IS crisis in Iraq and Syria

[Thanas]

Case in point being Ernst Udet, who was probably the best pilot ever with stunts like picking up cloth with his wingtip from the ground or flying below bridges with only a few centimetres for tolerance at both sides.

[Channel72]

This battle is getting complicated:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29390781

ISIS is trying to overtake Kobane (Ain al-Arab) on the Syria/Turkish border. The Kurds are currently defending the town, (although Al-Jazeera claims the Kurds are basically losing this battle).

I think the US is still the only country that is willing to conduct air strikes in Syria. The UK voted to only airstrike Iraq. The reality is that continuously pounding Iraq alone is useless because you need to get ISIS out of Raqqah in Syria. Pounding Iraq has driven ISIS north in Syria and it doesn't matter how many G8 powers fly in to save the day if all they're going to do is keep pounding Iraq.

Of course, ISIS is getting dangerously close to NATO Turkey, which would be somewhat gamechanging if they cross the border. And of course, Erdogan won't even help out the Kurds because he's afraid of arming the PKK.

[The Romulan Republic]

America was joined by several Middle Eastern countries for air strikes in Syria.

[Channel72]

Right, sorry I should have said Western country that is willing to conduct air strikes in Syria. AFAIK, the UK and France have declined. (And Germany isn't doing any airstrikes at all.)

[Simon_Jester]

I'm pretty sure the Turks would react harshly to an actual ISIL invasion of their soil, and they have a well armed and organized national army that (so far as I know) has the discipline and esprit d'corps that the Iraqi Army lacks.

So invading Turkey could turn out to be the last mistake ISIL ever made, even if the Turks have no intention of cooperating with the Kurds.

[Channel72]

Obama makes stupid excuses for doing nothing about IS:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29405373

President Barack Obama has acknowledged that US agencies underestimated the threat posed by the Islamist insurgency in Syria.

In a frank TV interview, he said that al-Qaeda had been beaten in Iraq by US forces working with Sunni tribes.

But they took advantage of the power vacuum in neighbouring Syria to emerge as Isis, later called Islamic State.

Meanwhile, there has been fierce fighting to the west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The BBC's Lyse Doucet in the city says Islamist militants were held off by government troops with the help of air strikes by the US-led coalition.

However, the insurgents have not retreated and some are less than 10km (six miles) from the city, she adds.

In an interview with the CBS TV programme 60 Minutes, Mr Obama said Syria had become a "ground zero" for militants who had been able to take advantage of the chaos there.

He reiterated that only part of the solution to defeating them would be military and that a political solution was also necessary.
Islamic State flag on front line with Kurdish fighters at Mullah Abdullah Bridge between Irbil and Kirkuk. 27 Sept 2014 This front line between IS fighters and Kurdish troops in northern Iraq is marked by an Islamist flag

"During the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swathes of the country completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos and attract foreign fighters... who believed in their jihadist nonsense," he said.

President Obama said the jihadists had gained a military capacity by absorbing remnants of Saddam Hussein's old army in Iraq.

Mr Obama noted that his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, had acknowledged that the US had "underestimated what had been taking place in Syria".

Asked whether the US had also overestimated the ability or will of Iraq's US-trained military to fight the jihadists, Mr Obama said: "That's true. That's absolutely true."

He said a political solution was key, one that would arise out of an accommodation between Sunni and Shia populations.

A US-led coalition of Arab and Western states has begun an air campaign to help counter Islamic State (IS), striking targets in Iraq and Syria.

Iraq has remained unstable since the departure of US troops, with the Sunni population largely alienated by the former Shia-led government. Syria has been engulfed in a civil war since 2011.

Over the weekend, US-led coalition aircraft targeted four makeshift oil refineries under IS control in Syria, as well as a command centre.

US Central Command said that early indications were that the attacks by US, Saudi and UAE planes were successful.

Blasts at the Tel Abyad refinery sent flames soaring 60m (200ft) into the sky, Turkish businessman Mehmet Ozer, who lives in the nearby Turkish town of Akcakale, told AP news agency.

