US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About Bitcoin Via Twitter

jfruh writes: Ali Shukri Amin, a 17-year-old from Virginia, has pleaded guilty to charges that he aided ISIS by giving the group advice about using bitcoin. An odd and potentially troubling aspect of the charges is that this all took place in public — he Tweeted out links to an article on his blog about how bitcoin and Darknet could help jihadi groups, making it difficult to say whether he was publishing information protected under free speech or was directly advising the terrorist organization. Free speech qua speech isn't the only relevant charge, though: Amin "also admitted facilitating the travel of another teenager, 18-year-old Reza Niknejad, to Syria to join IS. Amin faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted."

Comments

Mixture

[SuperKendall]

The advising on use of bitcoin should be allowed under free speech, but aiding someone to become a fighter seems pretty far over the line as far as aid to a terrorist organization goes...

Re:Mixture

[ArcadeMan]

What worries me is that some asshole politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies, as if fiat money was any better.

Re:Mixture

[TheGavster]

I'm not sure that "giving a ride to the airport" is really what laws against "material support of terrorism" are supposed to be about. Heck, even flying to Syria isn't against the law (though the State Department has a two page explanation of how terrible an idea it is). It's more of a "teachable moment", if anything.

Brutal responses are what the terrorists want; this kid was misguided, but when the US government is done with him, he'll be radicalized.

Re:Mixture

[ganjadude]

projecting much AC?

Re:Mixture

[wisnoskij]

How it is any different. He is charged with aiding/helping ISIS. If he is also charged with helping a potential fighter it is probably because he told him he could take a 9am flight from AirAmerica and arrive at Syria by 3pm.

Re:Mixture

[Whiteox]

Has the US declared war on ISIS/ISIL? I know it's a moot point but I'd like to know. Obama has asked congress for some sort of declaration on the 12th June but I'm unsure of the previous status.
So by facilitating (in any manner) assistance for the enemy in a war not legally declared, is illegal?
Last time this happened was the police action against North Vietnam.

Re:Mixture

[ShanghaiBill]

What worries me is that some asshole politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies

Free advice: Worry about problems that actually exist, of which there are many to choose from, rather than stuff that you made up.

Re:Mixture

[Rei]

ISIL is a "designated terror organization". It is a crime to support a designated terrorist organization.

Re:Mixture

[Anonymous Coward]

What, like the CIA and other government agencies do.....Train, Fund and supply "freedom fighters" who become next years terrorists.

The USA has had a LONG history of doing this.

Re:Mixture

[antiperimetaparalogo]

What worries me is that some asshole politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies, as if fiat money was any better.

Well, if "some [asshole or not] politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies"... he will have a point! Keep in mind that "fiat money" IS BETTER because some checks are in place already (that is why crypto-currencies are so popular among criminals/terrorists/"bad guys") - let's be honest!

Re:Mixture

[omfgnosis]

I'm far more worried that this will be used to defend some kind of surveillance program as having "prevented an attack", or that it'll be used without context as precedent of curtailing speech without controversy.

Re:Mixture

[causality]

What, like the CIA and other government agencies do.....Train, Fund and supply "freedom fighters" who become next years terrorists.

The USA has had a LONG history of doing this.

Yes but the mass media conveniently keeps forgetting to mention this. That's ... strange, because one would think such an important part of understanding the Middle East would be newsworthy. Since the corporate media considers this subject taboo, it's known only to those who had the curiosity, initiative, and appreciation of truth to perform their own research.

Re:Mixture

[PopeRatzo]

Has the US declared war on ISIS/ISIL?

They don't have to. The authorization to use force after 9/11 (that was re-passed more recently) covers any foreign terrorist organizations.

It's a stretch IMO, but that's the way the law has been interpreted ever since.

If some random person in a Slashdot comment asks you how to use Bitcoin to transfer funds anonymously and you help him, that's not a crime. If you know the people you're helping out are ISIL then it's a different story. The Internet is not a magical place where laws don't apply.

Re:Mixture

[troll -1]

When you use a pejorative like "bad guys" to describe bitcoin users you are taking the government's position that drugs should be illegal. Maybe these are not bad guys but just "anti authority" which is not necessarily always bad.

Re:Mixture

[anagama]

It's a crime to support certain terrorist organizations and perfectly acceptable to support others -- which congress member was a supporter of the IRA? Oh yeah -- Peter King: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03...

I find it very disturbing that certain beliefs are so totally verboten that to speak of them at all seems to be a Federal crime, and worse than that, so many people don't even see it as a problem. What we have are random politicians or cabinet members declaring a group to be off limits -- no declaration of war, no trial with public evidence, just a bureaucratic determination. So what group is next? Model rocketeers? Certainly the Sierra Club. At the word of an official in DC you could basically be killed or imprisoned -- at least this kid got a show trial. God Bless America, Home of the Free [to think and speak in an approved manner].

Re:Mixture

[PPH]

an argument against crypto-currencies,

Like flying to Syria is an argument against airlines.

Re:Mixture

[sumdumass]

If you think drug dealers are not bad guys then why did you equate them as such. There are plenty of other "bad guys" to choose from. Pedophiles trading kiddie porn or murder for hire or even what the op offered "criminals and terrorists".

Re:Mixture

[antiperimetaparalogo]

When you use a pejorative like "bad guys" to describe bitcoin users you are taking the government's position that drugs should be illegal. Maybe these are not bad guys but just "anti authority" which is not necessarily always bad.

My comment (that i see now has been -already!- down-modded...) was:

What worries me is that some asshole politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies, as if fiat money was any better.

Well, if "some [asshole or not] politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies"... he will have a point! Keep in mind that "fiat money" IS BETTER because some checks are in place already (that is why crypto-currencies are so popular among criminals/terrorists/"bad guys") - let's be honest!

