Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”
An interfaith-Christian-nonsense-tradition. Not only is that a near-perfect description of the soft-progressive mindset that affects the majority of media-educated Americans, it’s also a boom! headshot to all the dumb-assed things your friends at Starbucks are telling you about ISIS in particular, and Islam in general.
The first, and most refreshing, thing you’ll notice about What ISIS Really Wants is the complete lack of po’-mouthed moral equivalence. In an era where most media consider it verboten to offer open criticism of anything besides Christianity and cisgender whites, Graeme Wood fearlessly asserts that ISIS is the enemy of the United States, of modern Islam, and of world peace.
The second, and most important, thing you’ll notice about the article is that Mr. Wood tirelessly details how the beliefs and practices of ISIS are:
* absolutely rooted in, and based upon, the words and deeds of the Prophet;
* internally consistent and supported by well-realized doctrine;
* sane, disciplined, and focused, within the belief system of historical Islam.
At any point in the article, Mr. Wood could have copped-out and used the f-word (fundamentalist) to describe ISIS or its adherents or its boosters. The fact that the word doesn’t appear a single time is a testament to the depth and intelligence of his research. It’s typically lazy American-progressive thinking to blame fundamentalism as the boogeyman behind everything from Christians demonstrating at abortion clinics to ISIS beheading Egyptian Christians. In that mindset, it isn’t the beliefs of ISIS that are problematic — it’s the strength of their beliefs that offends. It follows, therefore, that the people in ISIS aren’t any worse, or any better, than the Promise Keepers.
This mindset is particularly attractive to women. I’ve often said that female emotion is not FM, it’s AM. In other words, if you want to sleep with a woman, it doesn’t particularly matter whether she loves or hates you. What’s important is the strength of that emotion. If a woman tells you that you are the worst person on earth and that she prays for your violent death twice a day, you might as well start filing another notch on your guitar. If, on the other hand, she tells her friends that you “seem like a nice guy, I guess,” chances are you’ll be available for your nightly guild meeting in WoW after all.
Amplitude-modulated emotion is a very feminine, and very progressive, thing. The last time a man went directly from hating something with all his might to loving it unconditionally, they wrote a best-selling book about it. We like the idea that we are consistent from day to day, as constant as the northern star, and so on. We are hugely reluctant to admit to any change in our opinions, and we’re actively embarrassed when somebody calls us on it:
“Hey, Jack, didn’t you say that the entire Honda lineup sucks? Didn’t you actually have a party called ‘Huck Fonda’ in March of 2012?”
“Uh, yes…”
“And did you not, in fact, buy a 2014 Honda Accord?”
“Uh, um… well… it had the strongest crash structure, and, um…” Women just don’t think like that. They will flip it and reverse it like Missy Elliott. Example: Many years ago, a female member of an online car forum went through the trouble of creating a fake username, complete with backstory and unrelated establishing posts, for the sole purpose of attacking me and criticizing my writing. Time elapsed, in terms of actual face-to-face interaction, from her last post on that subject to me pulling off her panties, in a press car, in the parking lot of a grocery store: under seven hours. Certainty I had that it was going to happen: 99.7%. Source of the 0.3% uncertainty: fear of a massive comet striking the Earth.
You’ll never see a man behave like that. Our fault is the opposite: we remain in love with stupid ideas long after they’ve been proven wrong. Which is why these guys in ISIS are so dangerous. As Mr. Wood points out, their ideology is so historically consistent (note that I did not say extreme, this isn’t a fucking skatepark) that they’ve effectively declared al-Qaeda the enemy despite the fact that al-Qaeda shares the vast majority of their ideology. It’s the old Emo Philips skit, only this time people are dying for real. Mr. Wood very perceptively suggests that many ISIS boosters view their life and mission in an almost Tolkien-esque manner. They are fighting for the prophet of God against a world of apostasy seven billion infidels strong. They expect the apocalypse in their lifetimes, expect to be winnowed down to five thousand martyrs on a plain of battle and to be saved by the actions of a returned Christ Almighty.
