Fighting ISIL On Their Level

For John, BLUF:  Terrorism works by causing Governments to abandon the rule of law, in secret or in public.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From Mr Richard Fernandez, and his blog, Belmont Club, we have this view of recent events in the Middle East, "Learning to Hate".

Here is the lede.

Obama may be leading the world in offering condemnation for the death of Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist beheaded by ISIS when authorities failed, in some way, to comply with their demands to release bomber Sajida al-Rishawi.  But it is Jordan which may have seized the popular imagination when it threatened to summarily execute all its ISIS prisoners should a hair on the Jordanian pilot in the gunmen’s custody be hurt.

A sort of fight fire with fire.  No guarantee it will work.  And a likely international outcry over the barbarity of the whole thing.  It will be against international law if it is done.

And, the author notes, lawyers have proliferated.  They are everywhere and objecting to everything.  Mr Fernandez fears there is a natural limit to what the great unwashed will tolerate.

It is when populations become tired of the lawyers that the real danger begins.  The question is:  how far are we from not giving a damn?

Here is Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds' spin on the whole thing.  Interesting.

I think concerns about human rights and international law are cultural imperialism.  ISIS’s behavior, and the Jordanian response, reflect the culture of the Arab world.  It would be as insensitive of us to impose a western culture of lawyers and human rights on the region — or even to employ one there ourselves — as it would be to serve bacon at a mosque.  Because no culture is any better than any other, and who are we to say that killing everyone in an enemy held city and building a pyramid of skulls outside is wrong — for them, or for that matter, for us?

Of course he is being a little Saul Alinski like by pushing the Progressive Agenda on the Progressives.

Another item of interest, from The International New York Times, is this article that says Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage at the news of the grizzly execution, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.”  Pacifist Japan?  I am not sure what they can do in revenge, but ISIL seems to be violating the law of Conservation of Enemies.

Hat tip to the Instapundit, who ends up saying "Of course, on a smaller scale, if we don’t want to reach the point at which people are “tired of lawyers,” it behooves the lawyers to be less tiresome, and bossy."

Regards  —  Cliff