Don't you know that many "bad guys" use bitcoin? How can you miss my point, and write about "legalize drugs" and "anti authority" my friend? Please excuse me, but i think many Slashdoters should try a "back to earth" trip...

Re:Mixture

[Pentium100]

I noticed that as time passes, there is smaller and smaller difference between the US and Russia. It almost looks like the US government is looking at Russia as a model of how to do things...

Re:Mixture

[Oligonicella]

Sneaking out of your mom's house without getting caught doesn't qualify as covert.

Re: Mixture

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly these days, the only bad guys worth worrying about ARE law enforcement and spy organizations. Unlike terrorists, they stand a nontrivial chance of harming the average citizen.

Re:Mixture

[amiga3D]

Just what kind of proof are you looking for? The fact they openly state their desire to destroy the US and kill Americans isn't enough for you? The videos they proudly make and distribute where they round up people because they don't believe as they do and then behead them is not enough proof? The fact they encourage Islamic citizens of the US to join their Jihad and kill their neighbors isn't enough? What the fuck more do you need? I'm pretty ambivalent about a lot of the shit coming out of Washington D.C. but I've got to pretty much admit that ISIS and it's followers seem like terrorists. Convince me I'm wrong if you can.

Re:Mixture

[Anonymous Coward]

ISIL is a "designated terror organization". It is a crime to support a designated terrorist organization.

Well, sure, but the underlying question is whether it should be a crime.

How much do you trust the government? Is this Western civilization fighting for its very survival or is this yet another banana republic situation of a small number of ultra-rich people in the USA exploiting poor people in a foreign country?

I'm not claiming ISIS are good guys. But bad guys often come to power in the context of a great underlying injustice. And unless you do something about the underlying injustice then you'll just be playing whack-a-mole with an endless series of bad guys that are continually created by the injustice.

Dick Cheney and his friends at Haliburton would like you to believe that this is all just Western civilization fighting for its survival. Do you trust him? Do you trust the assurances of the US government that it is a government of, by, and for the (ordinary) people?

Re:Mixture

[amiga3D]

Really? I watch and read every single day all kinds of objections to the way things are run in the USA. I've yet to see anyone sent off to rot in a prison for 20 years or so just for bitching about the government. I've seen miscarriages of justice but even these, once they get the light of public scrutiny shone on them generally get righted. Just because things aren't perfect hardly calls for such extreme accusations. In the old USSR, comrade, just the level of protest you've shown here would be enough for you to be interrogated about your crimes against the state.

Re:Mixture

[aliquis]

At least cash is just for criminals. I feel. I don't need them.

Re:Mixture

[anagama]

If Peter King can be an elected Congressional member after supporting a terrorist group, why should the kid go to jail for less support?

What you are really supporting here is for an arbitrary designation of groups to have legal consequences, which means things have devolved down to the point that whoever is in charge gets to decide whether belonging to a group, or supporting a group, is worthy of being gulaged or disappeared. We're entering a very dangerous time I think, not from ISIS (*), but from our own government.

(*) ISIS can't do squat aside from engaging in random crimes in the US -- there's just no way they are an existential threat to America. They're like a stubbed toe -- annoying, momentarily painful, and totally not a big deal.

Re:Mixture

[quenda]

I've yet to see anyone sent off to rot in a prison for 20 years or so just for bitching about the government.

If the Russians did that, there'd be nobody left to guard the gulags.
Anyway, he said the US is getting more like Russia. We still have a few decades before they meet. Until then, yes, the US is better.
But is being better than Russia enough for you?

Re:Mixture

[Ambassador Kosh]

Earth is a horrible place. It is infested by humans!

Have you seen how stupid humans are?
World wide people prefer the lies they tell themselves and the lies of their culture to actually looking at scientific evidence. Humans are also very poor at dealing with any threat that it nos immediate to them and so all kinds of things we deal with poorly.

Face it humans are really not very nice to be around and earth is not exactly a good place.

Of course I also agree completely that many that don't want to be traced are drawn to crypto currencies. It was an inevitable given the nature of the currency and even if the currency itself is neutral and there are many good uses for it also the negative uses will always overwhelm the neutral and good uses of crypt currency.

Re:Mixture

[Pentium100]

My grandmother said that you could bitch about the government, though you would not be allowed to do that on TV or radio. Well, at least after Stalin's death.

Also, I am not saying that the US is the same as Russia (or USSR), but it's getting there. If this continues, then after a few decades, it may become even more of a police state than USSR ever was. After all, the various agencies have spying capabilities that the KGB could only dream about. Automatic tracking of cars by photographing license plates, internet data mining, call data mining (speech recognition beats a guy listening to one conversation at a time).

Re:Mixture

[schnell]

Want to end terrorist Isalm, target the two originators Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Exactly, because ... Islamic terrorists ... like ... Israel ... and they are ... buddies and ... WHAT?

Perhaps you are arguing that Israel creates Islamic terror groups by its actions. While that is certainly an arguable issue, it is clearly not the sole root since Al Qaida explicitly cited the basing of US troops in Saudi Arabia as a motivation for the 9/11 attacks. Which had nothing to do with Israel, and was actually Islamic terror based on anger at Saudi Arabia ... which you say is the originator ... of ... WAIT, WHAT AGAIN?

So far the only government to tackle Saudi Arabia has been the Russian government with direct threats should any Saudi Arabian government led terrorists attack occur during the Russian Olympics. Shame Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward is such a god damned weasel

This seems like a reasonable argument that ... wait ... DAFUQ? How did this get to +3?

Congratulations Slashdot on hitting on a topic that somehow makes even init/SystemD discussions seam rational and well researched.

Re:Mixture

[Noah Haders]

So fuck you and your self righteous conservative bullshit.