They really believe this stuff. I don’t mean that they really believe it the way you said you really believed in Christianity right before you slept through church on Sunday morning then fired off into a piece of tissue paper while watching the free previews on Brazzers, and I don’t mean that they really believe it the way you said you believed in racial equality right before you crossed the street to avoid a Michael-K.-Williams-look-a-like in a hoodie. I mean that they really believe in it and that their actions are consistent with their beliefs.
As Americans in the year 2015, we’re so thoroughly steeped in irony, detachment, and hypocrisy that we are psychologically unable to understand the men who fight for ISIS. We’ve been infected by a vertiginous mindset that causes us to view all sincere belief from a great height, as if we were drunk or dreaming. You want proof? I’ll give you proof. How many of you believe that abortion is murder? Are you doing anything to stop it? If you really think that they are killing babies in that building right over there, are you prepared to do something to stop that killing?
What about racism, sexism, or any of the other isms? Are you willing to give up everything you have to help the putative victims of that -ism? Has any white liberal in history ever voluntarily quit a job and lost his house so that job could go to a qualified minority? Did Lena Dunham tear up her Oberlin acceptance letter so a PoC could take her place?
You know what strikes me the most about the infamous “I can’t breathe” video? Nobody steps in to help the guy. Even the person taking the video moves away when the cops tell him to. There are fifty people watching Eric Garner die and nobody intervenes. Nobody even yells at the police. All the garbage you hear people spit about “solidarity with oppressed minorities” and “#BlackLivesMatter” and when there’s an actual #BlackLife being snuffed out in front of you, people watch it with all the disinterest they give a second-rate guitarist on Bourbon Street. Let me ask you a question: Do you think any member of ISIS would permit an image of the Prophet to be defaced in front of him the way all those New Yorkers watched Eric Garner die?
You know the answer to that.
The overall conclusion I drew from Mr. Wood’s article on ISIS is that I don’t have too much to fear from them here in Powell, Ohio. While I find this passage a bit chilling:
the caliphate has continued to embrace slavery and crucifixion without apology. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” Adnani, the spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”
I rather think that ISIS will have a hard time enforcing the caliphate in the Midwest. If you think we had a hard time in Vietnam, just wait for the day that some foreign power tries conquering any wooded part of America while fifty million dudes wearing Realtree take good solid 200-yard shots on their officers. While it’s entirely possible my son will be enslaved, I rather think it will be wage slavery that gets him, same as it’s gotten me.
And there you have it — some ironic detachment on my part, equating a six-figure job in a downtown office with being put in chains by a bunch of murderous fanatics. Even I have trouble believing in the sincerity of their beliefs. But, as I’ve often said, the thing about reality is this: even if you don’t believe in it, you’re still subject to its whims.
Some humans are prone to violence. Since many humans (including the bad ones) are also keen to rationalize their behavior, some of them will use religion as a framework for doing what they wish to do.
Religion is like tofu — you can give it just about any flavor that you want. The texts of the major faiths are lengthy enough to allow for generous cherry picking by both the lovers and the fighters.
In the case of a group such as ISIS, it’s facile to ascribe a single motive to all of them. It would seem that a lot of the recruits are either on a misguided search for meaning or else want to live out some sort of Call of Duty first-person-shooter fantasy in which they have permission to be violent.
Some of them feel disenfranchised and are lashing out. Others have a savior complex and genuinely believe that they are doing the right thing for others who belong to their tribe. What we do know is that many of them are not particularly knowledgeable of their professed faith; they may have passion, but the belief doesn’t necessarily have much depth to it.
What doesn’t make sense is to turn our brawl with ISIS into a broader war with 1.6 billion people, when we have no beef with the vast majority of them. Namecalling doesn’t make for effective policy.
“What we do know is that many of them are not particularly knowledgeable of their professed faith; they may have passion, but the belief doesn’t necessarily have much depth to it.”
What makes you say that, given that the source article is at pains to emphasize first-hand reporting about how well-indoctrinated and scripture-aware many ISIS members are?
