{"id":43336,"date":"2015-02-06T09:15:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T09:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=43336"},"modified":"2015-02-06T09:15:48","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T09:15:48","slug":"brief-brief-from-cost-benefit-to-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=43336","title":{"rendered":"Brief brief: from cost-benefit to apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; a bullet train of thought re Daesh from the New Yorker ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_43338\" style=\"width: 609px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/kenji-goto.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43338\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/kenji-goto.png\" alt=\"Kenji Goto, friend of Syrians\" width=\"599\" height=\"395\" class=\"size-full wp-image-43338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/kenji-goto.png 599w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/kenji-goto-300x198.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-43338\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenji Goto, friend of Syrians<\/p><\/div>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>George Packer<\/strong>, in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/daily-comment\/isis-murdered-kenji-goto\">Why ISIS Murdered <strong>Kenji Goto<\/strong><\/a> a couple of days ago, connects a longer distance between ideas faster than the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2012\/dec\/26\/china-high-speed-rail-bullet-trains\">bullet train from Beijing to Guangzhou<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Islamic State doesn\u2019t behave according to recognizable cost-benefit analyses. It doesn\u2019t cut its losses or scale down its ambitions. The very name of the self-proclaimed caliphate strikes most people, not least other Muslims, as ridiculous, if not delusional. But it\u2019s the vaulting ambition of an actual Islamic State that inspires ISIS recruits. The group uses surprise and shock to achieve goals that are more readily grasped by the apocalyptic imagination than by military or political theory,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That took us from <strong>cost-benefit analysis<\/strong> to <strong>the apocalyptic imagination<\/strong> in one short paragraph, an almost unimaginable feat.<\/p>\n<p>Which is precisely why bureaucratic &#8220;military or political&#8221; minds might overlook it. <\/p>\n<p>Q.E.D.<\/p>\n<p>And may <strong>Kenji Goto<\/strong> rest in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; a bullet train of thought re Daesh from the New Yorker ] . ** George Packer, in Why ISIS Murdered Kenji Goto a couple of days ago, connects a longer distance between ideas faster than the bullet train from Beijing to Guangzhou&#8230; The Islamic State doesn\u2019t behave according to recognizable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622,1048,526,163,1078,1047,882,718,440],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apocalyptic","category-caliph","category-charles-cameron","category-guardian","category-is","category-isis","category-recruitment","category-rethinking-thinking","category-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43336"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43341,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43336\/revisions\/43341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}