The role of Sadaam's former Baathists should not be overlooked
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-hidden-hand-behind-the-islamic-state-militants-saddam-husseins/2015/04/04/aa97676c-cc32-11e4-8730-4f473416e759_story.html
His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq’s former Baathist army in an organization more typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome videos in which they star.
Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.
They have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the Islamic State’s illicit oil trading....Rather than the Baathists using the jihadists to return to power, it is the jihadists who have exploited the desperation of the disbanded officers, according to a former general who commanded Iraqi troops during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:09 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, one thing I would also say from my limited reading of their propaganda is that ISIS could potentially seem like it had a lot to offer for someone not ostensibly religiously motivated but very nihilistic/cynical/vicious -- adventure, action, rape, etc. So it has occurred to me that not all of its recruits may wholesale buy into the ideology deep down, but may just like the opportunity it purports to afford to basically live in a video game.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:20 (eight years ago) link
As that article noted--Two decades ago, the elaborate and cruel forms of torture perpetrated by Hussein dominated the discourse about Iraq, much as the Islamic State’s harsh punishments do today.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:29 (eight years ago) link
Michael Weiss is kind of an idiot but his interviews with ISIS members recently suggest a lot of people joining now are locals who just need $$$
http://uk.businessinsider.com/isis-defector-explains-why-people-continue-joining-group-2015-11?r=US&IR=T
Would be interesting to know how their failure to make any military or strategic headway this year has impacted foreign recruitment.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:37 (eight years ago) link
short book excerpt from politico on the connections between/supercession of IS and AQ
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/isis-jihad-121525#.VdXrKab3ac2
― goole, Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:50 (eight years ago) link
Also probably important is the rise of pan-Arabism or Arab Nationalism in the early 20th century, which was not at all a "radical Islamic" movement but did pave the way for the idea of a post-colonial united ME region, a mantle that wahabbists have taken up with a very different spin.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, November 18, 2015 2:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
others here know more than me; i thought the growth of islamist movements sprang from the failures of pan-arabism to deliver
― goole, Wednesday, 18 November 2015 21:58 (eight years ago) link
Right, I just mean I credit pan-Arabism with a new wider regionalist thinking that islamist movements took up, I think we're saying similar things.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, 18 November 2015 22:06 (eight years ago) link
Started reading Looming Tower thanks to this thread (h/t to Ward for the free link). Wright is such a great storyteller, the kind of writer I find myself trying to sneak in another page of every chance I get -- in the elevator, in the hallway, etc.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Thursday, 19 November 2015 15:10 (eight years ago) link
Looming tower is amazing
― banned on ixlor (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 19 November 2015 16:16 (eight years ago) link
I read Going Clear and Thirteen Days in September (not quite as gripping but the subject matter is drier) and I devour pretty much anything he writes in the NYer.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Thursday, 19 November 2015 16:19 (eight years ago) link
I may try to read everything he's done, although the twins book doesn't sound that interesting to me.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Thursday, 19 November 2015 16:20 (eight years ago) link
Wasn't sure where to put this, so, France beheading attack: Suspect Yassin Salhi kills himself
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 23 December 2015 17:14 (eight years ago) link
"Prosecutors regarded Salhi as a militant Islamist, but the delivery driver maintained that he was motivated by a grudge against his employer."
"His head - reportedly bearing Arabic inscriptions - had been hooked on to factory railings, alongside two flags, also with Arabic writing on it."
weird
― Mordy, Wednesday, 23 December 2015 17:19 (eight years ago) link
Also weird that someone I know knows someone who got a phone call from his brother saying, "I'm off work today, one of our driver's just beheaded my boss."
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Wednesday, 23 December 2015 18:07 (eight years ago) link
Every saud has a killer lining
― darraghmac, Wednesday, 23 December 2015 18:16 (eight years ago) link
dude was that necessary
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 23 December 2015 18:18 (eight years ago) link
Not even defensible tbh let alone necessary
― darraghmac, Wednesday, 23 December 2015 18:57 (eight years ago) link
Man shot in Paris on Charlie Hebdo anniversary
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:06 (eight years ago) link
Shot while trying to enter a police station while yielding a knife, according to reports.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:12 (eight years ago) link
... and wearing a suicide vest... allegedly.
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:15 (eight years ago) link
... fake suicide belt apparently, guy was no genius obv.
― Anyway, it's not a three, it's a yogh. (Tom D.), Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:42 (eight years ago) link
http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/03/charlie-hebdo-on-brussels/ ^ Interesting analysis of latest controvercial piece
― SurfaceKrystal, Wednesday, 6 April 2016 14:39 (eight years ago) link
https://interc.pt/2wpsGdq
Greenwald OTM
― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Saturday, 2 September 2017 21:21 (six years ago) link
If only I could figure out how to use 700 words to say "Piers Morgan and his ilk are mendacious idiots"
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 2 September 2017 23:38 (six years ago) link
He probably is OTM, but I also just feel like I didn't really get the *lack* of nuance to their humor until it targeted a subject I understood better. Like I thought there was more going on in the other covers and I didn't understand the context. Now I doubt it.
― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Sunday, 3 September 2017 00:25 (six years ago) link
'je suis charlie' being embraced as a slogan by brainless right-wingers is one of the funnier things i've lived thru
― flappy bird, Sunday, 3 September 2017 00:35 (six years ago) link
Beyond the ~offensive~ layer, that Texas cover was just really dumb and didn't make sense.
― circa1916, Sunday, 3 September 2017 00:56 (six years ago) link
Well, there's a reason the vast majority of people in the world, francophones or not, had never heard of this publication before January 2015. It's not exactly Mad Magazine
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 3 September 2017 01:00 (six years ago) link
I don't necessarily disagree with his overall point, but it seems kind of silly for GG to assert that the reaction to this new cartoon has vindicated him, say that "the examples are far too numerous to comprehensively cite", and then quote Piers Morgan, James Woods and the fucking Prison Planet guy rather than anyone quoted in his original article.
― soref, Sunday, 3 September 2017 01:15 (six years ago) link
one of GG's best in a while imo
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 3 September 2017 04:18 (six years ago) link
that's like saying "this turd didn't float"
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 3 September 2017 04:50 (six years ago) link
Loving that shift in response from PM and others though
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Tuesday, 5 September 2017 00:27 (six years ago) link