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this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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What exactly makes people join ISIS? Is the US exploiting some legitimate tensions or disagreements? Is the US offering them control over the region or do they really believe the US won't stab them in the back later? I can almost always understand why leadership would be dogs for the empire, but what keeps the people on the ground radicalized? How do they recruit, what makes someone want to join and feel conviction? Is there a good Marxist resource for reading more about it?
The same reason people join any movement (not in any order):
I don’t believe anyone truly thinks the US won’t stab them in the back. I mean officially, ISIS is at odds with everyone. But with #13, the US isn’t sending guys in dress blues to meet with an ISIS cleric. Sometimes they may send actual CIA/intelligence operatives (though sometimes actual politicians will meet with them, like Charlie Wilson). But usually they hire a guy who hires a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.
That guy may or may not know the chain of command, and he trains/recruits/passes on equipment and info to others, in this case ISIS, and the group may or may not be fully aware that they’re being played. The US is not always promising anyone anything. Sometimes they just have networks that believe their own agendas are progressing by their own merits.
Sometimes they’re also trying to play their circumstantial allies. For example, it is claimed by Israeli liberals that Netanyahu gave weapons and intelligence to Hamas to further divide Palestinian opinion on governance. This may be true, but it doesn’t mean you’re a puppet to your backers. It may mean you just take their shit and use it against them. Gaddafi, Noriega, and Saddam were US puppets at one point but decided they wanted to pursue other things.
However, with ISIS specifically, it was a movement that was birthed alongside al Qaeda and other terrorist movements. But it really took over after al Qaeda became irrelevant and the west destroyed the Middle East. Governments and security were barely functional. There is no food, no water, no hope except heaven, and that’s what ISIS essentially promised - a way to regain glory and blessing by seizing back resources, control, and spreading the word of “god.”
Muslims who suffered in the Middle East with no help from the government, the west, and with practically no leftist presence, they have three choices: continue working to provide what little they can for their families, and/or take up arms against the invaders and terrorists, and/or join the terrorists for the above reasons.
Thank you for the detailed response!
No problem. It’s not detailed, really. This is just a more or less vague explanation of the overall state of things. But I would look more into countries like Libya and Iraq to see how the countries devolved into chaos.
Alternatively, you can also look at Latin American countries for a similar phenomenon in a more industrialized context. In this case, many of the founding members of prominent cartels were once government officials, trained by the US to run fascist dictatorships. These guys were promised power, control, luxury, and protection if they can murder communists and undermine their movements. Look up School of the Americas, Operation Condor, and Years of Lead (in Latin America), Iran-Contra, the historic intelligence agencies of Mexico and Chile.
Even when the fascists branched away from government and became narcos, communists were still a threat to the government and cartels (as the communists were against both), which resulted in back room deals with the Latin American governments, cartels, and CIA. These have more explicit US dealings, and I imagine it’s because infrastructure exists to allow for it (like cartel guys will mingle with celebrities and politicians at clubs and boardrooms) compared to terrorist groups in the Middle East being isolated in remote areas and bases.
However, recruiting Islamic terrorists also have an extra challenge (or maybe not challenge depending on your goals) of religion and oftentimes nationalism, whereas cartels are just for profit. You don’t exactly need to convince a potential cartel member of anything besides money and girls (maybe revenge), but in the Middle East, people are devoted to religion (and even if they aren’t, they must be perceived as being devout), and sometimes religion is the only thing available because no other infrastructure or community exists, and they have governments all over the world dropping bombs on them - coming in and presenting your shadowy agenda won’t cut it because they see you as an enemy based on everything they’ve been taught and seen. Cartels are buddy-buddy with the west and romanticized, and so as a result, you can show them your agenda and they’ll consider it.
Besides, cartels know the US won’t really invade and occupy much whereas they already are in the Middle East. The US just needs to keep its image of law and order at home WRT cartels, but with Islamic terrorists they have boots on the ground and conducting military operations alongside intelligence.