“What doesn’t make sense is to turn our brawl with ISIS into a broader war with 1.6 billion people, when we have no beef with the vast majority of them. Namecalling doesn’t make for effective policy.”
I don’t think there’s any danger of that happening. The President is pretty forthcoming with the dhimmitude, as are most American opinion leaders. What Mr. Wood is at pains to point out is that our cultural stereotypes regarding Islam, both positive and negative, have directly impacted our ability to deal with ISIS.
“What makes you say that, given that the source article is at pains to emphasize first-hand reporting about how well-indoctrinated and scripture-aware many ISIS members are?”
I’ve read other sources that provide evidence that supports that position. They can regurgitate what they’ve been told by these particular people, but they didn’t necessarily know very much going into it. Many of them didn’t have religious upbringings, and probably don’t know much about varying interpretations.
Just as many guys who join the US military know little about US history, the Constitution, etc., they can be believers in the cause without knowing much about it. Some sloganeering is good enough.
I should add that the “we must call them Muslims!!!” argument is not particularly compelling.
For one, this position is taken largely for public consumption. What the US doesn’t (and shouldn’t) want is to give these thugs moral authority by publicly associating them with one of the world’s major religions. We should want to reduce their moral authority, not serve it up to them on a silver platter.
For another, it doesn’t change the policy outcome. The complication here is that the US policy is not really about ISIS but about preserving Iraq. That creates what appears to be a contradictory policy — the administration wanted to fight ISIS in Iraq in order to protect the Baghdad government, while it did not want to become a de facto ally of Bashar Assad by targeting ISIS in Syria.
That is further complicated by the fact that we want the Kurds to fend off ISIS yet avoid the creation of an independent Kurdistan that would (a) cause Iraq to dissolve and (b) anger our purported allies in Turkey. And this is complicated further still by the fact that Americans are not going to want a protracted ground war in the Middle East, no matter what they tell pollster at the moment.
All of the policy options here suck. The ideal thing would be to get the Sunni to do the fighting for us, but that’s about as easy as herding cats, particularly when those cats would also want Iraq to dissolve. This desire to preserve the Sykes-Picot map of the Middle East is driving a lot of this, and we may need to decide that this isn’t such a great idea, after all.
I should add that the “we must call them Muslims!!!” argument is not particularly compelling.
You don’t ever want to say the word Muslim if it involves anything negative about your exotic new brown pets (BTW, if Arabs are “brown”, can Jews, their genetic cousins, at least be “beige”, or are we now assigned “privileged white” status by cultural mandarins like you?). Obviously, from the remarks of Pres. Obama about a random bunch of folks, not “Jews”, getting killed in a Paris deli and the White House’s statement on the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, without mentioning the word “Christians”, members of the Obama administration are certainly not willing to say “Muslims killed Jews” or “Muslims killed Christians”. Are you?
When Muslims slaughtered scores of mostly elderly, non-Zionist religious Jews in Hebron in 1929, were they upset over the “nakba” of 1948, the “occupation” of 1967, or “Islamophobia” in 2015?
Keep telling yourself that it you feed it tasty morsels, the crocodile will eat you last.
I explained why it’s a useless and harmful label for the purposes of creating policy. I didn’t say that I expected you to get it.
The fact that you’d prefer to insult 1.6 billion people instead of dealing with the tiny fraction of nutjobs who are problematic tells me more about you than it does about the problem.
Where did I insult 1.6 billion people?
Twenty percent (or more) of that number is not only not a “tiny” fraction, it’s hundreds of millions of people who have no problem with jihad, who, as the Atlantic article pointed out, either support or don’t oppose acts of terror against Jews, Christians and western governments.
I understand that you’re perfectly comfortable with the deaths of a few Jews and Christians, what with how you feel about eggs and omelets. Again, are you willing to publicly say the phrases, “Muslims killed Jews” and “Muslims killed Christians”?
