IS crisis in Iraq and Syria

[Batman]

All it took to bring the US and Iran to work together was a genocidal, rampaging hoard.

Where's the part where Iran sanctions are lifted and Iranians are allowed to pursue peaceful nuclear research and development as is their right under the non-proliferation treaty?

You will now naturally quote the part of the definition of 'working together' that actually 'requires' that.

[General Brock]

... You do realize that an intelligence operative who leaves clues as to his actions would not survive past his second operation? And thus would never rise high enough to carry this Project ISIS conspiracy.

Although that part of the scenario is conjecture, it takes more than one person to plan an operation like this, and planners at a strategic level don't have to place themselves at physical risk. Its brilliant insofar as military strategy goes, except that its inhumane, and playing with fire with no end in sight.

Harnessing destructive short-term indigenous ambitions against long-term indigenous best interests is what divide-and-conquer is all about, promoting the worst elements in society against the best. But this is not a conflict the majority of Americans, or people in the west, want or need as it means promoting our worst ones at the expense of our best.

With the COG in place, war planners needn't even risk careers anymore with crazy schemes, since there's far less oversight and accountability.

Its not just Mesopotamian civilization that's doing the dying here.

[General Brock]

Clearly, in Brockland evil plots mainly exist for self-gratification. To give themselves an exaggerated sense of how their painfully obvious yet stupidly obscure and misinterpretable "clues" are too subtle for the sheeple to figure out.

Sort of like the Riddler from Batman I guess.

Oh, wait, the Riddler is a fictional character who really exists so that the readers can get a vicarious sense of being smarter than this allegedly smart person because they figured out the clue!

Like Channel72, you're quick with the personal attacks, but short on argument. You can't even make it interesting.

ISIS can very likely be stopped by cutting off Western aid to the Syrian rebels and letting the locals sort things out. ISIS' edge appears to rest mainly in captured western aid meant for the rebels. You seem as oblivious to the history of COG as to Flight 17 likely being shot down by a Kiev fighter.

Link

...While it is certainly a reasonable proposition to most citizens that the federal government should be prepared for disasters, man-made or otherwise, throughout its history COG has been tainted by its proximity to repressive police measures directed against the population (viewed as a hostile force to be “contained”), up to, and including the use of the bluntest of instruments: martial law.

Yet the Bush administration, driven by its desire to maximize power within the Executive branch, has used COG as a cover for creating a “post-Constitutional” police state.

Anyone can figure that much out. Your argument to the contrary is... what precisely?

Its a good thing you reject conspiracies not MSM-approved, even if more out of blind faith than informed critical thought and imagination, or you'd fall for every one.

Now remember, personal attacks need only form part of the response; there still has to be an argument against the antiwar, anti-armed intervention position.

[General Brock]

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Why do you think they care how the Western media transliterates their name? Also connecting words are usually omitted when making acronyms. "al" means "the", "fi" means "in", "wal" means "and the" - thus they shouldn't be in the acronym. I suppose you could argue it should be DIIS, but DAASH is closer to the Arabic pronunciation ("Islam" and "Iraq" start with a letter more or less equivalent to "A" in English).

Most jihadists themselves wouldn't care too much except for those in charge of PR strategy.

The image the western media presents, and whatever goes on behind that, is what interests me insofar as names go. Most of the reasons for war are understood, so exploring the less tangible and more subjective is attractive.

[General Brock]

Why didn't “Dulat al-Islam fi al-Iraq wal-Sham” just call itself DAFAW in the Western media? Daash in mispelt english means a short, brief run; it also means to smash something to pieces, and Iraq is no longer a unitary state, but de-facto partitioned between Kurd, Sunni, and Shia, as was planned late in the first Iraq Occupation.

Yeah, I mean this is fucking stupid. The reason they didn't call it "DAFAW" ( ) is because that doesn't even work. News flash: "Sh" is a single letter in Arabic (shin, ش), and as eyl said, "wal" is a connecting prefix. At best, the acronym should be Romanized as "DIISH".

....and? Something's missing here.

Throughout this entire thread, nowhere was it explained why armed intervention is such a good idea.

Your position till now has been based on establishing my lack of credibility. Yet, I merely repeated my understanding of antiwar news, with a couple of unique digressions for lack of anything better to do. You made the ISIS/Isis digression the core of your position.

You have avoided the real arguments behind anti-interventionism. Is it because those real positions have no counter? Attacking a respected, published journalist in the mainstream and alternative news is not an argument. Patrick Cockburn, like every other author I've linked to, appears to have far more experience and education than yourself to comment on world affairs.

Yet, Patrick Cockburn disagrees with you, so must be a 'conspiracy theorist'.

That's it? That's all you have?

ISIS can very likely be stopped by cutting off the Syrian rebels. Future schemes for forever war might be thwarted or at least slowed down by thwarting the COG. Anyone can say these things and be valid.

'Conspiracy theorist' isn't an argument. So again, do you have one?

[Simon_Jester]

You are fucking barely coherent. We're not "returning to Iraq". We're assisting the Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces with airstrikes. But whatever, we've been using airpower to regulate Iraq since way before 2003 - remember the no fly zones?

So... yeah, you just said we're not returning to Iraq even though we once again dominate Iraqi skies and bomb the place. Its like you live and breath doublespeak to the point where you don't recognize normalspeak.

Providing air support for a local army is not the same as deploying a massive army of your own.

If you think that providing air support for a local army is "returning to Iraq," then we need a whole new word for the actual occupation of Iraq. You should have made it clear that to you "return to Iraq" means any military action taken in Iraq whatsoever.

Because frankly, no American really cares or complains that the US is bombing ISIL at the behest of Iraqi or Kurdish government troops. That is never going to be the kind of massive crushing financial burden and source of bloodshed that would be involved in sending a ground army over there again.

If you call the bombing "returning to Iraq," then you have reduced the whole "THIS IS A PRETEXT TO RETURN TO IRAQ" argument to pure sophistry. You say "we're returning to Iraq" like that matters, but then you call bombing that doesn't have any really significant cost to the US a "return to Iraq."

So... your argument is wrong on its own merits, as established earlier. And it is in gross violation of Occam's Razor. But now, to put the icing on the cake, you have defined down your terms so that your actual conclusion is meaningless. Even if your argument weren't based on sheer bullshit (which it is) and grossly illogical (which it is), it still wouldn't matter because your conclusion is an irrelevant trifle.

