The Paris Carnage, Radicalism & a Global Civil War Can the We Learn from the Ascent of ‘Asymmetrical Inner-city Armies’ & Unorthodox Martial Manoeuvres?

Trotsky famously said even if you are not interested in war, war is interested in you. Close to a million have died, injured and displaced by a mission to destroy Saddam Hussein and his “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. Syria has been disjointed by disingenuous intervention leading to human calamity and emergence of ISIS that propelled the horrific attack in Paris.  The carnage by jihadists has killed 32,658 people in 67 countries last year. The rise of asymmetrical armies and unorthodox military tactics who gained momentum in destabilized Syria and Iraq use the name ISIS (a catchy name of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, Aset). Jihad conjures up with “struggle” and with two diametrically opposite meanings. One is struggle or resistance from within in an effort to cleanse oneself corresponding to prayer, meditation, intro­spection and altruistic conduct as preached and practiced by major orga­nized religions. The second version is struggle with the use and extensive employment of the sword and hence vio­lence against the infidels.

The ISIS terror that has swept through Europe has had a universal impact but the footprints of irre­sponsibility are now part of global response to terrorism at a planetary scale, im­possible to be dismissed as an undesired but necessary outcome. Looking at the Syrian crisis and the resultant refugee influx into Europe, the aid industry, a colossal business, which is hard to reform, follows the footsteps of the ‘military-industrial complex’ that created chaos in Iraq & Syria. Containment of the ISIS will not work but to root it out, the fundamental reason why all this terrorist movement has gained momentum, the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, must be resolved to mutual gains that can happen if all stakeholders join for peace ardently. Good and bad ‘terrorists’ and states sponsoring them must be jettisoned simultaneously that can be successful if a politi­cal solution in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Egypt can be arrived in an inclusive manner, if the Sunnis and Shias can come to a truce and if these are ad­dressed without strategic considerations.

Key words: terrorism, ISIS, Syria, Iran, refugees
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Picture: The Spectator