So some nut jobs in the Middle East, sponsored terrorism in France, which caused a massive incident. I'm sure most are familiar, but a quick review: On November 13th, 2015, a large group of terrorists, split into 3 teams, and attacked multiple targets.
One group of 3 strapped on suicide belts, and attacked a stadium where a European foot ball game was going on (soccer in the US). One of the group attempted to enter the stadium, and was sent away by security. The other two waited in hiding, for people to come running out of the stadium in a panic. Instead, the one sent away by security blew himself up, and the other two detonated later, killing several people.
There were several attacks on restaurants, which killed a dozen plus people, and a man blew himself up, but only killed himself in the process.
And lastly, the theater mass shooting, where three men with Kalashnikovs, slaughtered people at a Death Metal concert. There is something sadly ironic about that, but moving on... After kill dozens, they held some hostage, until a police raid, where two blew them selves up, and the other was shot and the vest exploded after he fell.
The entire deal was supported, and we believe funded by the group known as the Islamic State. So my normal operation, before determining what to do, is to figure out how we got here. Finding a short term fix, is great, but not if you end up right back where you were before, because you didn't learn from the actions that got you there in the first place.
Now a typical post of mine would have a link for each and every single thing I said, and I will try and link what I can, but the truth is, I have so many different sources from the BBC, to print media, to books I've read, that honestly, I can not list all of them, at least not accurately. Therefore, I will post all my links here, and if there is something you think I'm making up, you can reply to me later.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/w...s-it-warned-about-bin-laden-in-1996.html?_r=0
A brief history of ISIS
Occupation of Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
November 2015 Paris attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Origins of ISIS ā Special Coverage (RT News on Youtube)
NHK Documentary - Islamic State: The Origins of IS - 13 09 2015 (Youtube)
"Ghost Wars" By Steve Coll
Truth in Media: The Origin of ISIS - Ben Swann's Truth In Media
Obama RELEASED warlord head of ISIS extremist army five years ago
The Islamic Stateās Baathist roots - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
So where did Islamic State come from? To really answer that question, we have to go back all the way to the 1980s. The Soviets invaded and occupied Afghanistan, for reasons that are not important now. What is important, is that the US government decided to support resistance to Soviet occupation. While I do not find any inherent reason to oppose this move, the government left this responsibility to the CIA which funneled support to Afghan resistance. At first this followed an acceptable position, but later the CIA changed their methods in two ways.
First, they were originally providing general support, but later they were supplying support that would not result in achieving any goal. When you provide rockets, training, assault rifles and support, the goal is to help the resistance to defeat the occupying force. When you provide land mines and sniper rifles, which the CIA did in the late 80s, the goal is no longer to achieve victory, but to simply kill Russians, and several statements from inside the CIA make this exact claim.
But by far the more destructive choice, was to start supporting non-domestic militia groups, because they fought better. To make matters worse, while the local groups had no problem getting support from American sources, the foreign fighters did. So the CIA had the support routed through Saudi Arabia, and in the process Saudi Arabia added to that support.
Now at one level, this made logical sense. Would you rather spend $30,000 on a group that can hold a strategic road, or $30,000 on a group that can hold a small town? Or have that money doubled by Saudi Arabia, and give $60,000 to a group that could hold a small city?
This also made sense to the Saudis, which saw a great way to get troublesome radical religious people out of their back yard, but that didnāt quite work out. In the short term, the fanatical religious foreign fighters, tended to try and impose their views on the Afghan locals, which resulted in serious fighting between the militias, and the groups the militias were supposedly there to support.
However, one would question what Saudis long term plan was. You round up local radical leaders, send them, with dozens of young men, send them to a far away land, cut off from friends and family, where they get hooked on religious fervor, and the adrenaline rush of fire fights and 'defeating a super power', and when it's over they'll what? Come back and integrate into society? Go back to working at the burger shop? Of course these people are going to want to get that rush, and feeling of euphoria back.
It was during this time, when Osama Bin Ladin went to Afghanistan, became radicalized, and started building the network of connections that after the end of Soviet occupation, and his expulsion from Saudi Arabia, became the organization known as 'al-Qaeda'.
