James Foley "beheading" video. For real ...??

[Ben D]

To me, given the videos of ISIS summarily executing large numbers of Iraqi Shia and Yazidis in a manner that would have made the Einsatzgruppen beam with pride - and that their stated focus is anti-'apostate' ie anti-Shia above all else, and that many moderate Sunnis went over to them because of how they were treated by the (Shia) Iraqi Army and by Shia militias, my take is that they only think of hostages in terms of money or a 'fuck you' and will kill every one of them in this way.

Don't think so...if you recall, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the defeated and dispersed ex-Iraqi army Sunnis were the ones killing America troops, Shia, Kurds, Christians, and Yazidis....it was the brilliant strategy of General David Petraeus who bribed them with pay to keep security in the Sunni areas that allowed the Americans to ultimately withdraw from Iraq with some face left. Many of these same Sunnis later joined the new Iraqi army due to much pressure on the Shiite dominated government by the US et al as a way to try and bring about a semblance of a united country and a lessoning of sectarian killings.

However imo most realistic observers knew that the semblance of unity was not real, and these ex-insurgency Sunni army soldiers abided their time until the opportunity arose to rise up, desert the army, and ambush the Iraqi army Shiites. They have now gone back and are doing the same stuff as pre-Petraeus days, but they have had the time to plan and are united under the ISIL/ISIS banner. They now seem to have money in spades that they didn't have before...so the Petraeus bribing strategy can't be repeated.

[8bitagent]

Is James Foley dead or alive?

If he is dead, was he in fact beheaded?
Or, was he terminated in some other fashion, and then we were told he was beheaded?

If he is alive, do his parents in fact think he is dead?
Or, do his parents know he is alive, and for whatever reason are playing along with the ruse that he is dead?

What seems the most plausible?

To me, given the videos of ISIS summarily executing large numbers of Iraqi Shia and Yazidis in a manner that would have made the Einsatzgruppen beam with pride - and that their stated focus is anti-'apostate' ie anti-Shia above all else, and that many moderate Sunnis went over to them because of how they were treated by the (Shia) Iraqi Army and by Shia militias, my take is that they only think of hostages in terms of money or a 'fuck you' and will kill every one of them in this way.

I think they have a 'bring it on' attitude and see what is happening as part of an unfolding divine plan in which they are the avenging angels. In some ways it is as immanent a focus as the neo-cons "Take actions while you just commentate" quote.

When they took over Mosul, they apparently cashed out about $500 million from the banks - and that buys anything they want including very specialist expertise - folks who can do psyops as good as Langley and really fuck with Westerner's heads (sorry) - for example by removing them without blood. From the point of view of brand marketing, they are achieving massive exposure for very little effort. They already have massive financial clout, huge amounts of weaponry, a new alliance with so called Syrian moderates who are themselves being given massive funding from the US which will end up with them and are positioning themselves for an insane battle where they are getting second hand funding from people who are bombing them, fighting Syria and Iran (apparently there are already many Iranian troops with heavy artillery coordinating with the Americans). Also the Peshmerga who were beating them were actually from the Marxist PKK which is a terrorist organisation and a great enemy of Turkey who will not be too happy about them getting re-armed by the US and UK.... Jesus H Christ what an utter clusterfuck.

I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Wasn't it the PKK who saved the Yazidis off the mountain? Not the US? Richard Engle of NBC, whom I actually really like, wrote a long article today where he claims it was
Bashir Assad who kind of helped create ISIS to be a thorn in the FSA and to "prove" the rebels were Islamists. Meaning he emptied all his prisons of Sunni jihadists, and did other things to ensure they would become a monster.
Of course 250,000 dead Syrians later and so much of the country is in total ruins I guess it's a scorched earth thing.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-t ... in-n202841

ISIS reminds me a lot of Mexican cartels. The bizarre lengths of brutality, bravado, and paying a lot of money to recruits. I'm shocked noone in the media or elsewhere has drawn the comparison of ISIS to Zetas.
Either way this "ISIS" I believe was created for one main purpose: to trap the US into Syria and start a chain reaction, a new aeon. Just in time for the height of touch screen HD 24-hour social networking and media saturation.
They are engineered to be the most evil army on the planet, but the conspiracy side of me can't help but wonder for WHOM are they truly working for?

