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ISIS cuts its fighters' salaries by 50%
- ehartsuyker 11y ago> ISIS also subsidizes the cost of bread for the public, experts say. Honestly did not expect that. The world is more complex that portrayed.
- pc86 11y agoI don't think "doesn't want innocent people to starve to death" and "wants to cut off someone's head because of their religion" are mutually exclusive.
- pwthornton 11y agoThis is not uncommon behavior from groups like this or even the old Italian mob in the U.S. Doing humanitarian things like this with the locals helps buy you support and protection. Hamas has done this for years (including schools and healthcare), which helped buy it good will and even win elections. A lot of times these groups are doing more for local populations in terms of making sure they have food and basic necessities than the government. Usually when this is happening, it's a pretty strong indictment of the official government.
- jerf 11y agoThe line between organized crime and government can be surprisingly thin. I actually don't intend this as a criticism of government; I intend it as an interesting question to muse over. I believe it has good answers, but the question is richer than you might initially think. (For instance, you might be inclined to try drawing a simple line between the two based on "the consent of the governed". Which is all fine and dandy at a social scale, but what does that mean to you as an individual? Have you tried removing your consent from your local government? The question is not as easy as it may look at first. Even as, again, I want to emphasize that I think it can be answered reasonably; just not easily.)
- roel_v 11y agoWhich organization would you use as an example for which it's not clear whether they are 'organized crime' or a 'government'?
- jerf 11y agoWhile I wasn't thinking of a particular case, ISIS is certainly an instance of trying to cross the line. (Which I suppose also further underlines the point I want to emphasize about how I'm trying to promote a food-for-thought question, not a value judgment. Personally I find ISIS contemptible as an organized crime mob, and I find them contemptible as a government. I have no plans to change my opinions based on which side of the line they fall on. Which one are they on, though? Honestly the answer probably varies by region at this point. You can make a case that Westphalian-style countries are dead in the Middle East, and a stronger case that they are at least trending down. Whether that trend will be permanent is anyone's guess.)
- AnAfrican 11y agowarlords in the DRC vs local government in the DRC. except for outside recognition of legitimacy, the line can be thin. (and it is, since people jump from one to another easily)
- rdl 11y ago
- static_noise 11y agoIf you view the world from their viewpoint they are the good guys. That's true for virtually any group.
- napoleond 11y agoThere is a fascinating video from Vice by a journalist embedded with some ISIS troops: https://news.vice.com/video/the-islamic-state-full-length https://news.vice.com/video/the-islamic-state-full-length It clearly shows the group's violent rhetoric and uncompromising ideology, but also illustrates that ISIS is far more than a war machine. They are trying to create a nation, and that includes civic law enforcement and social services. For many people in the conquered regions, it represents more stability than whatever was there before. Of course, there are many others who are terrorized by ISIS (typically because they do not adhere to the correct brand of religion in the correct way) but it's important to remember that there is a fair-sized contingent of civilians on the ground who welcome ISIS.
- mikeash 11y agoI heard an interview the other day from one of those civilians. Before ISIS, they had a dozen competing militias screwing around, and they never knew who was on top or which one they'd have to deal with at any particular moment or what they might want. With ISIS there's exactly one group in charge and they know exactly what that group wants. I don't know that this person welcomed ISIS, per se, but they saw it as a substantial improvement over what was before. I think a lot of these people would prefer a strong, sane national government that isn't at war with everybody and lets people live their lives. But that doesn't seem to be an option, and ISIS is the best they've had recently.
- seivan 11y agoMuslims (Sunni) will always welcome groups like ISIS because it offers what they want: Sharia laws, kuffr sex-slaves and etc. Arab sunni muslims in Sinjar raped, sold and murdered their own non-muslim neighbours as soon as ISIS strolled into town. They weren't forced, they were greeting them with open arms evident by photos. I don't like to entertain the notion about whitewashing ISIS as some sort of a sensible "muslim alternative", not that I'm accusing you to suggest that. I'm just noticing that pattern here more and more, some serious high level of naivety of people who've never experienced living in those areas and conditions. Both Lee Kuan Yew and Pim Fortuyn are gone. Not much hope left.
