Against the Islamic State, the Pen is Mightier Than the Airstrike

EVERYONE WHO IS ANYONE seems to have some sort of plan with which to deal with the recently established "Islamic State", the hard line theocracy which has grown like a spreading cancer in the middle of what was once Iraq, but is still Mesopotamia. Everyone agrees that the new nation, under God (aren't all nations so under?) is "self proclaimed", which everyone seems to think tells us a great deal about the legitimacy of I.S.I.S., but in fact does not, since all countries are named in the same fashion; they proclaim it, we accept it. The Russians have their plan, whatever it may be; they claim to be attacking ISIS, while actually attacking other stuff. The Americans, for their part, talk about air strikes, and sometimes actually conduct them, but with very little supporting information, or verifiable effectiveness. Sometimes the Yanks hit their targets, sometimes they do not, and, either way, we all know that air power alone never wins wars. Americans are, in any event, satiated with war, having waged it constantly in Iraq since 1990, with little if anything to show for it, and for that reason we can be assured that American ground forces will never attack the Islamic State, but will keep trying to train and convince others to do so, a strategy which to date has had no noticeable success. Meanwhile, the I.S. is using the internet, with alluring websites, to attract support for its 'cause', and that seems to be working. Finally, opponents of the cancer are doing the same thing. Islamic clerics, using the internet, are showing the world and potential ISIS members that the new nation is not at all Islamic, but, rather, a perversion of the faith. Islamic clerics who oppose ISIS are waging intellectual, scripture based spiritual warfare, and it will one day prove to be the undoing of ISIS, if indeed it is ever to be undone. The pen, for all our modern cynicism and penmanship, is still mightier than the proverbial sword, and fortunately, there are some who, in the fog of war, have not forgotten this eternal verity.