At some point were you going to include an argument to accompany your personal attacks? Why armed intervention against ISIS when cutting them off via the Syrian rebels would be far easier?

You're delusional.

ISIL has plenty of weapons, and plenty of supplies of weapons other than just stealing ones that the US presumably delivers to Syrian rebels. The Middle East is a heavily armed region with a long history of weapons being supplied from countries all over the world. There are countless rifles, antitank weapons, and heavy weapons available to ISIL. "Cutting them off" will not stop them from fighting hard and killing people.

But you may not be aware of this, because you seem to have latched onto this supposed US plot to arm ISIL by giving weapons to their mortal enemies in hopes that ISIL would steal the weapons. And somehow your brain has parsed this as though that was literally the only way ISIL even gets weapons, as if they'd be limited to BB guns and harsh language otherwise. As if ISIL would be unarmed were it not for the US's cunning plan to covertly arm ISIL by letting its enemies arm themselves to the teeth with American weapons.

And (screwier yet!) as if ISIL would suddenly become harmless if the US just... stopped doing this. As though all the weapons now in their hands, including the ones they didn't even get by stealing American weapons from their enemies, would just evaporate.
______________________________________

Clearly, in Brockland evil plots mainly exist for self-gratification. To give themselves an exaggerated sense of how their painfully obvious yet stupidly obscure and misinterpretable "clues" are too subtle for the sheeple to figure out.

Sort of like the Riddler from Batman I guess.

Oh, wait, the Riddler is a fictional character who really exists so that the readers can get a vicarious sense of being smarter than this allegedly smart person because they figured out the clue!

Like Channel72, you're quick with the personal attacks, but short on argument. You can't even make it interesting.

I have made numerous arguments, but you appear too dense to respond to them, so you just keep repeating your same basic contentions. Including the ones that make no damn sense, and the ones that are sourced from conspiracy theorists.

ISIS can very likely be stopped by cutting off Western aid to the Syrian rebels and letting the locals sort things out. ISIS' edge appears to rest mainly in captured western aid meant for the rebels.

No, their edge appears to rest in having highly motivated troops fighting unmotivated troops, in having figured out how to use suicide bombers as part of a coordinated military operation instead of just random terror attacks, and in numerous other things. Having some heavy weapons around helps, but ISIL isn't that much better armed than any of the people it's fighting.

You seem as oblivious to the history of COG as to Flight 17 likely being shot down by a Kiev fighter.

Your assertion that this is "likely" when there is ample support for the idea that it was a separatist SAM launch, including the behavior of the separatists themselves, is another classic example of how you fail to understand world events.

Basically, it's like you randomly hop around the Internet looking for stories, then fail to do any critical evaluation, or to acquire the background knowledge it would take to distinguish bullshit from self-consistent accounts of events. Then you pretend it is "likely" that XYZ happened, when frankly the only reason you believe XYZ is that the EVIL MAINSTREAM MEDIA is saying ABC instead.

I swear, it's like if the weatherman told you it was going to be ninety degrees and sunny out, you'd put on a parka and galoshes because you CaN'T TruST ThE MSM!" It's totally freaking nuts.

Link

...While it is certainly a reasonable proposition to most citizens that the federal government should be prepared for disasters, man-made or otherwise, throughout its history COG has been tainted by its proximity to repressive police measures directed against the population (viewed as a hostile force to be “contained”), up to, and including the use of the bluntest of instruments: martial law.

Yet the Bush administration, driven by its desire to maximize power within the Executive branch, has used COG as a cover for creating a “post-Constitutional” police state.

Anyone can figure that much out. Your argument to the contrary is... what precisely?

The existence of "COG" and of hypothetical plans for violent oppression of the American people, has literally nothing to do with any actual specific event taking place in the outside world.

I'm not even disputing your claim that there's a conspiracy within the American executive branch to turn the thing into a dictatorship. I'm not denying it, I'm not debating it.

My contention is that it is not relevant, any more than the Bilderbergs or whoever the favorite banker conspiracy of the week are. Even assuming for the sake of argument that said conspiracy exists, that does NOT prove that the conspiracy is arming groups of Syrian rebels in hopes that their enemies will steal the weapons and use them in an entirely different country in hopes that this will somehow give them a pretext to launch another costly and pointless and bloody invasion of a country that all current successful politicians have built their career around NOT invading.

It's like, even if the Freemasons exist and run the country, that doesn't mean that fluoridated tap water is a Freemason plot.

Its a good thing you reject conspiracies not MSM-approved, even if more out of blind faith than informed critical thought and imagination, or you'd fall for every one.

No, see, it's that I can tell a conspiracy theory when I see it.

Now remember, personal attacks need only form part of the response; there still has to be an argument against the antiwar, anti-armed intervention position.

Are you so dense you still don't grasp my basic thesis?

Okay, let me put it to you in words of one or occasionally two syllables. Please note the ALL CAPS parts, because those are the parts that summarize my argument in terms an eight year old child can understand.

I AM NOT PRO-WAR.

I AM PRO-FIGHTING-ISIL.

Because ISIL IS REALLY REALLY BAD. Like, chopping heads off of babies bad.

But I DO NOT WANT TO INVADE IRAQ WITH AN ARMY. THAT WAS A BAD IDEA. LET'S NOT DO THAT AGAIN.

My argument is that:
1) As said above, I am pro-fighting-ISIL, because they are really bad.
2) But as said above, I DO NOT WANT TO INVADE IRAQ AGAIN. THAT WAS A BAD IDEA.
3) And the reason I'm speaking to you personally is something else entirely: YOUR IDEA ABOUT ISIL BEING A US PLOT IS REALLY STUPID.

Now, have I spelled that out to you?

Note that I have lots of support for (3), but I'm not putting it here because it's mostly stuff I've already said. Your entire approach to analyzing geopolitics is off, and it creates this protective barrier of ignorance that prevents you from even listening when people try to explain how things actually work.

This reminds me of the paranoid ravings I got out of you when I tried to explain about the (lack of) religious conspiracy and how references to Greco-Roman mythology are not evidence of a secret conspiracy of Zeus worshippers. That was four and a half years ago and you're still up to the same kind of antics.

[Broomstick]

All it took to bring the US and Iran to work together was a genocidal, rampaging hoard.