Just how much have you studied about Islam? What are the differences between Shia and Sunni? Where do the Sufis fit in? What’s the status of non-Muslims in Muslim societies, per the rules of Islam? Does Islam, like Judaism and Christianity have a concept of separating secular government from ecclesiastical authorities?
“I understand that you’re perfectly comfortable with the deaths of a few Jews and Christians”
This is simply a wretchedly stupid comment.
I haven’t said anything that would even remotely suggest that this is true. If you wish to be taken seriously, then you should respond to things that I’ve said instead of arguing with the wacky voices inside your head.
You know, it’s not very hard to articulate: “Muslims killed Jews”, “Muslims killed Christians”. Why are you so adverse to speaking truth to power? Worried about offending Muslims or just afraid of them? Or worried about offending your fellow travelers?
Have you ever said a word to your fellow lefties about the plight of Christians in the Muslim world? Did the recent beheading of 21 Coptic Christians cause you enough distress to comment on it?
What religious group in America is far and away the greatest target for hate crimes here?
If complaining about Muslims would help to advance the causes of US foreign policy, then I would be in favor of it.
But since it is counterproductive, I oppose it. US policy should be driven by what entertains you.
“What makes you say that, given that the source article is at pains to emphasize first-hand reporting about how well-indoctrinated and scripture-aware many ISIS members are?”
Because we have various groups of Christians in this society who are also “scripture-aware,” but only really seem to truly care about a few verses from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. i.e. “People I don’t like deserve to be condemned to hell.” They basically ignore everything that Jesus fella said and did. Oh sure, they can quote chapter and verse from the New Testament, but when they’re pressed into acting it’s all Old Testament fire & brimstone and the leveling of Sodom and Gomorrah.
far too many people’s religious beliefs are picking & choosing whichever passages in their Book align with what they already believe, and minimize the rest.
Energy independence, the lot of them can kill themselves.
Our rifles will have long been confiscated by then.
Didn’t you hear? These poor, misguided youths are just joining ISIS because there aren’t enough jobs in Iraq!
http://www.inquisitr.com/1849533/isis-recruits-join-because-they-lack-job-opportunities-obama-official-marie-harf-claims/
She has a point. Some of these people join up in order to get a paying job. ISIS pays pretty well in comparison to their competition, and as we have seen in Syria, there are even defectors who change sides (such as the supposed Syrian “moderates”) in order to get the better pay packet.
Another issue is that ISIS are Sunni. Most Muslims are Sunni, but Iran and Iraq are run by Shiites.
The Sunni are a minority in Iraq — Saddam Hussein was Sunni and accorded the privileges to the Sunni, but now the government is Shiite-led and the previous al-Maliki government was hostile to the Sunni.
This creates a problem. The Sunni don’t want to do the bidding of the Shiites in either Baghdad or Tehran. If they fight ISIS, then they are helping the Shiites.
If the Sunni are going to fight en masse against ISIS, then they need to get something out of the deal — they do not want to do the bidding of the Shiites, and they certainly don’t want to help Iran.
There are no easy answers here, but the desire to preserve the current borders of Iraq is absolutely central to the problem. The fact that ISIS is fighting a government in Syria that we also oppose is likewise another issue that mucks this up. This is one area in which Putin may have had a point — perhaps we should have sided with Assad for the sake of killing off the militants, then figured out what to do with him later.
I would suggest that no matter how you look at it, the central mistake pointed out by the source article — that Western observers are applying their own preconceptions, indifference, and progressive-humanist-poppycock to their attempts to understand ISIS — still stands.
You can attempt to view the situation as it if were the European theater of WWII as much as you like, but in doing so you fail to appreciate and understand that these people absolutely believe in their scripture and their religion, and that there is nothing insane, non-canonical, or irreligious in their behavior.
“You can attempt to view the situation as it if were the European theater of WWII as much as you like”
I didn’t do any such thing. I’m noting the inherent problems of the US trying to impose its political goals on a region that doesn’t care about them, as well as the problem of ignoring the problems that Muslim sects have with each other.
