Armies Cannot Eliminate Fanatical Ideologies: The Futile War On Terror

Destroying an ideology comes only through education. Why? Because War against an ideology is not about land or resources. There is no kingdom to conquer nor is there a new supply of food or energy to keep your people's bellies full or places to resettle. It is about a radical and fundamental idea that is driven by faith, no matter how corrupt or skewed it may be.

The destruction of  ISIS will only destroy, well, ISIS and nothing else. One or more groups will rise up from those ashes, or existing ones will slither in to fill the radical religious vacuum left by their disappearance.

Groups like ISIS are winning the long game with Sun Tzu like strategy and gorilla like strikes. By creating enough fear, anger, and hatred in numerous parts of the world, our leaders, and us, are being deceived into blaming virtually every Muslim in the world and their entire religion. 

With small but devastating attacks, that while taking many lives, they are more psychologically damaging than physically. The end game is to build so much hatred and doubt that we, the Western World retaliate indiscriminately, thus creating the Holy War they believe -due to their twisted interpretations- that God wants. 

They revel -now more than ever- in the fact that politicians are using terrorism as a means to get the populous riled up in the hopes of gaining votes. This is nothing new in politics but with modern capabilities to create such large scale destruction it is now even more precarious to allow such things to transpire.

This is not a piece about being pro or con in regards to any religion. It is hopefully to remind people about the folly of fighting against an idea and believing you can suppress or eliminate such a non physical and abstract threat by using very real world tangible things such as bombs, guns, torture, and executions. These tactics alone will do virtually nothing.

We do need to protect ourselves and such things as weapons and a military go far in that protection. But they only can be used with efficiency to a small degree and at very specific times. It is inefficient to use them in a large scale battle, or battles, against mere ideals.

We must be careful to not be lead by such vitriol instinct and our emotions. It will lead us to do unspeakable things, to perhaps lose our humanity. We must understand the threat and help the far more numerous people, our fellow man -be they Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Baha'i, Pagan, Agnostic, or if they have no belief in God- to stand together, to look at every way to educate each other on such radicalism -from any ideology- and the danger it poses on all of us.

If we allow ourselves to forget who we are, and we become indistinguishable from our enemies, then we deserve whatever hell is unleashed upon us.