The whole enemy-of-my-enemy thing. Don't worry, after ISIL is taken care of the US and Iran will go back to snarling at each other. Sort of like how post WWII the US and USSR stopped pretending to be buddies and started up the Cold War, only with fewer (I hope) nuclear missiles.

[Darmalus]

This reminds me of the paranoid ravings I got out of you when I tried to explain about the (lack of) religious conspiracy and how references to Greco-Roman mythology are not evidence of a secret conspiracy of Zeus worshippers. That was four and a half years ago and you're still up to the same kind of antics.

That sounds gut bustingly hilarious. Do you have a link?

[Channel72]

....and? Something's missing here.

And... it means your stupid argument about "Daash" as some kind of CIA code-name is wrong, moron. Not only wrong but eye-rollingly stupid, and betrays total ignorance of the Arabic language. Are you going to admit that, or just keep jumping around? Stop being evasive. You made arguments about ISIS and Daash as some kind of code words, and now that this has been shown to be definitively bullshit by multiple posters, you're just jumping around to other arguments.

Throughout this entire thread, nowhere was it explained why armed intervention is such a good idea.

Your position till now has been based on establishing my lack of credibility. Yet, I merely repeated my understanding of antiwar news, with a couple of unique digressions for lack of anything better to do. You made the ISIS/Isis digression the core of your position.

You have avoided the real arguments behind anti-interventionism. Is it because those real positions have no counter? Attacking a respected, published journalist in the mainstream and alternative news is not an argument. Patrick Cockburn, like every other author I've linked to, appears to have far more experience and education than yourself to comment on world affairs.

Wrong idiot. The reason why "armed intervention is a good idea" is because ISIS is in the process of committing genocide. End of story. (Hint: genocide is bad, and a genocidal, religious-extremist government in Iraq/Syria is totally contrary to the interests of the US... what the fuck don't you get about that?)

And please spare me some boring counter-argument like "but... but.. why doesn't the US intervene in Darfur/Rwanda/whatever...." (Hint: oil)

ISIS can very likely be stopped by cutting off the Syrian rebels. Future schemes for forever war might be thwarted or at least slowed down by thwarting the COG. Anyone can say these things and be valid.

Not anymore. ISIS has access to US weapons and resources that they commandeered from the Iraqi army. Direct airstrikes have become necessary.

'Conspiracy theorist' isn't an argument. So again, do you have one?

You have this backwards. It's your responsibility to provide evidence for connections you make based on nothing but speculating into motives. If you can't do that, dismissing your bullshit as "conspiracy theory" is entirely reasonable. Otherwise, please provide evidence that ISIS wasn't actually created by Thanas in an effort to increase traffic to SD.net.

[General Brock]

...
Because frankly, no American really cares or complains that the US is bombing ISIL at the behest of Iraqi or Kurdish government troops. That is never going to be the kind of massive crushing financial burden and source of bloodshed that would be involved in sending a ground army over there again.

If you call the bombing "returning to Iraq," then you have reduced the whole "THIS IS A PRETEXT TO RETURN TO IRAQ" argument to pure sophistry. You say "we're returning to Iraq" like that matters, but then you call bombing that doesn't have any really significant cost to the US a "return to Iraq."

So... your argument is wrong on its own merits, as established earlier. And it is in gross violation of Occam's Razor. But now, to put the icing on the cake, you have defined down your terms so that your actual conclusion is meaningless. Even if your argument weren't based on sheer bullshit (which it is) and grossly illogical (which it is), it still wouldn't matter because your conclusion is an irrelevant trifle.

... You've missed the news reports that its not just airstrikes. Troops on the ground are increasing in number. I'm well aware that O-Blam-AAA has promised no ground troops even though he's sent some in already. How did Vietnam start again?

Just like you want to ignore that Syrian rebel aid is as good as ISIS aid, you want to deny that mission creep couldn't possibly happen, even when its happening.

The Occupation is back. Officially. The only reason American troops aren't being targeted as before, is that they are keeping to their bases.

... You're delusional.

ISIL has plenty of weapons, and plenty of supplies of weapons other than just stealing ones that the US presumably delivers to Syrian rebels. The Middle East is a heavily armed region with a long history of weapons being supplied from countries all over the world. There are countless rifles, antitank weapons, and heavy weapons available to ISIL. "Cutting them off" will not stop them from fighting hard and killing people.

But you may not be aware of this, because you seem to have latched onto this supposed US plot to arm ISIL by giving weapons to their mortal enemies in hopes that ISIL would steal the weapons. And somehow your brain has parsed this as though that was literally the only way ISIL even gets weapons, as if they'd be limited to BB guns and harsh language otherwise. As if ISIL would be unarmed were it not for the US's cunning plan to covertly arm ISIL by letting its enemies arm themselves to the teeth with American weapons.

And (screwier yet!) as if ISIL would suddenly become harmless if the US just... stopped doing this. As though all the weapons now in their hands, including the ones they didn't even get by stealing American weapons from their enemies, would just evaporate.

Weapons break down. Weapons need specific munitions. The region was awash in arms from Saddam's looted armouries and those Assad lost, mostly Soviet-era antiques. Even Assad was holding out and possibly slowly winning until American aid to the Syrian rebels appeared in volume, even with Turkey providing safe havens across the border. American aid is the game changer; remove it, and ISIS is over.

... No, their edge appears to rest in having highly motivated troops fighting unmotivated troops, in having figured out how to use suicide bombers as part of a coordinated military operation instead of just random terror attacks, and in numerous other things. Having some heavy weapons around helps, but ISIL isn't that much better armed than any of the people it's fighting.

You missed the part where once American troops start leaving their bases, they will also be facing CIA/Saudi Arabian/GCC armed, trained and funded ISIS troops.

...Your assertion that this is "likely" when there is ample support for the idea that it was a separatist SAM launch, including the behavior of the separatists themselves, is another classic example of how you fail to understand world events.

The fact that the Danes said the black boxes were recovered intact, but Britain is sitting on the results, and the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium have all signed non-disclosure agreements, might also have something to do with those conclusions.

Basically, it's like you randomly hop around the Internet looking for stories, then fail to do any critical evaluation, or to acquire the background knowledge it would take to distinguish bullshit from self-consistent accounts of events. Then you pretend it is "likely" that XYZ happened, when frankly the only reason you believe XYZ is that the EVIL MAINSTREAM MEDIA is saying ABC instead.