“you fail to appreciate and understand that these people absolutely believe in their scripture and their religion”
Some do, some don’t. But in any case, that doesn’t have anything to do with what the policy should be.
The leadership is nihilistic and apocalyptic — I get it. Now that we’ve established that, knowing this doesn’t provide us with much insight about what we should do.
But fine, educate me: Tell me how banging on about their special wicked Muslimness changes the manner which they should be dealt. It’s not as if there are special anti-Muslim missiles that we are supposed to fire at them or anti-Muslim aviation fuel that we need to power the F-15’s that we are using to kill them.
Defeating them outright is probably expecting them too much, but containing them will require more Kobani-type battles in which they suffer conspicuous defeats that make them look less invincible and that discourages western recruits who are hoping to sign up for some sort of anti-Western videogame. More to the point, we need to find locals who are willing to fight toward common goals, but that is probably going to require that we also change some of our own objectives (i.e. keeping Iraq together.)
At the same time, we should understand that it is very difficult for outside powers to win wars like this. We can win rapid conventional wars, but we do badly with wars of attrition when we have little to gain. Don’t forget that we just got finished losing two wars that were related to this.
“But fine, educate me: Tell me how banging on about their special wicked Muslimness changes the manner which they should be dealt. It’s not as if there are special anti-Muslim missiles that we are supposed to fire at them or anti-Muslim aviation fuel that we need to power the F-15’s that we are using to kill them.”
Going back to the WWII analogy,
* the French surrendered almost immediately
* the Brits were going to use poison gas rather than yield the island
* The Germans surrendered in an orderly fashion
* The Japanese were going to hand every woman and child a sharpened stick and tell them to die in the field
Can you argue that all four campaigns should have been fought identically? Would you bring out the “there are no anti-Japanese bullets” trope back in 1945? Because it turned out that there was an anti-Japanese bullet, and it was delivered by Bockscar.
ISIS is not Saddam’s Iraq. It has to be dealt with differently.
If, that is, it must be dealt with at all. We could simply tell the caliphate that we’ll buy oil from them everywhere they conquer and kick the can down the road to our children. Alternately, we could airburst a Tsar-Bomba-grade weapon over the area and consider it sort of pour encourager l’autres thing.
“Can you argue that all four campaigns should have been fought identically?”
That’s not particularly relevant to this issue.
Again, the question is what their Muslimness or lack thereof tells us about what we should do. The answer is: not much.
The ISIS leadership behaves like a death cult, and they have far more in common with other death cults such as the Khmer Rouge than they do with the guys and gals at your local mosque.
“We could simply tell the caliphate that we’ll buy oil from them everywhere they conquer and kick the can down the road to our children.”
After 2,000+ air sorties and the coordination with the Kurds at Kobani, it should be pretty obvious that this isn’t the strategy.
“Alternately, we could airburst a Tsar-Bomba-grade weapon over the area and consider it sort of pour encourager l’autres thing.”
I do hope that you’re not seriously suggesting a nuke war.
I would personally favor a ground war if it can be fought very quickly. If it can’t be won within a few months, then I would say that it is a foolhardy exercise. This country has no appetite for yet another quagmire.
“That’s not particularly relevant to this issue.
Again, the question is what their Muslimness or lack thereof tells us about what we should do. The answer is: not much. ”
It’s entirely relevant to the issue. Their actions and plans are determined by their reading of the Koran. You cannot defeat them in the traditional sense; you have to kill the caliph and burn the caliphate to the ground. Do you expect ISIS to surrender, ever?
“The ISIS leadership behaves like a death cult, and they have far more in common with other death cults such as the Khmer Rouge than they do with the guys and gals at your local mosque.”
That is precisely the mindset that Wood addresses in the article: the idea that these people are informed by a philosophy more important or more foundational to their behavior than Islam. It’s a feel-good idea. They have nothing in common with the Khmer Rouge, a point that is made at length in the article.
“After 2,000+ air sorties and the coordination with the Kurds at Kobani, it should be pretty obvious that this isn’t the strategy.”
