Isis

[gslang]

Despite all this public hostility, the now disbanded ISIS remain one of my favourite post-metal bands (IMHO reaching their peak with Oceanic) and deserve better credit and recognition.

Recent imitators and copy-cats have moved right over to death-metal and clearly much too extreme being more engrossed in ritualistic and mindless acts than their music (often rushed online rather thru considered artistic process). They even forgot to include the music track in their recent videos. call me a traditionalist (myb that should b a music fundamentalist) but i like a good melody.

While it obviously has its dedicated followers, not at all to my taste and hopefully wont continue to get the widespread coverage they clearly crave. Perhaps artistic differences (& abuse of mind-destroying hallucinogens whether chemical or deluded mind virus) will eventually lead to their fragmentation and demise.

Lets hope so, and the spirit and memory of the original Isis can resume it rightful place in history without the mudded controversy of its namesake.

[Ben]

Here's How You Dismantle the ISIS Death Cult:

[dreamon]

ISIS reminds me of Khmer Rouge, trying to "clean up" the Muslim world similar to how KR attempted to "clean up" the Cambodian people.

I certainly hope they are not able to create death on the scale that Khmer Rouge was able to.

[AshlynCreamher]

ISIS reminds me of Khmer Rouge, trying to "clean up" the Muslim world similar to how KR attempted to "clean up" the Cambodian people.

I certainly hope they are not able to create death on the scale that Khmer Rouge was able to.

Or maybe Ali Khamenei is more of the Khmer Rouge "of today" and ISIS is more like the VietCong

Doesn't Iran call them selves the Islamic State too? Is there not Iranian troops in Iraq right now?

[Ben]

Private donors from Gulf Oil States Helping to Bankroll Salaries of Up to 100,000 ISIS Fighters:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/...isis-fighters/

[Stavros]

The last ten days have seen some important developments in the Middle East, starting with the news today that Tony Blair has resigned as the Envoy of the Quartet seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I don't know what he thinks he has achieved in eight years, but it doesn't amount to much from my perspective (for what that's worth).
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...e-envoy-report

Meanwhile, IS has extended its reach to include Ramadi, a strategically important town close to Baghdad. As usual, when IS arrived, the armed forces of Iraq turned and ran, even though the IS force does not seem to contain more than a few hundred fighters. The Prime Minister has vowed that Ramadi will return to Iraqi rule soon, but if it is 'liberated' it will most likely be by the Shia militia grouped under the 'Population Mobilisation Committee' -one of the covers used by Iran to organise military attacks -and being the Middle East, wretched atrocities will be inflicted by winners on losers or anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the time. Should anyone really want to know who these militias are, a short guide to them is here:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-are-shi...e-iraq-1493743

Meanwhile, the Kurds, who have been amongst the most effective armed resistance to IS in both Iraq and in Syria, are losing patience with the incompetent government in Baghdad. An oil and gas newsletter argues that we may be moving towards independence in Iraqi Kurdistan -making it the 10th largest producer of petroleum in the world, and one that would provide it with the revenue to maintain its independence by force. Turkey would then find itself having to choose between funding extremists in Syria devoted to the overthrow of the Ba'ath government in Damascus (the current situation), or taking on the Kurds if their independence movement 'grows' into south-eastern Turkey.
http://www.oilandgasiq.com/strategy-...-3BLFAE5&disc=


What is curious in all this is that both the Iranians and the Saudis are complaining that the Obama presidency is not doing enough to defeat IS, while the architect of the 'surge' in Iraq, David Petraeus is still wedded to the view that the sectarian divide in Iraq can be healed if the Sunni are given a meaningful stake in the future of the country. Emma Sky also takes this view, but has acknowledged that Obama was keen to get the US out of Iraq, and that while the US is still bombing targets in Iraq and Syria this is the limit of the actions the US can take other than the shipments of arms, 'advisers' and other murky arrangements.
Apparently it is not enough, but it does mean that Iran and Saudi Arabia now join Israel in considering Obama a busted flush, yet the alternative would be for the US to go in to both Iraq and Syria, all guns blazing, like the 7th Cavalry, as if this re-run of 2003 would make everything right.

I wonder if in fact the American people believe Obama has a magic wand, or is it that they are now reluctant to send troops to foreign battlefields, and how is this going to be discussed among the candidates for the Presidency as the momentum to 2016 grows throughout the year?
-On the one hand it does now seem to be up to the parties to the conflict to sort it out themselves, but on the other hand, without restraints, who would really want the Saudi kingdom to replace IS as the 'Caliphate', fulfilling the long-term aim of Ibn Saud when he first established his family business in the early 20th century?
-Well it may be that Bernie Sanders, without realising it, is supporting precisely this outcome when it has been eported that:
Sanders said in a statement that the Saudi Arabian government must be responsible for stability in the Middle East and should send its own military to fight the Islamic State rather than demand that the United States undertake such actions.
http://sputniknews.com/us/20150527/1022593197.html

Perhaps someone should tell Mr Sanders that Saudi Arabia -sometimes as a state, sometimes through its wealthy citizens- has been the financial and operational hub of Middle Eastern terrorism for decades, not to mention the Saudi involvement in 9/11. Giving free reign to these followers of Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahab is a recipe for more war, not the end of it. But I doubt that Mrs Clinton would take a balanced view of the conflict, while from what I have read, Jeb Bush is still struggling to decide if regime change in Iraq was a good or a bad thing. The truth may be he wishes he was not asked the question, in which case why is he in politics?

I think IS are overstretched and cannot carry on if their money chain is seriously attacked, though this may mean blowing up oil and gas wells, and refineries. I don't think they have earned much from ransoms recently, and there is only so much they can extort from the population under their control. But the Syrian armed forces are also stretched and weary, so there appears to be no military solution right now, only more misery.

If there was something the US could do to change facts on the ground, I think it would have been done by now, but maybe I am wrong, and something could happen to change the agenda. Whatever the news is, it is unlikely to be good for some time to come...

[broncofan]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34991855

This is the link that was placed in the gun control thread. The attack on the center in San Bernadino was committed by affiliates of ISIS. I just thought I'd point out that the men who carried out this attack had sworn allegiance to ISIS....does not mean that gun control could not have made their task more difficult, but it was an ideologically driven attack.

[fred41]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34991855

This is the link that was placed in the gun control thread. The attack on the center in San Bernadino was committed by affiliates of ISIS. I just thought I'd point out that the men who carried out this attack had sworn allegiance to ISIS....does not mean that gun control could not have made their task more difficult, but it was an ideologically driven attack.

Yes, apparently it wasn't simple 'work place violence' (I think it was too organized for that from the get-go) which is why I think most people held off posting anything about it for awhile.
Well, it now seems the wife - Tashfeen Malik, had declared allegiance to Isis on a Facebook page under an alias, and the FBI is now treating it as terrorism-http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/san-bernardino-shooting/tashfeen-malik-mother-san-bernardino-massacre-pledged-allegiance-isis-leader-n474246
As of this posting, it appears that they may have been self radicalized as opposed to an organizational act.
The guns, the pipe bombs, the cleaning of hard drives, the involvement of both husband and wife...all seemed to point to something of the sort.

[fred41]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/san...leader-n474246


don't think the link worked in my previous post. Sorry, still getting used to my macbook

[fred41]

BTW...did you guys know there's a conspiracy theory going on about this stuff ? ...there are people that believe that the government shot all those people and then staged the innocent bodies of the couple to make it look like they did it....and I thought it ended there, but apparently people think the Sandy Hook horror was a staged government set up also...someone posted that on Facebook so I had a bit of a debate over it. Apparently a lot of people believe it too.
wow.