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ISIS Montly Salaries Key to Success
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
September 21, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
As President Barack Obama considers ways to destroy
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the renegade al-Qaeda-like criminal
gang continues to consolidate territory in Iraq and Syria. Some estimates place 44-year-old Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi’s hoodlums as seizing up to 30% of remote areas of Iraq and
Syria. Branded with black flags,
turbans, robes, womens’ burqas and veils, al-Baghdadi has done a good job
branding ISIS, over objections from practically every legitimate Islamic
authority on the planet. Denounced
by Egypt’s Grand Muslim Cleric Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam and other Islamic
authorities, al-Baghdadi anointed himself July 1 the new caliph of the Islamic
State, expecting all Muslims to fall in line or face death. Giving wayward youth an identity and way to survive, al-Baghdadi has taken Osama bin
Laden’s Islamic revolution to the next level.
Seizing weapons from the beleaguered Iraqi military and other anti-Bashar
al-Assad group in Syria, al-Baghdadi managed to confiscate remote parts of Iraq
and Syria, beyond the scope of Baghdad and Damascus. “Black IS flags are everywhere. Women are
covered from head to toe in black burqas, and can only leave the house in the
company of their fathers, brothers or husbands,” said Abu Yusef, an activist
from ISIS headquarters in Raqa province.
Walking the streets with Kalasnikov and handguns, ISIS recruits gladly
accept their $300 or $235 euro salary better than nothing for the hoards of
unemployed in the Muslim world.
ISIS controls every aspect of life under its control. Strict Islamic law knows ad Daessh
is imposed by the Hesbeh brigades, forcing compliances on practically
everything. Recruits into
ISIS-controlled areas are treated with a strict version of Islamic law.
Unlike Bin Laden, much of ISIS’s organization has been structured with
carefully controlled bureaucracies.
“Ministries for everything you can imagine.”
Education, health, water, electricity, religious affairs and defense. All the ministries occupy
ex-government buildings,” said Yusef, confirming the extent of al-Bagdadi’s
structured cult-like mini-Society designed to recreate a governing entity much
like any legitimate government.
Military training for boys have been set up in Raqa, ignoring any international
laws that protect treatment of children.
“There is even a consumer protection authority,” said Yusef, attesting to
the serious nature of al-Baghdadi’s fiefdom.
ISIS activist get privileged access to coffeehouses, dispensing
caffeine-laden drinks to only a select group.
“Nothing good or fun is allowed,” activist Rayan al-furati told the
Agence France Press in Raqa.
Al-Baghadi picks-and-chooses what’s acceptable in his “Daesh” Islamic
law: Caffeine in, tobacco out. “It is impossible to even imaging
anyone smoking, or anyone selling tobacco products. It is impossible to see a woman
without a full veil. And
everyday, when the muessins call for prayers, everybody closes their shops and
goes to the mosques, or else they face detention,” said activist Rayan
al-Furati. Like other fascist of
totalitarian states, ISIS manages every aspect of members’ lives, some actually
seek and like the control.
Low-ranked members of al-Baghdadi’s gangs earn $300 a month, more than enough to
provide room-and-board to otherwise destitute folks. Obama faces tough-sledding against
al-Baghdadi’s dystopia because no one provides as more wherewithal as ISIS. Military experts don’t expect
Obama’s air-strikes in Iraq and Syria to topple al-Baghdadi’s enterprise.
When a British-sounding activist
beheaded 41-year-old photojournalist James Foley Aug. 2, he warned Obama to not
mess with the Islamic State. When
the U.S. started bombing ISIS Aug. 7 to stop the genocide of Iraq’s ancient
Yazidis, the same British-sounding fellow returned to behead 31-year-old U.S.
journalist Sept. 3. He told Obama
directly on video to stop attacking the Islamic State. “It’s a mafia that rules through
terror. And people are forced by hunger to join, because that the only way to
get a proper salary,” said Raqa activist Furati al-Wafaa, using a fake name. While U.S. officials know the
sociology that breed terrorism, they can’t allow ISIS to kill local populations,
forcing others into slavery. “Even
those too poor to pay have to comply.
So people are joining because they face the choice of starving or joining
in the extortion,” said al-Wafaa.
Squeezing cash out sovereign states for ransoms, al-Baghadi learned well
from Somali pirates how to get dirty money to pay the salaries of devotees not
wed to al-Baghdadi’s insane version of radical Islam but to consistent
paychecks. Like the fracking
tar-sands business in the U.S., the Mideast’s chronically unemployed readily
take al-Baghdad up on his generous salaries and promises of Islamic utopia. Attracting untold numbers of foreign fighters from the U.S and Europe, some estimates in
the thousands, it shows the extremes to which the disenfranchised go to find
work. Looking for an Islamic
paradise, many find the horrors of fascism, including purges and mass executions
of local populations. “You have
foreign jihadists, even Americans, living with their families where we once
lived,” said Furati, attesting to al-Baghdadi’s powerful appeal to the poor and
bloodthirsty.
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