Isis: The Inside Story - "If there was no US prison in Iraq, there would be no IS..."

[Turborama]

From the mouth of one of the Islamic State’s senior commanders, the astonishing story of the birth of Isis inside an Iraqi prison – right under the noses of their American jailers.

At the beginning, back in Bucca, the prisoner who would become the most wanted man in the world had already set himself apart from the other inmates, who saw him as aloof and opaque. But, Abu Ahmed recalled, the jailers had a very different impression of Baghdadi – they saw him as a conciliatory and calming influence in an environment short on certainty, and turned to him to help resolve conflicts among the inmates. “That was part of his act,” Abu Ahmed told me. “I got a feeling from him that he was hiding something inside, a darkness that he did not want to show other people. He was the opposite of other princes who were far easier to deal with. He was remote, far from us all.”

=snip=

“Baghdadi was a quiet person,” said Abu Ahmed. “He has a charisma. You could feel that he was someone important. But there were others who were more important. I honestly did not think he would get this far.”

Baghdadi also seemed to have a way with his captors. According to Abu Ahmed, and two other men who were jailed at Bucca in 2004, the Americans saw him as a fixer who could solve fractious disputes between competing factions and keep the camp quiet.

“But as time went on, every time there was a problem in the camp, he was at the centre of it,” Abu Ahmed recalled. “He wanted to be the head of the prison – and when I look back now, he was using a policy of conquer and divide to get what he wanted, which was status. And it worked.” By December 2004, Baghdadi was deemed by his jailers to pose no further risk and his release was authorised.

“He was respected very much by the US army,” Abu Ahmed said. “If he wanted to visit people in another camp he could, but we couldn’t. And all the while, a new strategy, which he was leading, was rising under their noses, and that was to build the Islamic State. If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no IS now. Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.”

It's a lengthy piece that's well worth reading in full: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. From the terrorists' own mouths. American bad actions create more terrorists.

When we do evil, when we torture, when we murder, when we 'drone strike', we create new terrorists and fan the flames of hatred for America.

Violence begets violence.

[Thinkingabout]

2. This is a very thin argument, what the hell does whether the US had a prison in Iraq have

to do with the raping the women, killing the men of a group of Yazidi and forcing them on Mount Sinjar. WTH did they have to do with the US even existing? This is crap, this is a vicious group who wants to rule the world.

[Turborama]

3. To find the answers to your questions...

...you'd have to read the article.

[Thinkingabout]

4. What does the Yazidi have to do with US prisons in Iraq? Nothing, nothing at all, ISIS

may be getting the sympathy from some, not here, they killed because they are vicious, nothing more. Believe this crap, I don't.

[riderinthestorm]

6. Did you read the article? Its got some very, very compelling truths we must face nt

[Thinkingabout]

10. What compelled ISIS to attack Yazidi is the overwhelming desire of ISIS leaders to force

that group and every group to follow their ideal religious beliefs back to the 900 ac. NO written articles or ones to be written justifies this. By this thinking the world can attack them for this one deed.

[riderinthestorm]

12. Yes but as the article makes clear, we put them all together in these prisons

The worst jihadis were put together where they decided to stop killing each other and instead kill anyone who didn't conform to their twisted version of Islam.

We did that.

Let them have months and years to assemble their plans and figure out their strategy.

[Thinkingabout]

21. Are you really letting ISIS off the hook because the US may have introduced them?

I do not buy into this propaganda, if it was true why did they attack a group which did not have anything to do with the Iraq war, no this is not the problem. If you said this evil bunch sought to rape women and capture them for the dumbass recruits to have, I would believe this. This makes for consumers of cognitive dissonance.

[riderinthestorm]

24. Please tell me where I've ever "let ISIS off the hook"

I haven't and you can't.

They're a murderous group of psychopaths that we tidily forced together.

To deny that we had a hand in the creation of ISIS is willful ignorance.