Frown boner! The linked article is factual and neutral analysis. It's posted on WaPo, not breitbart! You should read it, you may find it interesting.

Re:Mixture

[William Robinson]

Want to end terrorist Isalm, target the two originators Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Did you misspell Pakistan?

Re:Mixture

[antiperimetaparalogo]

Earth is a horrible place. It is infested by humans!

Have you seen how stupid humans are? World wide people prefer the lies they tell themselves and the lies of their culture to actually looking at scientific evidence. Humans are also very poor at dealing with any threat that it nos immediate to them and so all kinds of things we deal with poorly.

Face it humans are really not very nice to be around and earth is not exactly a good place.

Well, that "back to earth" trip i advised for... it should be just for business, not for pleasure mein freund!

Of course I also agree completely that many that don't want to be traced are drawn to crypto currencies. It was an inevitable given the nature of the currency and even if the currency itself is neutral and there are many good uses for it also the negative uses will always overwhelm the neutral and good uses of crypt currency.

I like your point about the "neutrality of the tool" and i am really glad that you did not missed my point (i.e., *this* "tool" is -because of its "nature"- popular among "bad guys"...).

Re:Mixture

[mwvdlee]

Fucking geek poseurs like you make me puke.

Why are you really puking, because you think it's cool to puke on such things?

Realistically, what would you expect him to do about it? (Any why would it have to be covert?)

Re:Mixture

[johanw]

So your constitution, which gets ignored by the government anyway, allows you to bitch about a government that existed over 2 centuries agoo. Some freedom you have there...

Re:Mixture

[johanw]

So killing US soldiers who kill civilians with drone bombardments is not being a terrorist. Somehow the US government does not agree.

Re:Mixture

[johanw]

So, yiou think that because the congress and house are showing they can act like children this is a valid excuse for the president to start wars all on his own?

Re:Mixture

[91degrees]

It's that whole tricky thing of "intent". I guess the kid didn't have any plausible deniability about knowing his friend's intent, and I doubt the law actually has a lower limit.

That said, it is a really really minor case. The alternative would be the friend getting a taxi. Since the law is no doubt intended to cover things like providing multi-million dollar funds to terror organizations. He should probably get a harsh slap on the wrist for this rather than be made an example of.

Re:Mixture

[uberbrainchild8437]

Yea, it's not like when someone does release information about the bad things that the US government is doing they decide to flee and hide in Russia [Sarcasm][Snowden]

Re:Mixture

[aaaaaaargh!]

Last time I checked, there were plenty of reports by the mass media on this topic. Unless by "mass media" you mean Fox News.

Re:Mixture

[dave420]

You can read about his support of terrorists here.

Re:Mixture

[AmiMoJo]

The quality and safety of drugs sold via anonymous markets like Silk Road are much better than those sold person to person. For example, cocaine sold "on the street" in the UK ranges from about 5 to 20% pure on average, where as Silk Road regularly averaged about 60%. Silk Road was also much safer and much less likely to result in the buyer becoming the victim of violence, and the prices were generally a bit lower too.

The key was that although anonymous Silk Road did allow sellers to be rated and reviewed. It is possible to be anonymous and still ensure quality.

Re:Mixture

[Bithir]

Which might or might not be statistically significant. I would assume the number of users re-creating their Slashdot account to ensure they do not keep the same over time would be statistically insignificant.
It does not mean they are not there, you are obviously a living proof of this, just means that broadly speaking, most people tend to stick to their account they've created, rather than re-creating them over and over. Thus the assumption can be made about the relationship between userid and age, even if it is not directly applicable to you.

Re:Mixture

[Anonymous Coward]

And there was the concept of "lurking" when /. first started, so lots of later UIDs might be in their 40s-50s.

Re:Mixture

[PopeRatzo]

Still no legal authorization for the war against ISIS

I wasn't trying to assert that there was, only what authority the administration is asserting.

Re:Mixture

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

My grandmother said that you could bitch about the government, though you would not be allowed to do that on TV or radio. Well, at least after Stalin's death.

That's sort of true in that I think if the complaints were kept to a very small group of people, like bitching to your next door neighbor, it was mostly tolerated. But you still had to be careful what you said. Complaining about a lack of bread was one thing. Complaining that Brezhnev (for example) was terrible might be something else.

There's a great old joke in Russia from the Soviet days about how a Texan came to visit Moscow.
Muscovite: How do you like Moscow and the Soviet Union?
Texan: Well it's really nice, but you have no freedom here. In America, any time I want to, I can go to the White House and stand outside it and say that the president is terrible and he needs to go and nobody will do anything to me.
Muscovite: Oh it is the same here.
Texan: Really?
Muscovite: Yes. Anytime I want, I can go outside the Kremlin and say that the American president is terrible and he needs to go and nobody will do anything to me.

Some people I know who grew up in China really liked that joke.

Re:Mixture

[O('_')O_Bush]

Asshole politicians are a real problem that exist.

In the face of the successful 7N6 ban, the failed but attempted M855/SS109 ban, the attempted technical internet discussion ban from ITAR, the attempted blocking of the FCC Net Neutrality rulings.... your advice is to be REACTIONARY!?

Re:Mixture

[unixisc]

The advising on use of bitcoin should be allowed under free speech, but aiding someone to become a fighter seems pretty far over the line as far as aid to a terrorist organization goes...

For his second crime - helping Reza Niknejad to go to Syria - I don't think he should be punished. Indeed, every American, European, Asian, African, et al who wants to go to join ISIS should be allowed to go. One way!!! Allow them to leave, and then impound their passports/revoke their citizenships so that they can't come back. Let them become martyrs fighting for their versions of the 'true Islam'. For his first crime, he should be deported to Syria - as in Damascus, not Raqqa - the Assad regime, not ISIS.

