Paris blasts : an attack on the idea of love

Having lived in Paris for a brief period (about 3 months), I had fallen in love with the city.

The sheer history, architecture, weather, way of life, and the highly fashion conscious people (read beautiful) lend an aura around the place found in only a few other cities around the world.

The bombings on the other day made me sad about the sheer brazen-ness with which the bombs were blown in public places.

The attack was to prove a point. If they can...they will!

But the way I perceive ISIS is that they have achieved exactly what they wanted. Blood, mayhem, cries for war, followed by global attention (see how the dark eiffel was a symbol of sadness) and finally a resolution to fight war with war.

Honestly, in my view, the world has played right into their hand on how they wanted the response. This incident will see a bump in ISIS stock. Enrollments will increase, and they have become heroes in eyes of their supporters/sympathisers.

All the talk of war and removing ISIS is quite a lot of bull as ISIS is an organisation, an idea with the face of terror, quite similar to the likes of the MI6, CIA or any other world organisation! It was much easier to kill the idea of Osama than the idea of ISIS!

In my opinion, the response should have been just how we respond to a child throwing a tantrum. Ignore.

Paris is much more than a city.  It is the idea of love. And by hitting Paris ISIS hit the idea of love. Well,love is all pervasive (at the cost of sounding corny), and it should have picked up just where it left off.

Eiffel tower should have been lit brighter than ever before, cafes should have distributed free food and wine! Newspapers should have covered more about the history, greatness of the city and desisted from writing anything about the ISIS.

All the targeting and acts of war should have been behind the scenes with no media mention.

All is not lost yet, and we can still do a lot to redeem the city of love!

Why Islamic State needs to be taken more seriously than Al qaeda?

I have been perturbed with the happenings around the world for a while now. Hence, finally got around to pen the same for your consumption, thoughts and comments.

If we look at the recent living history of the world(around 100 years), we find that the last war has been in Mid 1900's. 

If we go further to understand History(of say, 300 years), the world had an entirely different landscape, and every few decades, we can see a new reality(Political), with large incidences of sporadic wars in different areas of the world. 

Hence, the spell of over 6+ decades of lasting peace, is one of the longest peacetime experienced by the world, in spite of all its complexities.

A major reason for such lasting peace has been a systemic education of Humans, to lead lives in a particular order, with a dollop of Morality thrown in, to control passions and scope for Ambitions outside the lines drawn by the Western mandarins.

With increasing population of the world, the fight for resources, is only increasing by the day. Be it land, water, food, money, religion or might. The relatively recent occurrences of the small wars, over control of Energy supplies, started by USA, with Iraq, have slowly spread to different parts of the world. That very act of aggression by USA, kicked the status quo in the world, and it slowly started to manifest in a different problem all together. 

The response, manifested itself in a religious response, as a particular faith felt targeted and maligned. 

Very recently, that spark has turned into a fairly widespread act across the Middle World, where the status quo was challenged by the populace of many countries across the Middle east, known as the Arab Spring.

This act, caused a great deal of consternation among Theorists and Politicians across the world. However, some economies, considered the same to be in their interest, as a democracy is easier to break into(or break apart), than a monarchy(which has a tight control over the national interest).

Behind the backdrop of these acts of freedom, aggression, and calls for religious fanaticism, a quiet, but dangerous change in mindset has undergone among a section of humans, with access to power & money.

These people, seem to be fedup with the current world order, and believe, time has come to bring back long lost glories, by taking things by force. They have also decided that moral values, need to take a back seat, till religious supremacy is established across a large part of the world, which they consider theirs by right. 

Owing to this very change in mindset, which the western world never thought could happen with all their checks and balances in place, has led to a very dangerous precedent being set in the world with the installation of the Islamic State. 

For the first time, a breakaway terrorist group has been able to secure Illegitimacy, wherein they have been able to secure a regular source of income from a large section of a society, over a fair amount of geography, where they Rule is the Law. 

They are no more outlaws, and control state machinery, Oil, Power & collect taxes from a large populace.

This, in turn is allowing them to generate greater power and increase their presence in the world. Few Comparison charts are given below for understanding better(Pictures courtesy the Economist & the Washington Post)

If you go through the Maps in detail, you will realise the extent of the problem, and this is the reason why We need to fear the IS. They are here, have dug their heels, and with every passing day, they are becoming more difficult to penetrate.  

Their are reports that they are earning 20-30 million USD per day. That gives them enough resources to recruit greater number of people, who in turn can help in garnering greater resources.

Worse, such success of a group, is making other terrorist organisations think on these lines. This spells trouble for the modern Political world.

Till now, it seems the world is looking towards the USA, to respond(As the leader of the free world!), and honestly, Obama seems to be confused on what to do.

China, Russia and other larger nations, each have their own goals to meet, and don't want to commit resources at this time when they know the US will need to response sooner or later. 

But one thing is certain, with the Arab spring; Russia's Military actions in the Ukraine & Crimea; China's military posturing against Japan, India, Philippines & Indonesia; an unstable North Korea; Slowing European Union; Terror organisations like IS gaining legitimacy and a stagnant USA, all point towards a very difficult half century ahead.