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Inside ISIS: Quietly preparing for the loss of the ‘caliphate’
- teh_klev 10y agoNo paywall: http://archive.is/t4H4T http://archive.is/t4H4T
- javajosh 10y agoAs an aside, when Trump blacklisted WaPo, that same day I ponied up the $99 for a year's subscription, and actually it's a pretty good paper, and it's surprisingly nice to not be nagged to subscribe.
- labrador 10y agoThank you. I'm an older programmer with health issues living below the poverty line so there's not way I can afford the subscription. I hope Jeff Bezos does't mind if I take a peek for free.
- JBReefer 10y ago:/
- RivieraKid 10y agoPaywall Edit: Why am I downvoted?
- Scramblejams 10y agoMy guess is (and I didn't downvote) the downvoters either perceive your comment as a complaint with no constructive content and therefore superfluous, or redundant given the existence of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12094671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12094671
- RivieraKid 10y agoOk, thanks... the comment you link was made after mine.
- positr0n 10y ago> Why am I downvoted? I didn't, but probably because despite not adding anything substantial, this comment is made 10s of times every single day on HN on every wapo, wsj, etc article that makes the front page. The paywall debate is settled. Read the FAQ. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- RivieraKid 10y agoOk, makes sense.
- sctb 10y agoPlease see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989.
- dicroce 10y agoI believe I read somewhere that if the caliphate falls it means that they never truly had the mandate of heaven. How could their followers justify continued obedience?
- eternalban 10y agoI guess we finally have proof that the mandate of the deep state and CIA isn't enough to start up a bogus "khalifate", no matter how many weapons drops end up in "enemy" hands. (If you entertain these stories about ISIS or whatever name they call it these days do yourself a favor and research 1400+ years of Muslim history to see if anything remotely close to this bunch ever existed. Heck, look back to 70s and see what what was the resistance ideology du jour. Hint: it was not Islam.)
- colordrops 10y agoIf you do a little reading besides the WSJ and NYT, it's obvious that the CIA has been propping up ISIS. Some articles on Glen Greenwald's publication The Intercept goes into to this in a bit of detail. It's amazing to me how few people understand this.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- colordrops 10y agoAnyone want to comment on why this is being downvoted?
- mwfunk 10y agoShort answer: because it's absurd. People don't have to explain downvotes for conspiracy theories based on peoples' gut feelings/fears/paranoia regarding what's really going on below the visible surface of world events. Long answer: if you said you had a fear that there might be a conspiracy but didn't have anything other than circumstantial evidence and intuition to back it up, that'd be one thing. But you didn't. You said it was "obvious" that that's what's going on. Lots of people base lots of beliefs (and subsequent actions) on their gut feelings about things that are opaque to them, but if you don't take your own gut feelings with a grain of salt then it's actually introducing noise into the collective global conversation about this stuff. You end up with everyone arguing about hypotheticals that neither side can prove or disprove rather than actionable intelligence. Much better to seek small, messy, unsatisfying truths and fight for them, than to intuit exciting, reductive narratives with truthiness derived from their explanatory power. The former can lead to people making positive differences in the world, while the latter usually just leads to lots of angry, endless, unresolvable arguments on Reddit or at family gatherings.
- feklar 10y agoInteractive map http://isis.liveuamap.com/ http://isis.liveuamap.com/ Latest map of Shirqat (near Mosul) where there is heavy fighting right now https://i.imgur.com/dxb7BHM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/dxb7BHM.jpg Still months of fighting at least until ISIS loses their Iraq 'caliphate' look at all those towns/cities they still control like Hawijah.
- ethanbond 10y agoHere's an interactive map that lets you see the progress of the fight over time: https://www.cartercenter.org/syria-conflict-map/ https://www.cartercenter.org/syria-conflict-map/ ISIS' doom seems as imminent as the coming quagmire between the "victorious" factions.
- grandalf 10y agoInstead of presenting ISIS as a grassroots political movement, it is presented as a military group led by a small number of ideologues.
- vinceguidry 10y agoThere's less daylight between the two than you seem to think. Grassroots movements need their organizers, otherwise they can't accomplish anything.
- tamana 10y agoThe difference is that grassroots movement members support their leaders, and warlord groups like ISIS don't have popular support, they only have terror control of the populace
- grandalf 10y ago> they only have terror control of the populace Are you sure about that? Most government-like institutions do some combination of threats of force and useful services. Hamas provides food and shelter for many. Once a government-like institution gets powerful enough, it can reduce the amount of criminal/unsavory action it engages in, and create propaganda to help with its legitimacy narrative.