But on a larger note, ISIS, or another Islamic entity, should come out w/ an Islamic version of a bitcoin, which they can then use for all their transactions. Maybe if the OIC endorsed it, they could use that in all their dealings b/w different entities e.g. ISIS & Boko Haram, Iran & Syria, Pakistan & Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh & Libya... Hey, in fact, speaking of mixture, why not combine bitcoin w/ Bangladesh's micro-financing, and come out w/ something that they can use for all their transactions?

Re:Mixture

[Triklyn]

you want our weapons?

come take them

Re:Mixture

[lysdexia]

Totally, this is my third account.

Re:Mixture

[GLMDesigns]

Except for people who lurked and ACed for years or had an account that they abandoned for whatever reason.

Re:Mixture

[GLMDesigns]

Bitcoin is traceable and is far more identifiable than most people realize.

Re:Mixture

[Kjella]

Buy grocery product, inject with $poison and covertly return it to the store shelf. If you want to be a homicidal psycho, you don't really need the Internet to do it. Compared to all the other risks of buying and doing drugs, like for example bad batches or accidental contamination the odds of problems seem slim. And you'll always have the truly desperate who'll try from the cheapest offer with no reputation, you don't have to be one of them.

Re:Mixture

[Archangel Michael]

Worry about problems that actually exist

Actually, worry about risk, not problems. There are tons of problems in the world, many of which are low risk if you know how to avoid them. However, in this case, there is little one can do to prevent the risk on a personal level, while at the same time, a high probability that such a problem actually come to fruition. AND by the time it does come into being, is already too late for Freedom.

Please, do not take the idea of liberty slipping away slowly, as it is already happening. Liberty is something we must ALWAYS guard diligently.

Re:Mixture

[CryptoJones]

You got mine right. Congrats.

Re:Mixture

[shaitand]

Agreed. That is no different in my mind than someone saying "if Putin really wanted to succeed he'd..." people should be able to speak in favor of anyone and any activity they want especially if it's counter to government interests and/or agendas. Even if we are at war with the commies you are entitled to think we are on the wrong side of the dispute and advocate the other side convince enough people and the dispute may end with a meeting of minds and reduce overall bloodshed.

I don't know that I'd call giving someone a plane ticket far over the line either. Let's take the terrorist buzzword out of there. Then you just have someone facilitating travel to territory controlled by someone who isn't currently friendly with our government. If you want to buy your brother a ticket to Cuba because he really believes in communism I don't buy that you should go to prison for it. If he chooses to enter the military and is part of the Cuban missile crisis round two... well that is on HIM. And really, that is giving the whole thing too much credit. Cuba is a nation, capable of threatening hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans whereas ISIS is merely a relatively new criminal organization that has yet to do as much damage to our nation as the disorganized Somali pirates.

Now, if you knew of actual criminal plans and provided the plane ticket to help them execute them that'd be different. That would be no different than being the driver of the get away vehicle in a bank robbery and if ISIS were not merely a criminal organization but an actual government we could be at war with like Cuba then I suppose the equivalent would be driving a boat to help them paint a target in miami or providing a plane ticket for the same that would be high treason.

Re:Mixture

[shaitand]

Some of us lost the password on our 5 digit uid account and can't get it back anymore.

It's people who argued against being worried that are the reason we went in to Iraq and failed to block the patriot act.

Re:Mixture

[StikyPad]

"Liberty is something we must ALWAYS guard diligently."

Of course, but this wasn't just a case of someone posting a hypothetical; he also aided someone in joining IS, so his actions were in line with his words. I get the slippery slope argument, and if lesser behavior is prosecuted, that's something to be wary of, but this seems pretty clear cut.

Re:Mixture

[DroolTwist]

I'm a former lurker and mostly current lurker. Created an account in the mid-5 digit range, but left for a while and when I came back I forgot what it was, so I created this one. In my early 40s now.

Re:Mixture

[dave420]

Just read about the School of the Americas. An institution set up to screw over entire countries. Millions and millions of people have been subjugated by graduates of that school, and countless killed in horrifically brutal ways. This is US foreign policy at its most naked, after all the political hot-air and posturing has been removed.

Re:Mixture

[Coren22]

Most impressive.

Re:Mixture

[KGIII]

I can agree with them. If, of course, one is passionate about this subject then one should be willing to be reactionary up to an including risking themselves for their cause. I, of course, see this as a low priority. There are far more important things to be angry about and far greater things that need to be changed.

Re:Mixture

[Dunbal]

Wouldn't it be simpler if I just told you I was 47?

Re:Mixture

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Establishing intent in a "beyond a reasonable doubt" argument is usually pretty problematic for the prosecution. Unfortunately for the defense, the prosecution can point to the alleged aid to a future fighter as demonstrating that defendant had a particular intent in one instance. If the jury were to believe this other charge, the defense that helping terrorist was an accidental effect of free speech is just not going to fly. Cutting a plea deal is the obvious choice.

I think that the gov't would have a lot of trouble nailing someone who simply offered advice on how to use cryptocurrencies, if that person otherwise kept their nose clean. Lots of activities that are usually legal or slide under the radar look different under the bright lights of a courtroom, when other credible charges are on the table.

Re:Mixture

[amiga3D]

Killing soldiers in a war environment such as exists in much of Iraq and Syria is not terrorism. That's called war. Rounding up civilians and marching them out to have their heads cut off is. The reason they like doing the latter so much is that it's safe and, to their twisted minds, fun. Fighting soldiers on a battlefield they aren't so fond of. The soldiers have weapons and usually kill them. The terrorists like to stick to killing women and children....it's what they're good at.

Re:Mixture

[amiga3D]

The USA has done plenty wrong. We failed to arm the Kurds years ago. That's a big one.