I swear, it's like if the weatherman told you it was going to be ninety degrees and sunny out, you'd put on a parka and galoshes because you CaN'T TruST ThE MSM!" It's totally freaking nuts.

So, cross-referencing and cross-checking information with multiple (credible) sources is apparently poor research technique to you.

The existence of "COG" and of hypothetical plans for violent oppression of the American people, has literally nothing to do with any actual specific event taking place in the outside world.

... There is strong evidence to suggest American foreign policy is overwatched by non-elected, non-public, non-conventional governance and you just said it has nothing to do with actual world events.

I'm not even disputing your claim that there's a conspiracy within the American executive branch to turn the thing into a dictatorship. I'm not denying it, I'm not debating it.

Something tells me this isn't a concession.

My contention is that it is not relevant, any more than the Bilderbergs or whoever the favorite banker conspiracy of the week are. Even assuming for the sake of argument that said conspiracy exists, that does NOT prove that the conspiracy is arming groups of Syrian rebels in hopes that their enemies will steal the weapons and use them in an entirely different country in hopes that this will somehow give them a pretext to launch another costly and pointless and bloody invasion of a country that all current successful politicians have built their career around NOT invading.

It's like, even if the Freemasons exist and run the country, that doesn't mean that fluoridated tap water is a Freemason plot.

I'm all for freedom of association, so whether or not Freemasons run the country or not is irrelevent. What is relevant is that whomever is running the country be accountable to the Constitution and the public good and d ecent, fair-minded behavior generally. If the COG is in place, it should be examined and its role in formenting war then examined. Its not like there's a shortage of openly public chickenhawks in government.

Politicians may be getting elected on antiwar stances, but wars of choice seem to happen anyway.

Are you so dense you still don't grasp my basic thesis?

Okay, let me put it to you in words of one or occasionally two syllables. Please note the ALL CAPS parts, because those are the parts that summarize my argument in terms an eight year old child can understand.

I AM NOT PRO-WAR.

Okay mister-let's-play-proxy-war.

I AM PRO-FIGHTING-ISIL.

... Damn, lost me again.

Because ISIL IS REALLY REALLY BAD. Like, chopping heads off of babies bad.

I missed that story... and glad I did...

But I DO NOT WANT TO INVADE IRAQ WITH AN ARMY. THAT WAS A BAD IDEA. LET'S NOT DO THAT AGAIN.

Yes, lets not even start even though Obama did.

My argument is that:
1) As said above, I am pro-fighting-ISIL, because they are really bad.
2) But as said above, I DO NOT WANT TO INVADE IRAQ AGAIN. THAT WAS A BAD IDEA.
3) And the reason I'm speaking to you personally is something else entirely: YOUR IDEA ABOUT ISIL BEING A US PLOT IS REALLY STUPID.

Now, have I spelled that out to you?

Yes. But if its not a U.S. plot to get back into Iraq, why not just stop supplying the Syrian rebels with aid that ends up with ISIS anyway? If its just about fighting ISIS, why not let the Syrian army and Iraqis do it against an ISIS bereft of Syrian rebel aid? The secular Syrian rebellion is over; they lost to ISIS.

All you've spelled out is that you are not as convincing as the Syrian rebels who demand more western aid to defect to ISIS with.

Note that I have lots of support for (3), but I'm not putting it here because it's mostly stuff I've already said. Your entire approach to analyzing geopolitics is off, and it creates this protective barrier of ignorance that prevents you from even listening when people try to explain how things actually work.

This reminds me of the paranoid ravings I got out of you when I tried to explain about the (lack of) religious conspiracy and how references to Greco-Roman mythology are not evidence of a secret conspiracy of Zeus worshippers. That was four and a half years ago and you're still up to the same kind of antics.

.... Zeus worshippers 4-1/2 years ago? I thought that was 4-1/2 days ago...

Anyway, you're forgetting geopolitical history like how America's Vietnam started and how hardly any American interventions have gone according to the promises of pro-war politicians and generals. Sure, ISIS bad. Cut of Syrian rebels, and ISIS also dead.

[General Brock]

Wrong idiot. The reason why "armed intervention is a good idea" is because ISIS is in the process of committing genocide. End of story. (Hint: genocide is bad, and a genocidal, religious-extremist government in Iraq/Syria is totally contrary to the interests of the US... what the fuck don't you get about that?)

And please spare me some boring counter-argument like "but... but.. why doesn't the US intervene in Darfur/Rwanda/whatever...." (Hint: oil)

Again, you're dodging the argument.

ISIS is doing many terrible things, but like the post WWI ethnic cleansings in Eastern Europe, local hatreds and rivalries are coming to the fore given the chance. The alleged Yazidi ISIS massacres are mostly fake; the Yazidis were attacked by their own non-ISIS neighbors, moreso than ISIS. Armed foreign intervention, insensitive and clueless to local tensions, is not a realistic solution. Not just ISIS, but every militant group with an axe to grind, is rising up against minority sects who can't fight back. Would this situation have arisen had it not been for the initial invasion that smashed Iraq? Probably not.

However, if the CIA/Saudi Arabia/GCC are supporting the Syrian rebels, and enough Syrian rebel aid is making it to ISIS for them to be committing genocide with near-impunity, would it not be a good idea to simply stop providing the Syrian rebels with aid and let the Syrian army and indigenous Iraqis deal with ISIS instead?

Do you have a counter to this or do you concede? Non-intervention can be a good thing. If America hadn't intervened on Saddam's Iraq, Islamic extremeism would never have taken hold in Iraq. Al Qaida didn't exist in Saddam's Iraq. If America hadn't supported the Syrian rebels, ISIS could not have arisen from them.

Now, even without extra PNAC background information, intervention is very likely to continue the pattern of making things worse for all concerned save those who get profits and jollies from conflict.

ISIS can very likely be stopped by cutting off the Syrian rebels. Future schemes for forever war might be thwarted or at least slowed down by thwarting the COG. Anyone can say these things and be valid.

Not anymore. ISIS has access to US weapons and resources that they commandeered from the Iraqi army. Direct airstrikes have become necessary.

Well, having set up the ISIS boogeymen, you just have to take it down?

