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The Islamic state

Turns out that IS have hacked details of some US&UK state employees...including some at Croydon council!

The names, email addresses and passwords of staff working for the Foreign Office and some councils are said to be among the details of more than 1,000 American military personnel leaked onto the internet by the so-called Islamic State.

Most of the apparently hacked data relates to American military and diplomatic personnel, however the details of workers at Croydon and Stockport councils and the Foreign Office were also said to be on the list.

Social media users claiming to be members of the extremist group claimed the information included photographs, addresses and even credit card information of army, navy and state department figures.

One purported supporter of the group wrote on Twitter: “This information is very useful for lone wolves to act and kill.”
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Office-and-council-staff-hacked-by-Isil.html
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aymenn-jawad-altamimi/america-contain-isis_b_7965574.html

Interesting article here, tho not sure about all of it. What you reckon J Ed butchersapron elbows etc?
In other words, there are no viable solutions. There is generally little honesty about what it would actually take to rebuild Syria at this point. For many years if not decades, it would take a large international ground force in Syria, enforcing the disarmament of all militia actors and implementing a grand nation-building project embodied in a government seen as acceptable to all sides. Unsurprisingly, no willpower or consensus exists anywhere for such an initiative.

Sadly, we are only "in the early stages of what will be a much longer war," as Rania Abouzeid put it. The Islamic State is here to stay for the long term, if not indefinitely, and the coalition should accordingly give up on pretensions to"degrade and destroy" it. Instead, the coalition should focus on containment, providing humanitarian aid for refugees and civilians and establishing a no-fly zone to stop indiscriminate killing of civilians and destruction of what remains of infrastructure in Syria.
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Well earlier in the article a number of useful points are made, but I'm not impressed by it's conclusions including the bits you quote. Serious omissions to the picture, such as the various other external players funding various fighting groups in Syria for a start.

And I really don't think we can take seriously such a naive understanding of what a no fly zone means at this point. We've got both Iraq and Libya as examples of what it means - a 'we fly, we bomb zone', which also means the destruction of Syrias air-force, air-defence systems, etc. In theory you could have other types of no-fly zones, especially if the zone is limited in size. But you'd need to come to an arrangement with the regime in question behind the scenes in order to avoid flash-points at the margins of the zone and the risk of other incidents, and such deals don't usually happen because no fly zones tend to go hand in hand with the desire for regime change.

Those that call for a containment strategy not only condemn those living in certain locations to a particular fate, but are also ignorant or deceitful in suggesting phenomenon such as no fly zones can prevent mission creep. They are part of the creep ffs.
 
I also consider there to be something morally dubious about emphasising the need to avoid mission creep when you've already enabled or encouraged the nation to fragment and collapse. 'We only care enough to bomb you, not put boots on the ground'.

It is not hard to see why some, when formulating a tidy explanation for US & Co's middle east policy this century, have concluded that the failure to stabilise and rebuild nations we invaded, bombed or encouraged uprisings in, was not down to idiots, crap plans, lack of resources or political will, but was a primary intended consequence. My own internal jury will likely remain out on this question for a long time, and may yet return different verdicts for different victim nations, should I live long enough to apply extended benefit of hindsight to this shit.
 
elbows said:
I also consider there to be something morally dubious about emphasising the need to avoid mission creep when you've already enabled or encouraged the nation to fragment and collapse. 'We only care enough to bomb you, not put boots on the ground'.
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I agree 100%. We're starting to see a few more pieces of this type creeping into the discourse on ISIS and tbh i think the whole 'containment' strategy is like way of giving up and hoping for the best after already having fucked it up. I don't think they deliberately gave rise to ISIS i think they actually dont have a clue what they doing and wish they could quietly "retreat".
 
frogwoman said:
I agree 100%. We're starting to see a few more pieces of this type creeping into the discourse on ISIS and tbh i think the whole 'containment' strategy is like way of giving up and hoping for the best.
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I agree, but I wonder whether that might be the least worst strategy given our track record.
 
Also when it comes to the question of containment of IS in Syria and Iraq, I guess this question has to be combined with the subject of the borders in that region. I don't know as we have much insight into what outcomes the western powers really favour, or at least what possibilities they might tolerate.

But I remembered Paddy Ashdown coming out with a lot of heavy opinion on this one the other year, so I just fished it out:

Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, has endorsed the government's decision to say it is prepared to arm Kurdish forces as he called on Britain and the US to act as "handmaidens to Kurdish independence".

Warning that the Middle East is engulfed in a religious war, with echoes of the Thirty Years' war in central Europe in the 17th century, Ashdown said the borders in the region will be broken up in the conflict.

