War by inspiration

When people terrified by radical Islamic fundamentalism as advocated through a Salafi jihad by the Islamic State (IS) or the ISIL caliphate (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a.k.a. ISIS or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), think of ending such threat, they debate on the use of overwhelming force as the final solution. “Bombing-the-hell-out-of-them” has been so often repeated that it would appear to be the only viable option. 

Within the debate are such extreme suggestions as using nuclear arsenals over constant, albeit traditional, carpet bombing of territorial strongholds or, as is often more controversial and sensitive, the placing of combat troops on the ground.

No matter how technologically updated these options appear to people, especially in a country like the Philippines where traditional boots-on-the-ground is the only default tactic in prosecuting armed conflicts, the options discussed continue to remain in the realm of traditional warfare.

Washington’s bloodthirsty hawks never tire in reminding the Obama administration that it has been largely ineffective in eliminating the IS threat and that the aerial strikes sponsored by the United States have yet to reach the apocalyptic levels they seek.

Such myopia is nurtured by stupid misconceptions. Recently, on national TV, a former SEAL, the assassin of one of the most notorious Muslim leaders, as he toured television daytime talkshows, declared that Muslims “train their children to kill American kids.” Suddenly he is an expert – the intellectual, religious and cultural expertise that should have been the product of a collegiate education, deep and scholarly research and doctoral theses, was instead cavalierly drawn from the simple act of squeezing fingers to fire a weapon. His yokelese, however, provided crude homespun sense.

The same has constantly been echoed by GOP presidential contender Donald J. Trump as he, following through from a claim that he knows more about IS than most, consistently refrains that he will bomb-the-hell out of IS, as if the Obama initiatives have not been doing that already.

Few actually analyze how IS is prosecuting their terrorism. Most analyses are based on traditional clichés where warring armies are arrayed on opposite sides like a Cecile B. de Mille panorama.

While IS does, indeed, have traditional armies, fortresses, war machines and even a capital to house the caliphate they inflict on the modern world, analyze their manner of exporting violence outside those brick-and-mortar fixed assets and structures. As you do the math, consider the definitive inferiority of those assets. Analyze, however, how they are prosecuting their wars. Analyze how they invade independent areas and occupy virtual territories. Analyze how they have brought their terror upon the peaceful and civilized world from enchanting Paris, to historic Brussels, to lively Orlando.

They’ve distorted the definition of both the concepts of warring invasion and subsequent occupation and control from the traditionally geographic to the non-traditional hearts, minds and souls of those predisposed.

The worst acts of terrorism perpetrated by IS had no need for a geographic stronghold. Terrorism does not have a capital. Its foundations lie in the deepest recesses of a warped criminal mind insulated from modern ordnance and weaponry. If at all, modern weaponry might even serve to nurture the desire to retaliate anonymously and randomly, if only to debunk tradition.

IS uses the mass media, whether through unwitting networks or via cyberspace—all protected by Western laws and all whose unbridled freedom from control is guaranteed by the Western societies IS seeks to destroy – eventually prosecuting their terror by remote manipulation where the origination of their nefarious messages are immune to bombs, bullets and traditional warfare. Their real armies are the lone wolfs camouflaged by both anonymity and the freedoms of the society they hide under.

IS recruits by inspiration. Their funding is via inspiration. And they war by inspiration. How, indeed, can bombing end those?