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Pakistani attorney and author Rafia Zakaria wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera America about the Islamic extremists' war on fun, including sports, music, even dining in a fine restaurant. Zakaria points out that this apparent obsession predates the existence of ISIS by several decades (at least); he suspects this is a big reason why the attackers chose Paris, renowned worldwide for its brilliant culture and joie de vivre.
Terrorism’s targeting of the merry is universal and indiscriminate, a division of the world between those who wish to live and laugh and hope and those who kill and destroy. The latter are deadly and relentless, and they have already squeezed out the mirth from too many of the world’s cities, from Karachi, Kabul and Baghdad to Nairobi and Beirut.
Zakaria experienced this aspect of terror firsthand. A high school friend had just passed a big exam, and was out celebrating with his family at a restaurant in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists struck.
Al Jazeera America provides a separate analysis warning that military action alone cannot defeat ISIS (aka ISIL), which of course is not a "nation" in the traditional sense, but more of a guerilla outfit like Al Qaeda, that opportunistically seized a stronghold in chaotic regions of Syria and Iraq. The piece's author, political scientist Rami G. Khouri, recommends that both the West and Muslim nations of the Middle East spend more resources on addressing economic and political problems facing impoverished youths who are potentially attracted by the ISIS' recruiting pitch:
If the underlying threats to ordinary citizens’ lives in autocratic Arab-Islamic societies remain unaddressed — from jobs, water and health insurance, to free elections, a credible justice system and corruption — the flow of recruits to movements like ISIL or something even worse will persist and even accelerate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zeigerpuppy on Monday November 16 2015, @09:46PM
I agree. Killing others mercilessly is a problem for all sides in this war.
It's intriguing how many people are outraged by the attacks on Paris yet feel that bombing Syria is a justified response.
This is classic asymmetric warfare.
The 'coalition' parties need to really think about how indiscriminate bombing, dealing over oil, destruction of civil infrastructure and messing with other peoples' ability to self determine causes extremism.
The attacks are cowardly and vile but they are a rational response to having your territory systematically fucked up.
In this context, the 'terrorists' can be properly considered soldiers in an asymmetric war; their response is to strike at the soft underbelly of their enemy.
The response is childish; "bomb Syria more", "declare a state of emergency", "rewrite the constitution to exclude undesirables".
The only way for this war to end is to recognise and support civil rebuilding in these war-torn states. It may even require recognition of ISIS statehood to start a rational debate.
More violence on the coalition's part will beget more acts of barbarism against civilians. It's our responsibly to hold our governments to account on their own violence.
There's no winning this war while we continue to do exactly the things that create more people willing to die to fight back.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BK on Tuesday November 17 2015, @12:10AM
No... There's no winning this war while we continue to pretend it is a counterinsurgency. If it's war, winning means fighting until unconditional surrender. Unconditional surrender is scary. We haven't fought a war like that ,we America and Europe, since World War II.
Unconditional surrender means that when or if we win, we make all the rules. Unconditional surrender means surrounding a place at bombing it or barraging it for blowing it up until whoever's left surrenders or until nobody's left. Unconditional surrender means you get to keep those aspects of your culture that we happen to like. Unconditional surrender is not about mutual respect. Unconditional surrender means that the losers don't get to make their own decisions because they can't be trusted to make decisions.
If we fight like a war, we might win it like a war. We could I suppose lose it like a war too. Sucks to lose ...
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 17 2015, @02:06AM
> We haven't fought a war like that ,we America and Europe, since World War II.
That's because war is not the same as it once was. The world has changed including the way we fight and what we fight over. Expecting war to work the way it did 70 years ago is like expecting television to work like it did 70 years ago.
(Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday November 17 2015, @02:15AM
Citation needed
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday November 17 2015, @02:07AM
To stop young men blowing themselves up and killing people you need to give them a reason not to. ISIS puts across this belief that the reckoning/armageddon/malahim is upon us, and they want western boots on the ground in Dabiq to further that line. Hell they might even believe it.
However the youth shooting up theatres wouldn't particularly welcome the end of the world if they thought the world was half-decent. It's not. They see a world where the west is bombing the crap out of people they consider to be brothers (and make no mistake, the attackers, be it Sydney, Paris, Ankara or Nairobi, are inevitably local), where they have no job prospects, where they are hated by people in the street, and where they hear two voices
1) this is a war and we will crush you
2) come join us and rise up in war against the devil
ISIS are trying very hard to turn this into a Muslim vs everyone else war, and their allies are helping them. One ISIS ally said he wanted to shut down mosques! Another said that Christians should be given asylum, but Muslims shouldn't. We need to fight ISIS and their allies.