- calibraxis 11y agoYou can read their internal documents. Here's an intro: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/15/terrorists-isis http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/15/terrori... BTW, the word "state" in "Islamic State..." makes it pretty clear: they're offering state functions. Guess how modern nation-states started: killing rivals, providing security and services to populations inside their boders, establishing central cultures... Of course ISIS needs to be smashed. But note how many nations still celebrate depraved monsters like Christopher Columbus. (Consider that when wondering why people fall for ISIS propaganda. Falling for that kind of propaganda is extremely common; we all do.)
- CaptSpify 11y agorelated: https://www.ted.com/talks/rodrigo_canales_the_deadly_genius_of_drug_cartels?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/rodrigo_canales_the_deadly_genius_... Drug cartels use PR to make people loyal to them. I'd imagine ISIS is doing something relative
- sveme 11y agoWhen you look at the picture and see the number of ISIS members that came from Europe I cannot help but wonder what language they are using internally. Quite a number of the recruits from Germany have a Turkish or German background, some in the UK a Somalian, others a Chechnyan and apparently some even an Asian (according to the pic in the article at least). I doubt that all of them are capable right from the start of speaking Arabic, so what's the command language? English? Hope so, cause that would be hilarious. Obviously they had to read some Arabic when studying the Quran, but I doubt that would be sufficient. On a related note, Charlie Winter published a brilliant essay on the ISIS media strategy on the BBC a couple of months ago, Fishing and ultraviolence[1]. Highly recommended. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-88492697-b674-4c69-8426-3edd17b7daed http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-88492697-b674-4c69-8... (edit: removed superfluous and)
- 1ris 11y agoI'm absolutly uninformed on the topic. I'd guess that knowelge of (medivial) arabic is a very high priority among muslims radical enough to join IS. So I assume they use a Mix of English, German and mostly bad arabic.
- niels_olson 11y agoIt takes more than truth to raise a family. Even Budda needed rice. And rich men have always been willing to pay poor men to do their dirty work. Belief is just the pitch.
- asdfologist 11y agoDid you respond to the wrong comment?
- niels_olson 11y agoapparently. Yay mobile.
- philk10 11y ago
- _xander 11y agoCaution: article features autoplaying video with audio - hitting pause or mute redirected me to a different page with the same autoplaying video
- tcfunk 11y agoYeah, same here. I had to right click the video and pause it that way.
- colinbartlett 11y agoI use the Flashcontrol extension for Chrome and found it greatly improved my browsing experience: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flashcontrol/mfidmkgnfgnkihnjeklbekckimkipmoe?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flashcontrol/mfidm...
- coldpie 11y agoFirefox has two settings to help with this problem. On the Plugins page, you can set the Flash plugin to "Ask to Activate." Firefox also provides a media.autoplay.enabled setting to prevent auto-playing HTML5 video and audio, although it is slightly buggy because websites expect media to autoplay[1]. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1231886 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1231886
- hammock 11y agoYou can also mute tabs in Firefox by clicking the little sound icon in the tab
- exodust 11y agoHow does that solve anything? Half the time we don't know videos are about to play, then suddenly a blast of sound comes out of the page. What we need is a way to mute the browser by default, with selective un-muting of particular tabs once we decide we want to hear them. An option to remember mute state for a whitelist of sites would be nice too. I'm amazed browser vendors don't offer this. All the fancy features they build, but this one has alluded them. Auto-playing videos are the worst thing about desktop web browsing. I cannot think of a worse problem.
- pofjer 11y agoWut? I thought that "truth" was on their side. Why would they need salaries at all then!?
- misja111 11y agoI have my doubts about the explanations given in the CNN article about ISIS' recent salary cuts. CNN suggests that some of USA's recent bombings are the cause of ISIS' financial problems. Oil transports have been bombed, cutting off one source of ISIS' income, and a money depot has been bombed as well. If this is true, then why does ISIS get into financial trouble only now? The airstrikes in Syria have been going on already since September 2014. Did the USA realize that they should start bombing oil transports only recently? On the other hand, Russia has claimed to have been bombing oil transports since the very start of their air campaign. Which happens to have started a couple of month ago. Maybe I'm too suspicious, but to me it looks like ISIS is getting into trouble because of the recent Russian intervention, and not because the USA.
- cbgb 11y agoI only doubt this theory because we civilians are not privy to strategic bombing locations. It is entirely possible that the US air campaign (or the Russians', for that matter) recently took out targets key to the financial strength of ISIS.
