What Does ISIS Hope To Achieve With Random Violence?
This point, at Inquiry To Islam, seems plausible -- on how they're looking to attack everybody all and once, and why they're doing that:
The central Islamic goal is, of course, to bring non-Muslims under the rule of Islamic law. That goal is laid out clearly and unmistakably in standard Islamic doctrine. But why does ISIS think that randomly blowing up and shooting infidels will achieve this?The strategy ISIS and other orthodox Muslims are now following was laid out by by the late Sheikh Abu-Bakr Naji. His big insight was this: It is impossible now to achieve Islam's prime directive the traditional way, which was to invade countries and establish Islamic law by force. This method may have worked fine when non-Muslim countries were unconcerned with things happening in other parts of the world. Back in those days, using the traditional method, Islam successfully established most of the now-existing 56 Muslim countries. But these days non-Muslim countries are too powerful militarily and would stop it. Naji thought the Taliban did a great job setting up a true Islamic state, faithful to Islamic law, but look what happened: The "crusader nations" destroyed it.
Osama bin Laden thought he would make the cowardly infidels succumb to fear with a few very big violent attacks, such as 9/11. But that strategy failed. It only strengthened non-Muslim resolve and triggered a massive retaliation.
So in 2005, Naji proposed a new strategy: He said the way to ultimately accomplish the prime directive is to fight the entire non-Muslim world everywhere at once, and to create an increasing occurrence of ever-more-violent events so non-Muslims everywhere would feel insecure and would eventually live in constant fear of violent death. They would lose trust in their government's ability to protect them. They would become exhausted from insecurity and fear, and would then be willing to embrace Islamic rule just to make the violence stop and to be able to live in some sort of peace.
I just read an article about the Friday 13th attack in Paris, and the New York Times quoted a 42 year-old French accountant: "I feel sickened, angry," he said. Coming so soon after the attacks in January, he said, "It is starting to be too much." This struck me as an expression of exactly the state of mind Naji was talking about.
In order to accomplish frequent attacks, Naji said Muslims must create bases of operations inside the non-Muslim nations. That means Muslim immigration is necessary, coupled with the Muslims' refusal to integrate into the non-Muslim society, leaving areas of Muslim-only populations (what many have called no-go zones) within non-Muslim countries. This way, terrorism operations could be organized and carried out more effectively.
ISIS and other Islamic groups have embraced this strategy worldwide.
The author thinks it will ultimately fail. I'm not so sure.
I think people are very determined to believe that Islam is just like any other religion, denying what it actually calls for -- the death or conversion of non-Muslims, the totalitarian rule of Islam around the globe, and the death of gays, apostates and rape victims who do not have four Muslim men as witnesses to swear they were raped rather than just having some fun.
Your thoughts?
My thoughts?
There is more organization in the Trump election protests, than in all of of the various sub groups involved in Islamic terrorisism.
Why you expect these mostly young men to behave like little automatons with some big Islamic Dr Evil power structure pulling the strings is the real question.
Even the American Army isn't that obedient or well organized.
Why do they terrorize? Although their motives may vary, there is no other tactic that will get an illiterate 19 year old Pakistani on the front page of every World newspaper.
For a little perspective on guerrila warfare and terrorism, I suggest Max Boot, or possibly VDH.
The Islamic jihadis didn't invent terrorism, and they wont be the last to use it.
Isab at November 13, 2016 11:28 PM
I agree with what Isab wrote. Things aren't that organized.
As for the philosophy of victory through exhaustion, it may work in Europe. But you already have nations that reflexively hate themselves. They have enough military force that an overt invasion is not plausible. But their leaders hate their own citizens. So annoying them into submission is a reasonable solution. Recognizing that difference my be why there are relatively few terrorist attempts in the US and they mostly focus on Europe.
Ben at November 14, 2016 2:05 AM
Perhaps I'm biased but the history of our reactions to violence from others is much different from other "civilized" nations.
Even in the cities we have a significant portion of our population that almost seem eager to react in a violent manner.
In the "flyover" part of our nation reacting to attacks from predators is part of our life experience.
I do think this method of "attacking" our culture would otherwise seem to be a valid if you view our culture through the two coastal population centers.
Those locations make it appear that Socialism/Leftist organizations have much influence via MSM "reporting" of weakness/sensitivity.
They do not understand that free speech and the 2nd Amendment work together to create a true "live and let live" environment. At our core we are almost arrogant in our belief of survival over adversity.
Bob in Texas at November 14, 2016 4:06 AM
The problem is that fighting the entire non-Muslim world everywhere at once, or even the Western portion of it, requires an ops-tempo they aren't even close to attaining.
A couple or three atrocities a year in France won't make the French fear for their personal safety, but it will piss them off.
Making matters worse for Islamists, is that they are ethnically distinct from the majority population, making for the state to direct its efforts without antagonizing those from whom the state gains its legitimacy.
Jeff Guinn at November 14, 2016 6:25 AM
Unrelated but relevant to Ben (since he's following this thread):
https://anonm.gr?a8b3.jpg
Insufficient Poison at November 14, 2016 7:35 AM
Thanks IP. As I predicted I had completely forgotten. Sorry your guy didn't do as well as you hoped.
Ben at November 14, 2016 7:53 AM
Isab, I mostly follow that... there is one thing that unites all of the sects, and that is their shared hatred of Westernism. Towards that common goal they can work together, to an extent. And so I can see them achieving some victories in continental Europe. After all, the Continent has been bleeding its defense capabilities dry since the 1960s, when they decided that they'd let the U.S. shoulder all of the responsibility for protecting them from Communist invasion. (It's ironic for western Europe that the Soviet Union fell when it did, and that the U.S. decided to cash in the "peace dividend", both monetarily and psychologically, just as the new threat was emerging.)
Muslim victories in Europe might be short-lived, though. Once the defeat of Westernism in an area is accomplished, the factions will no longer see any need to form alliances. And the areas will degenerate into what the Middle East is: where nominally there are nations, but in reality there are just tribes, constantly at war with each other. If these areas are close to territories controlled by Russia, I can see Putin seizing on the opportunity to expand the empire. The prissy and ineffective EU might not be up to the task, but Russia can match the Islamists in brutality and overwhelm them with sheer numbers.
(By the way, the wife and I were on vacation and blissfully out of touch last week. Wednesday morning, we decided to flip on the television in the hotel room for a few minutes just to get the word on the election: "Wha... Trump won? Seriously?" Then we went about our vacationing. I didn't do any reading on it until yesterday.)
Cousin Dave at November 14, 2016 8:03 AM
Do we really care if France or Germany becomes the new Beirut by "choice"? i.e. "immigration"
Bob in Texas at November 14, 2016 11:15 AM
We took them at their word, and voted for the guy who wants to keep them out.
MarkD at November 15, 2016 5:24 AM
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