Re:Mixture

[rtb61]

Security cameras are all over the place in supermarkets now for exactly that reason. So far trickier to do than you claim, especially after many people tried that extortion route, so hardly anything new. The other, it is to be expected, inevitable that it will happen.

Re:Mixture

[BadDreamer]

Yeah, the US doesn't believe in political prisoners. It prefers direct action.

https://en.wikipedia.org/?titl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Those are the ones that stand out, and it seems they're done a lot more discreetly these days.

Re:Mixture

[Archangel Michael]

There was a crime, charge him with that crime. Don't make things that aren't a crime, into a crime, simply because they were used to help commit the real crime.

We don't make driving illegal, simply because a car was driven away from the Bank Heist.

Did he tweet...

[Nutria]

here's how to use bitcoin, or did he tweet, hey Jihadists, here's how to use bitcoin and evade the NSA ? It makes a big difference.

(No, I did not RTFA.)

Re:Did he tweet...

[viperidaenz]

From TFS:

he Tweeted out links to an article on his blog about how bitcoin and Darknet could help jihadi groups

I didn't RTFA either because the link doesn't include a domain so I have no idea where it is hosted
It currently points to: /article/2935195/enterprise-software/virginia-teen-pleads-guilty-to-giving-islamic-state-help-on-bitcoin.html

Re:Did he tweet...

[Rei]

From the statement which he pled guilty to:

4. At all relevant times, the defendant knew that ISIL was a designated terrorist organization, and that it was a violation of United States law to provide support and resources to ISIL.

THE DEFENDANT'S USE OF @.AmreekiWitness IN FURTHERANCE OF HIS CONSPIRACY TO SUPPORT ISIL

5. On or about June 26, 2014, the defendant started the Twitter account: @AmreekiWitness, which boasted over 4,000 followers. The defendant used the account as a pro-ISIL platform during the course of over 7,000 'tweets.' Specifically, the defendant used this account to conduct twitter-based conversations regarding ways to develop financial support for ISIL using on-line currency, such as Bitcoin, and ways to establish a secure donation system or fund for ISIL.

6. The following are examples of the defendant's use of Twitter in furtherance of his conspiracy to provide material support to ISIL:

a. On or about July 7, 2014, using the @AmreekiWitness account, the defendant tweeted a link to an article he authored entitled "Bitcoin wa' Sadaqat al-Jihad" (Bitcoin and the Charity of Jihad). The link transferred the user to the defendant's blog, where the article was posted. The article discussed how to use bitcoins and how jihadists could utilize this currency to fund their efforts. The article explained what bitcoins were, how the bitcoin system worked and suggested using Dark Wallet, a new bitcoin wallet, which keeps the user of bitcoins anonymous. The article included statements on how to set up an anonymous donations system to send money, using bitcoin, to the mujahedeen.

b. On approximately August 1, 2014, the defendant showed support for ISIL and his desire to help garner financial support for those wanting to commit jihad. Through @AmreekiWitness the defendant discussed methods to provide financial support for those wanting to commit jihad and for those individuals trying to travel overseas.

c. On approximately August 19, 2014, the defendant showed support for ISIL and desire to support ISIL. The defendant tweeted that the khilafah needed an official website "ASAP," and that ISIL could not continue to release media "in the wild" or use "JustPaste." Through various tweets, the defendant provided information on how to prevent the website from being taken down, by adding security and defenses, and he solicited others via Twitter to assist on the development of the website.

7. The defendant also operated an Amreeki Witness page on the website ask.fm. The defendant used these accounts extensively as a platform to proselytize his radical Islamic ideology, justify and defend ISIL's violent practices, and to provide advice on topics such as jihadists travel to fight with ISIL, online security measures, and about how to use Bitcoin to finance themselves without creating evidence of crime, among other matters.

8. The defendant also created the pro-ISIL blog entitled, "Al-Khilafah Aridat." On this blog, the defendant authored a series of highly-technical articles targeted at aspiring jihadists and ISIL supporters detailing the use of security measures in online communications to include use of encryption and anonymity software, tools and techniques, as well as the use of the virtual currency Bitcoin as a means to anonymously fund ISIL.

THE DEFENDANT'S FACILITATION OF RN'S TRAVEL TO SYRIA

9. RN, a co-conspirator, is an 18-year-old resident of Prince William County, Virginia.

10. Beginning in or around September 2014, the defendant began an effort to convert RN to a radical form of Islam.

11. In or about late November or early December 2014, the defendant put RN in touch with an ISIL supporter located outside of the United States via Surespot in order to facilitate RN's travel to Syria to join and fight with ISIL.

12. The defendant arranged for this ISIL supporter located overseas to send RN a package containing a phone for RN's use during his travel to Syria, an encrypted thumb drive, and a letter.

13. On or ab

Re:Did he tweet...

[unixisc]

Except that Islam doesn't come even close to Libertarianism either in ideals or practice. If one wants evidence, show me any examples of Libertarians in Muslim countries that have had any amount of success. Islam is all about submission to allah, and democracy is one of the many things that are haram in Islam

phew, that was close

[Anonymous Coward]

thank-you spies and government guys for keeping us safe and sharia-free.

Pleaded Guilty, Broken Link

[BBCWatcher]

The link to the article is broken (of course).

If the first charge wasn't a crime then Amin had the option not to plead guilty to it. On the other hand, if he's satisfied with the plea deal his attorney presumably negotiated (presumably heavily based on the other charge), then maybe a guilty plea was his best option. Absent evidence to the contrary, one has to assume his attorney properly assessed whether that first charge could have been beaten in court and weighed that factor in advising his client.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's put a 17 year old in prison for 15 years for writing forbidded sentences. He'll come out as a well adjusted 32 year old adult.

Re:Great

[retchdog]

You're right. Treason is constitutionally punishable by death, after all. We could avoid that problem rather easily.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Treason...

