BEST OF OFFG: “Questions you aren’t supposed to ask about ISIS”

Catte Black

Republished as part of our ‘Best Of’ series, revisiting some of OffG’s Pre-Covid editorials – either because they help remind us of important realities easily overlooked nowadays, or because they take on added significance in a ‘post-covid’ world.

Do you remember 2015? It seems more than six years ago. Do you remember when ISIS were the villains du jour? Do you remember the way they sprung up out of nowhere?

How about their laminated end-of-year reports? Their mobile app? Or their TV studio? Or their own currency?

ISIS was a media narrative masking an agenda, and being pushed forward with such momentum that people were swept along despite their better judgment.

This was the first article on OffG to get any serious attention – a watershed moment in our history, and a classic example of what we believe our job is.

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ISIS. Murky, masked, terrifying Bad Guys. Islamic hardliners, doing unspeakably ghastly things in faraway sandy places. A horde poised to be unleashed on the innocent everywhere.

They merge in the Jungian western mind with race memories of the Saracen, that other convenient boogey man from a previous and ultimately ill-fated bid to make strategic conquest into a moral Crusade. Fear is the message. And it works.

As with most official narratives, the ISIS trope is left largely unexamined by mainstream media, while at the same time being used as a major motivation for continued and increasing war in the Middle East.

Given the growing chaos in the region, now spreading to Yemen, and the increasingly blurry role ISIS would appear to be playing, as media fear-porn, war-provocateur and enemy of western enemies, we’ve decided to do a short series asking some of the largely un-addressed questions about these people, and who may be offering them direct or indirect support.

HOW DID ISIS ACQUIRE THOSE MATCHING TOYOTA TRUCKS?

The official story is ISIS stole them from the “Good Terrorists”, (Al Nusra), who were originally given their cool wheels by the US government. Which would seem to beg a couple of enquiries. Not least of which is – why are the US giving any terrorists matching fleets of luxury SUVs? And for that matter, how many fleets are we talking about?

The bronze one?

The white-ish one without logos?

The white one with logos?

Or the silver and black one?

We note ISIS seems reluctant to mix and match its various models. Though occasionally a rogue makes it through…

So, exactly how many trucks did the US supply? Where are ISIS currently garaging this impressive collection? And why do they all have to be Toyotas? Is it a terrorist thing, or simply a US Govt preference? Do Toyota mind the brand-association? Or the fact that so many of the ISIS drive-by photo-ops look like perverted car ads?

Which brings us to a truck-related question:

WHO TAKES THE PHOTOS?

Specifically – who takes those PR style pics of the matching fleets sailing by, replete with gun-toting, flag-waving terrorists leaning out of every window? Are they just being caught in transit by various opportunist photographers? Or are they pre-planned drive-buys for the purpose of publicity?

If the former, then do ISIS travel everywhere like that – with guys leaning out the windows holding massive ISIS flags? Wouldn’t that slow them down and also make them really easy to identify and take out?

If the latter – who is handling their publicity?

Did they make this video?

Is it by any chance the same people who keep giving them free cars?

You can read the original version of this article here, read the breakdown of ISIS’ alleged finances in part 2, or read our overview of the entire ISIS narrative here.