ISIS in Iraq: an inelligence analysis

Some say that ISIS may be a ruse...little more than an asset of the CIA. Clearly their rise to power was unprecedented. Clearly thay accomplished amazing organizational achievements. Clearly the intelligence agancies, in monitoring a country that they ruined and owned, would keep abreast of any insurgency. How did ISIS do all this, while being monitored...while being stoneage religious zealots? There are a lot of unanswered questions here. Some have even suggested ISIS is DESIGNED by CIA/etc. to be a central clearing house for terrorists, so that they will be all in one place so to speak, instead of hiding in the woodwork - and therefore once the terrorists are grouped together - easier to destroy. Personally, I doubt that an intelligence community that illegally spies on the entire world, yet still gets almost every policy move it choses dead-wrong, would elaborate such a doomed and difficult plan. So how dos ISIS do it?

Possibly they are a manipulated group. Yet certainly they aren't supplied and coordinated by western intelligence agencies, given ISIS' vast governmental-type infrastructure at this point. One thing is clear beyond their seemingly unattainable communication and networking expertise - they support a large part of their housing, food, and basic infrastructure as a pseudo-acceptable "other government" in much of Iraq. Despite swelling their ranks with foreign fighters, in Iraq, ISIS is in many ways the pre-war Sunni government returned after all, as far as the Shiites are concerned.

The Shiites folded primarily from areas that were not their traditional territory. These non-traditional, non-tribal territories became a sort of political-spoils for the shiites in Iraq as a reward for gaining government control. ISIS, largely Sunni in terms of Iraq members, could be seen by both factions as simply re-occupying their own territory. Once they do, they are a government with broad consent, and they simply occupy abandoned Shiite houses, business, and enjoy the general spoils of being in charge, including taxation, etc. This is how ISIS' infrastructure is supported, rather than through traditional troop supply methodologies. There is a tank in every garage in some of these villages.

The war has currently stalled along the traditional tribal territorial divisions. Sure, the kurds are taking what they consider theirs by history, but at the same time they have only recently been re-occupying these areas. Basically, now that all the tribes are in place, a bit of a stalemate has ensued.

Given the above, the best strategy for the dysfunctional spy agencies to keep rolling, and basically the only strategy with any possibility of success, is to support the anti-isis Sunni groups within ISIS territory. Any other option is doomed to endless war, and even that option would take decades of war. ugh.

the fools at the pentagon and whitehouse and the overpaid bureaucrats in intelligence broke [remember "shock and awe"] Iraq to fulfill their
agenda of oil politics for multinational corporations, and to continue, drunk with power and bloodlust, deluding themselves that they are in someway sane or functional in handling their responsibility in regards to these wars, economies, etc. These same ultra-wealthy, warmongering, multinational control freaks fail at everything they do, and then pat themselves on the back and do it wrong again, without oversight or free democratic support, because they own everything and their dysfunction is so great, so entrenched, they can see themselves only as infallible as they continue to make every wrong stupid-strategy and greedy-policy and ugly-action toward destroying the world. Iraq is broken. They broke it, and now its war for ever and ever as long as these psychopaths remain in control and make every decision without true democratic oversight.

I have said it before, and I will say it again... psychopaths do not want their victims happy. Criminal psychopaths feed off of control, domination, and seeing their victims in pain. Study psychopaths, and you will see why if psychopaths are in charge, of...lets say...THE ENTIRE WORLD [through controlling economies], they would only want the people to suffer and die the same as any good psychopath would. LIKE ANY VICTIM OF A PSYCHPATH, after all the torture and suffering, THEY WOULD EVEN WANT THE EARTH HERSELF TO DIE if they were in charge of her. That's how psychopaths roll. These psychopathic fools will not try to male the world a better place for others...psychopaths rarely do that, and we can all see what they choose in its stead.

Personally I believe that ISIS rose so quickly in the region due to US strategy failures. To elaborate on what I mean, the US strategy ever since going into Iraq seemed to me to be a strategy of attrition. IED's played a role in limiting the mobility of US forces, but mobility was not that much of a problem and could have been utilized on more occasions and to a greater effect. It always seemed to me that US leaders were failing to grasp that attrition or annihilation will not work against an insurgency. One of the most important aspects of fighting an insurgency is intelligence. The absolute best place to get intelligence in a situation like this is from the local people. Yet the local people will not talk unless they feel safe. If they do not know they are 100% protected and will be protected for a long time to come, either through us staying there a long time, or us eliminating the insurgents, then they are not going to cooperate except in limited instances.

Without this intelligence fighters will blend in with the population much more easily, which did occur. A war of attrition against an insurgency also means that collateral damage is going to be higher, and coupled with the lack of excellent intelligence the likelihood of civilian casualties and damage to civilian property increases. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as my feelings on US strategy failures in the Middle East, but getting to the point...The US did not have efficient security or local intelligence even when they pulled out of Iraq, and this is a big part of why ISIS flew under the radar, although there are probably more reasons as well.

ISIS also helped themselves greatly by realizing that they could take no action while the US was still present in Iraq. They knew the US was going to withdraw soon, and here is what they were likely thinking: if we launch the campaign and attempt to establish our Islamic State now, the US troops being present are more likely to stay indefinitely as they will realize the threat level has increased. But if they are allowed to pull out before striking, then the US cannot fight us. They could return, but it makes more sense to wait as there is a good chance they will not return, as opposed to them already being in Iraq, which is a certainty.

So that is likely why the timing worked out the way it did. And they had likely been waiting for a long time, organizing and gathering resources, as they have a lot of them. They are more powerful than the other groups in the region. This illustrates my point about US intelligence and military failures. How is it possible for ISIS to build up this much support without alerting anyone if the US intelligence apparatus is functioning? So either the US was involved, which I doubt, or they are incompetent. It's just like the taking away of American freedoms to protect us from terrorism. Those tasked with protecting us via intelligence gathering apparently cannot do their jobs without taking away the rights of the people. It seems to me that restructuring is in order. And to top it all off, half of the time there is no inter-agency cooperation. If there were a greater effort at intelligence sharing then even something like 9/11 could have likely been foiled. You would think they would learn, but they haven't. We better hope we don't get embroiled in a war with a major power, as I believe that the US leadership and intelligence system would prove itself to be only partially functioning.