I guess one of my first questions about us vs Isis is: if they are using the internet as a recruitment tool why don't we just hack all of their sites. Or if we take all of them down does that mean we lose access to information on what they're doing and whose doing it. So do we allow them to operate? Can the NSA etc get into sites that are encrypted. Or do these dark web entities: can they elude even the most sophisticated technology in the U.S. and allies. A private group of hackers called Anonymous declared cyber war against ISIS after the Charlie Hebron attacks in Paris and reportedly had modest success taking out some of their sites. I also read that on Twitter and Facebook where there are many ISIS accounts they've closed down some of them. I think I also read something about ISIS threatening both companies if they closed accounts. So my main question is: can they intercept info from these encrypted sites and accounts. Or can ISIS communicate beyond the reach and ability of the FBI, NSA, etc. Of course the NSA isn't going to tell us what they can or can't do.
I think theres even more to it than that. I was reading something the other day about whats really going on here. The Anti Police ,Burn the American flag challenege etc....the attack on the South and their values(although the history is bad),burning churches. Who do you think is recruiting this angry youth movement?.
ISIS is definitely somebody's Frankenstein monster. The funding and coordination is too good for there not to be a state-based actor pulling the strings. The question is who is benefiting the most from ISIS continued existence? If we can figure that out we're at least halfway to the answer of who set them up. There's a large list of candidates at this point and I see no reason to speculate about who the devil is but I think a few things bear watching: 1. The media campaign around ISIS has been brilliant in achieving the goal of keeping them in the spotlight. Every time things die down a bit there's another new atrocity filmed and put up on the net to stir the pot. Each atrocity is carefully calibrated to be worse than the one before it to prevent viewer fatigue from setting in. 2. It's extremely unlikely that ISIS is both looking to set up a stable Islamic state in Iraq and Syria and also doing what they're doing. If they were interested in setting up the Islamic state as their main priority they'd be trying to stay out of the public eye until they had mostly achieved that. This is not a campaign for statehood on their part. 3. The state actors who have been opposing them have also used the media fairly well. The King of Jordan became a familiar face over night when he took to his Jet to lead the fight against ISIS. This argues that the opponents of ISIS are aware that something strange is going on and they're determined to try to stay ahead of it. The coverage of the campaign against ISIS hasn't quite reached Vietnam-era levels but it's clear that there are parties involved who would very much like to rub the US public's face in the war as much as they can. 4. Based on what we've seen so far it seems equally likely that the impetus for the ISIS conflict is coming from outside the region as that it is a locally generated thing. If it weren't quite so packaged it would feel more like a regional conflict. Guerrilla wars of this type tend to settle in and become yesterday's news, raging for years and even decades with nobody giving much of a shit. This one isn't going to go that way. It's being stage-managed to stay on the TV screen and in the news as an ongoing crisis. It's hard to tell who is benefiting from what's going on. This is clearly not Big Oil at work because oil and gas prices have crashed during the conflict as most parties tried to keep ISIS from windfall profits on the oilfields they control. It's not OPEC for the same reason. The Russians are an obvious suspect but their close ally in Syria is on the razor's edge all the time and they're unlikely to have caused this mess even if it does hurt the US more than them. Israel has to be just hunkering down at this point. There's no benefit for them at all in letting another loose cannon emerge. They'd have no way of knowing if they could control it and Syria clearly has WMD's, which are under control from an Israeli perspective only as long as the government of Syria is in control of them. All of this is why the US would be better off if we were just watching as opposed to closely involved. We have no clue who is calling the shots but we know for a fact they're getting called against us primarily. Why? Because we're there and won't get out.
Brad. I am Kurdish. And Israel is the biggest Kurdish ally in the region. And I have big respect to Israel due to that. But I feel like Israel is in this somehow. Started drinking early tonight so I will not be able to write all my reasons but Israel is the one who benefits the most from ISIS and ISIS will eventually lead to a free Kurdistan which is a dream for all us Kurds. At last, we will have our own country and I believe we will owe it to Israel in the end.
It's possible Israel is involved but I doubt it. That's primarily because ISIS is a uniting element for groups in the Middle East that normally are staring at each other with great suspicion. The Iraqi and Iranian Shiites now have a unifying element in play with the Saudi and Gulf State Sunni's. The Syrian government is normally aligned with Iran as a counterweight to the Saudi's. The Russians and the Saudi's are on the same side of an issue for the first time in a long time. Even the quiet states, like Jordan, Kuwait and the various small Gulf states are on the same page as almost everybody else. ISIS is a nightmare for Israel in a lot of different ways. They're a terrorist state in the making and they potentially have access to Syria's arsenal of arms, regular and WMD's. They're virulently anti-Israel in a way that only Iran and Al-Qaida have been since the fall of Saddam. They're causing many diverse factions that are opposed to Israel to become more united in the face of the new threat from ISIS. It's possible that Iraq will follow Syria and dissolve into total chaos, with a very weak government only nominally in control of most of the country. That would be another Israeli nightmare. What Israel wants is strongmen they can make red-line deals with. They want every government in the region to have a single voice that they can clearly speak with. Chaotic regimes like Lebanon and a failing Syria and a weak Iraq have always been bad news for the Israeli's. There's nobody to make deals with and no way to figure out what the risks really are.
