Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Scrolling through the headlines this morning, as I do most mornings, I was struck by a bunch of stories having to do with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terror group, an organization that was also discussed somewhat during the third and (mercifully) final presidential debate.
Prosecutors revealed early this week that a New York City college student, Mohammed El-Goarany, died last November in Syria fighting for ISIS. That information came to light as prosecutors sought to use details of El-Goarany’s case to prosecute Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal of Arizona, who is accused of providing material support to ISIS by aiding El-Goarany in getting to Syria.
Also earlier this week, an Iraqi-born man who came to the U.S. as a presumably vetted refugee, Omar Faraj Saeed Al-Hardan, pleaded guilty in a Houston federal courtroom to attempting to provide material support to ISIS by joining it, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the southern district of Texas.
Late last week, prosecutors charged two Milwaukee men with names that don’t sound anything like the Arabic or Islam-inspired monikers of the aforementioned men, for attempting to, you guessed it, join ISIS. Jason Michael Ludke, 35, and Yosvany Padylla-Conde, 30, were arrested trying to travel to Mexico where they could secure documents allowing them to travel on to Syria or Iraq.
Not to worry, however, because the White House this week has announced a plan to fix all these attempted defections. The 18-page-plan was released on Wednesday and is the first update in five years to the government’s policy to prevent the rise and spread of groups like ISIS, which has hitherto been going swimmingly and one can’t help but wonder why any revisions are necessary.
The new plan calls for teachers and mental health professionals to help stop the spread of violent ideologies, be they inspired by Islam, white supremacy or any other source. That work typically falls to law enforcement currently, according to the Reuters article.
“The new White House strategy seeks to create ‘intervention teams’ led by mental health professionals, faith-based groups, educators and others as a resource for people who find themselves in such circumstances. Intervention teams would seek to divert a person away from violence before they commit a violent act and without involving law enforcement agencies,” reads a portion of the Reuters piece that may as well have been written in periwinkle Crayola.
Great plan, but hey, why did those guys from Milwaukee, with no ostensible family ties to the Middle East or greater Arab world, try to join ISIS?
“The complaint said Padylla-Conde told interviewing FBI agents that he left Wisconsin in September because he could not find steady enough work to afford rent and was being evicted.
Ludke informed the FBI after his arrest that the two left Wisconsin because of their impending eviction and that he was afraid of going back to jail, according to the complaint,” reads the last two graphs of the Reuters article.
I’m kind of doubting the White House plan to interdict extremists before they become violent has any provisions for dealing with the rotten economy that has resulted from the worst economic recovery in the history of economic recoveries. Not wanting to become homeless isn’t really much of a “radicalization” that a mental health professional or clergy member is likely to be able to spot. In fact, the whole idea of the White House’s proposal smacks of the sort of elitism that only statists are capable of; often without even realizing it. Essentially, the state has come up with a plan to prevent the peasants from going off their nut in response to a series of situations and stimuli the state itself created. There wouldn’t be an ISIS to join had the government not launched Gulf War I & II. There wouldn’t be a shit economy to struggle with paying rent in if it weren’t for the corporatism that has destroyed the middle class – and of course corporatism cannot exist without a too-powerful government.
Of course, while government is responsible for the current socio-economic reality we’re all struggling under, not even the state is solely to blame for the fact some humans think violence can solve whatever problem they have, be it trying to make rent, or trying to make a caliphate out of a huge swath of other people’s countries.
Lost in all this talk about what to do about violent extremists in modern American society – be they inspired by ISIS or some bat-shit crazy neo-Nazi white supremacy, or whatever else – is the acknowledgement of the fact there have always been people among us who aren’t cut out for civilization. In this great mix of 7-some-billion creatures we call the human race are a tiny, tiny percentage of people born with some genetic anomaly or another. Most of those are utterly harmless, like MLB pitcher Max Scherzer having two different-colored eyes. Sometimes, this defect takes on a more ominous form, like general sociopathy.
In ancient times, those occasional defective people were simply cast out of the society they weren’t cut out for; or, they wandered off on their own. Sometimes they’d find other miscreants and form roving gangs of brigands that would terrorize the countryside until they were put down or they moved on. This was simply how humans dealt with the less-human among them for most of our history, going right up until the end of the Victorian age and beyond in the US with the westward expansion. That’s why the history and lore of the “Old West” is filled with depictions of outlaws and highwaymen and the lawmen who battled them. Obviously, much of that lore has morphed into mythology, but the fact remains that John Wesley Hardin might be long dead, but men just like him are still being born to this day.
A troubled teen with one murder under his belt and an attempted one to go with it could, in 1868 just run away from civilization and raise hell with other outlaws – which is what Hardin did.
Today, there’s nowhere to run to; no frontier, no wasteland, no wide open space where people who just aren’t equipped to handle society and civilization can go and do their thing. So, today’s John Wesley Hardins have names like Dylan Klebold, James Holmes, Seung-Hui Cho, and, apparently, Jason Michael Ludke, and Yosvany Padylla-Conde. Instead of being able to just go into the wasteland, they sit quietly among us, often times unassuming in their demeanor, unremarkable. All the while, however, the pot is simmering. Eventually, it boils over. What triggers the explosion, what becomes that proverbial final straw is anyone’s guess; Clearly Ludke and Padylla-Conde were capable of violence before discovering they couldn’t make rent. But, don’t worry, the White House has a plan for all that, so, relax, it’s all gonna be just fine.
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