David Solway on the impossibility of dealing with Islamic terrorists. As part of an interesting and reflective article, he answers this question, where do such jihadists derive their power?

First, they are not bound by the Geneva conventions, they do not wear uniforms, they do not regard civilians as non-combatants, they do not care for the wounded, they do not respect the sanctity of rescue and medical corps, and, what should be immediately obvious, they do not take prisoners; they take hostages. Which is to say, they are out-and-out barbarians with no redeeming traits and their only connection with what we call civilization is deceptive and parasitical. As PJ Media columnist David Goldman writes in the Asia Times, “The trouble is that very large numbers of Muslims are willing to kill themselves in order to harm enemy noncombatants, and the number appears to be increasing. To my knowledge that is something new under the sun. Japanese kamikazes and Nizari assassins in the Middle Ages, like the pre-1917 Bolsheviks, were willing to die to kill public officials or soldiers. But the murder of noncombatants through suicide attacks (or attacks likely to prove suicidal) is something we have never before witnessed.”

Second, they are subjectively invincible. They do not take casualties. Their bodies are like weapons; when these are spent, they can be discarded. In other words, they do not die, but are immediately translated into Jannah, the Muslim heaven, where they will revel eternally in sparkling brooks, fruited orchards, and harems of sloe-eyed virgins. In a sense, they are the zombies of the modern world, the armies of the living dead who, as they are fond of saying, love death more than we love life. They cannot be defeated, they can only be quarantined, kept at bay, left to rave and rampage in the killing grounds of their own countries.