ISIS had to destroy most of the captured heavy equipment they didn't know how to use. End covert support, and they will fold.

Weapons break down. Weapons need munitions specific to the weapons. Gear like night vision goggles and MANPADs need batteries. ISIS is as good as a proxy army; everyone knows it. Non-intervention would resolve the problem far more more efficiently.

The CIA/Saudi Arabia/GCC are supporting the Syrian rebels, and enough Syrian rebel aid is making it to ISIS for them to apparently commit serious crimes against humanity with near-impunity. Simply stop providing the Syrian rebels with aid and let the Syrian army and indigenous Iraqis deal with ISIS instead. Its the most obvious solution.

To continue to supply the Syrian rebels and empower to the COG without question is to abet a kind of moral hazzard and be complicit in their crimes.

You have this backwards. It's your responsibility to provide evidence for connections you make based on nothing but speculating into motives. If you can't do that, dismissing your bullshit as "conspiracy theory" is entirely reasonable. Otherwise, please provide evidence that ISIS wasn't actually created by Thanas in an effort to increase traffic to SD.net.

I've been providing evidence; you simply pretended it was all related to my nifty ISIS/Isis notion, which I still like but can't prove, as was admitted from the beginning. If you're referring to PNAC, again, its important backgrounder material, but the core positions are not really dependent on that either.

ISIS is jacked into Syrian rebel aid; cut off the Syrian rebels and ISIS is left to hang. The COG may be illicitly circumventing the American constitution in support of more wars of choice. I've provided links to respected journalists, and at least one academic and a retired diplomat in support of my positions.

Do you have a counter to this or do you concede? 'Conspiracy theorist' just doesn't cut it, and you've not posted anything that resonates with common sense or educated thought. Just the same simple pro-war message, with the same empty, unsubstantiated promises all that implies.

Although, I will have to concede that America does apparently support more war; it may be conditional on airstrikes only, but that's not the real deal.

So how, exactly, will the administration accomplish “destroying” Isis, when no amount of bombs and soldiers have been able to destroy al-Qaida or the Taliban in nearly 13 years of fighting? The administration openly admits it has no idea how long it will take, only that it won’t be quick. “It may take a year, it may take two years, it may take three years,” John Kerry said.

He didn’t add, “it might take another 13”, but he might as well have.

[jwl]

Holy shit, you're stilling shitting your conspiracy bullshit all over this thread. Your "evidence" is some crackpot blog? I'm sorry... "alternative" media. Please. This idiot Patrick Cockburn is a conspiracy nut just like you, although he apparently tries to appear somewhat reasonable by dismissing the more ridiculous conspiracies, like 9/11 truther shit, but then wonders if ISIS killed the Israeli teenagers in order to start a war.

This "crackpot blog" is a repost of an opinion column in the independant. Sure, it's an opinion column, not news, but this is mainstream media, not alternative stuff.

No, UNZ is self-describedly "alternative media", whatever the fuck that means.

But the said articles were reposts of ones in The Independent newspaper. Look: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 16863.html. And said article isn't crackpot. All he is saying is that the ISIS killed the Israeli teenagers in order to start a war is remote possibility. And back then hamas had denied killing them, and there was very little information about either that event or ISIS itself. It's not the same as a certain terrorist attack where the terrorist group admits to doing it and the conspiracy organisation is one of the largest ans most scrutinised organisations on the planet.

[Simon_Jester]

Again, you're dodging the argument.

ISIS is doing many terrible things, but like the post WWI ethnic cleansings in Eastern Europe, local hatreds and rivalries are coming to the fore given the chance. The alleged Yazidi ISIS massacres are mostly fake; the Yazidis were attacked by their own non-ISIS neighbors, moreso than ISIS.

Would said neighbors have committed such murders, if it weren't for ISIL invading their lands and removing the rule of the government?

Armed foreign intervention, insensitive and clueless to local tensions, is not a realistic solution. Not just ISIS, but every militant group with an axe to grind, is rising up against minority sects who can't fight back. Would this situation have arisen had it not been for the initial invasion that smashed Iraq? Probably not.

In this case, the actual soldiers are local and only the airstrikes are foreign, so your argument is irrelevant. ONLY YOU seriously seem to think that ISIL is at all likely to get the US to deploy in the Middle East again.

However, if the CIA/Saudi Arabia/GCC are supporting the Syrian rebels, and enough Syrian rebel aid is making it to ISIS for them to be committing genocide with near-impunity, would it not be a good idea to simply stop providing the Syrian rebels with aid and let the Syrian army and indigenous Iraqis deal with ISIS instead?

Do you have a counter to this or do you concede?...

As I've been trying to tell you for about two weeks, your belief that ceasing to supply the Syrian rebels would automatically destroy ISIL is a farce based entirely on your own conspiracy theory.

ISIS had to destroy most of the captured heavy equipment they didn't know how to use. End covert support, and they will fold.

Wait.

So... they're destroying captured heavy equipment they can't use.

And yet you're saying that the only reason they're powerful is because of captured heavy equipment. Do you not see the contradiction here? How can they be using weapons seized in Syria but unable to use weapons seized in Iraq that ultimately originate from the same country?

Weapons break down. Weapons need munitions specific to the weapons. Gear like night vision goggles and MANPADs need batteries. ISIS is as good as a proxy army; everyone knows it. Non-intervention would resolve the problem far more more efficiently.

What makes you think they are chiefly reliant on weapons they cannot scrounge or purchase supplies for locally?

ISIS is jacked into Syrian rebel aid; cut off the Syrian rebels and ISIS is left to hang.

You have not proven that this will work.

The COG may be illicitly circumventing the American constitution in support of more wars of choice.

You have not established that they are in any way linked to ISIL. Or, for that matter, that they ARE doing anything, as opposed to MAY BE doing things.

Do you have a counter to this or do you concede? 'Conspiracy theorist' just doesn't cut it, and you've not posted anything that resonates with common sense or educated thought.

What about me? I have repeatedly punctured your arguments as being full of hot air, of irrelevant tangents and vague speculations about the possible motives of people who show no concrete sign of even being connected to the matter of which you speak.

Just the same simple pro-war message, with the same empty, unsubstantiated promises all that implies.

What about me? I am not pro-war. I just think you're full of crap.

[K. A. Pital]

Actually, by now cutting off supply to Syria would do little as ISIS secured enough additional and, most importantly, internal funding from banks in fallen cities.

