11 ms·

I 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 o

• cbgb 11y ago
  I 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 ago
    And 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 ago
      That 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 ago
        Income 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.
      • tajen 11y ago
        French ministry of defense is 32b€. You can't move an aircraft carrier without submarines and destroyers, you can't move a fleet without the satellites, you can't do anything without headquarters. We are currently active in 2 wars and present in a lot more places, but without wars, there'd be no need of a big headquartets; so how would you, yourself, make a honest pro rata of the cost of each war? Then income tax is 20m homes, avg 2300€ per home.
      • nextweek2 11y ago
        NATO membership requests 2% of GDP be spent on defence. The person you were replying to specifically stated income tax to highlight their point.
        • buzzdenver 11y ago
          I hear you, but that's a disingenuous argument unless you have a reason to say that income tax is somehow tied together with the bombing raids.
    • umanwizard 11y ago
      France spent a third of its budget on bombing Syria? Seriously?
      • seren 11y ago
        The income tax is a tiny part of France budget. Most of its revenue is a combination of VAT, energy tax, corporate taxes, etc.
        • umanwizard 11y ago
          So what does it mean to say that the EUR 800 came from income tax? Doesn't everything (mostly) just go into one general fund?
• jkestner 11y ago
  The drop in oil prices probably doesn't help, either.
  • stuaxo 11y ago
    Yes, it's interesting that Oil exports are mentioned as part of this Iran deal - that has to be an alternative to the Saudis, who very likely are funding IS.
• pmorici 11y ago
  There was a news story within the past week about how a large ISIS cash storage warehouse was destroyed. Probably related to that. http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/footage-shows-bombing-of-is-cash-depot-which-may-have-contained-millions-of-dollars/news-story/a5d910aca5e8b9087510c2db35910c14 http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/footage-shows-bombi...
  • tlrobinson 11y ago
    Parent commenter referenced that: "a money depot has been bombed as well"
• gotchange 11y ago
  Russians usually target opposition forces such as Al Nusra (AQ affiliate in Syria), FSA et al and hit ISIS sites only when they want to help Assad's militias advance toward Palmyra or any other territory held currently by ISIS.
• olympus 11y ago
  I obviously can't prove any of this since I don't have inside evidence, but my theory (explained below) is supported by a few ideas reported by the news: 1. When ISIS moves into a city they appropriate everything of value. During their initial expansion they built up quite a war chest, but their expansion has stopped for now so they are not adding funds that way. 2. ISIS makes most of its money by taxing civilians. The oil bombings are targeting the small piece of pie, not the big piece. Here's my theory: ISIS ran into a classic problem seen by several startup companies. They saw initial success and had fast growth. They wanted to keep growing so they recruited heavily. To recruit a lot of soldiers they promised generous pay and benefits and even offered to support the families of soldiers so dads could go fight. Their burn rate was astronomical, but was okay because they were staying ahead of it through growth. But the growth ended up being unsustainable, because competition arrived and contained them. They kept it up for a long time because they had a lot of funding, but their burn rate finally caught up to them since they haven't been able to keep growing as before. Leadership did not/have not made the transition from wild startup CEOs that give pitch talks and sell to investors into the sensible, sustainable CEOs that manage a company in a saturated market with an eye toward creating a mature company. Remaining in the mode of a wild growth startup company is not an option for these guys. There is no viable strategy for a terrorist group that says "we'll grow like crazy and then sell out to Apple/Facebook/Google/Microsoft while we are popular and they'll handle the maturity stages. Terrorists have to make the maturity transition themselves because they can't be bought out.
  • jacquesm 11y ago
    Next step: IPO.
    • hartator 11y ago
      Or being bought out by one of the big player, US or Russia.
      • nova22033 11y ago
        If they get bought by Al-Queda in Iraq, would that make it an AQIhire?
• danmaz74 11y ago
  Or maybe, the main economic problem for ISIS are falling oil prices?
• mc32 11y ago
  The reasons may be varied, and perhaps Russia added alot to the mix with their less discriminating bombing... Add to that better financial tools for tracking and removing illicitly gained moneys from their coffers. But, really, that's beside the point. The how. The important thing is the what. And that is they are getting financially squeezed. And their pay scales allow for internal dissent since foreign fighters get paid twice the rate of their locals... Good to see them make poor decisions.
