UI – Part 467 – When They Only Know War

Educated Only as a Soldier

Consider the plight of those who most of their lives were soldiers for a cause.  They battled the opposition. They were taught to shoot guns and use bayonets to thwart an invading enemy.  What skills do they have other than cleaning their weapons, making an explosive device (IED), marching, digging tunnels or trenches, and killing an enemy.  They are trained to hate an enemy, real or contrived, to serve their generals, their overlords. All they need to know is the identity or whereabouts of those they have been conditioned to hate and to eliminate. Collateral damage is of less importance than a mission’s outcome, the target secured or destroyed.

What happens when there is a peace accord? The military personnel are less important, less necessary and superfluous to restoration. The services they provide, for which they are skilled, are of little use in a developing economy. Police and security forces are required, but not in the numbers that comprised the soldiers on both sides.

In peace those who are trained in war need something to do.  If they gravitate to what they know they have the potential, especially if Islamic trained and conditioned radicalized Islamist terrorists, to continue to do harm in their wake.  They can form gangs, or pockets of Islamic fundamentalism with the intent of engendering fear, assuming control, raiding for the spoils of war, invading and taking over new territories, conquest for conquest sake, as bullies, or even as self-proclaimed Islamic police living among other Muslims. After all they have been conditioned, culturally born, to hate non-Muslims, the infidel, and the Christian and Jew most. What else do they know?  How do they suddenly turn their switch ‘on’ with respect to their hatred and shoot or stab or slash or drive a vehicle into a crowd, to ‘off’ to accept, be tolerant, put away the weapons and seek peace.

Homegrown Terrorists

In free environments, as homegrown, second or third generation Muslims, they tend to lose the heritage of their parents, as to their home of origin, to become only Muslims, or Islamic, and gain exposure to the jihad of Islam from Imams and other scholars in their local madrassas or mosques.  In addition TV reports of the military forces for the cause, successes of Islamists inflicting horrific conflict on innocents and taking credit for heinous acts outside their territories give them a sense of what it means to be fully committed to Allah, Muhammad and Islam.  These soldiers of Islam represent persons they may admire as patriots for a global Caliphate of which they want to be a part.

They may learn methods to proclaim Allah’s greatness as a bomber or other terrorist, or travel to a Muslim nation to receive training in methods employed to cause destruction, fear and changes in local habits. They might receive a greater awareness of Islam’s goal and capabilities and feel compelled to bring these learned skills back to their homes as a member of Allah’s army.  They also receive messages, encouragement, from militants calling them to action, that their lives only matter for Allah, a world all for Allah, and ‘paradise,’ as defined by the Quran, awaits those who sacrifice themselves in the name of Allah – Allah Akbar.  These Muslims may be insecure in their birth homes, uncomfortable being Muslim in name only, discovering Islam, and the hatred proclaimed towards all that is not Islamic, a means to be unique, to be different and to be noticed.  They are not independent enough to attempt to leave Islam or even learn about other belief systems.  They lack love, except for the love of Allah and what Islam, as a destructive force, represents.  When they meet immigrants from Syria, Somalia, Libya, or persons who were once members of ISIS or Al Qaeda (and may still be connected) they become part of a cabal for the cause.  They can become someone, they can become an Islamist, they can become a martyr, they will be loved by Allah.  They are conditioned to know war, the Dar al-Harb. How are they to be reprogrammed?  How can they be identified?

Reconfiguring the Minds of the Soldiers of Allah

There is a concern that needs to be addressed.  If there is success at taking control of centers of Islamist influence and training centers and creating a refugee population of trained Islamists, how are these surviving terrorist participants going to be retrained, reconditioned, reprogramed to become a part of a civilized society. Guantanamo attempted to reprogram many, even those considered most evil and generals who led men to war.  Obama released with frequency captives to countries in Islamaland, such as Qatar, where they were to be kept away from a return to their past terrorist habits.  How did that work out?

And who will define for the refugee warriors, even in Muslim peaceful areas, what is a civilized society?  Will it be up to the Saudi’s or the Iranians? Doubtful!  And for those emigrating to the West, will it be the EU? or Chancellor Merkle?  Who will devise the methods, the programs and structure to make members of a productive society out of warriors for a cause, known, understood, unknown or mis-understood?   Should they remain in their homelands or be taken elsewhere?  So many questions that are too hard to answer. Will outsiders, Christians, Mormons, non-Muslim groups be allowed to share, to teach and to try to convince these refugees the path to peace is not through Muhammad and Allah?  Will proselytization be permitted?

When

When they only know war, when the tenets of their ideology with every turn proclaim fighting an enemy, all that are not Muslims, and when their cultures, to include family members, peers, teachers and the leadership, encourage hatred until the world is cleansed of all those that are not true to Islam, how can the changes needed to achieve peace take place?

The conundrum is what comes first? War or Peace?  Are we not at war already?

Grace and Peace