They continued for two hours, rocking the building from which he was watching, Mr Ozer said.

Both the refinery and the local IS headquarters were bombed, Turkey's Dogan news agency said.

Meanwhile further fighting was reported in the besieged town of Kobane near Syria's border with Turkey.

Syrian Kurd fighters in Kobane have been holding out against militants but the fighting has sent about 140,000 civilians fleeing towards Turkey.

So Obama pretends he didn't know what was going on in Syria... even though he was blatantly warned, back in 2013 - before ISIL blitzkrieged through Mosul:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -isis.html

Testimony in Congress: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA13/ ... 131113.pdf

To anyone who thinks ISIL's advance was some sort of "surprise", read this excerpt in particular:

The challenges are daunting. Internally and regionally, pressures continue to build , exacerbated b y a resurgent terrorist network led by al Qaida ’s Iraq - based affiliate, now known publicly as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( AQ/ ISIL). The next year in Iraq may be pivotal, particularly with national elections now set for April 30, 2014.

...

Finally, while security operations may not be the lead element of a holistic strategy against AQ/ ISIL , they remain essential. In previous efforts with U.S. forces in the lead, we worked to ensure – through targeted and relentless military operations – that AQI could n ot establish a sanctuary or staging presence in Iraq. Today, we believe AQ/ ISIL is trying to establish camps and staging areas in Iraq’s western border regions.

Then again, to be fair the reality is that Obama would never have received as much international support if he pre-emptively tried doing anything, especially if it involved bombing Syria. The world has come together, more or less, only because of ISIS' extreme, off-the-charts brutality - which needed to be demonstrated graphically via their execution videos and genocidal campaign. And, paradoxically, it's likely that this very brutality is what led to their success in the first place - their reputation for being absolutely brutal motherfuckers likely had a lot to do with why the Iraqi army shit their pants and turned tail. This same brutality will now be their undoing, as an unprecedented international coalition of NATO and Arab states comes together. It's just frustratingly sad that Obama waited this long, but does anyone really believe pre-emptively bombing ISIL in Syria wouldn't have resulted in a major international backlash if it hadn't been for ISIL's absolutely unprecedented display of cruelty?

[K. A. Pital]

It would have. Newspapers would seize the opportunity to endlessly talk how Obama kills brave Syrian rebels blah blah blah.

[Simon_Jester]

It was ISIL's conquests, and their public brutality and hatred of the West, that caused the international media to focus on how nasty they were. Thus, a war fought against ISIL is now about ISIL in the American public's eye.

Before, the war would have been about Obama for those same people, just as the Iraq War wound up being more about Bush and his policies than it was about Saddam Hussein or fighting terrorism or anything else. And when the public perceives a war as "that particular president's war," said war gets unpopular very fast.

[General Brock]

Brock, you're still wall-of-ignorancing some very important parts of your opponents positions.

For one, you are inviting the question: why do you think cutting off weapons to Syrian rebels will cause ISIL to 'fold?' They have, as has been documented already, a daily budget somewhere north of three million a day; what makes you think they can't simply buy whatever weapons they need? You have no evidence at all that the majority of the weapons ISIL now has came from US aid to Syrian rebels. You have never done more than assert that "some" of those weapons came by that channel.

Your logic holes are rather glaring. A technical's machine gun is probably only good for about a minute of firing before the entire barrel has to be replaced and who knows what else. Maybe you could push Soviet weapons a little harder. American equipment may be the best, but that advantage comes at a price and attrition is what makes the American arms industry so lucrative. So Syrian rebel aid is a game changer on the ground, and American arms have a short life on the ground, in the hands of unprofessional fighters.

As for your other concerns, someone has to buy ISIS oil and blood antiquities and all-else, sell them weapons and equipment not covered by rebel aid, establish the underground routes for these transactions and launder the activity. This is also support of the Syrian rebels/ISIS, and $3 mil a day can't all come from dirt-poor Syrian and Iraqi locals.