Now, with that in the background, another man by the name of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is over in the country of Jordan. From here on referred to as Zarqawi. This man grows up in the Jordan as a petty criminal, but ends up radicalized, hearing about the great wars and victories in Afghanistan, for their religious goals. Star struck, and wanting to get into the action, he shows up in 1989, meets with Bin Laden... but is too late. The war is over, the Soviets are leaving, and he ends just reporting for an Islamic news paper, walking around talking to the people who fought "Yeah dude it was great, you should have been there". Unfortunately, he disagreed with Bin Laden on the what we would call Excommunication, or the Islamic name "takfir", which is where you declare someone to no longer be Muslim, and then you are justified to kill them.
So he doesnāt end up joining Bin Laden here, but returns back to Jordan, where he integrates into society, and lives happily ever-after. No, instead he starts up his own terror organization in Jordan, ends up discovered, imprisoned, released, starts up another terror organization, is discovered, flees to one country, is discovered and flees ultimately to Afghanistan, where he partners with Bin Laden, and builds he own training camp.
Where was the US during the 90s, all this time? While there were numerous warnings and calls for action, some even within the administration, all were ignored. It simply wasnāt a priority.
Now at this point we need to back track just a bit. So back up to the early 90s in Iraq. Saddam just fought a costly and victory-less war with Iran, and then had his butt kicked out of Kuwait, and moreover President Bush calls for the people of Iraq to stand up against Saddam. His power is wavering, and support is low, and the economy sucks. Saddam makes the decision to embark on a religious revival. Not just for his government, but the entire country. Islamic values are promoted in public. Night life is restricted. Islamic schools are opened. Mosques are built.
The debate about whether Saddam himself had a personal revival, will never end, and isnāt all that relevant. What is relevant, is that the government supported faith program, was successful in the extreme. The Salafist movement supported by the Iraqi government, worked so well that earlier warnings that Salafists would pose a danger to Saddam, started to ring true. Saddam then had top line member of the his security forces, even high level officers, infiltrate the Mosques in order to keep tabs on them. But the effort proved counter productive. Instead of keeping tabs on the Salafists, they converted and were radicalized by the Salafists. By the 2000s, many high level areas of Baathist government, had devout Salafists in them.
As a side note to my Christian brothers. Do not think that hanging out with crazy people will some how covert them to the good. More likely you will drawn away to the bad. Get away from those people. And you women: Donāt think if you hang out with the crazy drunk, heāll be changed for the good. More likely, youāll be changed to the bad. Get away from them. Sorry I just had to throw that in there.
Now we catch up to 2001, and the war in Afghanistan. We butcher the Taliban, and force Zarqawi to flee into Iran and Iraq. We are not entirely positive on his exact whereabouts, or timing, because various reports conflict. What we know for certain, is that at some point close to the US-invasion of Iraq, either before, during, or directly after, Zarqawi ends up in Iraq, and quickly sets up AQI, which is "al-Qeada in Iraq", and pledges allegiance to Bin Laden. He also establishes direct relations with Assad in Syria, to setup transport of Syrian militant radicals out of Syria, into Iraq.
Now we come to some major blunders in the Iraq war. Aside from the mis-step of putting Rumsfeld in charge, who was charismatic, but terrible military leaderā¦ the administration believed that we could walk in, remove Saddam, and leave in 24 months, with Iraq fully capable of self governing. Letās blow everything up, remove everyone from power, and then leave on the next flight out. Critically, based on that presumption, administration made little, to no plans for running the country under occupation.
To make matters worse, he replaced the military authority, and reconstruction authority, with Paul Bremer. While Bremer may have other skills and qualities I am not aware of, his policies in Iraq were fatal. First, he completely disbanded the Iraqi military, placing 400,000 career soldiers with arms, unemployed with no source of income to provide for their families. Some immediately joined insurgent groups simply because it was a source of income, and others formed their own insurgent groups because they were mad.
Second, Bremer engaged in a policy of de-baathification. Essentially, removing anyone and everyone that had anything to do with the Baathist party. Not only did this send hundreds of thousands of people who were doing menial tasks like planning for traffic in the cities, out of work and angry because they had done nothing wrong, but it also pissed off the rest of public because now the trash wasnāt being picked up. Adding to this, was the drop of support for the Salafists, and all those Mosques being supported by the former Iraqi government.
