art_barbie wrote:Let me address Bin laden first. By my recollections and readings Bin laden had access to little more than 10-20 million dollars...no drop in the bucket but not massive wealth either...I mean...my old boss had a 34 million dollar yacht and on lake michigan of all places...so id take it but its not enough to brand and market an ideology like ISIS which will require maybe 200 billion(with a B) or more to fund its stated objectives...I've also read that Bin Laden only had "real access" to some thing 6-7 million total of the money had...and I understand that he stood to inherit a few hundred million if he just stayed at home and hung with the homies...so for him...yeah this was not exactly about the money, exactly...But we dont really know about that...What if Bin Laden thought it was stupid for his father and uncles to sell oil so cheaply to the unitied states and other oil consuming nations? What if his entire family secretly despised the US and our involvement and constant medaling in the area. You know he was born with a large enough silver spoon up his ass that he didn't have to care about throwing away 20 million or the potential 200-300 million potential inheritance because he of the leisure class had time to contemplate such leisure ideologies such as getting a wild hair up that same ass and ..."I know!! let's start a revolution!" Eccentiric, wealthy, (crazy) phucks get ideas in their head like this from time to time. it has always happened and it wil continue to happen....what makes Bin laden and his crazy any cooler? And what if Bin laden himself is just a pawn to a secret middle eastern value even of "friendly" middle eastern nations. Bin laden, ISIS, Al-queda, whoever...its all just part of the plan to irritate, and nag, and throw stones at the tanks of the US and other large armed plutocracies in the hopes to get us out?? To rid the ME of all non middle eastern involvement. To GTFO of the middle east? because they do want their oil? and to charge whatever they want for it? Wouldn't you??? And perhaps to bring the rest of the world to its knees? Foolish I know? But this is a somewhat of a foolish region, no?
So Yeah...perhaps on some level i dont disagree with with your and others overall premise...as say their pre-game. Its just that
you (not you personally but anyone in this thread that thinks this isn't going to come down to control over the territory and therefore control over the oil and therefore...massive wealth)
are not looking at the end game.
Let say ISIS gets what they want...and
feel free to add to these stated goals of ISIS:
Stated Goal 1. I read in this article that they want to
Kill off all other muslims in the area...why exactly? Oh...because they interpret the koran a slightly different way...and by slight...it could be very very slight difference of interpretation. So off with the other Muslim heads, right? Let's assume ISIS eliminates every other single Muslim on the planet
What does this accomplish??? In your words please. Please tell me what this would accomplish. And when you do please include where most of the rest of the Muslims live and by the millions (feel free to estimate and be brief)...for example you could say the middle east. And then what do these Muslims control or own? As in what would ISIS Muslim gain by killing off all th erest of the world's Muslims? Again you could be brief and say something like 70% of the worlds oil reserves. But really...in your own words. And where would ISIS start to eliminate Muslims by the millions? USA? France? India? Or maybe in their own back yard? Like Saudi Arabia? But really, in your own words. I dont want to write this narrative for you.
Stated Goal 2. Enslave and tax all non muslims like christians. isn't that a bit odd by the way...the non-ISIS muslim die and the christians, jews, orthadox, scientologists, mormans etc. live?? So long as they pay a tax and declare loyalty to the prophet...hmmm (side eyes).
So what the objective of goal #2?? what does this accomplish?? I mean the taxing part i think we all get, right?
Money 
...collect money right. Money...but then the enslavement part? What do you think they plan to do with all the non-muslim slaves that aren't killed? Because Ive read a little bit about slavery and I'm pretty sure there is going to be some free labor involved and some heavy lifting which will produce some kind of product...which is usually sold...not sure who is going to buy it if the rest of the world is dead or enslaved...But I'm pretty sure Ive seen this movie. So I assume that if ISIS gets it way and makes this all happen then social classes of ISIS will form with their being an elite class and a pretty wealthy class which own manufacturing and then there will be a much larger middle class and lower class of ISIS which will consume said manufactured goods, right?? Hmmmm...yeah I'm pretty damn sure Ive seen this movie about this already happening somewhere and it sure does sound familiar...now of course the churches will be mosques and the words and teaching a little bit different but yeah...you know the saying the more things change the more they sound the same...but truly in your own words...if your vision of ISIS achieve goal #1 and #2, how does this not end up being about money/power and therefore control of the world just like the rich control the world today but are centuries ahead and therefore a tad more sophisticated and nuanced about how they enslave others and basically run sh*t.
You are really over thinking all this, or not thinking it enough.
Replace 'money' with 'religion' as the main motivation and all your explanations will make sense.
Of course they want to run the world, and enslave others, but you're just off in their reason to do want to do so. It's almost to the point of being semantics in a manner, it at least so much as its their resulting
actions (the killing and enslaving) that must be combated and dealt with, and that labeling the ultimate underlying motivation is almost superfluous to that.
But to the extent we
are interested in that a mountain of evidence is piled up for psychopathic extremist belief and not simple greed. We can tell this by the actions they take not associated with a monetary gain or loss, such as how they govern the lands they occupy. They don't just take the money/territory and otherwise leave the laws of the land alone - which would be the easiest way to go, especially in already Sunni areas of Iraq, instead they take the money and territory and entirely impose their way of life. Which is not just some phony justification, but indeed the ultimate objective. And they impose it to such a degree that even people who share their general spirit of belief come to chafe under their yoke (such as happened in Anbar Province), to the point of being willing to fight them, if any other realistic avenue to do so is offered.
Wars are typically fought over a few central reasons, territory, resources, or religion (or ideology in some other, usually political, form). And those things inexorably are linked together. If one peoples want to kill the next tribe over principally because they disagree with what they believe, naturally once they kill/conquer them, they will get the resources and land. But its a nice byproduct of their motivation not the core.
Think of it like this, if Europe and the United States were already Islamic countries, run strictly by Sharia Law, actors like Bin Laden and ISIS would not be doing terrorism or attacking it. Because every disagreement and belief and grievance, thus motivation they have to do so, would be erased. They see a country like Saudia Arabia as betraying their principles, as phony and corrupt stewards of their religion, compromised in principle and beholden to the US, which is why they want to overthrow them.
Perhaps you believe there is a certain subset of individuals - and always the
same individuals - who in their DNA are destined to try to overthrow the existing system no matter what it might be. Such that even if the world looked like Bin Laden and ISIS wanted it to look, dominated by Islamic extremist ideology, they would then nonetheless find some other life goal/belief, entirely opposite of the current reality that they now seek (maybe democracy!), as a pretext to become usurpers. But that is beyond the reality of the world I'm interested in countenancing for the sake of logical discussion.
If moral equivalency is your thing (and I think it is since you compared soldiers in a democracy to suicide bombers earlier), and thus a 'pox on all sides' argument, because hey they just want money/power in their own cute little way, just like the western 'Illuminati', and everyone is really all in at the same level, you are certainly free to choose which worldview you prefer to live under. Use your vote here, or if you think its worthless, pick up a gun over there. Crazies are signing up for the death cult every day and heading to Syria. But once they do choose it, that's the end of their freedom to choose. They try to change their mind once there, they get killed. While so far, western countries stupidly let them back in, despite essentially they signed up for treason against their home nations.
You are free to keep nattering about the money narrative all you want, but for the purposes of it being germane to the thread or practical reality that the civilized world is faced with from these acts, I find it quite non-interesting and laborious, and really sidetracking almost to the point of derailment.
LeBron is 0-7 in game winning/tying FGs in the finals. And is 20/116 or 17% in game winning/tying FGs in the 4th/OT for his career. That's historically bad 
