Many familiar with ISIS and international
terrorism call the battle with the rest of the Muslim world and modern
civilization a generational one, taking years to play out. Others claim the Obama foreign policy is a
failure because it has been unable to stop ISIS or terrorism within his term in
office or he has no strategy. His critics do not have a strategy either that
differs much from what the White House is already executing. Instead, they
argue over the President’s definition of terms. Semantics will not defeat
terrorists. Actions which take into account the long term nature, the cause,
and communication methods of this generational movement will. A new President that does not understand this
could even increase threats to our national security.
What both the San Bernardino and the Paris
attacks had in common is that they were carried out by twenty something year
olds from a certain generation, Some will have those violent values in their
psyches for years to come. They use special means of communication that can
inspire and instruct lone wolves, sleeper cells, and coordinate attacks. Terrorists
do not communicate by phone so metadata collection has intelligence gathering
limitations in preventing attacks. They use encrypted internet sites and social
media. So far the purveyors of those services have taken little action against
these hidden methods.
There
is a force against ISIS that is also generational. They are uneasy bedfellows
over which no government has control. The battle of the 20 something nerds has
begun with a group of secret, controversial skilled hackers who work outside
the law world- wide like modern Robin Hoods. They call themselves Anonymous and
the Paris attacks that victimized mostly 20 somethings mobilized them to focus
their weapons on ISIS. They claim they have the ability to crack encrypted
messages, and sabotage social media and websites. Unlike Silicon Valley, they
have the will to do it.
Some
GOP candidates for president try to exude personal power, telling us they will stop
the spread of terrorism with domestic policies that make hash of the principles
and values of the Constitution. This is
as much of a war against ideologies requiring tactical finesse as it is a
physical one.
Lowering
ourselves to ISIS’ method of torture and fear or trampling civil rights of
Muslims in the US is fighting fire with gasoline. It puts us in greater danger of turning more young
domestic Muslims against us in anger and resentment, increasing self -radicalization
and loan wolf attacks.
We may have the firepower to stamp out the
Caliphate within their land borders if we choose to do an Iraq style invasion,
but we will not stamp out the spread of their ideology and copycat tactics to
other countries. As the President noted, we cannot bomb ideas from these young
peoples’ heads.
What
we also know is that Western boots alone on the ground only gave rise and
continuing fuel to ISIS. . We must undertake a delicate dance of balancing
multinational military and police force with ideological appeal to those who
just want to get on with their day to day lives and find our values give them
that opportunity.
A version of this ran in the www.skyhidailynews.com on Dec. 23, 2015
http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/technology/targeting-terror-intelligence-isis/index.html?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlarge&iid=obnetwork
