by Robert M. Traxler

The ISIS/ISIL/DAESH Islamic terrorists have taken a dose of reality; weapons of mass destruction are not limited to explosives, aircraft or automatic weapons. Attacks in Berlin and other places in Europe underscore the value of normal everyday items as weapons. The trend is now for terrorists to stay off the radar and not purchase weapons or ammunition or explosive components that may lead law enforcement investigating them.

The list of deadly weapons is infinite. Want to attack the New Year’s celebration in Times Square? Go up to a high window overlooking the crowd, break or open the window, and toss out heavy items. Computers, coffee makers, staplers, coffee cups, cans or bottles of soft drink, chairs, tables anything and everything becomes a weapon. The ensuing stampede will add to the body count.

As we have seen in the news, a vehicle, any vehicle, is a deadly weapon and the terrorist folks now understand that. If they wish to strike terror in our hearts, make us question being in any location into which a speeding vehicle may drive. Think it over: a restaurant, store, school, any location we gather could become a combat zone. That my friends is terror.

Per Wikipedia, worldwide in 2016 we saw more than a thousand terrorist attacks. Most were in Islamic countries, but the numbers in mostly Christian countries is growing. The thread that run through the attacks is the belief in Islam and the desire to become a martyr.

Bombs are difficult to detonate; the hard part in bomb making is building a remote detonator that actually works. Bomb makers are few and far between because they die in accidents at an alarming rate. A successful bomb maker is a rock star in the terrorist community because there are few who live very long.

So, what is a terrorist mastermind to do? Follow the KISS principle: keep it simple, stupid. The goal is to kill infidels, even Muslims who are not properly Islamic. A simple weapon, a kitchen knife, was used along with an automobile at Ohio State; can’t get more simple than that.

The Muslim religion is going through a period of self-examination as the modern world begins the twenty-first century. Modern norms and customs fly in the face of traditional Islamic teachings: equality for women, the use of drugs and alcohol, acceptance of alternative lifestyles, to include nontraditional sexual practices. The assaults on Islam are many and threaten the balance of power in the Islamic world.

This is not an isolated movement; the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are as divided as Christianity was in the 1600s, Catholic vs. Protestant. The Islamic dynamic is traditional vs. an enlightened view. The Sunni vs. Shia aspect is interesting because as Christianity entered the reformation around 1600 AD, Islam split in two groupings as well. Sunni being more orthodox, Shia a bit less.

At the base of the Third Jihad is the struggle for the soul of Islam, a struggle between holding to the literal view of the Koran or accepting new norms concerning social change.

The traditionalists in Islam are angry that the tide seems to be going out on the traditional movement, and like the old Tareyton cigarette commercial, they would rather fight than switch. The heart and soul of the ISIS/ISIL movement is invincibility ordained by Allah; they cannot lose because they are right in the eyes of Allah and the enemy is wrong. Each day the world dances around dealing with this cancer it metastasizes.

We need to look to a world where religious freedom is accepted, all religions are tolerated. The new dynamic may cause us to partner with the Russian Federation and require Basher al-Assad to remain in power. It’s an idea the hard core left and right don’t like, but one that makes good long-term sense. We bent over backwards to support the Arab Spring, to toss out the old secular leaders; what we got were Islamic theocracies. Just how well did that work out for us?