SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Pakistani attorney and author Rafia Zakaria wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera America about the Islamic extremists' war on fun, including sports, music, even dining in a fine restaurant. Zakaria points out that this apparent obsession predates the existence of ISIS by several decades (at least); he suspects this is a big reason why the attackers chose Paris, renowned worldwide for its brilliant culture and joie de vivre.
Terrorism’s targeting of the merry is universal and indiscriminate, a division of the world between those who wish to live and laugh and hope and those who kill and destroy. The latter are deadly and relentless, and they have already squeezed out the mirth from too many of the world’s cities, from Karachi, Kabul and Baghdad to Nairobi and Beirut.
Zakaria experienced this aspect of terror firsthand. A high school friend had just passed a big exam, and was out celebrating with his family at a restaurant in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists struck.
Al Jazeera America provides a separate analysis warning that military action alone cannot defeat ISIS (aka ISIL), which of course is not a "nation" in the traditional sense, but more of a guerilla outfit like Al Qaeda, that opportunistically seized a stronghold in chaotic regions of Syria and Iraq. The piece's author, political scientist Rami G. Khouri, recommends that both the West and Muslim nations of the Middle East spend more resources on addressing economic and political problems facing impoverished youths who are potentially attracted by the ISIS' recruiting pitch:
If the underlying threats to ordinary citizens’ lives in autocratic Arab-Islamic societies remain unaddressed — from jobs, water and health insurance, to free elections, a credible justice system and corruption — the flow of recruits to movements like ISIL or something even worse will persist and even accelerate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday November 16 2015, @05:07PM
Your cost/benefit on blowing up oil tankers misses the point. While shooting 70K rockets (send in the worthogs and just strafe them) at them might still be a bad bargain it isn't just a dollar problem for ISIS. If we blew a bunch of them up they have to replace them. Getting oil tankers in quantity in that part of the world would be non-trivial at any price, they would certainly be forced to pay a huge premium. Second point is that those oil trucks can deliver a load every day or two so blowing one up costs ISIS a lot more than the cost of the truck or even the truck with a load. Third point is if we lower the average life expectancy of an oil tanker to a point it doesn't deliver enough loads to even pay for itself the whole black market oil business becomes a sink.
And in the end, we are rich and they aren't. So even if it cost us $2 to deny ISIS a single $1 it makes sound military sense. We put the Soviet Union out of business the exact same way, by outspending them and making them bankrupt their economy in a futile attempt to keep up. Yes they fielded advanced missiles that would have made our SDI plans much more difficult... but we never had to actually field anything because they went broke actually doing it while we were still doing R&D. Our problem is Obama. He is entirely unserious and only making a token handful of air strikes and low value targets like oil tankers aren't going to be the ones picked.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 16 2015, @06:28PM
At some scale you're probably correct, I'm just guessing that it takes a lot more than $70K MSRP of a hellfire missile to take out a tanker truck of crude. Platform limits, inevitable expensive targeting mistakes, etc.
Also they're not in the "smuggling stuff in tanker truck" business, but in the "smuggling crude oil" business. So even if we blew up every tanker truck they're just going to stack 6 drums in the back of a pickup truck and sell the load for $100 cash or whatever, plus some diesel to run the trucks. Or use boats somehow, or some form of sneakiness whereas its almost better to watch what truck goes where and then lean on the higher ups.
Note that on our own soil on heavily monitored land with massive police presence and monitoring technology our borders are pretty much wide open for illegals and drugs, so assuming we could stop crude oil exports on the other side of the planet where everyone on all sides but Israel hates us is somewhat optimistic at best.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:13AM
Do the math. Oil tanker trucks (per Wikipedia) carry 5500 gallons or more per load. On the typical roads over there probably tending more toward that lower bound. Break that up into barrels at about 300lbs ea and compare to the load capacity of the typical truck. If they had a lot of heavy trucks they wouldn't be mounting machine guns on crappy little Toyota light duty trucks. Even if they found enough 3/4 ton pickups they still need ten to replace one tanker. They would need a -lot- of drivers which would tie up a lot of their scarce manpower ferrying penny ante amounts of oil out. Either it won't be much money or the roads will be obviously congested with trucks, which again makes for an easy target. Traveling halfway across the area and joining ISIS to kill infidels in glorious battle and get the virgins in the afterlife is one thing, getting turned into greasy spots by the hundreds on a lonely highway trying to make a few bux is another.
And just as an I told ya so, in the aftermath of the Paris attacks somebody in Washington figured they better be seen doing something so news has broke that the UFAF took out 116 ISIS oil tankers. And as I foretold they used four warthogs along with two AC-130 gunships. This according to the NYT.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 18 2015, @02:32PM
Hmm yes scalability always a problem, you are correct in that.