ISIS: an essential reading collection

[omarali50]

More on this theme. "Why do Muslims Blow Stuff Up"?

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201...-stuff-up.html

Relevant Excerpt:

But here is the point I really wanted to make:
I heard (more than 10 years ago) from an Islamist historian (PhD U Chicago) that the correct way of looking at lack of Hindu or African Pagan blowback is to regard them as weaker civilizations, unable/unwilling to contend for world-beater status (Hindutvadis are trying, with limited success, to alter this perception btw). His point was that Islamists sending terrorists and throwing bombs maybe wrong (in his opinion, it was wrong) because it may be tactically harmful to their cause or it may be morally unsound (he was not in favor of indiscriminate slaughter), but on the general point of fighting against the West, he thought the crucial difference is that the Islamic world represents real civiliazational competition; challengers who think they can and SHOULD fight in the big leagues...while Hindus and Africans are just waiting to be converted to more successful ideologies and are "not even invited to the party".
In short, that Muslims are different, but not in the way you think: they are not different in being more bloodthirsty (he believed, as a historian, that ALL great powers and dominant civilizations have been blood thirsty) but in thinking of themselves as a potential world power, not just "subalterns".

I think he was wrong (i.e. the world is not best described by the kind of clash of civilizations he subscribed to, and the Muslim world is in no position to challenge as some sort of outsider civilization, distinct from what Naipaul famously dubbed "our universal civilization").

But one should not think that sophisticated Islamists themselves have no such ambition.

Finally, the oil-kingdom and wahabiism are indeed proximate causes of the Jihadi upsurge, but they succeeded not just because they paid people (the US has paid billions for "counter-jihadist" propaganda, with little noticeable impact) but because their ideology could be presented as the logical culmination of classical Islamic themes. Which is why educated (therefore more susceptible to "logic" and rational argument) believing Muslims in Pakistan so frequently gravitate to Maudoodi-like figures, even if their own families were Barelvi/Sufi/grave-worshipping/Indian-inflected "moderate Muslims" just one generation ago.

I hope to write more later to expand on this point.

[omarali50]

An interesting post from Dr Ali Minai, a professor of computer engineering (specifically, complex adaptive systems) and President of the "International Neural Network Society", about modern Jihadism as a new form of war, on a new kind of planet.

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...n-and-ana.html

Worth a read.
Excerpts:

the terrible truth that this is the first war of its kind – a brand new thing never before seen in history, and therefore one for which there is no prior wisdom. It is the first great conflict of the age of globalization, and its phenomenology reflects that of a complex, nonlinear, self-organizing networked world...

To understand why terrorism such as that practiced by ISIS works, we have to first separate it from its pale predecessors. Even late 20th century examples of what was labeled as terrorism – such as the actions of the IRA or the Tamil Tigers – were nothing like what we see today. First, in those cases and others like them, the tactic was used for a limited, well-defined goal, and was essentially an extension of warfare to a new dimension. This remains true today of many militant groups in various parts of the world that specific countries regard as "terrorist", and it is this fact that has given rise to the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". ISIS and Al-Qaeda are no one's freedom fighters! Their goal is not to liberate an area or humiliate a power; it is to remake the world..

The terrorists realize that their best chance of creating a new world order lies in the destabilization of the old one – not in any specific way, but simply to produce a cauldron of chaos in which an infinity of new orders suddenly become possible - perhaps even leading to a phase transition. They think that, with divine help, they can control what then emerges from this chaos. They may even believe for religious reasons that an order that favors them is foreordained. The fact that they are almost certainly wrong about this final outcome does not invalidate their initial insight. .

An especially effective aspect of the ISIS approach – whether by design or accident – is the way it exploits existing systems of government. Autocracies are, as always, limited by the imaginations of the autocrats, which are never very fertile, but democracies too face a crucial problem. Democracy is essentially a mechanism for institutionalizing normative decision-making, allowing the collective will to override the whims of tyrants and monarchs. The unspoken assumption in this is that the averaging process of democracy would cancel out excesses in all directions, leading to a moderate course in government. This is indeed a vast improvement over all other systems of governance seen through history, but the "averaging heuristic" has a fatal flaw: Human decision making is a highly nonlinear process and averaging does not necessarily lead to a middle course. In stressful situations, complex systems with positive feedback loops can gravitate to all-or-none outcomes representing extremes. This is how even the best of democracies can produce instances such as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and McCarthyism. Until the advent of truly global, ubiquitous mass media, this could be checked to some degree through the discretion of "wise" leaders (e.g., Roosevelt's support of the Allies prior to Pearl Harbor), but in the modern era, leaders of democracies have virtually no discretion. Public opinion and looming elections are at the core of their decision-making today. With a reasonable knowledge of human psychology and a modest investment in resources (including a few individuals hankering for a short-cut to paradise and its virgins), an organization like ISIS can readily press the right buttons in the minds of voters, have the response magnified by the media – providing the crucial positive feedback – and achieve their goal of discrediting liberal humanist values. We are watching this jiu-jitsu trick unfolding before our eyes today as American politicians (for the record, almost all Republicans) line up to turn their backs on helpless refugees in the name of security. The genius of 21st century global terrorism is to align its goals with human nature. Natural human responses driven by fear, anger, loss and group solidarity are, therefore, likely to play into the terrorists' hands, as a few commentators have already pointed out. .