With generously estimated budgets of ~$200m apiece, Hezbollah and Hamas $400 million combined control territory much smaller than the so-called Caliphate, and they aren't radical terrorists needing to spend hard. As long as ISIS is focused on taking and holding turf, and running an underground state, their expenses are going to be commensurate with that ambition. Other estimate of those and other organizations' budgets are a little less generous, at least in the case of Hamas, using news service reports:

Link

According to the IBTimes, the Taliban has an estimated operating budget of $70 million to $400 million; Hezbollah, from $200 million to $500 million; FARC in Colombia, from $80 million to $350 million, Hamas, $70 million, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia, from $70 million to $100 million.

ISIS has to share its wealth with all the local groups they have allied with. So when you think about it, the Mosul bank haul and unreliable oil revenues aren't going to go a long way. The Mosul gold bullion haul has limits; gold is traceable to a degree, which ups the price of any illicit transactions using it. The sudden infusion of so much cash into the region is also recipe for a bout of inflation.

Oil revenue estimates have ranged as high as $100 million a day; what is clear is that its not guaranteed 365-daily income. $3 million seems to be a CNN figure, and this article also says ISIS is on the hook for maintenance of these oil wells and whatever refineries they have. For as long as existing supplies last, ISIS could be looking at $730 million for one year, in theory. But they also failed to take major oilfields near Kirkuk and Bajii. Local tribes own these wells moreso than even the official government now. So look at at least half of that revenue going to local bribes. But who's buying the oil?

You'd be better off attacking my omission of Turkey's porous border through which most ISIS foreign fighters and aid travel into the war zones, (and through which plunder leaves). Owning a pickup truck dealership on the Turkey-Syria border must be like owning a gold mine, as long as no-one asks where all those trucks are going.

So, I'd have to say, cutting off all direct and indirect aid and support to Syrian rebels/ISIS via the CIA (as an umbrella for all Western aid)/GCC/Saudi Arabia/Turkey would be a far more effective way of dealing with ISIS. As of June 2014 ISIS/Syrian rebels received US$250 million in aid. Another $500 mil in aid is forthcoming. That's free money and materiale ISIS did not need to come up with itself. Using the latest American infusion of cash as a guide, its likely that ISIS presently needs at least $500 million a year to operate at its present level and everything else is bonus. This is rather generous, given that its aid supposedly meant to cover Syrian rebel activities in Syria. Remove that free $500 million, and ISIS will feel the pain.

Make no mistake, continued American aid for the Syrian rebels/ISIS is significant.

The total investment of the American taxpayer in Syrian rebels of around $750 million - three-quarters of a billion dollars - has already returned to and empowered the defense industry by 1 billion dollars in just two weeks. That buys a lot of lobbying for more war. Within five years of just an air war alone, at $22 billion a year, the ISIS war could become another trillion-dollar war, again to be paid for by the American taxpayer.

At this point, airstrikes increased ISIS' popularity, they are moving underground to avoid airstrikes, and they are moving to secure Kurdish territory they can take in Syria. The first collateral slaughter casualties have been reported. Combined with the ongoing aid to Syrian rebels, armed intervention has so far ensured dealing with ISIS will demand boots on the ground.

2100 marines have been sent to Kuwait. This last move is a smart one; like the Syrian rebels/ISIS in Turkey, American troops will need a safe haven from which to launch attacks. Things are not looking good for Baghdad as the Iraqi Army still has a few logistical hangups, like supplying its own troops with water and ammo, not re-supplying ISIS. Somehow. Geez...

Its looking like strike three for hard hegemony in the Middle East and the boots really haven't hit the ground yet. Any hopes for a return to the soft hegemony of the past are over.

The longer this pattern of events continues, the more vital it will be to cut off Syrian rebels. No amount of intel on the insurgent groups accessed by ISIS many links to them - the only possible reason to continue arming Syrian rebels - gained from this will be worth the grief. They surely know they are being scrutinized and take steps to cover their tracks.

You seem to be wall-of-ignorancing the problem of how western intervention creates extremism within groups who turn to extremism as the only way of defending themselves.