- imglorp 10y agoThose ideologues are also insecure in their own beliefs: > A series of communiques issued in the Islamic State’s Syrian enclave last month closed down Internet cafes in one province and ordered the destruction of TVs and satellite dishes in another. The orders, billed as an effort to eliminate a tool for “disseminating infidel beliefs,” effectively cut off access to news from the outside world. Tyrants everywhere know their position will not withstand debate. This is something the tech community can help with: provide uncensorable, unblockable, and anonymous comm channels to keep the world talking.
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- misiti3780 10y agoIm not that surprised. I'm sure the fact that ISIS commanders are boiling their own soldiers in acid[1] because they refuse to fight is not helping moral. [1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3598477/ISIS-execute-25-people-lowering-NITRIC-ACID-Iraqi-spies-tied-rope-dropped-vat-public-warning-others.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3598477/ISIS-execute...
- newobj 10y agoOh the Daily Mail? A+ source.
- tim333 10y agoThe Mail has actually been quite good on ISIS reporting.
- AJ007 10y agoThe double edged sword of ISIS expansion has been the destruction of capital through looting. In this situation an organization has to keep expanding or they will collapse. From a strategic perspective a weak ISIS makes other places, such as Europe, more dangerous. Another alternative may see a much more destabilized Middle East if continued weak oil unravels the Saudi welfare state. One point of view is that the multi-decade US warmongering (Bush, Obama, Clinton) could result in a region where Israel is surrounded by failed nation states - the worst case scenario for all parties. When considered, the rebalance in favor of Iran may have been viewed as a pro-Israel move.
- norea-armozel 10y agoIf only we can get Iran and Israel to play ball because from everything I've read most of the trouble is between Saudi Arabia and Iran trying to get a friendly govt in Iraq.
- AJ007 10y agoFrom a covert historical standpoint there has been cooperation between Israel and Iran, e.g. Marc Rich. I'm not sure what is currently occurring and likely few public parties know.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoHighly recommend Fareed Zakaria's "Why they hate us", which explores the motives and evolution of ISIS: http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/08/opinions/why-they-hate-us-zakaria/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/08/opinions/why-they-hate-us-zaka...
- dogma1138 10y agoTBH the article is pretty shallow and has quite a few factual inaccuracies especially around the treatment of Jews and Christians in the Ottoman empire which wasn't particularly good during any period past the rule of Mehmed the 2nd, under Murat IV the treatment of Jews specifically became quite poor, they've already lost their place at the court for 150+ years, but under Murat they were pretty much exiled to the fringes of the Ottoman Empire. During the 18th and 19th century there were no shortage of pogroms against Jews in Ottoman Empire the the middle east at large, they intensified in the levant following the conquests of Muhammad Ali (pretty much every city that was "liberated" by his forces had a pogrom after party especially Safed and Hebron). The conclusion that it's all about that it's all about geopolitics and economics is also pretty much a "no-brainer", yes it's a major part of it, but it's not the only one there are plenty of countries around the world which have it as bad or worse than the average person living in the middle east and while there is quite a bit of violence in many of those parts it tends to take quite a different shape, form, and intensity. Boiling everything to economics simply doesn't explains everything (or nothing depending on how you look at it). Economics do not explain Osama Bin Laden which was born into one of the richest families on the planet, economics do not explain why 2nd and 3rd generations Muslims and converts from Europe drop from their degree programmes and join ISIS, and economics do not explain Syria which while had a household and average income considerably lower than anything one would expect in the west was still better off than India, Pakistan, Peru and was comparable (or higher) than countries like Moldova and Macedonia which are both EU accession candidates. The fight is not as much of a fight against Islam as a religion, but as it is against Islam as a political ideology so what we need is not as much of a reform as an almost complete decoupling and restructuring of the society and the religion itself, and that unfortunately is a task that will require a considerable amount of time and bloodshed to accomplish. EDIT:Just to make clear this isn't a poke at Fareed himself, while some of his editorials (especially outside of CNN) aren't that bad, the article in question is. It is the essence of the usual shallow article one can expect from CNN these days, it's the last news outlet that still does its best to try and not "offend" anyone but it does mean it employees fairness for fairness sake which usually means you get a very shallow and watered down content without any actual opinions that while it would be upto you to agree or disagree with would at least make you think.
- johnwheeler 10y agoI don't understand why they'd quote the word 'caliphate' in the title without saying what it means in the intro.
- cloudjacker 10y agothey just assume you haven't been living under a rock for the past two years
- lostlogin 10y agoOr the millennia before that.
- gkya 10y agokhalifa, n: successor.
- kristianp 10y agoWhat annoyed me is that its location isn't mentioned on the first page. Is it in Syria? I have no idea. You have to get 60% through the article before it mentions Mosul, but even then the article doesn't clearly state whether the caliphate is supposed to be in Mosul.
- Animats 10y agoSo they're preparing to pivot from their unsuccessful venture in governing to their core competence in terrorism.