn terrorism as un-Islamic, and it hardly got any notice.

I used to study military strategy in my youth, (despite being a pacifist, I thought it was useful for life in general).

The core strategy is nothing new. It is just guerrilla warfare in an age of global communication. Maybe the bigger problem for those at the state and military level is recognizing it, and remembering why it was so successful before. Look at the Huns, or the American revolution, the Spanish against Napolean or even the Vietnamese against the Americans. The people getting attacked usually considered the enemy "terrorists", brainwashed by some fanatical ideas. Now imagine if any of those had the ability to broadcast their message around the world and get all the major news networks to show it on constant repeat for days without interruption. You would focus your efforts on acts that got the most attention, rather than those with any real military gains.

If they can't get military goals, what does "terrorism", that is, instilling terror gain them? They know they can never instill enough fear that they will convince the people they are attacking to change their minds and accept them. It will only harden their resistance and encourage more attacks. I think the plan is more simplistic and consistent. What they care about is recruitment. When they called themselves "Islamic State", it was meant to attract those Muslims who dreamed of returning to the days of the original Caliphate. But that move was probably their biggest failure. Almost nobody bought it, and saw them for the extremists they were. In the Middle East, you might hear them referred to as "Daesh". Some Western politicians claim it removes power by refusing to use the word "Islamic" and "State", but actually that is a myth -- it is the proper Arabic abbreviation for "Islamic State". But in Arabic, the word "Daesh" sounds like a common word, "to crush", and it has a very negative connotation. They apparently hate that name, and it now is used to refer to "an oppressive bigot".

To me, the plan is pretty simple:

• Do something really destructive and newsworthy.
• Wait for the "enemy" to strike out randomly and oppress members of the group.
• Wait for the newly oppressed recruits to join in with support.
• Wait for the really crazy recruits to do something even more destructive and claim credit for it.

Even with what has been done so far, they are actually losing this game. Their numbers are diminishing quickly. They really rely on strong-armed responses and drawing the "enemy" into their own areas. If you cut out that second part, I think they would probably dry up and disappear quickly. That's when they get their most desperate. With the current information model, they thrive the more people talk about a literal "war on Islam", or how much they are going to oppress Muslims.

They, and some of their previous strategists, made no secret of their intentions. I still remember back in 2004, when Osama bin Laden still made videos, plainly said that his goal was to draw the US and its allies into a war which would ultimately bankrupt those countries. It is basically an international "rope-a-dope".

After one such attack, my father, who is a libertarian Trump supporter, sent me some email about not to get "radicalized" as a Muslim. I had to stop and think about what a "radical" was. I asked my fiance, who has been a Muslim her whole life and she thought it meant "someone who kills innocent people". But I have heard about "radical feminists" and the "radicals" of the 1960's, who don't seem interested in killing anyone. It seems that the more mainstream definition is just someone who wants to change society. In that sense, I would say I'm a "radical Muslim", because I want to change society to make it more peaceful, egalitarian and liberal. I've found support for the idea that Martin Luther King Jr. is a "radical", and so is Gandhi. Maybe even religious figures like Jesus and Buddha were "radicals" since they weren't arguing for things to stay the way they are. They were just radicals who opposed direct use of violence.

Watching "Selma" last night, (recommended for anyone confused about "Black Lives Matter"), there is one point where President Johnson is portrayed as only supporting Martin Luther King Jr, because it was better to support a non-violent protester than violent militants. The contrast with today's politics and media is stark. With hundreds of protests around the country, the national media makes no mention of them, only some local coverage, but a "terrorist attack" is the one that gets the attention. Now I'm thinking about a philosophy having to do with voices and being heard. It is an evolutionary process. If the only way someone can be heard is through violence, violence is encouraged. If you deal with violence quietly and spend all your time broadcasting the voice of those who are peaceful, you get more peaceful speakers.

I think there should be some middle ground between blame and responsibility, though. I think everything is balanced and somewhat circular. I was watching a video about the evolution of a peacock's tail. Most of the time I hear it explained, it sounds like the peacock decided to grow his tail larger than the others to get the most females. But one video described it differently and mentions something that should be obvious, (and not so sexist), the peacock has no control over tail feather size. It is really the peahens that had the choice and controlled the size through instinctive selective breeding. That opened up to me the idea that a lot of what we think are direct actions in response to something are false, and we need to balance it with what choices were made in the environment. When I hear the news, they are often desperately trying to find a reason for some violent action. It usually ends up being some easy explanation for the action. But I think that is a dangerous path. Why can't we say these people are just crazy, which means they didn't have any reasonable explanation for what they did. Instead of blaming one group or another, just start recruiting their target audience against them. The most powerful weapon you can use against a so-called "Islamic State" are the members of the group they are trying to exploit. Then we (Americans and Muslims) become the smart ones -- surrounding and outnumbering them. As long as we draw up sides and divide or mistrust people, we end up voluntarily handing over our power anyway.

Terror in the God-shaped Hole by David Loy

This is a powerful analysis of terrorism from a modern Buddhist perspective; focussing on the role that religion plays in attaining a sense of identity, and on how secular philosophy threatens that sense, without providing an alternative to it. PDF format.

I see. So, when you say things such as the below (emphasis added)...

It really isn't difficult. Stop bombing my country, and perhaps I will stop driving trucks into your parades. To stop a desperate man, help him out of his despair instead of making it greater. First let's take the hatred and violence out of our eyes, and then we will see better how to remove it from IS.

Count up the innocent deaths, and you will find that we are way ahead in the race to barbarism. I find all this outrage highly inappropriate; "How could they?" "How can they be stopped?" are the wrong questions. Replace 'they' with 'we'. — unenlightened

...perhaps you could explain who the "we" refers to in being "way ahead in the race to barbarism," by tallying innocent deaths. I thought "we" referred to the West and its allies, implying that, say, the U.S. and French militaries were more barbaric than, for instance, ISIS and al Qaeda. It also seemed as if you were taking an apologetic stance towards the Nice terrorist's actions, by suggesting it is we who are at fault for trying to help him out of his despair.

Apologies if that is an uncharitable reading of your posts, but I really wouldn't know what other way to interpret them. If your point was wholly different than what I gleaned from them, perhaps you could have chosen your words more carefully? (And not all hate-filled people are "desperate." The aforementioned Tsarnaevs weren't. Neither were Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who murdered their own coworkers. Whether you are speaking generally or about a particular instance, this is simply another invocation of the wrong-headed notion that terrorists are fueled primarily by poverty or diminished opportunity in life.)