What ISIS Really Wants

[JuliaL]

IS is a criminal organization that supports terrorism and extreme Salafism. They are hard to understand if you don't keep the 'criminal organization' part in mind. They're making a million buck a day off oil resources they've seized. They commit atrocities to attract global attentiion which is cheap advertising for their recruiters. They need to present themselves as the toughest, most ruthless gang in the region to get the thousands of young men in their teens and early twenties coming in to replace the ones lost to fighting and airstrikes. ISIS pays foreign fighters about a $1,000 a month, that's better money than a lot of those kids have ever seen. Organizations perpetuate themselves, and and the IS package is a brand and a business as well as a ruthless terrorist organization.

This leads to the question of whether the guys at the top believe their own schtick or are they only in it for the money. Both are bad because of the caused gratuitous suffering, but only one leads to condemning religion. I expect there are some of both but that the hypocrites are better hidden.

Killing the soldiers on the line is expensive and ineffective. The Confederate States of America withstood greater than 6000 casualties per hour during parts of Gettysburg and continued to fight because the generals and diplomats persisted. To suppress an enemy, it is necessary to reduce them to incapacity or to break the will of the decision makers. I advocate direct attack on the opposing elite as least expensive in pain and treasure. I doubt that course of action is likely to be adopted by our elite because of the unfortunate precedent such action would represent.