And yet you persist in magnifying the "US aid to rebels captured by ISIL" part of this complex situation, as if it was the only thing that matters. As if it is the secret key to unlocking all wisdom.

As if it tells you the secrets of the shadowy conspiracy in charge of US foreign policy, the one that secretly is doing the exact opposite of what it is in fact openly doing, despite the lack of, y'know, people actually doing what you say it's doing.

As if it was the magic spell that brought ISIL into existence, so that when you break the spell the group just... vanishes and ceases to become a problem apparently.

It's totally irrational, it does NOT have any internal logic outside your own head. It doesn't even begin to hang together in a convincing fashion.

So, right, here you are lecturing me on logic and magic when ISIS clearly now thrives on American armed interventions to justify their activities past and present. As if by some magic, the patterns of the past would not repeat themselves if the exact same things that correlate with them was done again... because what; correlation is not causation? Logical fallacies are not that simple. If Syrian rebel aid routinely ends up with ISIS, the precautionary principle requires treating this as a reliable phenomenon regardless of theory or intent. The only reason one would not, is perhaps, one wants this phenomenon to happen, or one is not very bright.

You skip the first point; without American interventions, these groups would have no reason to exist in their present forms or at all; yet somehow you claim to have the edge on reason? The reality is, armed interventions will happen. However, as far as discussion is concerned, its clearly preferable and reasonable not to engage in the first place than magically assume warmongering is the magical fix for this when its never worked in the past.

Now, all this is totally separate from the question of whether armed intervention will work.

If all you can do in response to me is ramble drunkenly about how armed intervention is wrong because fighting is bad or moral hazards or whatever, I am going to take that as you specifically conceding on the specific claim that cutting off aid to Syrian rebels would seriously impact ISIL operations.

Actually, the point is, armed interventions don't work.

ISIS could not have arisen but for support for the Syrian rebels. Extremists not only tend to favour violence, they'll do it given the chance. For every secular Syrian opposed to Assad, its clear many more are opposed on religious grounds, not just against Assad, but the whole notion of secular statehood that Assad represents. Keeping one step ahead of 'genuine' revolutionaries and preventing them from making their/our proxy armies genuine is a trick not yet mastered for jihadis.

At some point, its possible Turkey will face the blowback problem with ISIS Pakistan now faces with the Taliban, which once had support of the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. Except nobody planned, at least for simulation purposes, to partition Afghanistan or Pakistan the way Col. Ralph Peters map of the new Middle East partitions Turkey. Still, apparent ISIS jihadis, or very convincing supporters, ride the bus openly in Turkey, one of many instances suggesting some level of popular support beyond dislike for Assad.

Prowar types are embedded within a culture that sees armed interventionism as a natural entitlement, as natural as taking land from the Aboriginals at America's founding. Some have learned sociopathy; when to turn of moral reasoning when its not to their advantage. Others come by it natural and it not something they need much schooling in.

A sociopath won't see the moral and material illogic of effectively setting up ISIS via the Syrian rebels and continuing to support them. Its perfectly logical to a psychopath safely plugged into the arms industry, even more so to one driven by delusions of religious grandeur as Donald Rumsfeld, known to prelude memos with biblical verse.

It was clearly more reasonable to cut the rebels off once ISIS was formed, but this eludes sociopathic reasoning. It was also clearly more reasonable not to let this become an excuse for another armed intervention, whether airstrikes or boots on the ground, because airstrikes alone wouldn't work by any understanding of modern war. Perceived 'failure' - which is just inevitable common sense - would result in demands for boots on the ground to solve the immediate problem of that perceived failure, the preceeding steps forgotten. Yet again the reasoning chain breaks and we skip to where boots on the ground are just natural to demand.

That peculiar culture of cognitive dissonance to invade and destroy other people's lives and culture, for material gain and to pretend to 'save' them is still at work today. It had its birth in the destruction of the Aboriginal nations at America's founding, like a malevolent djinn given a new face. It continues in the active support of the Syrian rebels/ISIS. At one level, the warmongering connection can't be made; its an irrational belief. At another, the connection is made but denied recognition because its socially and/or materially profitable to game that system.

