Stopping the Syrian refugees is ISIS strategy.

[TheVictors]

ISIS sells oil well below 'market price' and to a very concentrated group of desperate buyers. I saw an Energy Analyst speak yesterday who said that ISIS basically sells its oil to low grade refiners ...likened to 'moonshiners' in how rudimentary and basic their processing is ...and then turn and sell this low grade petroleum to the population in the areas. ISIS isn't exporting oil anywhere and isn't necessarily thinking big picture about how to manage possible revenue from it. They're just thugs who stole it and are selling it on the black market to raise quick money.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I did see something about protests in Syria.

http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-east-west-asia/archive/2015/11/19/720528/story.html

At the end of this article:

In the meantime, dozens of people took to the street in Manbij to protest against ISIS atrocities. However, the group opened fire on the protesters, killing at least two and wounding several others. The rest of the protesters were arrested, said activists in Manbij.

This is the third protest organized by the people of Manbij in two months, calling for the departure of the terror group from their city and denouncing its violations against civilians.

 

[zyxt9]

I think the only reason they haven't yet gone after Israel is they are focused more on taking over the US influenced lands. They recognize that to defeat Israel, they first need to defeat the US who is Israel's biggest supporter. If they can get rid of US influence in the region, they will gain unprecedented numbers of supporters and even more money, not to mention gaining lands closer and closer to the Israeli border.

 

[zyxt9]

ISIS sells oil well below 'market price' and to a very concentrated group of desperate buyers. I saw an Energy Analyst speak yesterday who said that ISIS basically sells its oil to low grade refiners ...likened to 'moonshiners' in how rudimentary and basic their processing is ...and then turn and sell this low grade petroleum to the population in the areas. ISIS isn't exporting oil anywhere and isn't necessarily thinking big picture about how to manage possible revenue from it. They're just thugs who stole it and are selling it on the black market to raise quick money.

Yeah, sorry if I was implying something else.

But keeping the world price of oil low forces IS to lower their prices as well. Those refineries will go with the lowest price, whether it is from IS or someone else. IS is spending money at a mad rate. Forces have also hit resources and apparently cut their supply in half, roughly. My question then is, why haven't they taken out those sources 100%. Let IS burn through all of their money and then see how long they can survive...just be careful of the splinters that result instead of doing what the Intelligence community has been doing for decades and ignore threats of such "small and insignificant" nature. Just because a group is small, doesn't mean they cannot inflict damage and cause problems.

 

[TheVictors]

Yeah, sorry if I was implying something else.

But keeping the world price of oil low forces IS to lower their prices as well. Those refineries will go with the lowest price, whether it is from IS or someone else. IS is spending money at a mad rate. Forces have also hit resources and apparently cut their supply in half, roughly. My question then is, why haven't they taken out those sources 100%. Let IS burn through all of their money and then see how long they can survive...just be careful of the splinters that result instead of doing what the Intelligence community has been doing for decades and ignore threats of such "small and insignificant" nature. Just because a group is small, doesn't mean they cannot inflict damage and cause problems.

That's not exactly the impression I got from the analyst when asked about the assertion that "we should just bomb the hell out of their oil fields and choke off the money."

The answer was more to say that selling oil on the black market for whatever price really wasn't their primary source of revenue to begin with based in part on having a limited number of buyers. So this idea that you destroy their oil supply to kill them off is off-base in practice, while sound in theory. Also, the buyers of ISIS oil are themselves being terrorized and bullied by ISIS so it's not like it's a Free Market ...they buy from the guys who they're told to buy from because they have no other options.

 

[zyxt9]

That's not exactly the impression I got from the analyst when asked about the assertion that "we should just bomb the hell out of their oil fields and choke off the money."

The answer was more to say that selling oil on the black market for whatever price really wasn't their primary source of revenue to begin with based in part on having a limited number of buyers. So this idea that you destroy their oil supply to kill them off is off-base in practice, while sound in theory. Also, the buyers of ISIS oil are themselves being terrorized and bullied by ISIS so it's not like it's a Free Market ...they buy from the guys who they're told to buy from because they have no other options.

Interesting. That's very different from the reports that were coming out saying they make about $2M per day from oil alone.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I wish we had a couple Muslims on this board. I'd like to know more about the phrase "targeting of innocents". I saw an ad taken out by a Muslim group expressing condolences and explaining that Islam forbids terrorism and "the targeting of innocents" and I'm pretty sure that's not the first time I've seen that phrase.

So who's not innocent by Islamic standards? By Christian standards, none of us are completely innocent.

 

[zyxt9]

I wish we had a couple Muslims on this board. I'd like to know more about the phrase "targeting of innocents". I saw an ad taken out by a Muslim group expressing condolences and explaining that Islam forbids terrorism and "the targeting of innocents" and I'm pretty sure that's not the first time I've seen that phrase.

So who's not innocent by Islamic standards? By Christian standards, none of us are completely innocent.

Very grey area. Moderate Muslim views vs Extremist Terrorist views on this are very different. Extremist Muslims consider anyone not following the Koran to the extreme level to be infidels, and the fact they made a conscious choice not to follow the Koran, none of their victims are innocent.

When talking about Extremists, logic has little impact on their views.

Same applies to Extreme Orthodoxy of any religion. Christians reject any non-Christian, Jews any non-Jew, Buddist any non-Buddist, etc. All groups have members who are so extreme they are unwilling to interact with anyone not of their kind, and view anyone not of their kind to have made a choice to not be devout enough, and by making that choice they are not innocent.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Digging around on reddit, I found the following answer to a similar question:

The verses Islamic extremists and Islamophobes both use are stories where the prophet (pbuh) were at wars with particular groups of pagan who seeked out the prophet's and his companions' lives just for practicing Islam, and it's these groups of people the Quran were talking about, not anyone else.

 

[tomdalton22]

So we trust our government to sift out any terrorists claiming to be refugees? I don't think they are that competent.

 

[sggatecl]

So we trust our government to sift out any terrorists claiming to be refugees? I don't think they are that competent.

I trust them to do that more than I trust them to take care of our vets. Which is ironic because that's the counter argument being thrown around ad nauseum this week.

 

[TheVictors]

Interesting. That's very different from the reports that were coming out saying they make about $2M per day from oil alone.

maybe in the context of the bigger picture, $2M/day isn't as much as it seems.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/17/a-new-front-in-the-war-on-isis-target-its-cash.html

this is along the lines of the live interview I saw.

 

[mhughes0021]

Interesting. That's very different from the reports that were coming out saying they make about $2M per day from oil alone.

We should be bombing the countries that are enabling ISIS by buying their oil. Its probably us lol.