If you read the article the one jihadi said that most of them were put in jail for revolting against the perception (and reality) of Maliki's deliberate attempt to establish the Shia as the power group in Iraq - rebelling against our guy. Our Shia puppet. The Sunni outrage over this is/was a big part in their twisted theology in trying to establish another SUNNI caliphate, of course with their demented Sunni version of Islam as the state religion.

[Thinkingabout]

27. We will not let this reasoning it is the fault of the US having prisons in Iraq be the

Scapegoat. Did the US have prisons in Iraq get al-Qaeda bunch together? The blame for attacking Yazidi lies solely on the shoulders of ISIS leaders. They are trying to hold on to their recruits by providing women to them, article says the they get women and wives for the recruits.

[Turborama]

31. We?

Who is this "we" you talk about?

Have you actually read the article yet? If not, you really should.

[Thinkingabout]

32. A if you read the article you know why they killed the Yazidi men, kidnapped their women.

You can buy into the guardian article and lay the blame on the US, if these guys ended up in Iraqi prisons they may have met before and was already on their way to creating ISIS. The we is the US, every man is responsible for the decisions they have or will make in their lives, don't lay those decisions on others. Perhaps the Guardian should investigate more and find this is not the first time this has happened and those times was not due to the US having prisons in Iraq.

[jeff47]

8. If you'd bother to read the article, you might find out.

Since that's obviously not going to happen, the prisons allowed a group of sociopaths to organize themselves into ISIS. They would not have come together without the US putting them together, and allowing al Baghdadi to set up the political connections (and get the political practice) to create ISIS.

Without that time in those prisons, they would have remained warring gangs of thugs. Instead, they were able to organize into the entity that can inflict such cruelty.

[riderinthestorm]

5. Fascinating! We sowed the seeds of,our own destruction. Common theme for failing empires...

"Seventeen of the 25 most important Islamic State leaders now running the war in Iraq and Syria spent time in US prisons"

Yup. We created this monster ourselves.

[leftynyc]

7. That argument would carry a lot more weight if

they were only killing Americans. Meanwhile they're killing, raping and torturing Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Yazidis and anyone else who gets in the way of their caliphate dreams. Perhaps they're just scum who look for any excuse to behave like scum.

[jeff47]

9. The prisons didn't turn them into sociopaths. They already were.

What the prisons did is let them organize into a much larger entity, instead of remaining as warring gangs.

[riderinthestorm]

11. Those plans were hatched in our prisons over there. Did you read the article?

We grouped the worst jihadis together, idle, for months and years at a time. They spent those years plotting and planning.

They wrote and sowed their contact info into their underwear waistbands, under the nose of US military, so they could find each other when they got out.

This group knows that the US is sucked into a financial and physical vortex. They understand the long game and know that our involvement there will ultimately destroy us.

[leftynyc]

16. Yes, I read the article

but I don't agree the US will be destroyed because of it. Our reputation perhaps but the country? No, that wont happen. They simply don't have the support or the funds that it would take to destroy us - it's that simple.

[Thinkingabout]

22. One dead American is victory to them, not only Americans but anyone who does not bow to

their leaders. They were doing well taking hostages and different countries paying them a lot of money, they are pumping oil which is stolen, they are getting money.

[leftynyc]

23. Well, there are over 300 million of us

so I don't see them destroying us anytime soon. Let's remember that taking American hostages didn't start with isis. They're going to have to be taken care of by the countries they're inhabiting (I was going to use invading but that's not correct). I don't see any of them handing over their governments to these swine.

[nichomachus]

13. They're treating others the way we treated them

Brutally, indiscriminately. We are the ones who are scum looking for an excuse to behave like scum.

9-11 wasn't the reason we got involved in the ME -- it was only the excuse. We wanted to go in their and do what we're doing. We just needed a "Pearl Harbor type" event as cover. Someone gave it to us on 9-11.