Also as much as I dislike war, I kind of can groove on how there is a 7000 strong female Kurdish army. Does any other Muslim nation have that? http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-t ... ia-n199821

[semper occultus]

...these ex-insurgency Sunni army soldiers abided their time until the opportunity arose to rise up, desert the army, and ambush the Iraqi army Shiites. They have now gone back and are doing the same stuff as pre-Petraeus days, but they have had the time to plan and are united under the ISIL/ISIS banner. They now seem to have money in spades that they didn't have before...so the Petraeus bribing strategy can't be repeated.

...thought that was the force led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri - "the King of Clubs" in the deck of cards ....

The former regime loyalists have regrouped into the Naqshabandi Army, whose fighters are believed to have played just as important role as Isis in the blitz on Mosul and other Sunni areas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10907319/Iraq-crisis-Red-haired-devil-of-Saddams-Iraq-back-in-the-fray.html

...they may still be able to mobilise more tribal / informal style militias but probably only to defend their own areas one would have thought..

[Ben D]

^ Agree...the idea that they could stay united enough to invade and occupy territory outside their cultural-tribal base for any length of time is just fantasy imho.

[Nordic]

No blood...

Movie editing software I have seen at an AVID edit suite allows you to remove blood, add blood, change the hue, shading etc. It takes a couple of mouse clicks.


so, the implication

No blood => No beheading took place

is false.

??? Are you sure that isn't just for computer generated blood? I cannot imagine that would be easily done with real (or fake but "practical") blood. I would have to see it to believe it.

But yes on cg world it is as you say. Especially handy for video games where you can choose the level of gore you want.

[Searcher08]

No blood...

Movie editing software I have seen at an AVID edit suite allows you to remove blood, add blood, change the hue, shading etc. It takes a couple of mouse clicks.


so, the implication

No blood => No beheading took place

is false.

??? Are you sure that isn't just for computer generated blood? I cannot imagine that would be easily done with real (or fake but "practical") blood. I would have to see it to believe it.

But yes on cg world it is as you say. Especially handy for video games where you can choose the level of gore you want.

IIRC in the movie I was helping on, a guy was 'shot' in struggle in water and the used fake real blood pouches. In the edit suite, it didn't look right, and I asked the editor if he could remove it. With about five seconds work max, it was gone and I asked him to put in a lot more and deeper coloured. It looked like Jaws for a bit till we toned it back, but the whole thing from first viewing to scene with changes incorporated took way under a minute (it was like seeing Photoshop style effects on a selected section of a video; on a Mac).

[MinM]

Richard Engle of NBC, whom I actually really like, wrote a long article today where he claims it was Bashir Assad who kind of helped create ISIS to be a thorn in the FSA and to "prove" the rebels were Islamists...

Richard Engle is an interesting case. He was kidnapped by the same folks that kidnapped Foley and Sotloff. Yet here Engle is still spouting the party line. Obviously that kind of loyalty was rewarded when he was released almost as quickly as he was scooped up. No doubt a certain three lettered agency let his captors know .. hey he's with US.

Engle's reporting in the Middle East reminds me of the job Scott Simon did for NPR in El Salvador. In the mid-1980s Simon did .. or so I thought at the time .. some solid reporting from El Salvador and the surrounding region. Scott seemed to be giving a fair account of the nastiness in the region between the Contras and Sandinistas. Looking back at it now, with what we know about the Iran-Contra story, it's apparent that Mr Simon did his best work in shielding the Reagan administration as a party to this.

One last thing on Richard Engle. He proved his worth once again earlier this summer when he smoothed things over between NBC and Israel. Engle seamlessly swooped into Gaza after his fellow NBC reporter had the audacity to report on the kids that were blown up at the beach. So, like Scott Simon before him, Richard Engle is proving to be a good investment.

[Hunter]

You see this a lot in every case of revolution and uprising, the leaders will release thugs from prisons etc to go in and cause problems to make the uprisers look bad or create problems for them. This wouldnt surprise me if the origins of ISIS started something like this.

