I'm not arguing an equivalency, here. ISIS and its leaders are savvy and, I believe, evil people who should be dealt with effectively -- by regional forces with an investment in bringing sanity and reasonable government to Anbar Province. ISIS leaders clearly find the Omar Mateens of our world useful, as the alienated Omar Mateens find ISIS useful as something to rub our western noses in.
Garlic and Complexity
In a second "The Interpreter" article by Times writer Amanda Taub headlined "Mass Attacks, Domestic Abuse And a Pattern of Total Control," Taub quotes Nimmi Gowrinathan, a professor at City College of New York who studies women's roles in insurgent and terrorist conflicts. In cases like Omar Mateen, she sees a push/pull dynamic at work. Male-centric restrictive norms in ISIS propaganda are a "pull" factor, while those being so pulled are "pushed" by their own needs and desires. It's a symbiotic relationship. Her conclusion is that the demonic aspects of Omar Mateen's motivation are more inner and homegrown than foreign-influenced. "He is the outcome of the United States' political culture, not the Islamic State's."
Hollering the would-be-magic words "Radical Islam! Radical Islam!" louder and louder doesn't affect any of this complexity. Though it may not be a pretty picture of institutional civility, the Democratic civil disobedience that exploded within the US Congress in the face of such blockheadedness was encouraging. It's a dilemma: How do you break a logjam without being rough with the jammed-up logs? We can only hope this unprecedented election year will end with a silver stake through the heart of America's far-right vampire party. Like garlic to vampires, an understanding and acceptance of complexity will destroy these people.
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