"This is a convulsion, it's a terrible convulsion and it is a dangerous one," Ashdown told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

"But in the process of the convulsion, when it is over, the borders of the Middle East will have been drawn. Sykes-Picot [the secret Anglo-French 1916 agreement to draw the borders of the Middle East] will be out the window and we will see a shape of the Middle East which is much more arbitrated by religious belief than by old imperial preferences… We are beginning to recognise the unstitching of the Sykes-Picot borders because you are disturbing the integrity of Iraq."
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ers-redrawn-religious-war-paddy-ashdown-kurds
 
8ball said:
I agree, but I wonder whether that might be the least worst strategy given our track record.
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It may be yeah. Theres a piece on the bbc site i linked to about the possibility of talks opened at some point with daesh. Which leads to the question - talks about what and to what end? You cant just have 'talks' for no reason and if there is it will be a propaganda coup for daesh - 'the kuffar are so desperate theyre offering us concessions to stop the march of our caliphate'

There are suggestions it could be possible one day to deal diplomatically with Daesh in some way without legitimising them. The problem with opening a dailogue with Daesh is that it raises the possibility that as soon as one is opened other entities such as corporations etc could get in on the act and take advantage of conditions there to not only exploit workers but make daesh even more difficult to overthrow, since now they are not a 'terror group' but an entity that one can 'do business with' and that some peoples careers depend upon.

And the experience of Transnistria and other post Soviet 'frozen conflicts' shows that when 'talks' are going on over a 'final status', despite the opposite party raising tensions and describing them as terrorists and gangsters etc they usually don't really mean it and that rhetoric is often just for domestic consumption, nothing really gets done about human rights abuses on either side, eg in Transnistria a couple years ago there was outrage as the government closed a load of Romanian language schools, but what could anyone do about it, ultimately. The interest becomes simply in maintaining the status quo, often indefinitely. The lack of a recognised status causes misery for civilians who cant get across borders, are horribly exploited with huge levels of corruption etc but benefits capital because for example european companies selling their goods in that area is heralded as a sign of progress and they often benefit from the fact that nobody has any real jurisdiction over that area. I don't even want to think about what a consolidated and far more 'state-like' ISIS would look like under that scenario.
 
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Not to forget that if a dialogue with daesh is opened the YPG etc and whoever is still fighting them become 'extremists trying to derail peace talks' innit
 
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frogwoman said:
I don't even want to think about what a consolidated and far more 'state-like' ISIS would look like under that scenario.
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Until recently we were dealing with a ruling class that conceded that democracy, to a degree, was the price of capitalism. The Chinese Government has given them hope that there are other options and I think they are viewing ISIS as a promising model too, religious fundamentalism notwithstanding.
 
Well can you imagine what will happen if people in raqqa go on strike at some point? What is ISIS's labour discipline going to look like?
 
frogwoman said:
Not to forget that if a dialogue with daesh is opened the YPG etc and whoever is still fighting them become 'extremists trying to derail peace talks' innit
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I don't feel the need to think anywhere near as far down that path as you are at this stage. Mostly because there are many different levels on which contact could be established, and I've seen nothing to suggest that the sort of peace talks you describe are on anyones agenda.

And talk of 'one day' and 'ever' must necessarily open up options including include ones which are unthinkable today. Because things change, situations evolve, stuff that we don't expect may happen. So I don't believe in spending energy trying to argue for or against many of the possibilities, especially the ugliest ones, when they may never end up on the table due to changing circumstances.

This sort of thing results in the main question I have being why we are seeing these sorts of sentiments expressed in the media now. The first deep reflections on doubt now felt by optimistic fools who thought IS could be quickly squished once Iraqs political stalemate was overcome, or an indication that a new direction is underway that requires the public to be primed for new possibilities? Or something else, or some combo.
 
On that last point I have to say I haven't seen enough in the media to raise particular suspicions about an agenda quite yet.

Certainly not to the extent that I could yet make a comparison with how Afghanistan and the Taliban were discussed in the media, where the subject of talking to the Taliban was gradually introduced over a number of years before activity heated up somewhat on that front.
 
I suppose another possibility is that talk of containment now is just shit cover for a looming period of relative failure, stalemate and indecision, partly due to US electoral cycle timing.
 
Nor should I underestimate how much impetus for such crap articles may stem from hurt nationalistic pride due to the keystone-cop like tendencies of the US trained Syria forces.
 
elbows Oh yeah im not saying this will happen immediately or even at all but its a possibility i find deeply disturbing, there have been other articles saying that 'one day' daesh could have its own airport with passports and money etc, and there was another one on the bbc saying that syria could be partitioned between all the various factions and then everyone else could get together and drive daesh out of their section.

And im not even talking about diplomatic and friendly relations, im thinking of something like the transnistrian conflict where officially the government of transnistria are viewed as terrorists and gangsters with frequent statements to that effect, but are still cooperated with, still allowed to maintain their 'border' with significant russian and moldovan (and european tbh) capital flowing over the border and invested and of course neither side able to do very much about the other side's human rights abuses and corruption despite angry statements about it. And various international bodies perpetuating their existence on the status quo being maintained.

I agree its unlikely at this point and a lot can change but its something that worries me a lot especially as there are some countries (and a lot of arms companies that are making a fortune from either them, or people bombing them) that really dont want to see daesh collapse, and that worries me a good deal.
 