Which is not to say it won’t happen.
“I do hope that you’re not seriously suggesting a nuke war. ”
ISIS is not a nuclear power, so it would not be a nuke war. With that said, ISIS is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention and their caliph has issued the “poison crops” mandate. So everything from nerve gas on up should be on the table.
“I would personally favor a ground war if it can be fought very quickly.”
The only way it can be “fought” against people who actually live by their principles is to kill every last man, woman, and child in the region. Which we don’t have the stomach to do.
“Do you expect ISIS to surrender, ever?”
Was anyone operating under the assumption that they would?
In any case, ISIS isn’t a nation-state, so that isn’t quite how it works. We aren’t looking to negotiate an armistice with a terrorist group.
“They have nothing in common with the Khmer Rouge”
You can believe that if you wish. But again, this they-must-be-Islam argument misses the point. (Again, I should point that there are other articles aside from this one, and you should probably read some of them.)
The real issues are: (a) How do you reduce their funding and (b) how do you discourage recruitment? Their Muslimness doesn’t tell you anything about the former, and has only limited utility in addressing the latter, particularly as the recruits are not nearly as monolithic as you would like to think.
“So everything from nerve gas on up should be on the table.”
We’re already bombing the hell out of them. I’m not sure what else you want.
“The only way it can be “fought” against people who actually live by their principles is to kill every last man, woman, and child in the region.”
No, that isn’t true. Many of the people living under their rule have been conquered. They aren’t necessarily fans of ISIS, either.
You’re turning this into something that it isn’t. This became a problem when ISIS ventured beyond Syria’s borders and the Iraqi army decided to surrender (in spite of all of Bush 43’s efforts to train them) instead of keeping them back. If they had never left Syria and didn’t have HD video cameras, then you wouldn’t have heard much about them.
We don’t need a war to end all wars. Pushing them back to Syria and depleting their numbers would be good enough. Some conspicuous defeats would certainly deprive them of revenue (since they would lose their oil resources) and probably hurt their recruitment (since people who play Call of Duty aren’t fond of losing, plus the loss of revenue would make it harder for them to collect a paycheck.) This has very little to do with Islam as a religion, and more to do with the geopolitical issues in the region that do include some religious-tribal overlap.
re Death Cult and the WWII examples. We did not need to kill every single Japanese, we just had to convince them that we were willing to.
Whether the people of ISIS are true Muslims or not is nice academically. Perhaps we should call a spade a spade. We could bicker about whether or not the KKK are true christians. They seem to think they are. But it doesn’t change the situation much if they are true believing scholars or local yokels who like what the man with the beard is saying. They are consistent in their beliefs, which is a bit of a problem for the rest of us.
Is there anything that realistically can be done by the US or our allies that is in any way shape or form going to improve the situation in the region? Not just Iraq/Syria but Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Palestine. Since 2001 we have bombed the shit out of a lot of these places and spent trillions of dollars while our own economy floundered. For what in return? A less stable world, a new “terrorist” state, a larger military-industrial complex, more dead and wounded American soldiers?
CNN briefly ran this photo today, showing ISIS fighters in a long line of trucks:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150216175150-isis-in-libya-lead-02-16-large-169.jpg
Notice anything? Those are brand new trucks, all the same, and very clean. Even the tires aren’t dirty. It’s like they were just driven off the dealer lot, and someone scored a big bonus on moving that many trucks at the end of the month.
These guys are well-funded, and well-supplied. This isn’t the 1980s mujaheddin scratching out an existence in an Afghan cave.
Nothing to see here folks. A spokesperson from the State Department told us these jihadis are just lacking good jobs.
She (Marie Harf) stated- ‘go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups’ – including ‘lack of opportunity for jobs.’ ‘We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance,’ ‘We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.’
Yeah cause that’s working so well in her home country, right? :-/
The Islamic State needs 25 ccs of FREEDOM!!!
The human capacity to deny the existence of evil seems almost infinite.
From The New York Times in 1922, “New Popular Idol Rises In Bavaria”:
The software hosed that up.
