ISIS - Disinformation Verses Truth And The Question "Who Benefits From Lies?"

a reply to: OpinionatedB

ISIS is populated with some nasty people.

But so are half a dozen other groups around the globe doing terrible things to innocent people.

Why the focus on ISIS?

I think you bring up some valid points, OP.

a reply to: seabhac-rua

Interesting PR video. I have to wonder what's next in the series - most likely something along the lines of "You're doomed - resistance is futile - stand by to be assimilated".

I have to admit, Gomer's Legions have a pretty slick PR department. Just this evening, I ran across a slick 44 page magazine they put out for recruitment. It's called "Dabiq", and is put out in several languages for recruitment purposes. The copy I have is in English, and is a PDF file. I'd post a link for it, but, well, maybe not. I've not read through the whole thing yet. I've got issue #2, "The Flood".

Pretty ominous sounding, yeah?

What I've seen so far, it's slick, pretty well laid out and put together. It almost looks like a staff of professional editors and artists produced it...

a reply to: OpinionatedB

Great thread.

That question was also following me around, it also seems like everything comes out of ISIS is a representation of what the whole organization is intending for... For a few examples:

ISIS releases it's 5 year territorial expansion plan
ISIS Threatens America: ‘We Will Raise The Flag Of Allah In The White House’
IS militants vow to 'de-throne' Putin over Syria support


I've never seen so much hype over words of random people (or for some media work like that map or the "Flames of War" trailer). It's like i'm Israeli, which means to most people that I might represent Israel, and if i'll say something like "We will go south and east and reclaim Greater Israel" (which is of course not my view at all), this might appear as a headline somewhere saying "Israel vows to reclaim Greater Israel", which will of course get many people mad about it and develop hatred and demonized the whole country and its people.

This is media at its "best", now they seem to be pushing a lot of these headlines to make the world believe they are a serious threat to the world that has to be dealt with now, before it's too late. I don't fall for it, yes ISIS acts are horrible but it seems that the west is pushing their own agendas while using ISIS as a tool, for some conspiracies I wouldn't mention here as it will make the post twice the length.


I don't know but this whole thing smells very fishy... There's definitely an agenda to push ISIS deep into our minds and hearts.

a reply to: Shuye

As you aptly pointed out, most of the hype comes from ISIS themselves. As far as the media picking it up - that is perfectly reasonable, the media picks everything up that people are interested in. People show their interest in something by discussing it first in forums like this one, and passing around videos or stories found through email or Facebook to other people they know.

Once the media catches on that there is a topic people are discussing, they jump on the bandwagon and investigate more fully in order to publish more stories on the topics people want to hear. That IS how media works in this day and age. Cliven Bundy is a case in point, we heard about him for weeks and weeks non-stop, because it was what people were talking about, then media jumped in.

ISIS is real. I'm not sure why so many people are interested - we all have our own reasons for sure; some because there are so many people from each of our countries fighting over there, some because it's in the hotspot called the middle east therefore people have always felt connected to the happenings there due to religion, some because of business and economic interests due to the imports from some of those areas, many different reasons for the interest itself, but it does exist, and not just for me - and I have reasons for my interest also.

As far as ISIS themselves, they throw out long range plans to put fear into people. Honestly they seem well rehearsed in psychology - because they are really good at putting fear into people.

a reply to: seabhac-rua

No actually I hadn't seen that before today. I'm curious, why do you think the video is not put out by ISIS?

a reply to: nenothtu

Before we jump to conclusions on that, I think we need to research that quite a bit more. I have yet to find the original - and I don't know if you found it or only thought you found it in its original so I will ask you when you get online later more about where you got the copy you read, and how far you tracked it down.

Because the only thing I have tracked that publication down to so far, isn't ISIS at all.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

No, sorry I didn't make myself clear, I don't think ISIS put out the 'maths' story, or had anything to do with it.

I posted this video to illustrate how good they(ISIS) are at PR.

Already several friends of mine on Facebook, who I have never heard mention ISIS or the Syrian conflict previously, are sharing this video and discussing it. Some of them have stated that they can't wait for part 2.

a reply to: seabhac-rua

I've been pretty much immersing myself in ISIS literature all day, to get to the core of their beliefs, and from there to extrapolate their motivations for doing some of the seemingly stupid and nonsensical stuff they do.

OB found another source for some of their stuff - for example, the latest video "Flames of War" that they put out a few hours ago on YouTube was zapped in less than a couple of hours from YouTube, but this other source has it in all it's glory, so we downloaded it and watched it to analyze.

A few high points are:

1) In at least two of the "attacks" by "the brave Brothers of the mujahideen", there was NO ONE shooting back. The "brothers" just went hey diddle diddle right down the middle like it was a Sunday walk in the park, because there was no one shooting back -there was NO ONE there to "attack". In other words, it was staged for the propaganda effect.