An Egyptian navy vessel was targeted on Thursday by militants affiliated with the Islamic State group, who claimed they destroyed it with a rocket while it was anchored off the Sinai peninsula's Mediterranean coast.
Now Turkey is getting more involved in fighting ISIS. Because of terrorist activities by ISIS against them. They have not fully cooperated with the U.S. and the coalition mostly because of their government's hatred for the Kurds. For awhile they wouldn't even allow arms to aid Kurd fighters or the fighters themselves to cross their borders into Syria. And Turkey has been the focal point for ISIS recruits to get into Syria. If Turkey puts themselves on the line and activally joins the coalition to oppose ISIS this could be major. Plus you have three other major military forces in the Mideast who could potentially be at war with them: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Even though Iran and Saudi Arabia are enemies. Imo it's their part of the world and they should do the fighting. Let the U.S. do what they're doing now. Air strikes, intelligence, training, etc.
They are most certainly using the darknet. They're now also using bitcoin to collect funds. I recently read that DARPA is working on something to de-anonymize Tor, which would allow them to track darknet users. Also a list of ISIS websites is not hard to find. One of the hacking groups released a list https://ghostbin.com/paste/ce5jz. It wouldn't be difficult for the NSA/Cyber Command to get a list of ISIS sites and continually DDOS them, but it seems this is not the strategy they have taken. It may be better for them to break in and run surveillance on the sites. Of course the public would never hear any success stories.
The long term strategy is to get the Shiites and the Sunnis to at least have some kind of working agreement without killing each other at the same time. This is not easy because each faction remembers and will never forget the acts of genocide perpetrated upon them by the other. The end game for ISIS is Armageddon. There was a great article in Atlantic Magaaine a few months ago on this by Grahame Wood http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/. It explains why they are baiting so many other entities and trying to make enemies of the rest of the world.
Look I'm a liberal but you'e got to let the NSA do their job. After 9/11 I also heard the same thing from bleeding heart liberals, etc. about personal liberties and the Patriot Act. (some of these people were more concerned about the personal freedom of Al Qaeda and the terrorists than common sense security measures). They have to be allowed to quickly monitor any info within their technological abilities quickly. Of course there has to be some kind of probably judicial steps to get authority in some instances and some kind of a body, even Congressional overseeing all aspects of their operations. I mean, come on are they going to listen to a billion phone calls a day. No they're going to only do surveillance on known or suspected terrorists. So far there is no indication they are going beyond their charge. But they already have some checks and balances.
I think the NSA/Cyber Command should be given carte blanche when dealing with operations outside of the USA. No congressional overseeing whatsoever. They shouldn't have to spell it out to a bunch of old tards on what they're doing.
I wouldn't give them carte blanche because history shows you can't do that with clandestine organizations. Look at all the stuff the CIA did in the '50's. There have to be checks and balances but fast ones that allow them to do their job effectively. They should be able to use all of their technology it just can't be misused. For that you need to go thru a Federal judge and maybe the entire operation has to regularly be reviewed by Congress. Of course it's a hush hush operation but there are people even in Congress who have security clearances. PS as for Snowden a guy like that should never have been given a security clearance and access to so many secret documents.
Weapons suppliers are the winners. Syria is far and beyond the loser, along with Iraq; and the borders of close neighbors where fighting ensues. Iraq's vulnerableabilty is a problem we helped to create. Clearly Iraqi's are not a people strong enough to stand up on their own, so we are vested in aiding their 'protection' from Isis. I don't think our current approach is wrong save aiding anyone not named Iraq, Isreal and Turkey (in the region). The Kurds have proven a resourceful ally in fighting Isis. We started to grow strong cooperation in the defense of the city of Kobani. The Kurds have been our most effective ally/weapon against Isis. They deserve our support. They seem more westernized than radical in their lifestyle. Stop supplying weapons, cut off funding and support that fall to our enemies. Unless you are an aid worker or ambassador or reporter stop allowing people who travel to Syria to return. No troops on the ground. If they dare attack USA.. Destroy them. Otherwise, isolate their operation and expose their radical teachings
