Beyond the frontline: watching ISIS

[davidbfpo]

Ahmed Rashid has a short review of the impact of ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan:http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog...6/allure-isis/

He ends with:

If the war in Afghanistan drags on without a decisive victory or a political solution, the danger grows that younger Taliban will become more attracted to ISIS. And the possibility of ISIS wielding growing influence among the Pakistani or Afghan Taliban is heightened by the generational shift taking place among the Taliban themselves.

Unless Pakistan and Afghanistan are able to quickly end the extremism by Taliban groups that has plagued them for years they are likely to find themselves facing a far more militarized, radicalized, and extremist youth movement. The danger then is that these countries could find themselves ceding major territory to extremist groups, in a repeat of what ISIS has done in Iraq and Syria.

[davidbfpo]

A fascinating article, the headline 'The Making of the World's Scariest Terrorist Brand', although the sub-title is quite telling:

ISIS mixes new-media savvy with medieval savagery. It’s a diabolical marketing strategy that led us right back into war—and one that future terror groups will surely copycat. Or try to top.

Link:https://medium.com/matter/the-making...d-92620f91bc9d

It ends with:

We can bomb them one truck, one convoy, one Levant at a time. But even if the Islamic State is scoured from the face of the Earth, no future terrorist army will forget its media. Its innovations in branding and marketing will live on, only imprinted with different logos, different actors. After all, it’s just an ad campaign. Just a bloody ad campaign. And we’re buying.

[davidbfpo]

An interesting, pessimistic assessment of the two component parts of ISIS from The Soufan Group:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...islamic-state/

IS is now a chimera of Ba’athist and takfiri ideologies, with the organizational skills of the former helping channel the motivational fervor of the latter. The result is an extremist group unlike any other. It’s the merging of Usama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, with the strengths of one helping negate the weaknesses of the other.

[Compost]

Mindset often determines a choice of words. For example pseudo progressives and fellow travellers are especially fond of referring to peoples parties and to liberation.

Rational humans are expected to use less colourful names and terminology but sometimes fail to do so. That is aggravated by the would-be popular media which invariably includes some who will jump on any bandwagon. One result today is the fairly commonplace use of the term ISIS. More appropriate would be IF for Islamic Fascists or interchangeably Islamist Fascism, and IS referring to in Syria.

Hence IFIS in Syria but IFII in Iraq. IFII sounds appropriate even though some might suppose it refers to Yemen. And IFII seems doubly appropriate because swarming as a form of auftragtaktik is unlikely to succeed at the operational level of conflict.

[davidbfpo]

Just landed here is a sixty page Soufan Group report on ISIS, the chief author being ex-SIS & UN official Richard Barrett:http://soufangroup.com/wp-content/up...tate-Nov14.pdf

[davidbfpo]

Watched an excellent, disturbing PBS Frontline documentary today 'The Rise of ISIS', a curious mix of American and Iraqi "talking heads" alongside film footage:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/

At one point Ali Soufan comments that killing comes before religion for ISIS.

Note the documentary does not comment on how to respond to ISIS.

[Bill Moore]

Now that I know you can see these Britain I may post more of the Frontline and Nova specials, they're very well done. I watched this one a couple of nights ago (made the time).

Despite being well done it presented little new for those who followed the situation. It did a great job of pointing out how extensively Maliki and his cronies abused the Sunnis. This started when we there, and after we left it apparently got worse. He dug his own grave, and unfortunately many of our nations have one foot in that grave also. We have an amazing talent for backing the wrong guy over and over again.

[davidbfpo]

Mindset often determines a choice of words. For example pseudo progressives and fellow travellers are especially fond of referring to peoples parties and to liberation.

Rational humans are expected to use less colourful names and terminology but sometimes fail to do so. That is aggravated by the would-be popular media which invariably includes some who will jump on any bandwagon. One result today is the fairly commonplace use of the term ISIS. More appropriate would be IF for Islamic Fascists or interchangeably Islamist Fascism, and IS referring to in Syria.

Hence IFIS in Syria but IFII in Iraq. IFII sounds appropriate even though some might suppose it refers to Yemen. And IFII seems doubly appropriate because swarming as a form of auftragtaktik is unlikely to succeed at the operational level of conflict.

The answer:

The term “Daesh” is strategically a better choice because it is still accurate in that it spells out the acronym of the group’s full Arabic name, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. Yet, at the same time, “Daesh” can also be understood as a play on words — and an insult. Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, it can mean anything from “to trample down and crush” to “a bigot who imposes his view on others.”

Longer explanation:http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2...MUP/story.html

[Compost]

The answer:

Longer explanation:http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2...MUP/story.html

Daesh could be preferred. However it would continue the use of an opponent’s terminology. Also it would not be readily understood by its intended english-speaking audience unless alternatively expanded as ‘ death and extremist shock horror ’ or suchlike.

Continuing my form of bigotry, perhaps IRIS and IRII for Islamic Radicals etc.

[CrowBat]

IF, IRIS, IRII etc. - all of these are or would be Western creations.

These idiots consider 'Daesh' - which is the way most of Syrians and Iraqis call them - for an insult, and that's perfectly fine with me.