2) There were at least two Americans involved in the production - the narrator, and a masked jihadist who executed a line of alleged Syrian soldiers after forcing them to dig their own grave (I'll never understand that - "dig my own grave? Bite me! Dig it yer DAMN self! Just shoot me now, and YOU do the damned work!"). At another point, a massacre after an ambush of fleeing soldiers, an American voice was heard to say "yes sir!" while a captured Kalashnikov was being handed to what appeared to be a teenage "fighter".

3) ISIS can't shoot for crap. In one scene, while a jihadist is shooting at a departing tank (with a Kalashnikov! here's his sign!) that was perhaps 50 meters away, all of his shots went into the ground 15 or 20 meters short of the tank. Come on, can't even hit a tank at 50 meters? Riflemen they ain't. I think it was the same guy that shot an already dead guy up close and personal for the cameras (probably the only way he could hit him). Waste of ammo, anyone?

4) while an ISIS fighter is preparing a mortar to be fired behind a berm (probably not the brightest idea he had all day), some of his "brethren" are firing over the berm ("front - towards enemy" comes to mind - we know the direction of the enemy from that), a bullet lands at his feet BEHIND the berm. Now how do you reckon that bullet turned around and came back at him after coming from the other side of the berm? Homing bullets? Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

5) There was a mention of "the war between man and kafr", indicating that the rest of us in dar al-harb have already been dehumanized by Gomer's Boys.

6) It ended with a message to America from Gomer himself, which I took to be of the form "come get us here, or we'll come get you THERE", but which OB interpreted as "Allah will force you to fight us here, whether you want to or not" in fulfillment of some Islamic prophecy. Whichever way it was really meant, the one unifying theme in the message was "resistance is futile - we're gonna get you, whether here or there - your end is inevitable".

7) there was another place in the video where the goal was stated as "we fight to extend our rule to the entire world under Allah".

8) One of my favorites was "the cowardly resistance to the Islamic State" - wait... what? Since when is "resistance" of any stripe the mark of a coward? Cowards usually run away rather than standing to fight in my experience. That's to be contrasted with the "brave mujahideen brothers" who shoot rockets at tanks in the video, then run like hell because that tank might turn it's turret and blast them to bitty pieces when they miss.

The beat goes on. it's a laugh a minute for anyone who knows what to look for in a propaganda piece.

a reply to: nenothtu

nvm.

a reply to: OpinionatedB


How about this article someone tweeted me today. I can't get it translated well enough and it was from a pro-Israeli Twitterer. Also, I can't find the connecting source from the Washington Post, but it's interesting because of another article I found today...CIA related to be printed in the Boston Globe on Sunday.

CIA-Chef gesteht Misstrauen von US-Bürgern
de.awdnews.com...

Spy. Assassinate. Protect.
www.bostonglobe.com...

Anythoughts?

a reply to: TerrorAlertRed


Regarding the first article, I have no thoughts. American distrust of the CIA reported in a German paper is none of my concern. I can't imagine caring what Germans think that the Americans think about their own intelligence agencies.

I don't trust anything Diane Feinstein has to say about anything at all. I wouldn't trust that woman if she told me the sky was blue until I'd checked it out and confirmed it for myself - which makes "information" coming from her entirely unnecessary, and worse than that, useless.

The second article amused me. A "bigger, more lethal clandestine service like the French"?

ROFLMFAO!

Now, to be sure the CIA isn't as effective as it once was, but lethal Frenchmen?

It hurts to laugh this hard. The French are way too civilized - their forte, from what I hear, is in arenas other than lethality entirely. They seem to have trouble handling Islamic discontent in Paris... why should they race around the world looking for trouble from them?

I agree that small, nimble teams are better suited to the operations at hand, but vehemently disagree with "combining" all the American clandestine services. I'd rather eliminate about half of them or better entirely as useless, and shunt those resources they gobble up into the more useful ones. Most of the "small, nimble teams" necessary for training and coordination of indigenous forces can be supplied by Special Forces, and "small, nimble teams" for other, umm, "eventualities" can be had from other, umm, "sources", and are already in place and available.

The CIA's job is collecting intelligence and sending it to where it can be useful, not running around playing James Bond. The military has their own intel unit, the DIA. Coordination of information between the two, sure, but not a merger of them, since they have different spheres of action.

The FBI has NO business engaging in overseas operations, whether against terrorists or what have you. It's beyond their remit, and WAY out of their league. Anti-terrorist operations are not legal investigations, and law enforcement has no business playing in that field. I don't even understand why anyone ever brings them into the discussion of overseas anti-terrorist operations.

