"The Islamic State" by Vice News

[Tammuz]

A few months ago Vice News made a documentary about the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) from inside their territory. It's about 40 minutes long, and I think it was very interesting. Video and description below:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUjHb4C7b94[/YOUTUBE]

The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.

 

[untermensche]

What few in the Western press are talking about is the military leadership of this group.

Many are ex-Iraqi military that the US in it's wisdom disbanded.

I suppose this is our mess, as Colin Powell said, if you break it, you own it.

 

[lpetrich]

Great documentary. Nice to see what's on those "gentlemen's" minds. Like one of the IS guys saying that a woman dressed in anything more revealing that a burqa was putting herself on display. Or celebrating the opening of the Syria-Iraq border under their command, ending the Sykes-Picot division. Or describing how they turned a Christian church into an Islamic religious center, and how they worship God instead of a cross. They claimed that Christians can live in peace as long as they pay an infidel tax, but much of the Christian population of Raqqa has fled. BTW, on crosses, the VICE team showed someone who was punished for murder by being crucified in public. It was T-shaped and not very high.

 

[Tammuz]

What few in the Western press are talking about is the military leadership of this group.

Many are ex-Iraqi military that the US in it's wisdom disbanded.

I suppose this is our mess, as Colin Powell said, if you break it, you own it.

The situation is partially the fault of the US. But IS would never have been able to become so powerful had there not been the Syrian Civil War (which they exploited) and Maliki's alienation of Iraqi Sunnis.

I think there are some IS commanders that had a background in Saddam's army, not the rank-and-file. The fighters shown in the documentary look far too young to have served in Saddam's army.

I wonder how the former Saddam officers working for IS view themselves. Saddam Hussein was an adherent of the Baathist ideology which is secular (it's basically Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, and in the case of Saddam it was spiced with Iraqi nationalism, wanting to give Iraq a leading position in the Arab world). He did not share IS' ideology and did not commit massacres purely because of the victims' religious beliefs.

There is a Baathist group in Iraq that if at war with both IS and the government.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What few in the Western press are talking about is the military leadership of this group.

Many are ex-Iraqi military that the US in it's wisdom disbanded.

I suppose this is our mess, as Colin Powell said, if you break it, you own it.

Well, training people to fight and then having them join the other side so you can then train other people to fight them who can, in turn, join the other side later is kind of America's wheelhouse. Bloated military budgets need some kind of justification, after all.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What few in the Western press are talking about is the military leadership of this group.

Many are ex-Iraqi military that the US in it's wisdom disbanded.

I suppose this is our mess, as Colin Powell said, if you break it, you own it.

The situation is partially the fault of the US. But IS would never have been able to become so powerful had there not been the Syrian Civil War (which they exploited) and Maliki's alienation of Iraqi Sunnis.

I think there are some IS commanders that had a background in Saddam's army, not the rank-and-file. The fighters shown in the documentary look far too young to have served in Saddam's army.

I wonder how the former Saddam officers working for IS view themselves. Saddam Hussein was an adherent of the Baathist ideology which is secular (it's basically Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, and in the case of Saddam it was spiced with Iraqi nationalism, wanting to give Iraq a leading position in the Arab world). He did not share IS' ideology and did not commit massacres purely because of the victims' religious beliefs.

There is a Baathist group in Iraq that if at war with both IS and the government.

And we are responsible for the ISIS-controlled city in Libya?

Or is it the governments that fund ISIS that are responsible?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Or maybe there's this thing where a lot of people are responsible and it's not a matter of either/or.

 

[Tammuz]

Or maybe there's this thing where a lot of people are responsible and it's not a matter of either/or.

I hope it's not controversial to state that those primarily responsible for IS' crimes are IS.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Nah, as long as you remember that religion (specifically Islam) has nothing to do with it.

 

[Tammuz]

The situation is partially the fault of the US. But IS would never have been able to become so powerful had there not been the Syrian Civil War (which they exploited) and Maliki's alienation of Iraqi Sunnis.

I think there are some IS commanders that had a background in Saddam's army, not the rank-and-file. The fighters shown in the documentary look far too young to have served in Saddam's army.

I wonder how the former Saddam officers working for IS view themselves. Saddam Hussein was an adherent of the Baathist ideology which is secular (it's basically Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, and in the case of Saddam it was spiced with Iraqi nationalism, wanting to give Iraq a leading position in the Arab world). He did not share IS' ideology and did not commit massacres purely because of the victims' religious beliefs.

There is a Baathist group in Iraq that if at war with both IS and the government.

And we are responsible for the ISIS-controlled city in Libya?

Or is it the governments that fund ISIS that are responsible?

The group in Libua that pledged allegiance to IS, sin't that a case of a group which shares IS' ideology, but not more closely connected to them than that? I imagine that they in the future wishes Libya, ruled by them, to be incorporated into the caliphate as a province. But I doubt Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has any role in their day-to-day activities or military strategy.

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Nah, as long as you remember that religion (specifically Islam) has nothing to do with it.

Is that sarcasm or not?