Thursday, August 11, 2016

Word From On High

My first question would be: How does one go about being in charge of anarchy? I understand that ISIS isn't exactly a group of anarchists, but they don't seem too affixed to a standard organizational tree. If anything, they seem to be out of their tree more often than not. Still, somebody's got to pay the bills, order the plastic explosive and keep track of all those frequent flyer miles that the group must rack up on their zig-zagging path across the globe in search of more and more recruits to subvert the dominant paradigm. Just not the guys in charge of ISIS. You've got to draw the line somewhere.
Like you've got to have somebody who will take care of that whole taking responsibility business. These days, whenever anything particularly heinous occurs, it's only a matter of time before somebody from the front office calls and claims that this or that horrible idea was ISIS's, which is an awful mouthful of a possessive.
This past week, a wacko swinging a machete attacked two Belgian policewomen. The thirty-three year old Algerian who was living in Belgium illegally was praised by the Islamic State group for following the somewhat open-ended instructions to attack citizens of countries that are part of a U.S. led coalition seeking to eradicate that Islamic State group. A third Belgian police officer shot and killed the attacker, who was said to have a criminal record, but no known terrorist connections.
Well, he does now, and that really is the nice thing about ISIS: their willingness to take on any nitwit with a gun or a bomb or a machete who happens to shoot, explode or hack his or her way into their good graces. It doesn't seem exactly fair that terrorists get to join the team more or less after the fact, since declaring jihad seems like a pretty public thing and shouldn't be grandfathered in or put in the record book with an asterisk.
Global Warming? It was ISIS's plan to poke a hole in the ozone layer way back in the 1970's.
Athlete's foot? Pretty much the same deal. Not quite as devastating as a suicide bomb, but way more annoying.
I suspect we can all anticipate the announcement from ISIS headquarters that they have been in charge of the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles for years now. Gales of wicked and derisive laughter. Isn't it enough that I still have to take off my shoes to get on a plane? Thanks a lot, terrorists.

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