Gangs of New York: A Sequel

Some of the comments about the backgrounds of the ISIS gunmen responsible for the Paris massacre point to the fact that they're former criminals who have finally found a sense of purpose in identifying with a fascist and totalitarian ideology. Going further some of these self-same commentators have referred to ISIS as one gigantic street gang say like the highly organized gangs that populate maximum security prisons in America—the Crips, the Bloods, the Aryan Brotherhood. And it’s obvious that conventional warfare is not going to work against this band of outlaws since they're not a real army. Why not then fight fire with fire and enlist the help of our own violent criminals in subduing the ISIS threat? Talk about boots on the ground. Forget about bombing Raqqa. How about emptying  the residents of our most violent prisons into the ISIS capitol under the cover of darkness. The reward for this new army would be rehabilitation. Surely the tactics they would use to subdue the enemy would not be the kind of thing you learn in the U.S Army War College. If ISIS is spreading throughout Europe, send the Bloods to Europe. Talk about street smarts. Surely they will sniff out the enemy faster than any traditional intelligence service could. No one can predict a criminal’s behavior better than another criminal. And while they’re at it, our violent gangs will rid the world of al-Qaeda and Bashar al-Assad. Who would you rather have running Syria and Iraq, ISIS or one of the violent motorcycle gangs who brawled outside a Twin Peaks in Waco, Texas last spring (“Waco biker gang shootout kills 9 outside Twin Peaks," CNN, 5/20/15)?