Link

When asked to elaborate on the decolonization of Indigenous people, he [Mario Garza, founder of the Indigenous Cultures Institute in San Marcos, Texas,] replied,

“You decolonize a people by giving them back their true identity, their spirituality, their language, sacred sites, and true history. White people are afraid we are going to demand our land back, so they are afraid to admit that we are still here. They would like to romanticize that we all disappeared into the sunset or that what happened, happened a long time ago and we need to let go. The historical trauma is still affecting us and the systems they put in place still are keeping us in this situation. An example I once read was someone hitting us on the head with a hammer for years. Then he stops and says, I have stopped, get over it. The damage that was caused all these years does not go away when he stops, so we cannot ‘get over it.’”

The Islamic world isn't going to get over it, and sad to say, too many people outside Islam don't care and can't care to even understand the situation, that with the COG, we're losing our open and free western societies to our extremists, the domestic enemy within.

ISIS is not true Islam according to many people of Islam; Islamic leaders are clear on this. Many have signed on to an open letter to Al Baghdadi saying as much.

Whiteness theory doesn't explain everything, but it does explain a lot. Its a pity I don't have the time to sit down and explore this in more detail.

For example, that whiteness may be the strongest not just in conservative religious groups, but groups like the Freemasons. In the United States Freemasonry remains divided by race. Or how regulatory capture has a small-r form in which outwardly prosocial organizations such as the freemasons, would be naturally targeted by psychopaths seeking victim-pools and social influence. Lacking public scrutiny like say, the police or teachers, such fraternal organizations can become unpoliceable bastions of antisocial regressive thought. Much like the more open American Enterprise Institute, these groups have no sense of, and fewer avenues to, social accountability beyond their peers.

There's a whole mass culture of reasoning fail in play and the layers of subcultural dynamics behind it are absolutely fascinating.

At the end of the day, what does the most good for the most number of people; armed intervention in Syria/Iraq, or non-intervention in their sectarian violence? The answer can only be an antiwar position, yet its not even on the table.

So, the question is why? The technical-tactical details of the war are almost a meaningless distraction when they don't address winning the peace and how difficult that has now become.

[Grumman]

Your logic holes are rather glaring. A technical's machine gun is probably only good for about a minute of firing before the entire barrel has to be replaced and who knows what else.

Really? We've had machine guns around since 1912 that only needed one barrel every hour - ten Vickers guns fired for twelve hours straight only needed a hundred barrels between them.

[Vympel]

The notion that the US needs to do anything about ISIS is idiotic to begin with. The American public, once more (and other Western civilians) has been whipped into a fear frenzy about a chickenshit outfit that poses no credible threat whatsoever to the United States or the West, contrary to idiotic statements like ISIS posing an existential threat to the US. You know what's going to happen from all these airstrikes?

Fuck all. The public will tire of them, as they always do, the useless airstrikes will stop, and the new reality created by ISIS' antics will fade into the background, like it always does.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The notion that the US needs to do anything about ISIS is idiotic to begin with. The American public, once more (and other Western civilians) has been whipped into a fear frenzy about a chickenshit outfit that poses no credible threat whatsoever to the United States or the West, contrary to idiotic statements like ISIS posing an existential threat to the US. You know what's going to happen from all these airstrikes?

Fuck all. The public will tire of them, as they always do, the useless airstrikes will stop, and the new reality created by ISIS' antics will fade into the background, like it always does.

I always thought it was more to save American prestige. Afterall, after all the blood and money spent on Iraq, losing Iraq would have been rather unthinkable...

[Vympel]

I always thought it was more to save American prestige. Afterall, after all the blood and money spent on Iraq, losing Iraq would have been rather unthinkable...

Which is a bad reason to do anything - throwing good 'money' after bad, as it were. And escalation to preserve American 'prestige' is going to be inevitable - IS is not going to be destroyed by airstrikes.

