Fighting Entropy
17th May 2015
Richard Fernandez points out what our Ruling Class cannot see.
But like the monster in the movie, it’s taken “three billion electro-volts of energy and it’s still coming on”! Why have none of the previous heavy blows slowed ISIS or any of the affiliated rebel groups down? Why is the jihadi organism inexplicably resistant to leadership disruptions, whether caused by drone strikes or the murderous work of rivals from other factions? How can it stand against the Olympian thunderbolt? This is an important question to answer.
It’s resistant because it is not a state.
No it’s not made of “solid nuclear material”. But unlike a state, headed by an Emperor of Japan or Fuhrer, Islamic militancy has the apparent ability to reconfigure itself on the fly; to find energy from catastrophes that would delegitimize ordinary state institutions. The Syrian rebel scene is a case in point. It’s a constellation of merging and splitting groups with fanciful names like “Defenders of Jerusalem”, “Knights of Justice”, “Shields of Revolution”, “Sham Legion”, “Knights of Constantinople” and “Euphrates Volcano”. It’s a regular Legion of Doom.
In this environment a damaged Al-Qaeda evolves into ISIS or spawns an al-Nusrah, like a Hydra sprouting heads or water groping a path down a slope. Groups are constantly dividing, consolidating and taking each other over. Instead of dying under the blows of the administration, the collective organism mutates; it has now acquired the unnerving capacity to engage in “united front” tactics with governments and rival armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
Islam is not an enemy; it’s a disease, and must be faced as such.