Cutting it 1 year before would have been probably wise. But as people here convinced me, the US isn't known to behave wisely.

[Simon_Jester]

That's part of my point. Brock's so caught up in "wow, ISIL captured weapons from other Syrian rebel groups! That must be how they started! IT MUST HAVE BEEN A US PLOT DESIGNED TO HAPPEN THIS WAY!" that he's lost track of basic philosophical and logical concepts.

In this case, he's making a common mistake found in fiction, especially badly plotted fiction, by assuming ISIL has no ontological inertia. In other words, he thinks that if X helped bring Y into existence, then once you remove X, Y will vanish in a puff of smoke.

It doesn't work that way, anymore than you can make someone magically regenerate from a gunshot wound by pulling the bullet out.

[Batman]

Actually you can...if the guy in question is Clark and it's a kryptonite bullet. The real world? Not so much.

[Channel72]

Wrong idiot. The reason why "armed intervention is a good idea" is because ISIS is in the process of committing genocide. End of story. (Hint: genocide is bad, and a genocidal, religious-extremist government in Iraq/Syria is totally contrary to the interests of the US... what the fuck don't you get about that?)

And please spare me some boring counter-argument like "but... but.. why doesn't the US intervene in Darfur/Rwanda/whatever...." (Hint: oil)

Again, you're dodging the argument.

No, you're trying to weasel out of your bullshit argument about ISIS as a code name. Basically, you look like at a total idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, and now you're trying to change the subject.

ISIS is doing many terrible things, but like the post WWI ethnic cleansings in Eastern Europe, local hatreds and rivalries are coming to the fore given the chance. The alleged Yazidi ISIS massacres are mostly fake; the Yazidis were attacked by their own non-ISIS neighbors, moreso than ISIS. Armed foreign intervention, insensitive and clueless to local tensions, is not a realistic solution. Not just ISIS, but every militant group with an axe to grind, is rising up against minority sects who can't fight back. Would this situation have arisen had it not been for the initial invasion that smashed Iraq? Probably not.

Your link from antiwar.com is misleading bullshit. (You sure love can't get enough of these "alternative media" outlets...) The attack on the Yazidis was not fake. The fact that a lot of the Yazidi's neighbors sided with ISIS doesn't mean ISIS wasn't trying to kill them.

However, if the CIA/Saudi Arabia/GCC are supporting the Syrian rebels, and enough Syrian rebel aid is making it to ISIS for them to be committing genocide with near-impunity, would it not be a good idea to simply stop providing the Syrian rebels with aid and let the Syrian army and indigenous Iraqis deal with ISIS instead?

You are now blatantly engaging in "wall-of-ignorance", repeat yourself ad nauseum tactics. This argument has been dealt with numerous times. For the last time, cutting off supplies to ISIS now will do nothing. They took weapons from the Iraqi army and the towns they've conquered. They have numerous ways of obtaining weapons aside from those they steal from the Syrian rebels.

Weapons break down. Weapons need munitions specific to the weapons. Gear like night vision goggles and MANPADs need batteries. ISIS is as good as a proxy army; everyone knows it. Non-intervention would resolve the problem far more more efficiently.

Seriously? That's your response. "Weapons break down" so therefore ISIS has no way of obtaining weapons except via stealing from the Syrian rebels. Please provide evidence for this immediately. Demonstrate that ISIS has no way of obtaining weapons aside from stealing from Syrian rebels. Since when has any Jihadist group in the Middle East had difficulty obtaining weapons?

To continue to supply the Syrian rebels and empower to the COG without question is to abet a kind of moral hazzard and be complicit in their crimes.

LOL. Oh my god, "COG"... you realize that the neocons who initiated COG on 9/11 are out of power now. Do you think Cheney/Rumsfeld have any fucking influence on the Obama administration?

Although, I will have to concede that America does apparently support more war; it may be conditional on airstrikes only, but that's not the real deal.

At this point there is no evidence that Obama intends to do anything more than provide air support and help out the native ground forces.

So how, exactly, will the administration accomplish “destroying” Isis, when no amount of bombs and soldiers have been able to destroy al-Qaida or the Taliban in nearly 13 years of fighting? The administration openly admits it has no idea how long it will take, only that it won’t be quick. “It may take a year, it may take two years, it may take three years,” John Kerry said.

He didn’t add, “it might take another 13”, but he might as well have.

So? That's the practical reality. Everyone knows the US is likely to be bombing Jihadists via air-strikes for the next 10-20 years.

[cosmicalstorm]

Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon

In his speech responding to the horrific murder of journalist James Foley by a British jihadist, President Obama delivered the following rebuke (using an alternate name for ISIS):


ISIL speaks for no religion… and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt…. we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for. May God bless and keep Jim’s memory. And may God bless the United States of America.

In his subsequent remarks outlining a strategy to defeat ISIS, the President declared:


Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim…. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way…. May God bless our troops, and may God bless the United States of America.

As an atheist, I cannot help wondering when this scrim of pretense and delusion will be finally burned away—either by the clear light of reason or by a surfeit of horror meted out to innocents by the parties of God. Which will come first, flying cars and vacations to Mars, or a simple acknowledgment that beliefs guide behavior and that certain religious ideas—jihad, martyrdom, blasphemy, apostasy—reliably lead to oppression and murder? It may be true that no faith teaches people to massacre innocents exactly—but innocence, as the President surely knows, is in the eye of the beholder. Are apostates “innocent”? Blasphemers? Polytheists? Islam has the answer, and the answer is “no.”

More British Muslims have joined the ranks of ISIS than have volunteered to serve in the British armed forces. In fact, this group has managed to attract thousands of recruits from free societies throughout the world to help build a paradise of repression and sectarian slaughter in Syria and Iraq. This is an astonishing phenomenon, and it reveals some very uncomfortable truths about the failures of multiculturalism, the inherent vulnerability of open societies, and the terrifying power of bad ideas.

No doubt many enlightened concerns will come flooding into the reader’s mind at this point. I would not want to create the impression that most Muslims support ISIS, nor would I want to give any shelter or inspiration to the hatred of Muslims as people. In drawing a connection between the doctrine of Islam and jihadist violence, I am talking about ideas and their consequences, not about 1.5 billion nominal Muslims, many of whom do not take their religion very seriously.

