I know you don’t condone them.
ISIS and others nonetheless believe themselves Muslim, the tip of the spear of Islam, and reference related lore and literature to justify what they do, and there is no gray about what they do. We are all — Muslim, Christian, and Jewish and everyone else, including Chinese nonbeliever oligarchs 🙂 — are looking for ways to shut them down, and that needs must include addressing their intellectual engines as well as arms supply, financing, organization, outreach, etc.
Pakistan’s military has been hard at work on this: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Taliban-fighters-cut-hair-and-beards-to-flee-Pakistan-army-assault-in-North-Waziristan/articleshow/37894679.cms
These “Islamic Small Wars”, as I call them, will not end in the field. They have to end in the minds of those who most propel them, and those souls cannot be reached with drones and tanks and infantry.
News from the Pakistani theater.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters rushed to disguise themselves with new haircuts in the weeks before a Pakistani army assault, it has emerged, as refugees revealed details of life under the militants — and their taste for imported luxuries.
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