ISIS AS A TEENAGER IN A TRENCH COAT

The problem in the Middle East is helping the world to focus on an unwelcome truth; the concepts of the crusades are still with us, principle among them, and some historians see the crusade as being purely defensive against Islamic conquest. While it is true that he Catholic Church mounted the first crusades to re-gain control over what they called the holy lands, control of land seems no longer to be the motive. There is a tendency in our modern world to think these thoughts are products of the distant past and in one sense they are—the entire Christian world fighting off the entire Islamic world.

We are realizing there are radical elements within both groups that still believe this: willing to fight to the death defending what they believe, their religious beliefs, which are far removed from regaining the “holy land”. The irony seems to be that while we are now militarily more prepared than ever before to “conquer land” but seem to be constrained by respect for national sovereignty. We have learned to handle—or at least are learning how to handle—political verses political conflict: war between nations. As mentioned, we found out about the futility of religious verses religious conflict as happened in the crusades so we handle that by not fighting such a massive war; all Christina fighting against all Muslims. However, Christendom has fragmented its self, as has Islam and the segments fight one another: sect against sect. As it turns out, these various religious fragments are viciously fighting one another without regard for national boundaries.  That is where we are now.   

Correspondent +Richard Engel said something important this morning on TV this morning; he said from the town where he was in +Turkey, he was seeing “thousands” of religious fighters from all over the world moving into the troubled areas in Syria and Iraq. The significance for me was that his observations defined the problem. His use of the words, ‘thousands’ and ‘from all over the world’ added clarity to the world situation.

He (Engel) did not say dozens or hundreds but said thousands. To put that in prospective, U.S. intelligence agencies had estimated that ISIS consisted of 17,000 fighters. Adding thousands to this small number is significant expansion. The next thing is the fighters Engle saw were from all over the world, so much for one nation fighting another. This tells us two things about these fighters; 1), their loyalty is not to a nation but to a religious sect; and 2), they are the radical element from that religion. Newscaster after newscaster has pointed out that ISIS has obliterated the boarder between Syria and Iraq. What Engel was saying was that sovereign nations’ boarders have no meaning in this conflict.  In addition, he was saying that radical people, people willing to die for what they believe are gathering to fight something; isn’t it strange that we do not seem to have a clear idea of what they are gathering together to fight. There is great danger in this. What is also clear is that it is not Muslims fighting Christians; it is sects fighting sects.

They claim they gather to fight to preserve Islam; to protect their religion, yet they claim they are fighting the “west” principally the United States to protect Islam. Clearly, they are hoping to provoke the entire Muslim world into fighting the entire Christian world—a rekindling of the crusades. Even though I hear the less astute talking heads, such as Fox News commentators saying hate all Muslims; don’t allow them to come to the United States, all 9/11 hijackers were Muslims, etc; this makes no sense. The world will never expand this conflict to that end.

What makes the international flavor puzzling is that sectarian nations, who claim not to be motivated by religion, become involve by killing radical people who believe in one sect or another. What is the universal driving force common to all nations and common to all religions? When you stop to ask the radical ISIS fighters the logical question, what are they trying to achieve? What is their final objective? No answer to that question makes sense except one, which is that they believe in one God the way they tell you to believe in that God, and if you don’t, you have to die. As ridiculous as it is, it is the only argument that has an end. They cannot kill everyone but if everyone is so frightened that they do what they are told, it is the same thing. They are a small group who wants to be in charge just as a teenager dressed in black trench coat, with a high-powered assault rifle standing in a school doorway wants to be in charge. They know it will never end that way. They al so know how it will end, which is why they call themselves martyrs. For a few fleeting moment “they” feel they are at the top of the pecking order; that is their reward. As an answer, it seems ridiculous; however, all other answers seem to result in a dog chasing its tail argument; they are killing Muslims to stop Muslims from killing people. What this answer does is put ISIS in perspective and tells us is what we have to do. 

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