Thomas Wictor

Today Junaid Hussain made a threat on Twitter. A member of the Islamic State, he goes by the nom de guerre Abu Hussain al-Britani.

Hussain is a British citizen, a twenty-year-old hacker from Birmingham.

Although the US is certainly going to take any threat from the Islamic State seriously, Hussain promised that the Freedom of Speech Rally Round II held on May 29, 2015, outside the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix, Arizona, would be attacked with improvised explosive devices, probably in the form of suicide bombers. As everybody knows, there was no violence at all. Here’s one of the reasons why.

But that wasn’t the only reason why nothing happened.

A benefit of writing the sorts of posts that I do is that people tell me things. They trust me to not blab my head off. I’m not interested in fame or money or being on TV. People tell me things that they want to be known but that they don’t want to say themselves.

One of the massive changes that the US has undergone in the past fourteen years is that American law enforcement and the military have finally begun to fight dirty. I don’t mean illegally; US counterterrorism efforts have become jujitsu.

“Jū” can be translated to mean “gentle, soft, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding.”

“Jutsu” can be translated to mean “art” or “technique” and represents manipulating the opponent’s force against himself rather than confronting it with one’s own force.

Flexibly using the opponent’s own force—his worldview and techniques—against him. That’s what’s happening now. This is a far more effective and deadly method of combating terrorism.

Junaid Hussain is only twenty years old. Although he’s considered one of the most skilled hackers in the world, he’s only twenty. Wherever he is in Syria, he’s isolated from the horror of close-quarters combat. He really doesn’t know what he’s up against, but it’s not his fault. The people who use him for his talents are careful to shelter him from the daunting odds he faces.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto—the leader of the task force that carried out the mission—was quoted as saying, “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

There’s no evidence that Yamamoto actually said this. He also likely never said the other sentence attributed to him, but it was far more prescient.

Gentlemen, we have just kicked a rabid dog.

The Japanese didn’t know that we had broken their military code, so when we learned on April 14, 1943, that Admiral Yamamoto would make an inspection tour of Japanese bases in the South Pacific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered him killed. The US Army Air Force sent a flight of Lockeed P-38 Lightnings after Yamamoto on April 18.

Yamamoto’s flight consisted of two Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bombers.

They were escorted by six Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters.

Both the bombers and fighters were extremely fast and maneuverable—because the Japanese refused to fit their aircraft with armor plate. The Japanese also didn’t have self-sealing fuel tanks. American aircraft were armored, and the fuel tanks were lined with rubber. If the tanks were punctured, the rubber absorbed the fuel, swelling to seal the hole. Additionally, this prevented atmospheric air from entering the tank and forming explosive vapor. Japanese aircraft, on the other hand, became balls of flame after only a few hits.

On the morning of April 18, 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings intercepted Yamamoto. Each Lightning was armed with four .50-caliber machine guns and one 20mm cannon. Japanese aircraft simply couldn’t withstand such firepower. Yamamoto’s bomber was immediately shot down; the Japanese recovered his body in the jungle the next day. He was strapped to his seat, still holding his sword, his head blown apart by a .50-caliber bullet.

Americans are beginning to fight jihadist terrorism the way we fought during World War II. Yamamoto was essentially defenseless, but President Roosevelt ordered him killed anyway. American pilots enthusiastically carried out that order.

The Islamic State and the imperial Japanese forces have a lot in common: suicide bombers, the torture and murder of prisoners, mass rape, and sexual slavery. Another correlation is rationalizing savagery by classifying the war as a religious crusade against subhumans who deserve to be mistreated.

Americans therefore fought on the terms that the Japanese introduced. The man who almost became my father-in-law was a marine in the Pacific during World War II. He operated the flamethrower of an amphibious vehicle called an Amtrac.

His job was to clear bunkers and caves of Japanese who refused to surrender. Combat engineers would pump in a drumful of gasoline, and then “Bill” would spray napalm after it. The screams and smell of the burning men haunted him all his life, but he said he had no regrets. The Japanese had to be stopped.

Americans are now stopping jihadists in ways that twenty-year-old Junaid Hussain probably hasn’t imagined.

I don’t think you’ve personally killed anyone yet, Junaid. Go back home to Britain and face the music. It won’t be so bad. If you help the government by telling them what you know, they might even make a deal with you. You have your whole life ahead of you. Aren’t you tired of the ugliness yet?

Don’t end up like Admiral Yamamoto or the men who my almost-father-in-law burned to death on island after island is the Pacific. What did all that carnage gain anybody? Like the Japanese, the Islamic State has no chance of winning. You should be dating girls, traveling, and playing video games, Junaid. With your hacking skills, you could get a high-paying job at any security firm in the world. After you serve your time in prison.

It’s not too late. Every morning is a new opportunity to do something different. Watch the movie The Best Years of Our Lives, about American World War II veterans returning home to confusion and major problems. The man who stole the show was Harold Russell, a paratrooper who’d lost both hands.

He had no training as an actor, but he won two Academy Awards for his role in The Best Years of Our Lives, and he lived to be eighty-eight years old.

Go back to Britain, Junaid. Live to be eighty-eight. Surprise everyone.