It's amazing how different the views can be on why the USA is mucking about in Iraq.

In one view, the US government (and, by extension all of Western civilization) is teetering on the brink of being overthrown by ISIS - and any assistance to ISIS is treason.

In another view, it's basically just a Banana Republic situation where some corporate fatcats with close ties to the US government saw an opportunity to make themselves a few extra bucks exploiting Iraq's oil - using the US military as their muscle to keep the locals in check.

Re:Great

[ClickOnThis]

You're right. Treason is constitutionally punishable by death, after all. We could avoid that problem rather easily.

Whatever you want to call what he did, you can't call it treason.

Treason is defined clearly in the US constitution as aiding or giving comfort to an enemy at a time of war declared by Congress. The last time Congress delcared war was in 1942.

Re:Great

[dbIII]

Hang on - is Assad our leader now? No? Completely different country? Then it isn't treason is it?
They may be an evil bunch of pig fucking psychopaths but it's a completely different crime to talk to them. This is no more treason than that Senator (Peter T. King - Rep N.Y.) who is proud of the money he used to send to the IRA back when they were setting off bombs in the UK.

Re:Great

[Buchenskjoll]

Let's put a 17 year old in prison for 15 years for writing forbidded sentences. He'll come out as a well adjusted 32 year old adult.

To jail with you! You used the forbidden word "forbidded"!

Re:Great

[ShadowRangerRIT]

The U.S. Constitution says no such thing. Quit making shit up. Article III, Section 3 (omitting the second half which is all about punishment, not conviction):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

If you levy war against the U.S., it doesn't matter if the U.S. has declared war against you. And you don't actually have to be making war, that's just one way of being labelled a traitor.

Re:Great

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, there is a difference. As far as I am aware, the IRA never considered the conquest of the United States one of its goals. ISIS on the other hand considers conquest of the entire world to be its divinely appointed mission.

Re:Great

[dbIII]

You really haven't been paying much attention have you. Please try harder before replying to one of my posts.

Re:Great

[Attila Dimedici]

Since you seem to be slow on the uptake, I will try again. ISIS has declared that one of their goals is conquest of the United States. This means that assisting ISIS is treason as defined in the U.S. Constitution. On the other hand, the IRA never, as far as I am aware, made any kind of war against the U.S.. These two facts means that the two things you said were similar, are not actually so.

Supporting a group seeking to wrest control of a particular area of land from its current government is quite different from a group fighting to gain control of multiple countries which has a declared goal of controlling the entire world (and which has stated that it is at war against the U.S.).

Re:Great

[istartedi]

I had the same knee-jerk reaction too. I blame sensationalist journalism. He isn't being thrown in prison for teaching about Bitcoin. I could publish the same thing and not go to prison. The difference? I wouldn't be doing it as part of my tech-support functions for ISIS. He's not going to prison for teaching. He's going to prison for providing support to ISIS. The teaching is just part of that.

Re:Great

[dave420]

Do you have a source for them stating they want to destroy the US? The last I heard is they wanted to create a caliphate across the middle east...

Re:Great

[ClickOnThis]

The U.S. Constitution says no such thing.

Correct. I misspoke about the Constitution's exact definition. Nevertheless, I stand by my point that treason clause in the constitution does not apply during peacetime.

Re:Great

[dbIII]

Reality is made of deeds and not words.

Re:Great

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean like the credible reports of an ISIS training base 8 miles from the U.S. border?

Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[Shadow of Eternity]

that is currently actively waging war against the US and its allies. Hmm... where have I heard that before...

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Exactly. Treason is specifically called out and defined in the Constitution. I don't know, but I'll bet it means they don't have to treat you as a prisoner of war.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[Anonymous Coward]

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[johanw]

The US does not declare war anymore. They learned from Pearl Harbor that attacking without warning works much better.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[unixisc]

OK- so first off I want to know when the US officially declared war on ISIS. And 2nd even if they did providing information to the enemy shouldn't constitute a crime. Freedom of speech and freedom of association should both protect such acts. He didn't take up arms against the United States and if he had at most it should warrant imprisonment as an enemy combatant and should be afforded all the rights and protections of such under the relevant conventions of war.

So if an enemy declares war on the US, the US is not at war? When was the last time that the US declared war on non-state terrorist entities? Similarly, did the US formally declare war on al-Qaeda? No, since they are a non-state entity, w/ no defined territorial coverage. The US declared war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda was covered under that.

While the war on al-Qaeda was provoked by 9/11, the one on ISIS was provoked by the beheading of American journalists - that's what propelled ISIS into the news. I disagree that the US should have done anything in response - if there are people stupid enough to believe their own lies about Muslims, nobody owes it to shed more blood for them if they then get slaughtered. But aside from that, ISIS has declared that they are recreating the Caliphate, and they do have global ambitions that are by no means restricted to liberating Syria and Iraq from Alawite/Shiite rule. Which is why the US needs to block them from the US and the larger West, regardless of whether they go through a declaration of war or not.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[unixisc]

No, ISIS was one of the breakaway Sunni groups from the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria, that had been building up. The group that the US supports is the Free Syrian Army - another bunch of thugs, but a different one: one that massacred Christians in Aleppo and Homs and drove Iraqi & Syrian Christians out to Lebanon. I think the US has now given up on them, given that record, and also, the need to fight ISIS.

Point is every group in the region - Sunnite OR Shiite - is a hostile group. The Shiites are all puppets of Iran, while the Sunnites are all drifting towards ISIS. So the way for the US to win this is to encourage each side to fight the other to the death, and arm whichever side is losing so that neither side ultimately wins. Like the poem 'Two cats of Kilkiney', let those 2 groups fight it out until Muslims are no longer a threat even in the Middle East, much less the rest of the world.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[dave420]

ISIS has its roots in 1999 Iraq, by the way. It was only after the US invasion of Iraq did they cross the border into Syria and turn their back on Al Qaeda.