This guy have a stong speach

a reply to: spy66


It amazes me, these rants and this line of reasoning that never mentions other players......just US, UK and Israle....historically present in the area. He talks about war profiteers. Hell all I see are brand new AK-47s everywhere.

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: spy66


It amazes me, these rants and this line of reasoning that never mentions other players......just US, UK and Israle....historically present in the area. He talks about war profiteers. Hell all I see are brand new AK-47s everywhere.

We all know who they are, he dosent have to mention them at all.

Profiteers? Its not just the coprations who beefit from war. Soldiers, sivilians who manufacture weapons. A soldier fallows orders because he/she is paid to. Siviliance build weapons because they are paid to. Even at the end of the day non of these know that they have contributed to the WARs.

a reply to: Logarock

We saw quite a few Russian and Chinese manufactured weapons in their movie actually. Not too many US made of anything there. Not too many of anything ISIS uses that are US made - blaming the US because someone has Russian and Chinese weapons is a bit pointless and makes one look a bit foolish as a general rule.

The whole "Oh Oh that guy has a Russian weapon.. It's the US's fault!" Hopefully you will see how that sounds right there, now... it sounds a bit different if you show proof of some trail between the US purchasing these weapons and supplying them to ISIS.. but without the trail it just sounds poorly thought out.

I like blaming the US on a lot of things, no worries there. But I am wondering why I would be discussing the US supplying weapons to ISIS (or any other US government topic) in a thread that is discussing the media not fact checking prior to publishing stories?

I suppose you would be blaming me for not cursing at the US government enough for your taste though... hatred of something does have a tendency to shine through.

Too bad its not hatred of innocent people dying - and media feeding into the enemies hands. Since the media is the topic of conversation.

a reply to: spy66

He did speak very strongly - and I agree with him on some points. What I didn't like is they cut out everything the other guy had to say - often something is more powerful when you can hear both sides, one sided is just ranting. Although there were many things in his rant I do agree with.

But not everything. He used a daily mail article that was bunk as a source. That was bad - it means he has preconceived biases and will believe anything that confirms it.

I do believe that the US needs to stop, stop funding stop supporting anyone and stop deciding that they can decide anything. They are too ignorant to make a good choice, and right now there isn't one to be had anyway - so its best to bow out.

Muslims themselves need to fix this particular problem from this point forward where concerns middle eastern countries, clean up the mess that has been made and get on with life.

US needs to close her borders and worry about herself for a change - as the man said, veterans are killing themselves, we have a broke economy etc and its time to fix our own problems. War can never be sustained indefinitely.

I'm not one to point a finger at just one here as fingers can be pointed in many places, but its time we all point the finger at our own selves, and all do what it takes to move on in the best manner possible. Instead of saying its their fault ect. It's time to say I can do this and it will help the situation, and then do it.

That means Iran needs to take charge in the region as a Muslim nation who desires to protect innocent people from ISIS and go about the business of that. That means the US needs to say its best to bow out now and do just that. Muslims as a whole need to fight extremism in every mosque there is in every way they can and start making damn sure we take care of our own damn problems.

We all have our role, its time to play it in the best manner we can. The Prophet of Islam said that sectarianism would be the death of us. We are seeing that in spades at current moment. The true Muslim will stand and say Lakum deenukum waliya deeni and hand in hand with our neighbor make our world better - lest we be slaughtered wholly now.

a reply to: spy66

Sweet Jesus in a shoe box! I could stand to sit through right at one minute of that, apparently, 8 - nearly 9 - minute BS fest. What I heard was "let's not fix any problems we or anyone else may be having, instead let's pass around a crapload of already debunked BS and hope no one notices that we're just trying to pass off old propaganda!"

Some people are just a pimple on the worlds collective ass - nothing but a short, sharp irritation before they disappear from anyone's memory. The guy in that video is one of them. I wouldn't expect much more from him though - after all, he's speaking merely to gratify PressTV!

originally posted by: spy66

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: spy66


It amazes me, these rants and this line of reasoning that never mentions other players......just US, UK and Israle....historically present in the area. He talks about war profiteers. Hell all I see are brand new AK-47s everywhere.

We all know who they are, he dosent have to mention them at all.

Profiteers? Its not just the coprations who beefit from war. Soldiers, sivilians who manufacture weapons. A soldier fallows orders because he/she is paid to. Siviliance build weapons because they are paid to. Even at the end of the day non of these know that they have contributed to the WARs.

Step back from the edge...

How in the HELL can anyone participate in a war and not know their own damned contributions?

I know all about mine, and you obviously never made any, or you would in no way ever be able to make such a patently and provably false statement.

How in the HELL can anyone build weapons and not know they've contributed to a fight? That's WHY they build weapons - to contribute to a fight!