[Ben D]

Bashir Assad who kind of helped create ISIS to be a thorn in the FSA and to "prove" the rebels were Islamists. Meaning he emptied all his prisons of Sunni jihadists, and did other things to ensure they would become a monster.

I see no evidence that the Syrian government had any hand in the creation of ISIS, quite the contrary, the battles between them have been well covered in the news and is ongoing. In fact, I find the suggestion the Assad created ISIS to be absurd, and is pure anti-Assad propaganda.

[Sounder]

It seems like a pretty weird strategy to taunt the western powers. They have had big early wins and given their desire to avenge the Homs massacre, during Bashir's dads time, wouldn't they take their 'caliphate' more seriously, and get US to help rather than hinder their goals?

It seems more likely then that the top dogs of ISIS are Geo-political rather than local players.

[Nordic]

No blood...

Movie editing software I have seen at an AVID edit suite allows you to remove blood, add blood, change the hue, shading etc. It takes a couple of mouse clicks.


so, the implication

No blood => No beheading took place

is false.

??? Are you sure that isn't just for computer generated blood? I cannot imagine that would be easily done with real (or fake but "practical") blood. I would have to see it to believe it.

But yes on cg world it is as you say. Especially handy for video games where you can choose the level of gore you want.

IIRC in the movie I was helping on, a guy was 'shot' in struggle in water and the used fake real blood pouches. In the edit suite, it didn't look right, and I asked the editor if he could remove it. With about five seconds work max, it was gone and I asked him to put in a lot more and deeper coloured. It looked like Jaws for a bit till we toned it back, but the whole thing from first viewing to scene with changes incorporated took way under a minute (it was like seeing Photoshop style effects on a selected section of a video; on a Mac).

Ok. Well I believe you. The latest versions of DeVinci Resolve software are absolutely mind blowing. I'm sure this is what you saw at work. I've just had a few colonists show me tiny bits of what it can do, on the fly, on your basic Mac, and it's just incredible.

[8bitagent]

A serial killer known as Ali Muhammed Brown is suspected of being a jihadist in the US.

My gut feeling is that if there is going to be a non foiled/non "stopped in the nick of time by informants" attack soon in the US, it's more likely to be some sort of Mumbai/Nigerian Mall type of scenario.
Or a car bomb situation. I sadly almost see Chicago as a prime target, since ISIS keeps referring to "YOU, Obama". Just my own thoughts. I fully believe that while sickening, dangerous, chaotic and evil...this I$I$ is ultimately
a desired creation and easy proxy however unstable of hidden forces.

And now it seems the fight is being taken to right at the foot of Baghdad. And soon, Syria. Dear Obama, ITS A TRAP! (to quote Admiral Akbar)

Bashir Assad who kind of helped create ISIS to be a thorn in the FSA and to "prove" the rebels were Islamists. Meaning he emptied all his prisons of Sunni jihadists, and did other things to ensure they would become a monster.

I see no evidence that the Syrian government had any hand in the creation of ISIS, quite the contrary, the battles between them have been well covered in the news and is ongoing. In fact, I find the suggestion the Assad created ISIS to be absurd, and is pure anti-Assad propaganda.

Well of course, I$I$ is the perfect trojan to foment chaos and get the US a pretext into Syria. Just was a weird angle Engle was playing on.

[MinM]

Rita Katz vouches for the videos' authenticity..


http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-is-beh ... up/5402082

[Nordic]

What an odd, creepy woman. And she's lying -- the video certainly does not show the beheading of Sotloff. It shows a guy pretending to start to cut his neck, then it cuts to what could possibly be a faked shot of a head sitting on a body.

[Elvis]

the video certainly does not show the beheading of Sotloff. It shows a guy pretending to start to cut his neck, then it cuts to what could possibly be a faked shot of a head sitting on a body.

That's what drives me nuts: media reporters and commentators blithely and constantly referring to "the video depicting the beheading of..." or "videos depicting the murder of..." when no such thing occurs in the videos. It's surreal and infuriating.