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As for hopeful outcomes, many of mine hinge on IS making loads of catastrophic errors of judgement in areas such as governance. Levels of popular support in specific places matters greatly, especially when considering medium-long term stuff such as eventual talks and whether you'll ever need to have them.
 
im just posting stuff that i hope people would find useful and interesting. I am not worried about being attacked or some of the sensationalist garbage about alleged plots that seem to be made up such as that one about blowing up the queen or whatever. What does scare me is the increased authoritarian and militaristic climate in the UK and Europe and how the two are feeding off each other. What worries me with Daesh is the idea of more innocent people being killed and and them having an eventual de facto impunity if the western powers simply retreat from the situation without doing anything to assist local people at the sharp end of it. Its not some mad paranoid idea they're gonna take over or something. The idea they will have all that land by 2020 for their 'caliphate' is just bollocks. There's so much local oppo even in their heartland that they could well have fragmented or collapsed or simply fled.
 
elbows said:
Also when it comes to the question of containment of IS in Syria and Iraq, I guess this question has to be combined with the subject of the borders in that region. I don't know as we have much insight into what outcomes the western powers really favour, or at least what possibilities they might tolerate.

But I remembered Paddy Ashdown coming out with a lot of heavy opinion on this one the other year, so I just fished it out:



http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ers-redrawn-religious-war-paddy-ashdown-kurds
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Comparing the IS foment to the 30 Years' War is a wank comparison. 30YsW was primarily a power struggle between two blocs - Habsburg vs. "everyone else", with only a handful of the main participants having the agency to change sides or rule themselves out of the struggle.
The similarity mainly lies in the fact that (as always) the civilians suffer the most.
 
frogwoman said:
im just posting stuff that i hope people would find useful and interesting. I am not worried about being attacked or some of the sensationalist garbage about alleged plots that seem to be made up such as that one about blowing up the queen or whatever. What does scare me is the increased authoritarian and militaristic climate in the UK and Europe and how the two are feeding off each other. What worries me with Daesh is the idea of more innocent people being killed and and them having an eventual de facto impunity if the western powers simply retreat from the situation without doing anything to assist local people at the sharp end of it. Its not some mad paranoid idea they're gonna take over or something. The idea they will have all that land by 2020 for their 'caliphate' is just bollocks. There's so much local oppo even in their heartland that they could well have fragmented or collapsed or simply fled.
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I won't traverse historical posts to give examples of things you've said that make me feel that way on occasion, but if you are ok with it then I'll point it out next time it happens. I guess its stuff like 'I read one day they might have an airport with money and passports'. I can understand why you'd mention it if the point is to analyse what the media are going on about, but sometimes the way you word it makes me pick up a different end of the stick.

Anyways, I have trouble thinking about daesh without thinking of all the other 'war on terror', regional & arab spring issues that came before. Whether it be the question as to whether our governments encouraged battlefields to be created overseas so that the bulk of the pool of potential angry islamist fighters who've grown up in the west would be more likely to spill blood overseas than on our own streets. Or the lesson we ended up delivering via western support for the Egyptian regime after it crushed the elected Muslim Brotherhood in a most bloody manner - the ballot box is not for you, stick to violence.
 
elbows said:
I won't traverse historical posts to give examples of things you've said that make me feel that way on occasion, but if you are ok with it then I'll point it out next time it happens. I guess its stuff like 'I read one day they might have an airport with money and passports'. I can understand why you'd mention it if the point is to analyse what the media are going on about, but sometimes the way you word it makes me pick up a different end of the stick.

Anyways, I have trouble thinking about daesh without thinking of all the other 'war on terror', regional & arab spring issues that came before. Whether it be the question as to whether our governments encouraged battlefields to be created overseas so that the bulk of the pool of potential angry islamist fighters who've grown up in the west would be more likely to spill blood overseas than on our own streets. Or the lesson we ended up delivering via western support for the Egyptian regime after it crushed the elected Muslim Brotherhood in a most bloody manner - the ballot box is not for you, stick to violence.
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It was an article that I posted earlier up the thread. This one

http://nyti.ms/1Voiy9U

Yeh i admit that was poorly worded, im not very articulate at times. Those ideas expressed in the media do tend to make me quite annoyed. I think those are very good points in the second para of your post:)
 
elbows said:
Anyways, I have trouble thinking about daesh without thinking of all the other 'war on terror', regional & arab spring issues that came before.
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Oh and one more for now:

The secular nature of many of the tired, shitty regimes in the region that were there to be overthrown in the arab spring. And how that made it even more likely that the initial waves of alternative would not be secular. And how those that were dreaming of new secular alternatives were often in a minority, and more likely to be flirting with liberal free market ideas than the sorts of things we'd probably support.
 
elbows said:
Oh and one more for now:

The secular nature of many of the tired, shitty regimes in the region that were there to be overthrown in the arab spring. And how that made it even more likely that the initial waves of alternative would not be secular. And how those that were dreaming of new secular alternatives were often in a minority, and more likely to be flirting with liberal free market ideas than the sorts of things we'd probably support.
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That's the same with the Russian 'liberal' oppo to Putin (and often 'liberals' in other parts of the FSU and the Balkans) who represent an extremely narrow section of the upper class and elite and support market neoliberalism, and are quite happy to support repression if they reckon it will benefit them.
 
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