I can see you've never been a soldier with bone-headed statements like "soldiers follow orders because they are paid to" - what a load of baloney! Soldiers follow orders because their brothers lives depend on it.

Frankly, you seem to know nothing about anything connected to conflict, going by your statements here.

My advice is not to quit your day job - you're walking into what appears to be entirely unfamiliar territory.

originally posted by: OpinionatedB
a reply to: Logarock

We saw quite a few Russian and Chinese manufactured weapons in their movie actually. Not too many US made of anything there. Not too many of anything ISIS uses that are US made - blaming the US because someone has Russian and Chinese weapons is a bit pointless and makes one look a bit foolish as a general rule.

And JAPANESE! My God! Don't let those nefarious Japanese off the hook! They were getting around using Japanese supplied pickup trucks - Toyotas and Nissans! Oh that wiley Tojo! Got us AGAIN!

The whole "Oh Oh that guy has a Russian weapon.. It's the US's fault!" Hopefully you will see how that sounds right there, now... it sounds a bit different if you show proof of some trail between the US purchasing these weapons and supplying them to ISIS.. but without the trail it just sounds poorly thought out.

To be fair, a lot of that stuff did LOOK Russian, but may not have directly been. For example, both the Egyptian Maadi assault rifle and the Iraqi Tabuk assault rifle and al-Quds sniper rifles LOOK Russian but aren't - directly. They are made on Russian provided machinery, but made locally, and can only be distinguished from a Russian AKM or (in the case of the al-Quds) a Russian SVD sniper rifle by looking at the markings on the receiver and magazine - which are in Arabic script rather than Cyrillic. The al-Quds has what looks like a palm tree stamped into the strengthening ribs on the side of the magazine. We didn't get any images that close to the weapons, so had to work on general appearance.

The BMPs and whatnot were doubtlessly Russian, as were the Dashika HMGs mounted in various places like the back of the pickup trucks previously mentioned to create "technicals". As far as I know, none of those were made locally, but a goodly number of them were probably captured from the Syrian army, one of Russia's bestest clients.

I recall seeing ONE captured US-made, M4 carbine, ONE US-made M16-A3, and ONE US-made M16A1, an ancient relic probably left over from the conflicts in Lebanon in the 80's, and one US made humvee, probably captured from fleeing Iraqi "soldiers". there were some US Abrams tanks shown, but they were being shot at by Gomer's Boys, not used by them.

All of the RPG-7V's were Russian made, as far as I could tell, but those are everywhere in the Middle East - the Russians flooded the market with them.

I like blaming the US on a lot of things, no worries there. But I am wondering why I would be discussing the US supplying weapons to ISIS (or any other US government topic) in a thread that is discussing the media not fact checking prior to publishing stories?

Well, it IS an excellent example of failing to fact-check, isn't it?

I suppose you would be blaming me for not cursing at the US government enough for your taste though... hatred of something does have a tendency to shine through.

Don't it, though? That very hatred is often the recognition factor for mere propaganda! When hatred is allowed to overtake reason and logic, you know you've got a winner!

Too bad its not hatred of innocent people dying - and media feeding into their hands. Since the media is the topic of conversation.

I think the main source of that propaganda IS "the media" - one must ask one's self just WHICH media, and what the agenda is...

... 'cause nowadays, they've ALL got an agenda!

originally posted by: nenothtu

originally posted by: spy66

originally posted by: Logarock
a reply to: spy66


It amazes me, these rants and this line of reasoning that never mentions other players......just US, UK and Israle....historically present in the area. He talks about war profiteers. Hell all I see are brand new AK-47s everywhere.

We all know who they are, he dosent have to mention them at all.

Profiteers? Its not just the coprations who beefit from war. Soldiers, sivilians who manufacture weapons. A soldier fallows orders because he/she is paid to. Siviliance build weapons because they are paid to. Even at the end of the day non of these know that they have contributed to the WARs.

Step back from the edge...

How in the HELL can anyone participate in a war and not know their own damned contributions?

I know all about mine, and you obviously never made any, or you would in no way ever be able to make such a patently and provably false statement.

How in the HELL can anyone build weapons and not know they've contributed to a fight? That's WHY they build weapons - to contribute to a fight!

I can see you've never been a soldier with bone-headed statements like "soldiers follow orders because they are paid to" - what a load of baloney! Soldiers follow orders because their brothers lives depend on it.

Frankly, you seem to know nothing about anything connected to conflict, going by your statements here.

My advice is not to quit your day job - you're walking into what appears to be entirely unfamiliar territory.

Your nothing but a blind patriot. You are the one this guy is talking about and who i am talking about.

You dont know a damn thing about what you have been a part of. So stopp talking crap. You havent saved anyone, you have been part of a Project that have made sure people get killed. Are you so blind that you dont get it?