Quick victory over ISIS:
The Islamic State, or as the media seem to prefer ISIS, has become a near constant feature of the news. I always try to find something nice to say about people either as individuals or groups, but I confess ISIS does not seem to be tying to make it easy for me. About the best I can say is that they seem highly effective and they have a point; living in Iraq under Shiite domination has been horrible for them, as it has been horrible for anybody else other than Shiites. That’s not to say the ISIS forces are any nicer, but it seems clear that neither Shiites nor Sunni can be trusted to be fair when they have control of the other. So just as it seems, to me anyway, only fair to have a Kurdistan for the Kurds, and I’d like to see that include relevant parts of Turkey as well as Iraq and Syria, so there should be a Sunnistan incorporating about what ISIS seems to have targeted.
Right now we are essentially at war with them. I don not see any early victory by bombing. They are recruiting faster than we do them in. So what’s the “quick victory”?
I fall back on the idea that we are the good guys. That means our victory should be something they would have reason to thank us for.
Their recruitment ability to my eye seems simply to be the fact that so many people hate America. I think at the heart of it this is because adequate fertility depends on fairly close cousin marriages. And America seems to have placed high value on just the opposite and would fain impose that on everybody. But it is a bankrupt policy. All you would do is slowly kill off by infertility those people most receptive to your idea. Something else must be tried.
Another recruitment advantage seems to be the idea of a Holy War. If you are killed in such a war you go straight to heaven and get seventy two virgins. I find it hard to believe a lot of people take that seriously; when I read the Koran it was not mentioned, or at least I do not remember it – not that I remember that much, but it would seem to be something that would jump off the page.
Well in chapter 19 or Handbook on Evolution and Society, Professor Robin fox mentions that 150 adults seems to be about the optimal size of a mating population. If the population goes up to 300 in a traditional society, the band will split. If half of those 150 are women, then that is 75 women, which would be the ideal number to choose among. That’s not so far from 72, now is it? So the 72 virgins need not be taken as literal; it is simply a way of expressing an ideal existence.
It has long been pointed out that the terrorists, and in particular the suicide bombers, seem to come from good families. They are on the whole intelligent, well educated and constructive citizens before they are “radicalized.” But that means they have rich relatives. Since Islam is tolerant of multiple wives such a young man is likely faced with the prospect of no cousins to marry. Of course there are other women out there, but they just won’t do. One of the Boston Marathon bombers was marries to a woman who was initially not Muslim. She converted to Islam, but that just didn’t do it for him. She couldn’t convert of cousin. And in such societies it is sometimes implied, if not literally said, or a man who had married far from kin, “He is dead to me.”
Now the prospect of those seventy two virgins does not seem to suffice in the fact. ISIS is happy to recruit women to come marry their fighters.
So what we need to do is this; get hold of their leaders. They have to be very intelligent. They will understand the need to marry cousins and the logic that given the amazing amount of oil wealth in that part of the world there is a significant depletion of marriage prospects for the followers. Since, and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this, they really are trying to improve the lot of the Sunni, they must understand that this polygamy is not doing to bulk of them any favors. Attractive though a harem might seem it is to the overall detriment of the society. Islam condones multiple wives, and in fact may encourage that, but it cannot require it. It doesn’t forbid jay walking, but that doesn’t mean that’s so good an idea; it certainly does not mean it’s required.
It’s just a thought. I am far from my comfort zone here, but I thought I’d speculate on whether the principle could be turned to making the world a nicer place.
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