[leftynyc]

15. You post they treat others the way we treated them

as if that makes any sense whatsoever. If they were killing Americans by the thousands, that would make repulsive sense but that's not what they're doing. Appears to me they're the ones looking for an excuse to behave like scum and decided everyone in the middle east that doesn't share their caliphate dream is worthy of rape and death. That torture report is going to stain our reputation for decades but let's not pretend there aren't scumbags out there who are simply scumbags.

[jwirr]

17. The killing of others is part of their recruiting as is the killing of Americans. Their goal is to

take over where they can and continue to build the neo-Ottoman Empire. Crazy maybe but they do know how to recruit. What remains to see is if they can build their empire. I have my doubts about that.

[leftynyc]

18. They don't have the support for an empire

They'll be around raping and killing for a while but their support is not wide at all. Do you think they have more than 100,000 supporters and fighters? I sure don't and more people than that take Metro North everyday into the city.

[jwirr]

19. Yes, that is what I think also. But then it is not what we think that counts - it is what they think

they are doing.

[Initech]

14. Ah, sweet irony. The "land of the free" builds more prisons than any other civilized country.

And what better way to establish a presence in a war torn country? Build a prison.

[4Q2u2]

20. The facts do not align with the Narratve

This is the group that was so violent that OBL had to write Al Zarqawi himself and tell him to stop killing other Muslims. This has been their vision for that area since 1999. We just so happened to be stupid enough to destabilize the area get a large portion of the Muslim populace running into their arms to support them.

Like American Prisons, they were finishing schools. Where amateurs are taught by Professional Criminals how to perfect their craft.


The group originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which was renamed Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn—commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)—in 2004. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, AQI took part in the Iraqi insurgency. In 2006, it joined other Sunni insurgent groups to form the Mujahideen Shura Council, which consolidated further into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) shortly afterwards. The ISI gained a significant presence in Al Anbar, Nineveh, Kirkuk and other areas, but around 2008, its violent methods, including suicide attacks on civilian targets and the widespread killing of prisoners, led to a backlash from Sunni Iraqis and other insurgent groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

http://www.vox.com/cards/things-about-isis-you-need-to-know/what-is-isis

[malaise]

25. You mean there were no garlands greeting the torturers

I am shocked I tell you - NOT

[DonCoquixote]

26. Just like in America

Where every Criminal syndicate from the Bloods to the Crips to the Latin Kings actually USED prisons as a means to gather recruits and train them. Most people would be shocked to realize that the American prison system is in effect, a recruiting and training area for criminals, part University and part Cult compound.

Take some small time crooks, maybe some kids busted for weed. Throw them in with an ORGANIZED GROUP of criminals, whose groups literally have international chains of command, written constitutions, and infrastructures both in and outside the Prison walls. Once in, make the petty crooks have to do anything to survive in an overcrowded place where supervision is impossible, which of course makes the guards either corrupted, or frustrated, which means hyper violent. Make it IMPOSSIBLE to survive unless you join a gang, and difficult to survive even if you do join a gang. Then throw in the facts these gangs have means of training and indoctrination that would make most cults jealous, because they can take advantage of the fact people are isolated from family and in constant, 24/7 fear.

Make sure they are literally slaves of experienced criminals, who will make sure they need to know everything they need to know when they hit the outside, from simple criminal skills to talents like the ability to kill your best friends because the Boss wants you to. The major gangs do this like an apprentice program, think of a perverted version of Union apprenticeships. Add in nice touches like prison rape, which is really all about breaking the spirit of someone (same reason the CIA just got caught doing it in Iraq.) In the end, you have a taxpayer funded, often privately owned, means to turn out experienced criminals, most of which costs a lot more than to send someone to college.

[riderinthestorm]

28. Great post. Big kick for this! Nt

[liberal_at_heart]

29. +1

[Turborama]

30. Brilliant and succinct analogy

When you look at it like that, it seems the prison industrial complex is a self perpetuating crime machine and, having seen how it works in the US, TPTB must have known what would happen when it was implemented in Iraq.