It seems as if one can’t go anywhere to escape the constant barrage of violence in the news, the latest hot topic being the Islamic State, a self-proclaimed new nation, everyone-else-proclaimed terrorist organization, of radical Wahhabi/Salafi Muslims who have been spreading across Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Nigeria, putting to death anyone that refuses to comply with the terms of their movement. Starting in the summer of 2014, a coalition of nations including the U.S, Canada, the Netherlands, France, and more have been carrying out military interventions, mostly in more supportive measures such as airstrikes or by supplying arms to the Kurd resistance, with some directly intervening with their own forces, such as the U.S and Iran.

And then there’s me, writing this in western Canada, as separated from the violence as you can possibly imagine. I’ll be the first to admit it, I’ve had a cakewalk of a life, and everything I’m about to write here comes from a perspective extremely removed from the notion of daily violence. I won’t pretend to you that because I was bullied as a third grader means I know the perfect way to respond to the threat of genuine hot lead elsewhere in the world. However, being an outsider to all this, I’ve noticed a pattern to the way violence works, and that pattern, in addition to some other convictions I’ve come to face, is what made me a pacifist.

I can tell you’ve probably made a face like you were sick right about now – That’s the reaction I tend to get when I say the word aloud. And that’s OK, I’m aware pacifism isn’t a popular worldview nowadays. Perhaps some lip service is given to some of it’s old champions like MLK and Gandhi, but for the most part, it’s looked down on as too idealistic, impractical, unrealistic, and so on. Looking at history, I beg to differ.

All violence comes from prior violence. Take the IS, for example. Originally they were a part of Al-Qaeda, the other big name in Islamic terrorism, until 2014 when they formally separated and declared a “new caliphate.” As Al-Qaeda’s activity diminished since the death of Osama bin Laden, a small portion of it emerged out of the dust, even more violent and aggressive. Al-Qaeda itself can be traced to the early mujaheddin movement in Afghanistan in the Cold War. As a reaction against perceived Soviet aggression, the CIA passed funding through Pakistan’s intelligence agency to fund mujaheddin, or “freedom fighters,” to engage the Soviets in guerrilla warfare. Many mujaheddin factions had radical religious beliefs akin to the wahhabi/salafi beliefs of most modern Islamic Terrorists, and Al-Qaeda was formed with the intent of spreading the ideology of the mujaheddin worldwide. In terms of causality, as strange as it seems, Al-Qaeda was formed as a result of blind financial support of radical guerrilla warfare for the sake of a larger scale Cold War, which itself was the result of another war creating two world superpowers (WWII), which itself was the result of another war creating radical ideologies in Europe (WWI), which itself had causes too myriad to list here, but all of which had to do with previous conflicts over territory such as the Crimea. It’s a bit of a stretch, but looking at each the causes of all of the major conflicts in the last century and a half, we can geopolitically trace the Islamic State’s genealogy of violence all the way back to the Crimean War, which began in 1853.

It isn’t some naive old proverb that violence begets violence, it’s the story of global history. If violence creates more violence, then (and it does), the logical conclusion is that violence can’t truly be ended with violence. It can be interrupted, even deferred, but if one instance of violence is cut short with a violent answer, then you can be sure another answer to a matching degree is going to come, whether shortly or in a few years.

So what’s the alternative? If crushing the Islamic State under the weight of all the western military can throw at it will only produce something worse in the end, what other option can there be that doesn’t allow the IS to simply continue? I’m no military strategist, so take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, but the pacifist answer is in two forms of sabotage, direct and indirect.

Direct sabotage would involve mass infiltration of their ranks, followed up with an incessant number of very small acts of destruction. Think harmless, hilarious pranks turned subtly disastrous. Slashed fuel lines in vehicles, lost gun parts, ammunition gone missing or otherwise ruined… Think “Home Alone” in Syria. An army isn’t made of men, it’s made of equipment, and the more goes wrong with the equipment, the more goes wrong with the army. Both sides of the combatants of World War One experienced this principle first hand.

Indirect sabotage would be more economically based, cutting off their financial and physical supply chains. Given the amount of espionage we know the NSA and CSIS carries out on their own citizens, I would be embarrassed if neither of those organizations, not to mention their counterparts in Europe, were capable of discovering who finances ISIS, where they are located, and where their respective income comes from. Said spy agencies, if they are as good as they are paid to be, could surely make several transfers out of the accounts of ISIS’ financiers into, I don’t know, the accounts of several charities of their choice? Maybe it’d be in bad taste to steal money from a well-off radical Muslim and pass it on to Habitat for Humanity, but if anyone wants to argue that spending millions bombing the crap out of Syrian and Iraqi land is better than fundraising for charity like an Apple-sponsored Robin Hood, have at ‘er, I’m listening. I’d also suggest raiding their supply trucks on the way to their various camps and strongholds, but I’m sure that idea has occurred to those in charge already. We’ve known since the dark ages that armies who fight on empty stomachs lose.

Those are just ideas spitballed from the desk of a twenty-something old student. I’m aware they’re flawed, but if I can sit here and think of a few somewhat obvious, almost good ideas for ways to take down IS without shedding unnecessary blood, I’d be absolutely floored if you told me a military or paramilitary strategist, whose job it is to think of things like this, can’t come up with better ways to end it without bombing anyone. And if we want ISIL to fall without producing some fresh horror in it’s wake, it’s vital that it falls quietly. A pacifist sabotage, with minimal casualties, is the way to do this. Playing board games with bombs and bullets didn’t stop Al-Qaeda, it didn’t stop the Taliban, it didn’t stop the North Koreans or the Vietcong, and it definitely won’t stop ISIL. The current method of warfare simply plays into the narrative of Western imperialism they use to radicalize new recruits – They do this because they know we’re playing the same game they are. We need to stop playing and flip the table.

Some people might say I’m not taking this matter seriously if I’m suggesting ISIL could be downed by non-lethal means. In all seriousness, I’d suggest those who support the airstrike method of intervention aren’t taking it seriously enough: 4,325 Iraqi civilians were killed by ISIL in 2014 (https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2014/), and halfway through 2015, ISIL still haven’t truly answered for it. A pacifist-style dismantling of ISIL would be extremely difficult, and cost a lot of money, but if we argue with ourselves that it’s not worth doing what it takes to finish the whole thing the right way, for the sake of the civilians who are killed by mines, crossfire, misplaced (and sometimes not) drone strikes, and so on, then we’ve already lost the most valuable thing groups like ISIL can take from us. I think it’s time for our governments and the strategists they employ to realize the people of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Nigeria are worth more to us than a spattering of bombs.