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posted by on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the someone-stomp-these-guys-already dept.

From this article on vice.com:

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has severely restricted use of the internet in its de-facto capital of Raqqa, requiring that all residents — including those in the militant group's ranks — access the web from observed internet cafes, according to international monitoring organizations.

An IS leaflet photographed and circulated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), advises that "all owners of shops with satellite internet must comply with the following: Removing Wi-Fi boosters in internet cafés as well as private wireless adaptors, even for soldiers of the Islamic State."

...

Activists worry that internet restriction is intended to clamp down on citizen journalists, human rights workers, and potential IS defectors.

Even under IS rule, activists have managed to sneak out videos, images, and accounts of daily life. In September, a woman with a camera hidden in her niqab walked through the city narrating her experience. The smuggled footage was aired on French TV.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:55PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @05:55PM (#212019) Journal

    No, it wasn't. I never attended the local rally, but one of my friends did. She reported seeing Republicans and Democrats in addition to Libertarian party members. I forget if she said she saw any Greens there or not.

    Bradley13 is correct. It started as a grass roots campaign for small government and balanced budgets that crossed political parties. The media largely ignored this phase of its history. I first heard about the movement from one of the Libertarian Party's newsletters. Then it got co-opted into an astroturf campaign for religious fundamentalism and, as you'd mentioned, shilling for the interests of the 0.1%.

    For some reason, this new, perhaps COINTELPROed, astroturf movement was what actually got the vote out. Republicans running as teabaggers against another Republican and the teabagger wins! Insanity.

    Coming back around to topic, that does make me wonder about ISIS. Are there similarities? Are they being funded by big money? Is it an astroturf movement? How does increasing Islamophobia and releasing agitprop crap like Dearborn, MI being under sharia law help the MotU? Circuses? Increased military budgets? Considering the situation in Greece and Eurozone, are they hoping to fire off World War 3?

    A bunch of Ritchie-Riches taking over a grassroots movement like the Tea Party and turning it into an astroturf movement, eh, it happens. It sucks, but it happens.

    On the other hand, with ISIS, we have murderous thugs oppressing and terrorizing everyone unfortunate enough to lack the ability to flee when ISIS' armies come. Then they go on destroying valuable historical artifacts, many of which have not been completely studied yet. (All though, all is not lost. Didn't we just have an article about some of those historical places being serendipitously digitized over the past decade so that research can continue?)

    It's pure speculation, but if any of their funding can be traced back to the Kochs, will that be enough for the American public to get the pitchforks and torches? More likely is that they have Russian funding. Nothing like getting the cold war back on, eh?

    Maybe the silver lining is we might get another space race?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:01PM (#212024)

    It helps both Western and Middle Eastern powers control their populaces through fear.

    It helps eliminate pesky 'historical landmarks' for future redevelopment efforts by having 'those dirty ISIS fellows' destroy them.

    It helps drive up the price of oil by claiming the supply is disrupted by the activities taking place 'near' the extraction sites.

    It helps distract all three populace groups from the ever increasing loss of freedom by their unelected leadership.

    That was all I could think of. Perhaps others can add more?

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:29PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:29PM (#212034) Journal

    Sad, you started off informative, then your rage-hate got the best of you and you went all Koch brothers and Russians.

    ISIS has nothing at all to do with American politics.
    You sir, are seriously out of touch.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:35PM

    by curunir_wolf (4772) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @06:35PM (#212036)

    Actually, it's CIA and US State Department funding. This has been well-documented (by anonymous and unchecked sources, Seymour Hersh, Iranian TV, ). The U.S. State Department confirmed May 29, 2015 with CNN that Islamic State fighter Gulmurod Khalimov from Tajikistan was trained in the United State three times.

    ISIS videos are, of course, staged productions as the recent leak confirms [leaksource.info].

    --
    I am a crackpot
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:13PM

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:13PM (#212092) Journal

      That someone was trained somewhere, and then decided to go Rogue does not mean that ISIS is a US/CIA funded operation.

      The Tajiks and Uzbeks were our ally in Afghanistan against the Taliban. Training their Special Forces in counter-terrorism is the price we had to pay for forward secret air bases. No way you can parlay that into ISIS being a US operation.

      Do you ever read what you type to see just how ludicrous you sound.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:46PM (#212102)

        It's much easier to track Gulf state money, and Saudi money in particular, directly investing in ISIS than it is US or other NATO. That much NATO equipement rapidly found its way into the hands of ISIS is unquestionable - we funded and equipped a large number of groups in the early stages of the Syrian civil war, some of whom were doubtless shady and linked with (or linked with groups that were later merged with) ISIS, and others of whom were assimilated or wiped out and their equipment seized. That happened. What is much harder to demonstrate, most likely because it is not happening, is that ISIS are actively funded by NATO states. The only possible outlier is Turkey, who have credible motivations for maintaining upheaval in Syria and continued pressure on the Syrian Kurdish population - though even in that instance, if it *is* happening (and I have seen no evidence to suggest it is) there are probably some people beginning to think it was a big mistake.

      • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday July 21 2015, @10:07PM

        by curunir_wolf (4772) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @10:07PM (#212105)
        Oh, okay, dude.
        --
        I am a crackpot
      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 21 2015, @10:15PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @10:15PM (#212108)

        That someone was trained somewhere, and then decided to go Rogue does not mean that ISIS is a US/CIA funded operation.

        And by that same standard, Al Qaida is a US/CIA operation, since Osama bin Laden was for quite a long time a CIA "asset".

        The real story there is that the CIA is mostly incompetent, totalitarian, and incredibly short-sighted:
        - The biggest testament to its incompetence is Cuba: Between the Bay of Pigs and hundreds of failed attempts to kill Fidel Castro, they've shown that they cannot carry out the mission they've been assigned to do.
        - The basic argument for why they are totalitarian: It has not once overthrown a dictator and installed a democracy while it has done the opposite to a large percentage of the world. And these weren't friendly neighborhood dictators, we're talking mass murder, summary execution, and torture here.
        - As for short-sighted, almost all of our great enemies of recent decades have been former CIA assets, from Manuel Noriega to Saddam Hussein.

        They mostly try to hide all this behind a wall of secrecy and killing people who they are afraid might talk. But frequently they get caught, for example attempting to overthrow Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:58PM (#212087)

    Originally, the Tea Party was a Dick Armey! True! Never Grassroots, more like Astroroots. You know, fake grassroots. -

    • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday July 23 2015, @07:12PM

      by curunir_wolf (4772) on Thursday July 23 2015, @07:12PM (#212809)
      Dick Armey founded Tea Party Express to co-opt the tea party movement. That was founded in 2009, WAY after the tea party was started by grass roots folks, back in 2007.
      --
      I am a crackpot
  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 21 2015, @11:16PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 21 2015, @11:16PM (#212124) Journal

    Coming back around to topic, that does make me wonder about ISIS. Are there similarities? Are they being funded by big money?

    Petroleum non olet (oil doesn't smell). Actually it does, so strong that any ISIS specific aroma is drowned [nytimes.com].

    The group takes in tens of millions of dollars each month, including about $1 million a day through black-market sales of oil extracted from territory it controls, allowing it to amass wealth at an “unprecedented pace,” Mr. Cohen said.

    Describing an elaborate smuggling operation that uses well-worn routes and old local networks, Mr. Cohen said the Islamic State sold oil to a wide array of buyers, including Iraqi Kurds who resell it in Turkey, and the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

    Now, $1mil/day is big for a terrorist organisation, but not nearly enough to run a "state". So they seems to have other means [brookings.edu] as well.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford