About a year ago, I wrote and sought to market an action screenplay, "The Hannibal Protocol," set in Lebanon and Syria, which examined the motivation of ISIS volunteers. Although the screenplay received good feedback from "The Black List" (I have no Hollywood connections), Hollywood would have none of it, believing, as did President Obama, that ISIS had been "contained."
Today, in an interesting New York Times op-ed entitled "How ISIS Makes Radicals," David Brooks examines the motivation of ISIS terrorists and asks how "the Islamic State is able to radicalize a couple living in Redlands, Calif." After presenting us with the tenets of "The True Believer," a 1951 book written by Eric Hoffer, Brooks offers advice as how best to respond to the threat from ISIS:
"The big thing that has changed in the past 60 odd years is that you don’t actually have to join a mass movement any more. You can follow it online and participate remotely.
The correct response is still the same, however. First, try to heal the social disintegration that is the seedbed of these movements. Second, offer positive inspiring causes to replace the suicidal ones. Third, mass movements are conquered when their charisma is destroyed, when they are defeated militarily and humiliated. Then they can no longer offer hope, inspiration or a plausible way out for the disaffected."
Heal the social disintegration among the tens of millions of alienated and impoverished Muslims in the Middle East, Europe, and now, in increasing numbers, the US, too? Good luck.
Offer Muslims a positive inspiring cause, i.e. pry them away from radical Islam? Sorry, but I don't think global warming will do the trick.
Defeat and humiliate ISIS? Obama had the chance; however, as so aptly stated by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, America's president is a "total pussy." And as further observed by Stacey Dash, the president doesn't "give a shit" about terrorism. (Both Peters and Dash were suspended by Fox News for two weeks for their colorful assessments.)
Brooks fails to observe that the rise of ISIS coincides with the decline of Obama's mass movement for "Change." Regrettably, having sold his followers on the proposition that al-Qaeda and ISIS were on the run, the president finds himself incapable of rallying his troops to defeat "radical Islam," a threat that this false messiah claimed did not exist and still refuses to acknowledge.
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