• frotak 11y ago
  The first attack on oil convoys was in November 2015 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/middleeast/us-strikes-syria-oil.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/middleeast/us-strike...) Primarily this was to avoid unnecessary civilian and collateral damage: "Until Monday, the United States refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks, because of concerns about causing civilian casualties. As a result, the Islamic State’s distribution system for exporting oil had remained largely intact." Plus why destroy infrastructure required by civilians during peacetime if you don't have to? That just puts them in a worse position when all this is done.
  • rorykoehler 11y ago
    "The USA, great protector of Middle Eastern civilians." Somehow I'm not buying it. The USA does what's good for their bottom line. Everything else is propaganda.
    • nyolfen 11y ago
      the US only started bombing the oil trucks once their hand was forced by the russians doing so while pointing out that the US had been avoiding these obvious targets. we can speculate on reasons that they held back before then, but i suspect it had to do with the oil being sold to the turks.
      • ju-st 11y ago
        The US gave another explanation why they didn't attack oil infrastructure: > A former CIA director said the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State has been reluctant to attack oil wells controlled by the extremist group partly because of environmental concerns. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/25/michael-morell-former-cia-chief-says-environmental/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/25/michael-more... Suddenly the US becomes the protector of mother earth?
      • 1024core 11y ago
        Close, but I don't think so. The ISIS is supported by the Saudis; as long as they could sell oil, it saved the Saudis money. The Saudis have long opposed air strikes on ISIS. Saudis are using ISIS as proxies in their fight against the new Iraqi government and Syria.
• dragontamer 11y ago
  > Did the USA realize that they should start bombing oil transports only recently? Do you want to permanently destroy Iraq's and Syria's ability to create oil? As long as ISIS wasn't considered a major threat, there was no real reason to bomb the refineries and wells (causing permanent damage to Syria). Now that ISIS is being taken as a more serious threat, the permanent damage to Syria has been deemed acceptable.
  • tormeh 11y ago
    "Guys, it was really hilarious when the ISIS came and took lots of land in Iraq and Syria, but then the oil price fell and then they became really scary so now we're bombing their oil-making and oil-moving stuff" So that's how it went down. Did I get that right?
    • matthewowen 11y ago
      No. "Guys, at first we thought ISIS wouldn't take root as successfully as they have, so we didn't want to damage Iraqi and Syrian infrastructure (which will then have to be rebuilt). But they did take root, so now we have to suck it up and bomb the infrastructure."
      • tormeh 11y ago
        I realize that this may be a possible explanation, but it strikes me as unlikely. The evidence that oil has a special status in US foreign policy are legion, the evidence that other countries' infrastructure has a similar status are substantially less numerous.
        • DasIch 11y ago
          Well, if you follow that path to the logical conclusion why not just drop an atom bomb and be done with it? The thing is ISIS will lose, it's not a question of if but a question of when. Unlike a fairy tale there won't be a happy end afterwards though. These countries will have to be moved back on track and need to become stable. That requires state building which takes time, is expensive and very unpopular with voters. Additionally these strikes themselves cost lots of money. It also makes sense to avoid civilian casulties to not further support ISIS and other terrorist organizations in their recruitment, which is already going better than anyone would like. If you think ahead, I don't think you can come to any other choice than to try to minimize damage, especially to important infrastructure like this.
• Grue3 11y ago
  >On the other hand, Russia has claimed to have been bombing oil transports since the very start of their air campaign. The key word is claimed. Like everything Putin's propaganda spews out, it couldn't be farther from the truth.
  • vitobcn 11y ago
    That's a great point; it goes both ways though. No media statement should simply be taken at face value in this type of international conflicts, whether it is RT or the NYT.
• gkya 11y ago
  Everyone there is getting into trouble with Russian intervention. They are not fighters for the civilisation, they have their intentions and they intervened for those. The problem of middle east is a historical one, and it does not concern only the middle eastern states and people. Since WWI with the fall of the empire, the people started having identity problems, given that until the inception of the twentieth century these people lived under empires, and suddenly then they got their own states, even though there is not and was not such a great cultural divide among these countries, nor a great cultural unity within them. The western state did not work out in the proche-orient, and now we have these problems. Time is the remedy. With regards to the oil traffic, I do not understand why we, instead of bombing, get a hold of those tankers and use that oil. Oil is precious and finite.
• fapjacks 11y ago
  This actually has a pretty straight-forward answer: Russia is not afraid of collateral damage. They will bomb basically anybody, anywhere. The fact is that US/European militaries are acutely cognizant of stepping on anyone's toes. Russia is bombing everything that moves. Watch video of the oil tankers: Those jets dropped 500-pound bombs on checkpoints full of civilians just to get at the tankers. The United States military would not do that.