For the next 3 years, AQI grows in scope and power, to itās height in 2006, when the US has a policy change. The āsurgeā begins, and Zarqawi is killed by a 500 lbs bomb dropped by our fighters, on a meeting of insurgent groups. Ironically, it was the death of Zarqawi that allowed AQI the flexibility to morph into ISI, the Islamic State of Iraq. ISI still attempted to rally insurgent groups together, but the āsurgeā started to take effect. In addition, Bush wisely began to allow the military to take on the mission of administering Iraq, which brought about the Anbar Awakening, and the Sons of Iraq movement, which allowed the people of Iraq to resist the insurgent groups themselves.
By the beginning of 2010, 80% of ISIs top leadership was either killed, or captured, and imprisoned at Camp Bucca, the maximum security prison for combatants. However, there was a change in US policy going on again. Bush had been replaced by Obama, which began a draw down of US troops, in preparation to leave Iraq.
Now why we never learn anything is beyond me. Here in the US, we take a petty gang criminal, send him to prison, where he makes connections with dozens of other gang bangers, and when heās released, heās twice the hellion he was going in.
Similarly, at Camp Bucca, we locked up all the Baathists, all the Insurgents, all the Radical Salafists, where they all made connections and radicalization. I personally could not determine conclusively how it happened, but either the US government gave a general amnesty to the prisoners of Camp Bucca and released them, or they were turned over to the Iraqi government, which gave them a general amnesty, and released them. Either way, the prisoners of Camp Bucca, which include the current leader of ISIS, al-Bagdadi, were released.
Despite all of this, ISI floundered. After all, the main driver of support for insurgent groups, was getting rid of Americans, and the Americans were leaving. So while the group remained active and functioning, it really couldnāt gain major supportā¦ until something happened in 2012.
Syria was falling into civil war, and in 2012, ISI, sent people and fighters to start fighting against Assad. This changes the name of ISI to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The irony is endless. Assad, who directly funded and supported Radical Islam in Iraq, is now being attacked by the very people he originally supported. Some of the exact people he gave money to AQI and Zarqawi, to send to Iraq years before, are now returning to fight him.
Even soā¦ the group still flounders, barely able to maintain a foot hold on Syrian ground. But this changes for two reasons. Over time from AQI, to ISI, to ISIS, the group gradually replaced many of the mindless radical Islamists, with professionals from the Baathist Iraqi government. Remember, because of Saddamās Religious Rival programs, many of the former Baathists kicked out by Bremer, were all Salafists as well. There were economists, intellectuals, military professionals, and others qualified in administration. As the former government officials, began taking places in the ISIS, the group began to govern effectively over the areas they controlled, providing support and stability, even public works, and utilities. Their PR campaign began producing professional quality videos, and their recruitment started being effective.
Yet they needed support to really gain enough ground, to establish itself. And that support came. In June of 2013, a general of the Free Syrian Army, declared that if support was not given to the rebel forces, they would lose the entire war in a month. Within weeks, money, weapons, support, even training, started flowing into Syria. And much of this support ended up in the hands of branches of ISIS. With this flow of support, ISIS was able to develop working economies in the lands they controlled. Started built their propaganda arm. With the draw down of US troops, Iraq was in no position to hold back the return wave of ISIS troops, now trained by former Iraqi military officers, and backed by organized supplies and logistics by former Iraqi government officials. The Anbar Awakening, and Sons of Iraq, have all but disappeared, with the change in US policy.
This was no longer your common militant group, shouting Allah Akbar, and shooting people. This was a well organized, well trained, and now well supplied and funded, government style military force. When other groups outside Syria and Iraq, pledged allegence to ISIS, they changed to ISIL, which is Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Levant is the area of the former Ottoman Empire, west of Iraq, which includes Syria and other areas. In 2014, they proclaimed a worldwide Caliphate, and many groups pledged allegiance to the group, which is now simply the āIslamic Stateā.
What is key to learn from this, is the power of unintended consequences. Actions of consequences. We like to think, we can do whatever we want, and nothing bad will happen. The only reason Saddam was not overthrown by the Salafists that he brought into his own government, is because we did it first. Assad sowed the seeds of his own destruction. Clinton ignored the growing threat. Bush Sr failed to finish the job. The CIA funded better fighters, that ended up better enemies. Obama pulled out before it was safe. The Saudis thought they could pay their problems to go away.
Too many short-term solutions, that caused long-term problems.