Devising and executing a strategy to counter jihadi extremism will require not only immense wisdom in leaders, but also flexibility – since many initial choices will be incorrect; self-confidence – since results will only appear slowly; and, above all, imagination at least equal to that of the adversary. From the public at large, it will require patience, maturity, and trust in each other and their leaders. War, intelligence and surveillance may well be part of the strategy, but most of it will have to be political and psychological – just as it in on the other side.

A critical challenge for the leaders of the new world is to arrive at a more inclusive, more resilient, and more inspiring vision of united humanity that does not degenerate into a mirror image of its adversary, and to educate those they lead in this new vision of the world. Given the experience of history, there is little reason to be optimistic. But without this geopolitical transformation, humanity will surely reach the brink of multiple catastrophes in fairly short order, and the societal dispensations that emerge after that will make today's problems seem like child's play.

My comment on that site was:

Excellent article.
Just as an aside, is there a (perhaps deliberately) unstated problem with this statement: "The counter-strategy must equally offer a concrete vision grounded in the values of humanism and individual liberty..." ?

As you know better than most, the "values" of humanism and individual liberty are not just somewhat contradictory (we can safely assume that ALL sets of values contain contradictions), they can also be superficial and ahistorical and their propaganda has frequently fallen short of the ugly realities of imperialism, nationalism, racism and greed. And this discovery (that they are sometimes superficial, ahistorical, internally contradictory and less than advertised in practice) is TOO EASY for educated people. As a result, armies of postmodern Leftists in the West (in their own minds, the standard bearers of this vision of common humanity) are also able to laugh at "liberal pieties" as they are imperfectly practiced and propagandistically oversold. ..Human nature (virtue signalling etc) does the rest. The "values" are in trouble from both sides..

I guess what I am trying to say, in my usual confused way, is that these values are under attack from BOTH sides. And while the powers-that-be usually have more real power and "real-world" impact, the internal loss of confidence and confusion in the HUMANIST camp may not be an insignificant factor either.
Things look dark at times.

But what is hard for individuals, may not be hard for evolution. I also remain an incurable optimist

As usual, I need more time to write something coherent

[omarali50]

This is a very amateur and undeveloped idea. I am just putting it out for comments.

Can we model if ISIS is coming soon to country X?

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201...r-country.html

[flagg]

This is a very amateur and undeveloped idea. I am just putting it out for comments.

Can we model if ISIS is coming soon to country X?

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201...r-country.html

I wonder if it would be worth including Integration and Dispersion within a sovereign state as a measure of submission or risk to an existing national culture?

[omarali50]

I think a large number of variables can be added to this (all of them justified), but my thought was: what if you wanted only one or two variables? what would be the minimum that can capture the risk?
For example, affiliation with shariahist-Islam alone is clearly not enough. Populations strongly attached to that notion (as in Malaysia) do not seem on the verge of a major insurgency.
and so on...

[flagg]

I think a large number of variables can be added to this (all of them justified), but my thought was: what if you wanted only one or two variables? what would be the minimum that can capture the risk?
For example, affiliation with shariahist-Islam alone is clearly not enough. Populations strongly attached to that notion (as in Malaysia) do not seem on the verge of a major insurgency.
and so on...

Agreed.

Maybe a better question I could ask might be:

What are the fewest yes/no and/or numerical range scoring questions needed to assess risk?

Everyone like elegant and simple, which is often the polar opposite of reality/humanity.

[omarali50]

there MAY have been another lone-wolf attack in Ohio. I am not really focusing on the attack (which may turn out to be completely unrelated to Jihad, or we may never know), but it got me thinking and led to a this series of tweets:

https://storify.com/omarali50/lone-wolves-and-psychos

So the question is this: What is the history of lone wolf terrorism? is there a proper definition? what started such sprees and what ended them? What ideologies/religions/circumstances make it possible or encourage it? What kind of person goes for it?
And so on. If this is already written somewhere, can we have a link?
Thanks