[Simon_Jester]

Vympel, the main problem is that if someone doesn't stop ISIL they'll become a new nation in the region, make a great deal of trouble for everyone immediately involved, and probably kill a few hundred thousand people or something.

That unpleasant reality motivates a lot of people to want to do something, both because there are objective negative consequences to ignoring the problem, and because it makes us feel weak to see things like that happen and be unable/unready/unwilling to do anything about them.

There are a lot of problems with that attitude, but it's been a very common thing for a very long time.
____________

...Damn. My computer ate a large post to Brock.

OK, short form:

Brock, this claim of yours that ISIL is specifically dependent on stealing specifically American aid to other rebels in Syria, and can be defeated by removing that aid, is fucking stupid. You have committed errors of basic arithmetic to support it, along with some really bad assumptions.

I can support all this, but I refuse to burn another hour of my life trying; you're not worth it to me because of how long it's taken you to distinguish fact from fiction up to this point.

If you possess any real ability to distinguish fact from fiction, you will concede the point. It was already exploded before your most recent post. You just refused to notice.

Then and only then, we could hope to have an intelligent discussion about the many other things you speak of. Because as long as you're prepared to support otherwise sane arguments with random pieces of fiction, and tenaciously defend those fictions, you are not ready to participate in adult conversations on a subject like this. You may be able to mirror or even create adult-level arguments, but you are not an adult-level participant, any more than the guy in this XKCD is.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Vympel, the main problem is that if someone doesn't stop ISIL they'll become a new nation in the region, make a great deal of trouble for everyone immediately involved, and probably kill a few hundred thousand people or something.

That unpleasant reality motivates a lot of people to want to do something, both because there are objective negative consequences to ignoring the problem, and because it makes us feel weak to see things like that happen and be unable/unready/unwilling to do anything about them.

There are a lot of problems with that attitude, but it's been a very common thing for a very long time.

The problem is not ISIL. The problem is to do with Saudi Arabia and co. who are the source of manpower, spiritual guidance, and money for outfits like ISIL. So long as this state of affairs exist, there will be plenty more ISILs in the near and far future.

Mind you, ISIL still draws funds from indiscreet sources in Saudi Arabia and Qatar etc. But I doubt the US Treasury department will go after them.

[K. A. Pital]

Indeed. In time, there will be another Taliban, and nothing will be done - again. Just like the last 30 years or so.

[Simon_Jester]

The Saudis, alas, are secure for the foreseeable future thanks to oil money. In short, they wield a kind of power that may not directly defeat the 'hard power' of a heavily armed and modern nation-state... but which can neutralize it quite effectively.

That contradiction is, now that I think about it, probably the core reason why Western policy towards the Middle East is so incoherent and has been for decades. One of the basic premises is itself a contradiction: we proceed as though we are fighting a weak enemy, but the weak enemy has a source of strength we cannot remove from play. Therefore they are actually strong, but we act as though they are weak, with the result that we are eternally defeated and frustrated.

[Channel72]

The notion that the US needs to do anything about ISIS is idiotic to begin with. The American public, once more (and other Western civilians) has been whipped into a fear frenzy about a chickenshit outfit that poses no credible threat whatsoever to the United States or the West, contrary to idiotic statements like ISIS posing an existential threat to the US. You know what's going to happen from all these airstrikes?

Fuck all. The public will tire of them, as they always do, the useless airstrikes will stop, and the new reality created by ISIS' antics will fade into the background, like it always does.

ISIL is hardly an existential threat, no, but regionally they are trying to expand (including potentially into NATO Turkey), and they've also taken control of a large oil supply, which makes them more obnoxious than your typical Jihadist organization. (That and they commit genocide...) Having a large-ish state in Mesopotamia that controls oil reserves and is fanatically hostile to anyone not in total allegience to them is certainly not in the US' interest at all. The massive population displacement and refugee crises created by ISIL alone elevates them over "just another terrorist group".

But I agree they will likely fade out soon, as their organization falls apart or splinters into sub-groups, until they are no longer relevant.

