ISIS / IS / ISIL / The Islamic State

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Sage words. There are also degrees of theorising. Saying there are powerful economic forces which feature in decision making during events like these is not the same as saying Michael Adebolajo was a patsy and Lee Rigby is in Barbados.

Beards, robes. Bad things.

Without a doubt. What's analysis without good theory. It's when you start to come up with near X-file worthy theories is when you get closer to reality.
If we're being specific, and I mean really specific and focus solely on that region, the powerplay is astonishing when you scratch and sniff a bit.
Iran backs Baathist's, the gulf states (shhh) are against them. US is pro Gulf.
Baathist's are against the Brotherhood, ISIS was a splinter of Brotherhood. US is pro Brotherhood. Brotherhood is pro Hamas. Hamas is against Baathis'm Iran is pro Hamas. Hamas is against US.
Oh wait....we haven't even started mentioning those super secret words. Sh'iite and Sunnis.
Now you mention it. I've forgot to include multinationals.

The people that live there are fucking confused, let alone everyone else who thinks they have it figured out.

Welcome to the middle east. Hope you have a lovely stay.

^source?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d57c9b66-0a76

It's when you start to come up with near X-file worthy theories is when you get closer to reality.

This is intended to be ironic, right?

Can you guess which books the wannabe jihadists Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed ordered online from Amazon before they set out from Birmingham to fight in Syria last May? A copy of Milestones by the Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb? No. How about Messages to the World: the Statements of Osama Bin Laden? Guess again. Wait, The Anarchist Cookbook, right? Wrong. Sarwar and Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119182/jihadists-buy-islam-dummies-amazon

Is it not possible that Foley was killed in the failed US attempt to rescue him and that the resultant vid is just a means of deflecting blame and capitalising on the situation to whip up support for air strikes/re-invasion? I don't see why that is so far fetched given all the shenanigans the UK and US were prepared to engage in to go to war in the first place.

Shrill voiced refusal to consider that it could have been faked doesn't explain away quite basic anomalies like lack of blood and the video (which I don't have any intention of watching) fading out during the beheading, and with so much at stake both politically and commercially you'd be stupid to ignore the role that counter intelligence and pr-stunts have always had in international conflict, with many famous instances in WW2 of intelligence services capitalising on deaths and disappearances to get the upper hand on their adversary.

If the rebels in Ukraine hadn't shot down a commercial jet you can be guaranteed Putin would be doing photo calls in Donetsk just now, but was prevented by a tide of public revulsion making it toxic to be seen to be associated or in support of the perpetrators of an international civilian atrocity. Conspiracy theories there centered on the AIDS scientists being on the plane and Russia's hatred of gays, but if it goes against their own interests in annexing east ukraine and retaining military bases there why the fuck would the sanction it?

by suggesting and speculating that there is some secret agency at work here, you detract from the sheer banality of the evil being perpetrated and displayed in these videos and around the world, and that's an even greater tragedy.

the usa said they attempted to free him (foley) but they couldnt find him - i dont think they made any attempt ! the beheading looks pretty real to me but possibly not done by "jihahdi john" he started the job and maybe it didnt go smoothly . these ISIS chaps are beheading day in day out with monotony so why wouldnt they kill the journalist ? if you check liveleak there are hundreds of these gruesome videos / photos ........not for the faint hearted !

In that case the US would not have had any reason to publish any details about the rescue attempt in the first place.

It's a matter of probabilities. Consider first the likelihood that it was done by the terrorists who kidnapped Foley and several others, beat him up regularly according to numerous eyewitness accounts, were particularly keen to damage the US, couldn't benefit from him financially and have continuously beheaded their captives in recent years. Consider next the likelihood that Obama decided to take one of the biggest political risks of his career just in order to gain some more moral justification for something he could have done anyway. Now calculate the odds and tell me what I should rationally believe.

I'm not denying any kind of tragedy, and this is the kind of blanket refusal to acknowledge the venal realities of the world as it is that helps perpetuate dumb horror and cynicism. As for the banality of evil, Saudi Arabia's decapitated more people this year than ever for actions that wouldn't even get community service in the UK.

I don't see how challenging a mass media narrative on a cycling forum changes this fact, and that's even before you contradict yourself by saying I'm 'detracting' from 'banality'. If its so boring or mundane how exactly is this event so significant in the development of US policy in Iraq as it forces them to re-engage with military action?

It seems naive to refuse to consider that all kinds of people have a vested interest in how this event plays out in the media with its resulting effects in steering political action, and will capitalise on it the best way they can to steer the narrative their way, even if it means faking a video or two as a means to achieve a wider goal.

James Foley is dead either way, and for those who knew and loved him that's tragic, I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

If its so boring or mundane how exactly is this event so significant in the development of US policy in Iraq as it forces them to re-engage with military action?

The beheading took place after the US had already engaged in military action in Iraq. The atrocities committed by ISIS have been regularly in the news this year*. The events in Iraq would have served as a sufficient justification anyway if Obama had decided that it's something he wants to do**.