Also your last sentence shows no differentiation between normal Muslims and extremists, which clearly there is (otherwise everyone would already be dead). It pays to be as accurate as possible in these matters, lest you distance those who are best positioned to help.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[unixisc]

Well, none of the Muslim countries believe in religious pluralism. In Iraq, for instance, the 'democratic' Shiite regime that took over turned on local Assyrian & Chaldean Christians, forcing them to flee to Syria. In Syria, they were massacred in Aleppo & Homs, and been forced to flee to Lebanon, from where they will go to...? This was not done by ISIS - it was done by the FSA. Everybody knows about freedom of religion in Iran, Saudi Arabia & Qatar. Egypt is just borderline b/w a Muslim Brotherhood regime and a secular one. Libya is already a de-facto ISIS state.

Point being - none of the Muslim countries have values that are all that different from ISIS. There's a reason that Muslims worldwide are trying to go to Syria to join them.

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[dave420]

Your "point being" was pulled out of your ass sideways by al-Baghdadi himself, it seems. You are spouting nonsense of the most dangerous, misleading kind. The fact you believe it so vehemently is simply astounding. Wow. You are conveniently forgetting the political machinations present in the countries you name, which is a great indicator you are not being entirely honest or rational, as they have everything to do with what's happening there. That is unless you think politics and power struggles don't affect anything?

Re:Aiding someone in joining an enemy military

[shutdown -p now]

Generally speaking, countries that capture their own citizens who are waging war against them, don't have to treat those citizens as POWs, because they aren't - they're simple criminals, and are under the jurisdiction of regular courts of the country in question. This is not unique to US at all.

This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Communicating with ISIS in any way shape or form while either a US citizen or residing in the US
is just asking for trouble, regardless of what is discussed.

As John Wayne was once rumored to have said : "If you're gonna be stupid, you'd better be tough".

So toughen up, little Ali Amin, because your ass belongs to the Commonwealth of Virginia now, and
they are going to teach you that sympathizing with the lunatics who behead people or burn people
alive comes with a price. Personally I wish the authorities would just report you had hung yourself in
your cell and call it a day.

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[omfgnosis]

So toughen up, little Ali Amin, because your ass belongs to the Commonwealth of Virginia now, and
they are going to teach you that sympathizing with the lunatics who behead people or burn people
alive comes with a price. Personally I wish the authorities would just report you had hung yourself in
your cell and call it a day.

Damn right. Get ready to deal with a slightly-to-moderately different bunch of lunatics and their nominally distinguishable abuse.

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[unixisc]

Interesting how you have to go as far back as WWII to make your point

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[Cederic]

I'm not aware of the UK burning people alive or beheading them in the last 75 years in a non-military-conflict situation, although you're welcome to link to incidents of which I'm unaware.

If you start talking about the military use of incendiary devices then I'll ignore you.

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[BlackPignouf]

For the US & Israel, a few months are actually enough.

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[BlackPignouf]

I was indeed talking about military-conflict situations.
How is ISIS not involved in a military conflict?

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[unixisc]

Okay, when was the last time in the last few months either in the US or in Israel that somebody was executed either by a beheading or by a live cremation? And no, stating that either country has the death penalty doesn't count!

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[Cederic]

Call me picky but I would differentiate between actions mid battle and child decisions made in a quasi-jurisdictional context.

Dropping a bomb on someone to progress a military objective is perhaps a different class of behaviour to sentencing someone to crucifixion.

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[BlackPignouf]

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
https://firstlook.org/theinter...

and from 2009 : http://www.hrw.org/fr/node/818...

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[unixisc]

Sorry, but Guardian is a cross b/w Pravda and Al-Jazeera. Try something a little more credible! Unless you happen to be one of the Truther crowd. Same thing goes for Human Rights Watch - it's just one more of those so called 'Human Rights' groups that only examines abuses by Western & pro-Western countries, while ignoring abuses by Muslim countries & Jihadi groups.

Re:This Amin kid is obviously an idiot.

[BlackPignouf]

Sure, kill the messenger.
All those facts are well documented : feel free to look for other sources.
It's typical of this damn conflict. Both sides are so extreme that they consider any centerish point of view to be extremely biased.

Strategically speaking...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The 'people from places you've heard of deciding to pay a visit to scenic Syria and fight for the caliphate' phenomenon has caused a lot of hand-wringing and talk about 'radicalization' and 'grooming' and so on(especially from the brits; but some here as well).

And I can see the reason for concern, from the perspective of a desire to see ISIS collapse sooner rather than later. The expats haven't, on the whole, been marked by particularly notable skills or anything; but unless they are out and out fuckups, they are presumably of some use.

On the other hand, though, there doesn't seem to be much attention being paid to the positive side: If going to some sandtrap hellhole to fight a meatgrinder land war in the service of the Caliph is something you'd do voluntarily; it seems fairly likely that you are not exactly liberal democracy's best buddy, or a strong candidate for 'most likely to get along just fine with the apostates and unbelievers'. Isn't having such people voluntarily decide to leave us to sin in peace and go travel far away to take substantial risks, up to and including fatal ones, rather convenient?

I've been surprised by the amount of chatter among various government talking heads about trying to prevent the would-be jihadis from traveling. Were I in their position; I'd be keeping a careful eye on anyone who tries to come back; but would be very much tempted to politely ignore anyone heading out for martyrdom and hope that they'll no longer be my problem.

Re:Strategically speaking...

[DamnOregonian]

Kinda how I see it. Don't let the door hit you on the ass, gents.

Re:Strategically speaking...