The problem is not ISIL. The problem is to do with Saudi Arabia and co. who are the source of manpower, spiritual guidance, and money for outfits like ISIL. So long as this state of affairs exist, there will be plenty more ISILs in the near and far future.

No, ISIL is unique in that in now generates it's own revenue via oil supplies and other criminal activities. It's basically like a narco-state at this point. Yes, manpower and funding from rich gulf states will continue to enable Jihadist groups to exist, but ISIL is an enormous Jihadist organization of unprecedented size and direct control of large oil reserves, which separates them from your typical Jihad fan club like the others in Syria.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

No, ISIL is unique in that in now generates it's own revenue via oil supplies and other criminal activities. It's basically like a narco-state at this point. Yes, manpower and funding from rich gulf states will continue to enable Jihadist groups to exist, but ISIL is an enormous Jihadist organization of unprecedented size and direct control of large oil reserves, which separates them from your typical Jihad fan club like the others in Syria.

What? Unique? You jest. The Taliban was and is also a self-sustaining outfit, and does so through narcotics. Remember all those poppy fields in Afghanistan?

If you think their oil is enough to get by, you must be joking. Oil industries require sophisticated equipment and maintenance. Unless they get outside help, it is hard to keep all that functioning in the long run.

[K. A. Pital]

No, ISIL is unique in that in now generates it's own revenue via oil supplies and other criminal activities. It's basically like a narco-state at this point. Yes, manpower and funding from rich gulf states will continue to enable Jihadist groups to exist, but ISIL is an enormous Jihadist organization of unprecedented size and direct control of large oil reserves, which separates them from your typical Jihad fan club like the others in Syria.

Wrong. Developing oil in the modern world is hard and requires skilled workers and technology. This is why oil production tends to drop when armed groups without sufficient resources take control (it also recovers if said groups are moderate and sensible enough to start siphoning brainpower to run it, but that can't be said about IS). Growing poppy is much easier, and requires poor illiterate peasants and some guys with a Koran and a Kalashniov.

Taliban was strong enough to control a whole country and become its official government, remember.

Oh well. I guess people prefer not to remember.

[Channel72]

No, ISIL is unique in that in now generates it's own revenue via oil supplies and other criminal activities. It's basically like a narco-state at this point. Yes, manpower and funding from rich gulf states will continue to enable Jihadist groups to exist, but ISIL is an enormous Jihadist organization of unprecedented size and direct control of large oil reserves, which separates them from your typical Jihad fan club like the others in Syria.

What? Unique? You jest. The Taliban was and is also a self-sustaining outfit, and does so through narcotics. Remember all those poppy fields in Afghanistan?

If you think their oil is enough to get by, you must be joking. Oil industries require sophisticated equipment and maintenance. Unless they get outside help, it is hard to keep all that functioning in the long run.

Yes, unique as opposed to the various other Jihadist groups in Syria. I wasn't comparing ISIL to the Taliban, which was nowhere near as brutal or aggressively expansionist, nor in control of oil-reserves that the US cares about.

Wrong. Developing oil in the modern world is hard and requires skilled workers and technology. This is why oil production tends to drop when armed groups without sufficient resources take control (it also recovers if said groups are moderate and sensible enough to start siphoning brainpower to run it, but that can't be said about IS). Growing poppy is much easier, and requires poor illiterate peasants and some guys with a Koran and a Kalashniov.

You can't be this naive, man. ISIL is using a make-shift infrastructure to pump the oil for now, but they are recruiting skilled workers! Given the money they can potentially bring in, IS is making it a top fucking priority to leverage the existing oil infrastructure and bring in skilled workers. They confiscated almost $500 million USD from the central bank in Mosul alone, (which is like greater than 10 times al-Qaeda's entire operating budget!). They can hire whoever they need to work the oil fields. It's just that the fact that the sky is constantly raining missiles makes this a lot more difficult for them.