*Tinfoil translation: the Western Propaganda Campaign.
**Tinfoil translation: the Economic Powers whose puppet Obama is.

The economics elements of these conspiracy theories don't stack up. It would be far more advantageous for the world economy for Iraq to be a quiet, stable oil producer. Iraqi gas could be exported through the TANAP line being built through Turkey. The Qataris already export gas as LNG, the Saudis won't let them build a pipe through their waters, and they have a moratorium on new gas developments anyway so the Qatari pipeline theory is bobbins. And the idea that the arms industry thinks that letting nutters run amok in a large chunk of the Levant is a brilliant way to flog a few more bullets is laughable. They just don't have that kind of control over anything.

So you're saying that the release of this video in no way influenced public perception of this re-engagement?

If it did, why is it tinfoil hat to suggest that it is well within the bounds of possibility that one side of a conflict will use false information to leverage advantage over another? It's been happening in Syria for years now.

What I'm saying is that it would not be worth the risk for the US to conduct a conspiracy such as this just in order to gain some additional support for their military campaign which they already had underway before the beheading. There has been a steady stream of news about the atrocities committed by ISIS during the spring and the summer: it's not as if the group would have had many political friends in Europe or the US before Foley's murder.

Also, the US held off getting involved again for quite a while, in line with the White House's position that it didn't want to bail Maliki out of his mess by fixing his problems for him. It only did get involved when Isis looked to be gaining too much momentum, and then put massive pressure on Maliki to actually step down. I really don't think there's been a huge appetite to re-engage in Iraq.

No, but it allows them to put a friendly face on the victims and bolster support from a deeply skeptical public. Several US generals have come out in favour of full-scale invasion to repel ISIS, even if it means going into Syria, which is something Obama appears to have absolutely no appetite to do having just managed to extricate the US.

Like I said, I have no idea if it is fake or not, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it was and over-emotional blanket statements of propriety, accusations of disrespect or 'detracting from the banalisation of evil', and other shill moral inyourfaceisms for posing quite basic questions about the origins and intent of events like this are entirely unhelpful. Yes, there's tin foil hat wearing kooks, but there's also people like Snowden or Assange who have exposed the duplicity of government agencies in dealing with international partners and their own citizens alike.

US generals have had a habit of speaking out against White House policy ever since MacArthur, and their thinking is generally very much in the vein of "I have a hammer, where are some nails I can hit?" Doesn't mean that this is what the White House will actually decide to do.

As for the video - there's no way of knowing, sure. I suspect it's probably real just because faking it seems like too much effort for no discernibly different outcome than just doing it for real. And I've yet to hear a plausible theory for why anyone should have wanted to fake it - like I said, the economic conspiracy theories just don't stack up for me.

It would be far more advantageous for the world economy for Iraq to be a quiet, stable oil producer

This hasn't been the case for decades. Post US/Iraq war 2003, Iraq has essentially been a satellite of Tehran.

Baghdad has been close to Tehran, yeah. But the KRG, not so much.

And re the oil - clearly Iraq isn't very stable, no. Even before this Isis thing, the KRG's insistence on developing its oil independently of Baghdad was a bit of a wedge issue.

But back during the occupation people were talking about how huge Iraq's oil production potential was and how it could become a counterbalance to the Saudi dominance of the oil market. A whole bunch of oil firms are operating there now trying to try to repair years of underinvestment. Output hit a 35-year high of 3.6mn b/d in February, so clearly that's working.

Why allow Isis to threaten a multi-billion dollar industry that could bring world energy costs down and weaken Saudi influence just to sell a few more bullets? It just doesn't stack up.

Though it leaves little to the imagination, the deeply disturbing film does not show the actual moment of Foley’s decapitation. This marks it out from other, less sophisticated predecessors.
‘Some previous Islamist videos, such as the one showing the killing of U.S. hostage Nick Berg in 2004, didn’t get widely shared because people regarded them as too graphic.
This one, however, has been edited to make it less like a snuff movie, and therefore far more useful as a piece of propaganda.’ says Ghaffar Hussain, the managing director of the anti-extremist Quilliam Foundation.

From a few pages back.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/bill-gardner/11054488/Foley-murder-video-may-have-been-staged.html

“I think it has been staged. My feeling is that the execution may have happened after the camera was stopped. No one is disputing that at some point an execution occurred.”

So staged, but not faked by the US.

Fantastic, but you previously wouldn't even countenance the idea of anyone questioning it?

Now you're retrospectively saying its acceptable to state that it's been staged because the guy is an expert and says Foley is still dead.

Forgive me for being confused, is it ok to discuss the possibility of these things being media managed/faked/whatever you want to call it or not? You're about as consistent as a Parkinsons sufferer's signature.

Yes, I regularly revise my opinions based on new evidence. And I have already apologised for the tone of my previous posts. These are partly in answer to your point about the lack of blood.