But a belief in martyrdom, a hatred of infidels, and a commitment to violent jihad are not fringe phenomena in the Muslim world. These preoccupations are supported by the Koran and numerous hadith. That is why the popular Saudi cleric Mohammad Al-Areefi sounds like the ISIS army chaplain. The man has 9.5 million followers on Twitter (twice as many as Pope Francis has). If you can find an important distinction between the faith he preaches and that which motivates the savagery of ISIS, you should probably consult a neurologist.

Understanding and criticizing the doctrine of Islam—and finding some way to inspire Muslims to reform it—is one of the most important challenges the civilized world now faces. But the task isn’t as simple as discrediting the false doctrines of Muslim “extremists,” because most of their views are not false by the light of scripture. A hatred of infidels is arguably the central message of the Koran. The reality of martyrdom and the sanctity of armed jihad are about as controversial under Islam as the resurrection of Jesus is under Christianity. It is not an accident that millions of Muslims recite the shahadah or make pilgrimage to Mecca. Neither is it an accident that horrific footage of infidels and apostates being decapitated has become a popular form of pornography throughout the Muslim world. Each of these practices, including this ghastly method of murder, find explicit support in scripture.

But there is now a large industry of obfuscation designed to protect Muslims from having to grapple with these truths. Our humanities and social science departments are filled with scholars and pseudo-scholars deemed to be experts in terrorism, religion, Islamic jurisprudence, anthropology, political science, and other diverse fields, who claim that where Muslim intolerance and violence are concerned, nothing is ever what it seems. Above all, these experts claim that one can’t take Islamists and jihadists at their word: Their incessant declarations about God, paradise, martyrdom, and the evils of apostasy are nothing more than a mask concealing their real motivations. What are their real motivations? Insert here the most abject hopes and projections of secular liberalism: How would you feel if Western imperialists and their mapmakers had divided your lands, stolen your oil, and humiliated your proud culture? Devout Muslims merely want what everyone wants—political and economic security, a piece of land to call home, good schools for their children, a little leisure to enjoy the company of friends. Unfortunately, most of my fellow liberals appear to believe this. In fact, to not accept this obscurantism as a deep insight into human nature and immediately avert one’s eyes from the teachings of Islam is considered a form of bigotry.

In any conversation on this topic, one must continually deploy a firewall of caveats and concessions to irrelevancy: Of course, U.S. foreign policy has problems. Yes, we really must get off oil. No, I did not support the war in Iraq. Sure, I’ve read Chomsky. No doubt, the Bible contains equally terrible passages. Yes, I heard about that abortion clinic bombing in 1984. No, I’m sorry to say that Hitler and Stalin were not motivated by atheism. The Tamil Tigers? Of course, I’ve heard of them. Now can we honestly talk about the link between belief and behavior?

Yes, many Muslims happily ignore the apostasy and blasphemy of their neighbors, view women as the moral equals of men, and consider anti-Semitism contemptible. But there are also Muslims who drink alcohol and eat bacon. All of these persuasions run counter to the explicit teachings of Islam to one or another degree. And just like moderates in every other religion, most moderate Muslims become obscurantists when defending their faith from criticism. They rely on modern, secular values—for instance, tolerance of diversity and respect for human rights—as a basis for reinterpreting and ignoring the most despicable parts of their holy books. But they nevertheless demand that we respect the idea of revelation, and this leaves us perpetually vulnerable to more literal readings of scripture.

The idea that any book was inspired by the creator of the universe is poison—intellectually, ethically, and politically. And nowhere is this poison currently doing more harm than in Muslim communities, East and West. Despite all the obvious barbarism in the Old Testament, and the dangerous eschatology of the New, it is relatively easy for Jews and Christians to divorce religion from politics and secular ethics. A single line in Matthew—“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”—largely accounts for why the West isn’t still hostage to theocracy. The Koran contains a few lines that could be equally potent—for instance, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256)—but these sparks of tolerance are easily snuffed out. Transforming Islam into a truly benign faith will require a miracle of re-interpretation. And a few intrepid reformers, such as Maajid Nawaz, are doing their best to accomplish it.

Many believe it unwise to discuss the link between Islam and the intolerance and violence we see in the Muslim world, fearing that it will increase the perception that the West is at war with the faith and cause millions of otherwise peaceful Muslims to rally to the jihadist cause. I admit that this concern isn’t obviously crazy—but it merely attests to the seriousness of the underlying problem. Religion produces a perverse solidarity that we must find some way to undercut. It causes in-group loyalty and out-group hostility, even when members of one’s own group are behaving like psychopaths.

But it remains taboo in most societies to criticize a person’s religious beliefs. Even atheists tend to observe this taboo, and enforce it on others, because they believe that religion is necessary for many people. After all, life is difficult—and faith is a balm. Most people imagine that Iron Age philosophy represents the only available vessel for their spiritual hopes and existential concerns. This is an enduring problem for the forces of reason, because the most transformative experiences people have—bliss, devotion, self-transcendence—are currently anchored to the worst parts of culture and to ways of thinking that merely amplify superstition, self-deception, and conflict.

Among all the harms caused by religion at this point in history, this is perhaps the most subtle: Even when it appears beneficial—inspiring people to gather in beautiful buildings to contemplate the mystery existence and their ethical commitments to one another—religion conveys the message that there is no intellectually defensible and nonsectarian way to do this. But there is. We can build strong communities and enjoy deeply moral and spiritual lives, without believing any divisive nonsense about the divine origin of specific books.

And it is this misguided respect for revelation that explains why, in response to the starkest conceivable expression of religious fanaticism, President Obama has responded with euphemisms—and missiles. This may be the best we can hope for, given the state of our discourse about religion. Perhaps one day we will do “everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.” But today, we won’t even honestly describe the motivations of our enemies. And in the act of lying to ourselves, we continue to pay lip service to the very delusions that empower them.

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/09/slee ... rmageddon/

[Channel72]

So... how exactly DOES ISIS get all their weapons and funding?

Well... they're bringing in over $3M USD a day now, and most of it is not from external sources. They're actually generating revenue internally, mostly from criminal enterprises. You could say they have a GDP now... they're a fully-functioning criminal state, similar to a Mexican cartel.

