ISIS Is Unsustainable
Quote of the Day, by @LettaTayler https://t.co/xm8gbGrC4W #ISIS in Libya pic.twitter.com/4Eh2vgeIwA
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) May 19, 2016
ISIS represent an evil that is arguably unparalleled globally. Criminal organizations such as ISIS typically operate covertly, but for some reason unknown to us, ISIS is the exception to the rule. For example, the Mafia’s success depends solely on being covert, whereas ISIS wreaks its carnage in broad daylight. The Mafia works in secrecy because if they are caught and destroyed their money and power will cease to exist. ISIS not only operates in broad daylight, but they go one step further by recording their killings and broadcasting them to the world, which is curious because by doing this they are essentially asking to be attacked and destroyed.
Crime equals punishment, and ISIS members are not oblivious to that, as they also punish people for their crimes. It’s unclear why the leaders and members of ISIS believe they can murder and steal without consequence. The entire world outside of a few parts of a few countries are against their actions. Added onto to that is the fact that the armies of many of the countries that oppose them grossly outnumber ISIS both in manpower and machinery. Brash acts such as the ones ISIS have demonstrated are characteristic of groups looking for world domination, but despite their propaganda, their mission is ever-evolving and thus impossible to define.
So far, money, power, and influence over territory and people are the most obvious factors for their raisond’être. ISIS creates between one and three million dollars of revenue per day through selling oil on the black market, taxing the six million citizens they occupy, and other criminal activities, which include robbery, extortion, and ransom. All the money ISIS has made pales in comparison to the money made by those who oppose them.
Simone Del Rosario of RT reporting on the matter,
“Lockheed Martin is filling an order for thousands of Hellfire Missiles. AM General is busy supplying one hundred sixty Humvee vehicles to Iraq and General Dynamics is another big winner; the prime contractor has an order for 600 million dollars worth of tank ammunition. In the past year, the cost of operations to fight ISIS has come to 3.21 billion dollars… The majority of that goes to missions and ammunitions… This is a cautionary tale, clearly defense contractors play a big role in the fight against ISIS, but there’s controversy surrounding the dependence of defense contractors, after a 2011 Wartime Contractor Report requested by Congress, revealed that contract related waste and fraud range from 31 to 60 billion dollars over ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan… SOS International or SOSI employs a large number of American’s in Iraq. On its website, the group says it’s been awarded contracts in excess of 400 million dollars in 2015 to provide life support, sustainment and logistic services, in support of thousands of U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq. Serving on SOSI’s board of advisors are the likes of Paul Wolfowitz…”
Why have those who oppose ISIS waited this long to let a few hundred rebels become a few thousand enforcers and then tens of thousands of members running a “well-oiled” machine that threatens the lives of millions on a daily basis? Is ISIS another group who will fail their mission but succeed in filling the coffers of defense contractors?
ISIS has executed almost 50 people in Libya, says @hrw: https://t.co/Y1WSRM1dGy pic.twitter.com/ewjAnUIavq
— CNN International (@cnni) May 18, 2016
It’s no revelation that war is big business. What’s more surprising is that people are still willing to oppose the ones who cannot lose.
[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]