- tajen 11y agoAnd French bombings. Yeah I know our forces are ridiculous and it sounds patriotic to request to be named when we participate to a war. But every French home who pays the income tax spent about 800€ to bomb Syria in 2015, out of the 2300€ average of income tax, so please include us ;)
- buzzdenver 11y agoThat sounds way off. Way less than 25% of tax revenues go towards the military (more like 2% in Europe). Then the bombing campaign must be a fraction of that.
- acveilleux 11y agoIncome tax total for France was 57B euros. The employer (payroll) tax isn't counted in there. Nor are some of the other social charges. It's a progressive tax designed to keep low-earning households from paying much, if any, income tax.
- tyfon 11y agoHow does one turn off the autoplaying video at the top right? When i click the pause button it takes me to the video only, I just want to read the text not watch some video.. This is in firefox btw.
- GizaDog 11y agoHow does CNN get all this insight on the inner workings of ISIS?
- asdfologist 11y agoIt's in the first sentence of the article.
- GizaDog 11y agoaccording to documents leaked from inside ISIS territory. No proof of these leaked docs.
- mattdanger 11y agoNPR's Planet Money recently did an episode that analyzed a 1 month budget from a Syrian province controlled by ISIS. The budget was all in USD and sounded very thorough. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/12/04/458524627/episode-667-auditing-isis http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/12/04/458524627/episo...
- nothrabannosir 11y agoThat podcast answers a lot of the questions that people have in this thread. Definitely worth listening to.
- cs702 11y agoThe topic is serious, but when I read the headline, all I could think of is that it seems to come from a Monty Python or Mel Brooks skit: "We want revolution! But first we have to cut wages for the revolutionaries. Sorry!"
- jpreiland 11y agoI'm in the same boat. I suppose I'm partially living under a rock when it comes to current events, but I hadn't considered the notion of salaries for ISIS members and my first thought was that this might be from The Onion.
- nautical 11y agoFor some time I thought money might be a reason for people to join ISIS , that they might be paying shit load of money . But it seems they are not paying much , 400$ per month is basically nothing !
- jacquesm 11y agoFor you. But even in some countries in Europe that's a normal monthly salary.
- mkaziz 11y agoA day's worth of labour means a $2 pay in some third world countries. That's $60 a month, assuming you work everyday. Working for ISIS is a 6x raise, though admittedly with much higher risk.
- tyingq 11y agoSoldiers in a war zone also typically don't have to pay for shelter and food...
- seren 11y agoIn a war torn country, getting a regular paycheck every month is a privilege. They probably get multiple times the average salary in the area. Another tidbit I heard is that in Afghanistan, many were defecting from the Taleban to Isis because the pay was higher. It seems that in some poor/rural areas, being a fighter is more a career than anything.
- seivan 11y agoThey get to rape children. Look at the statistics over rape crimes in Europe and wonder why so many are fleeing back under the notion of "peaceful activism", as Swedish Muslim Organisations called it. Many of them also know there won't be much evidence of their heinous crimes, so once they come back they will go scotch free as few countries have actually made ISIS illegal (as the SS became). 0. Suspected 300 returned to Sweden according to hospital treatments of war injuries. 1. 120~ actual confirmed ISIS pedophiles returned. 2. 4(?) jailed because they hade photage of themselves raping and murdering. 0: http://www.svd.se/granskning-300-svenskar-vardade-for-krigsskador http://www.svd.se/granskning-300-svenskar-vardade-for-krigss...
- js8 11y agoIn biology, there is a concept of metabolic rate and its relation to life span. What if this applies to nations as well? Wartime economy means high metabolic rate, which means that the nation will be only short-lived... Was Orwell wrong when he predicted perpetual war as a way to manage dictatorship indefinitely?
- DasIch 11y ago1984 doesn't predict an actual perpetual war, just the believe in one. You can see this working with terrorism quite nicely. Actual attacks are rare and overall insignificant but nevertheless both parties believe themselves to be in an important war and perform actions that help reinforce each others beliefs and recruitment efforts. In reality it's really just a blood feud and will end only once one side stops participating.
- cm2187 11y agoThey should go on strike
- fokinsean 11y agoI really wasn't expecting "salaries" to be the fifth word.
- pipework 11y agoThat's going to make pistol round all the more important if you buy after winning knife round. Right?