Know your enemy: What can we learn from ISIS propaganda?

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 09:46:17 -0500

This article, from Cracked.com surprisingly, is interesting because it opposes the mainstream thinking about ISIS, and implies different ways of combating and defeating it. Does it change your views about how to deal with them?

http://www.cracked.com/blog/isis-wants-us-to-invade-7-facts-revealed-by-their-magazine/

7 Things I Learned Reading Every Issue Of ISIS's Magazine

ISIS has a magazine. That is not a joke. An actual glossy, full-color magazine called Dabiq, complete with feature articles and photo spreads.

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 23 at 2015 10:20 AM

PO3 Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 10:20:54 -0500

... so ?? we should do what? not kill them? There maybe truth to the article, but clearly killing them is part of the answer, don't tell me that we shouldn't fight them with weapons, because they wanted it. It is like bullies, they ask for a fight, but when the fight get tough ... they become coward. Learn anything yet?

We should do more than killing them alone, but for sure killing them must be part of the equation.

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made Nov 23 at 2015 10:32 AM

Capt Seid Waddell — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 10:32:43 -0500

I think we need to give them what they want - an extremely violent reaction to their barbarity. Let them go to get their virgins with a smile on their faces.

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 23 at 2015 12:09 PM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 12:09:50 -0500

You want to beat them, for real? OK. Blueprint follows.
1. Unleash the full fury of cyber warfare on them. Nuke their sites. Disable their servers remotely. Knock out whole domains if you have to. Just to make sure, patrol the airspace over ISIS territory with an EA-6 (or current equivalent) with the knob dialed to 11, frying hardware and knocking out cellular infrastructure.
2. Go after their revenue streams in earnest. Now that they've pillaged the banks, there just isn't much in ISIS held territory that generates money. One big one is oil. Knocking out the fuel trucks is a good start. Going after the finances of supporters and sponsors overseas would be devastating. Any confiscated funds should be utilized to support the refugee camps. I think that even Allah would approve of their act of charity.
3. Publicize the hell out of items one and two. If there is one thing today's youth fears, it is being cut off from their social media and the internet. If there is one thing that people with money fears, it is that it be taken away and spent on something they don't like.
4. Real subtly, but steadily, smoke some of the outlying ISIS outposts. Do it in different ways. One falls prey to bombing. Another with an SF raid. Leave the bodies there for someone to find. While dying gloriously as a martyr is revered in ISIS, dying anonymously and unremembered in some dusty town is a powerful dissuader. Don't claim responsibility; let them guess. Maybe it was the Russians or the Iranians, or the Kurds, or Assad. It doesn't matter. It was someone with some powerful mojo that came out of the desert with a vengeance and left a smoking ruin and your thugs in the dirt like Owen and Beru Lars (Star Wars shoutout).
Isolate and besiege the core strongholds of Raqqa and Mosul. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Park your forces with flags flying high just out of range. It won't take long before they desperately attempt to strike out and get away or go down fighting. Let them. Nice, open fields of fire surround both cities. If they happen to surrender, isolate the sheep from the goats out in the open desert, not in the cities. Goats go to Iran or Syria for detention (whichever makes sense). There they will meet a brutal and forgotten end, buried in unmarked graves.

I think we could accomplish all this with a light, airmobile force supported with a Stryker Brigade for the endgame. Less than 10,000 troops total, including air assets.

This conflict is one of ideas and ideology. It is more than a physical conflict. But like a hydra, you have to cut off the heads and burn the stumps. They have built this fight up as the Islamic version of Armageddon. If they lose that battle, their version of prophesy is discredited as illigitimate among the faithful.
Problem solved.
Until next time.

Response by LTC Jason Mackay made Nov 23 at 2015 10:52 PM

LTC Jason Mackay — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 22:52:30 -0500

We learn that the ISIS PAO school teaches them all to woodenly wag their finger in the air while they film.