Source: http://www.aol.com/article/2014/09/14/i ... /20962061/

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Islamic State militants, who once relied on wealthy Persian Gulf donors for money, have become a self-sustaining financial juggernaut, earning more than $3 million a day from oil smuggling, human trafficking, theft and extortion, according to U.S. intelligence officials and private experts.

The extremist group's resources exceed that "of any other terrorist group in history," said a U.S. intelligence official who, like others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified assessments. Such riches are one reason that American officials are so concerned about the group even while acknowledging they have no evidence it is plotting attacks against the United States.

The Islamic State group has taken over large sections of Syria and Iraq, and controls as many as 11 oil fields in both countries, analysts say. It is selling oil and other goods through generations-old smuggling networks under the noses of some of the same governments it is fighting: Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

While U.S. intelligence does not assess that those governments are complicit in the smuggling, the Obama administration is pressing them do to more to crack down. The illicit oil is generally transported on tanker trucks, analysts said.

"There's a lot of money to be made," said Denise Natali, who worked in Kurdistan as an American aid official and is now a senior research fellow at National Defense University. "The Kurds say they have made an attempt to close it down, but you pay off a border guard you pay off somebody else and you get stuff through."

The price the Islamic State group fetches for its smuggled oil is discounted -$25 to $60 for a barrel of oil that normally sells for more than $100 - but its total profits from oil are exceeding $3 million a day, said Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center in Qatar.

The group also has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from smuggling antiquities out of Iraq to be sold in Turkey, al-Khatteeb said, and millions more from human trafficking by selling women and children as sex slaves.

Other revenue comes from extortion payments, ransom from kidnapped hostages, and outright theft of all manner of materials from the towns the Islamic State group has seized, analysts say.

"It's cash-raising activities resemble those of a mafia-like organization," a second U.S. intelligence official said, reflecting the assessment of his agency. "They are well-organized, systematic and enforced through intimidation and violence."

Even prior to seizing Mosul in June, for example, the group began to impose "taxes" on nearly every facet of economic activity, threatening death for those unwilling to pay, U.S. intelligence officials say. An analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations estimated the group was reaping $8 million a month from extortion in Mosul alone.

Once the group took over Mosul, in northern Iraq, and other areas, it grabbed millions of dollars in cash from banks, though not the hundreds of millions initially reported, U.S. intelligence officials say.

This spring, four French and two Spanish journalists held hostage by Islamic State extremists were freed after their governments paid multimillion-dollar ransoms through intermediaries.

The Islamic State group "has managed to successfully translate territorial control in northern Syria and portions of Iraq into a means of revenue generation," said a third U.S. intelligence official.

Analysts say the group is relying on the fact that the area along the border between Iraq and Turkey has long been a smugglers haven, and was made more so by the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Generations of families have illicitly moved goods through the region.

The Islamic State is the successor to al-Qaida in Iraq, which was founded by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For a time, the group was allied with the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate that is a key player among the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Islamic State group has since broken with the Nusra Front and al-Qaida.

In the early days of the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State group was funded in large part by donations from wealthy residents of Gulf States, including Kuwait and Qatar, American officials have said.

"A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive jurisdictions - particularly in Kuwait and Qatar - are soliciting donations to fund ... al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," David Cohen, the Treasury department's top counterterrorism official, said in a speech in March. ISIL is an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

That stream of funding has diminished in recent months as the group's violent tactics have drawn worldwide attention, U.S. intelligence officials say.

The group's reliance on oil as its main source of revenue could easily be disrupted by American airstrikes, officials say. But so far, no decision has been made to target Iraqi or Syrian oil infrastructure, which is serviced by civilian workers who may have been conscripted.

So yeah, we're well beyond the point where IS is relying on stealing weapons from Syria. IS is literally a serious oil cartel at this point, similar to the drug empires of Latin America. The only solution to get rid of them is serious military action.

Blowing up their oil infrastructure would be an easy win for the US. Except... the call has to be made whether it's worth the cost in innocent lives, not to mention the economic catastrophe it would cause for Iraq after IS is gone.

[Broomstick]

There's the problem that the global civilization runs on petroleum. Whoever controls the oil has everyone else by the short-and-curlies. Oil matters, whether we want it to or not. How much is that ISIL oil worth to the world?

[Simon_Jester]

If their profits are three million a day on discounted oil, then the value of that oil to the world economy is probably somewhere between five and ten million dollars a day. Maybe more like fifteen, I dunno.

Or, viewed another way, about one tenth of a cent per day per human now living, or twenty cents per day per person in Iraq and Syria.

[Channel72]

It's not that much compared to the world oil industry. Plus the 3-million figure I think is not only oil revenues, but also includes various nefarious mafia-esque revenue-generating activities such as sex slavery and extortion*. And blowing up the oil infrastructure would seriously cripple ISIS economically. But, the devastated remains of the machinery would be a major problem for the economy of Northern Iraq even after ISIS is gone.

Still, it's a lot better than having ISIS around. Regardless, I'm uncertain whether Obama will decide to airstrike the oil fields.


* Looks like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi takes more inspiration from Don Corleone than the Prophet Mohammed.

[Elheru Aran]

Don't forget that air-striking the oil fields would very probably be highly likely to cause ecological catastrophe thanks to loose oil and the heavy smoke from burning oil-wells. That is a consideration to keep in mind. Less important perhaps than dealing with ISIS, but nobody wants Iraqi ground-water to be contaminated for decades, aircraft stalled by oil smoke, etc... Cleaning up after the first Gulf War was something of a ungodly mess, IIRC. Several oil fires had to be put out, wells capped, and so forth.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not that much compared to the world oil industry. Plus the 3-million figure I think is not only oil revenues, but also includes various nefarious mafia-esque revenue-generating activities such as sex slavery and extortion*. And blowing up the oil infrastructure would seriously cripple ISIS economically. But, the devastated remains of the machinery would be a major problem for the economy of Northern Iraq even after ISIS is gone.

The article actually attached the three million a day figure to the oil revenues; honestly I doubt they could do much better than that with organized crime, given that their territory has limited size and wealth.

[Eulogy]

The article actually attached the three million a day figure to the oil revenues; honestly I doubt they could do much better than that with organized crime, given that their territory has limited size and wealth.

Especially since this dead-mob-walking can only shear the sheep so many times before oil becomes the only constant source of cash. And, as it has been said already, the oil infrastructure has big bullseyes painted on them.