The New York Times in 1922, “New Popular Idol Rises In Bavaria”:
“But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers.”
It was a milk-run business trip. Black car to ORD straight shot to DFW, presentation, then catch the evening turn-around flight home.
The Lincoln pulled up to the house. I got in. Early, still twilight. The driver, a silent, large man from somewhere in the Middle East. “O’Hare?”
“Yeah. American gate.”
He opened the door, I got in. The radio was quietly playing news radio. As we drove along, a story came on; new and unexpected hostilities between Palestinians and Israel. This was a few years ago, I forget now the exact context, but it was after what the president and State Department were calling a new era of cooperation. I muttered something along the lines of this being an unfortunate development because, and as a social and political moderate, I think peaceful relations are good a good thing, generally speaking.
My driver became animated.
“You do not understand. This is the beginning. Soon, there will come a call for us to rise up, and we will rise, together as one.”
“Huh?”
“Maybe someday I will again arrive at your door, but unannounced. What will you do then?”
“Hey, I just want a ride to O’Hare. Not sure where you’re going with this.”
“God will decide. He will show who is right, and who is wrong. And you will see when we are all dead together.”
“Mister, I’m not taking your bait. And if you like driving for the company that contracts for the corporation I work for, let’s just drop whatever this is.”
“You will see. You will see!”
And then he went quiet, narrowed eyes darting up to his rearview mirror to watch me. At the gate, he handed me the bill, I signed. I usually slide my driver a $10 tip (an appreciation gesture above the small mandatory tip the company pays). This time, I didn’t. Just turned, went to the door. I looked back, he was still standing there, watching me.
For a minute, I was scared. I was scared because my wife was home alone, getting ready for work. This guy could turn around and drive there, and I’d be powerless. I texted: Everything ok? She texted back, Fine, on way to work. I breathed a sigh of relief.
For the entire flight, I thought of that guy. I’d never seen seething hostility — and outright threats — from a stranger in what would normally be considered a typical business setting. Just a guy taking a black car to the airport. I never understood that amongst us, right here, in the middle of America, there are people who sincerely despise this country and its citizens. That they truly feel that someday, they’ll be called upon to kill us — hoping they get that call.
Maybe that dude is in ISIS right now. Took his own flight. Or maybe he’s heading up his own rogue cell here in America. I don’t know. I did call the limo service and reported that my driver on that morning was threatening and inappropriate, without getting into details. Who knows if he’s still with them. I expect not.
As for him ever appearing on my doorstep? This moderate who thinks peaceful relations are better than hostilities will invite him in, Springfield 1911 with a mag full of Black Talons in hand. I’m not expecting it to ever come to that, and I hope it does not, but I know someone out there hates me without even knowing who I am, and he knows where I live.
I do not know what ISIS wants, or what they think they’ll realistically achieve. But if my driver friend is any indication of their mindset, I’m pretty sure it’s pure infidel bloodlust.
Wait… Black Talons?
From 1992?
You might want to swap those out 🙂
Not quite that old, more like 2000 at the end of the run, which my step-dad procured from an armorer friend of his (I don’t ask). But yeah, the originals. My step-dad invested in cases of the stuff when they were discontinued for SXTs, and I ended up with enough for a lifetime. I still run a box or two now and then at the range. No misfeeds, misfires. Run like new. Of course, the Springfield eats anything. Still original loose mil-spec tolerances, unlike the current crop of Kimbers and the like. Got a bunch more in 9mm and those feed through the Beretta just as reliably. With modern ammo, given proper dry storage, it pretty much lasts for decades with no problem. Some people still think these rounds are magic, though. I pull out a box at the range and I’ve had guys offer to buy it — they cringe when I knock back all 50. It’s not like I’m guzzling straight out of a bottle of Domaine Deflaive.
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Great stuff, and I thought you wrote just about cars. This is the existential threat of our time. While the Commander in Chief is loathe to mount even a rhetorical fight never mind a political or militaristic one.