Posted on 09/17/2014 10:58:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ISIS is an amalgam consisting of disaffected youth, displaced Iraqi and Syrian opposition fighters, and anti-Western fundamentalists. It is a relatively small force, and has only enjoyed the military successes it enjoys because of the weakness of its adversaries. ISIS is a group unworthy of much of the awe they have inspired in the West.
It is, however, an organization that does seek to function more like a state than a terrorist organization. ISIS has organized municipal services and humanitarian services. It collects taxes and fields a police force which enforces Sharia law. It provides water, electricity, and sewage to its residents. It produces oil and petroleum products and sells them on the black market for a reported $3 million per day in revenues. Perhaps most consequentially, ISIS has a propaganda arm as sophisticated as anything Goebbels ever managed.
For example, the Islamic State released a trailer on Wednesday for a new movie entitled Flames of War. It looks as well produced and action-packed as anything Michael Bay ever directed:
Most disturbingly, the minute-long trailer prominently features President Barack Obama assuring the nation that American ground forces will not be participating in combat operations against ISIS. The president’s insistence is juxtaposed with footage of American forces encountering resistance while serving in Iraq in the last decade.
The viewer is left with the impression that the Islamic State is eager to create the impression that the United States fears engaging ISIS on their terms. That is, no doubt, the propagandist message the terror group wants to project.
Whether Americans or ISIS likes it or not, U.S. ground forces may soon be again seeing combat in Iraq. On Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey conceded that there were some circumstances that would lead him to recommend to the president sending American troops to serve in a combat advisory role alongside Kurdish and Iraqi forces. If the president’s strategy aimed at rolling back ISIS in Iraq and containing them in Syria is to be believed, those circumstances will soon arise.
These people are media savvy bastards, I’ll give them that.
IS is a state—it will be printing money and stamps soon. Its an outlaw state and one few (if any) recognize—but a state it is—and as such we should declare war on them before they hit us hard.
Yeah, a state whose health and human services department offers free beheadings, rapes and torture to its citizens.
okay. So whose water production, sewage treatment and electrical generation facilities is this “state” using to provide these great services?
I know damned well they haven’t built any of their own.
Goading is right.
And we seem to be suckers and are going to take them up on their taunts .... for no gain on our part.
RE: And we seem to be suckers and are going to take them up on their taunts .... for no gain on our part.
Do you think it’s a trap?
I don’t see what we gain by chasing after them. If they are such a threat, let the people around them take them out.
It could be a tactic to draw us in
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