Just because they dress in black and look like thugs in their promotional videos doesn't mean they aren't intelligent. They recruit from Europe and throughout the GCC and other first world-ish places, for fuck's sake. These are hardly Afghani peasants. Plus, thanks to Saddam Hussein, Iraq had one of the one of the most educated general populations in the Mid-East before 2003 - and many of those Iraqis who are Sunni have undoubtedly taken up arms with ISIS.

[Channel72]

It's also nice how you insultingly talk about the illiteracy of Afghanis and Iraqis as if it's all the same. Iraq has a ridiculously high literacy rate (over 80%) thanks to Saddam Hussein. Iraqis grow up to be doctors and engineers, not fucking peasant farmers. Iraq is in a totally different league than Afghanistan in terms of education, and I have no doubt IS will find the manpower and skill to work the oil fields (some of the people who support ISIL may have fucking designed some of those oil fields...), unless we keep harassing them with airstrikes.

[K. A. Pital]

Face it, you cannot seriously claim the IS has a greater stream of revenue than whole of Afghanistan provided to the Taliban, including Saudi and ISI funding. And that the Afghan way of getting money was way easier. Yes, Iraq has better human resources. No, it does not mean ISIS is somehow the most dangerous thing ever to grace the face of the Earth (if I was picking one, your irresponsible government would be way higher on the danger list, with its clumsly messing in the Middle East for the last 50 years turning it and Central Asia into an islamist limbo).

[Channel72]

Face it, you cannot seriously claim the IS has a greater stream of revenue than whole of Afghanistan provided to the Taliban, including Saudi and ISI funding.

Yes, but why the hell are we comparing ISIS with the Taliban? They have little in common beyond the superficial fact that both are former-militia Sharia fundamentalist idiots. ISIS is explicitly a genocidal, expansionist state with the express goal of taking over Mesopotamia and it's oil reserves. The Taliban is just some bullshit Islamic state in Afghanistan that pissed off the US by aiding Bin Laden. They have entirely different goals and different spheres of influence, it doesn't matter if Afghanistan as a whole has a greater GDP than ISIS - the Mesopotamian oil reserves have much greater potential for revenue generation than anything in Afghanistan, and whatever political entity controls Iraq will almost certainly generate way more revenue than Afghanistan. So really, it would be nice if that political entity was something other than a genocidal horror state. I'd prefer a secular, US friendly Baathist state, to be honest, but I'll have to settle for this bullshit Shi'a Dawa government. At least it's better I guess than another Wahhaabiist government.

No, it does not mean ISIS is somehow the most dangerous thing ever to grace the face of the Earth

I'm not arguing ISIS is anywhere near the most dangerous thing - that's a strawman carried over from typical US rhetoric about "existential threats" and stuff. Nobody really believes that except I guess the ignorant US public to a certain extent. I'm way more concerned about climate change, to be honest.

(if I was picking one, your irresponsible government would be way higher on the danger list, with its clumsly messing in the Middle East for the last 50 years turning it and Central Asia into an islamist limbo).

Yeah, I agree - overall US foreign policy has inadvertantly done way more damage than anything ISIS is currently capable of... but that doesn't mean that now we shouldn't be in favor of getting rid of ISIS. And by the way Stas, please don't forget to share some of the blame for fucking up the MidEast - the MidEast was basically a pawn in a series of Cold War conflicts, and the Warsaw Pact countries sure didn't hesitate to supply arms and manipulate Middle Eastern governments either. Although, I grant that overall, the US has done more damage, especially post-USSR.

[K. A. Pital]

I agree that the IS has to go. I just question the possibility of that. Face it, secular forces are in complete disarray. Iraq, formerly one of the most secular places, is half-IS, half Shia islamist rump state about to fall completely under Iran. Syria, another former nationstate that used to be moderate, is (at least in the North) an IS base of operations. Assad controls a rump state and is a complete pariah. Libya is an islamist warzone, mostly anarchic. Egypt barely contained their own islamists by falling back to the military dictatorship, but it is far from strong.

Bombing the place gives assholes from the House of Saud more freshmen for they toy armies; and there is no secular group strong enough to fill the vacuum if IS retreats.