[Anonymous Coward]

So this has come up in a number of countries already.

eg Australia has a number of now ex-jihadi's and ex-Mujh (of a several flavours) wanting to come back to Australia, having spent time in caliphate

This is proving problematic as of course they can come back, but essentially face court proceedings and extensive jail time before they can rejoin society, and they aren't all that keen on paying that entry tax.

Re:Strategically speaking...

[Zontar The Mindless]

Isn't having such people voluntarily decide to leave us to sin in peace and go travel far away to take substantial risks, up to and including fatal ones, rather convenient?

Um... In case you'd not noticed... That "in peace" part? Doesn't seem to be happening.

Re:Strategically speaking...

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots have been free to remove themselves form gene pool for as long as life has existed on this planet.

And yet there is still no shortage of idiocy.

Mayyyyyybe it isn't genetic. In which case letting them kill themselves and in the process hurt their friends and family and who knows how many other innocents, is counter productive.

Re:Strategically speaking...

[rhazz]

If this war were just Irrelevant Faction A versus Irrelevant Faction B, I'm sure the government would not put much effort into it, and you'd be right - let them cull the herd. But letting ISIS ranks swell is very likely to increase losses to foreign allies which is bad for the US - especially when you eventually get US citizens decapitating people in jihadist videos.

Re:Strategically speaking...

[Cederic]

Indeed, they explicitly turn the fuckups into suicide bombers. Go over there, be no use to them, cause trouble, change your mind... Here's a vest, there's a checkpoint and remember, we know where your mother lives..

Google and Wikipedia next?

[cfalcon]

Wikipedia could well become a target in the future, but it's probably safer- it's a ton of info, after all.

But google's search (and other searches) has become over the course of just a few years, a science fiction made reality. Will these search agents be blocked or censored in the US because they COULD be used to help a terrorist?

Re:Google and Wikipedia next?

[Rei]

Ackbar.... sounds Arabic....

uh oh....

ISIS is the bad guy?

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, and check out who the good guys are now. The charade can go on indefinitely...

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[omfgnosis]

The thing that's astonishing, and that Orwell got wrong, is that you will find astute people who actually defend this fully aware of the fact that they will attack it in the future—just as you find people now who defend the stability of Assad's regime who will readily admit they attacked it in the recent past. We were not always at war with Eurasia, but we may well be again in the near future and we should always be at the ready to be craven profiteers of whatever short-sighted gain can be had in any version of the 24 hour news cycle.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and check out who the good guys are now. The charade can go on indefinitely...

OK, feel free to actually pay attention to the news coming out of Syria and then do that retroactively for a few years.

If you're clueless, seriously, go research it. This is a multipolar conflict. We never ever armed or allied with Al Nusra or ISIS. ISIS came from an org that we did our best to destroy and actually the entire surge was based more or less around destroying them and coopting former insurgents. The whole country (Iraq) fought against these guys. and then we left and it all went to shit. They moved next door and were heavily infiltrated by former Batthist intelligence and military guys. It's a long story.

I used to say shit like that all of the time, in the early days of the Iraq War. And then I spent a few years reading news and analysis all day, and I realized that it was far more complicated than this reductionist conspiracy bullshit. There are many sides in this war, not just two. Quite a lot of the guys fighting Assad are actually moderates. These are the guys we tried to arm. Many of them were killed and coopted by ISIS and Al Nusra. If you can't wrap your head around the actual dynamic at work here, how messy of a civil war this is, then you should seriously read more about it and branch out from obvious left-wing, right-wing, and conspiracy sites.

Am I fully aware of the past crimes of the CIA? Oh, fuck yeah. Have I read Chomsky and shit? Yes. The neocons were full of it, and I was against all of these wars. We created this mess in a very large way. But is Assad a monster? Yes! If you think the opposite, you have most likely fallen for his propaganda, of which there is a lot. Is ISIS complete madness and yet half Baathist... and quite possibly possessing serious military genius? Yup! Is Al Nusra a better option? Actually yeah, but they're still fucked up. The point being, it's seriously complicated over there, and reducing this situation to the CIA making this shit up and it all being a charade for.... for what I'm not sure... but this doesn't at all fit the facts. It sure as shit fits a dumb conspiracy narrative which will conveniently ignore the facts.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[Attila Dimedici]

Has Assad deliberately destabilized other countries, infiltrated their governments, spied on their people, interfered with their internal affairs, bombed innocent people without a declaration of war?

Why, yes he had. Or perhaps you were not paying attention to what has been going on in Lebanon and Jordan over the last few years. Jordan has remained stable and most of the damage in Lebanon was done by Assad's father, but that does not change the fact that Assad has interfered with their internal affairs.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[unixisc]

Didn't read your link, but there are no good guys here. Since all the combatants are Mohammedans.

First, within Syria, you have the Assad regime. Within the country, they had to suppress the majority Sunnis, for reasons I describe below. But even if once concedes that that is necessary to maintain Syria as a quasi-secular country, the regime today is both a puppet & supporter of Iran & Hizbullah, so are not worth preserving. Opposing them are all Sunni militias - each of them committed to the same goals as ISIS internally, while ISIS has created a global brand and is sucking in Sunni volunteers from abroad.

Iraq - the point to have ended the US intervention was when President Bush did his 'Mission Accomplished' gig - then it was indeed time to come home. Leaving US troops there to nationbuild, and also to try and resolve the disputes b/w Shiites & Sunnites was idiotic, as was the goal of trying to force Iraq to remain an united country. They should have left, recognizing Kurdistan, and handing Baghdad and the South - Basra, Najaf, Karbala, et al to the Shiites and Al Anbar to the Sunnis. And let there be a civil war if need be. The US had no moral obligation to keep Iraq as one if their people don't want it. And there are no Iraqis - just Shiites, Sunnite Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Christian Assyrians and Chaldeans. So let them each have their sandbox. But instead, once the US handed over power, Christians there have been persecuted & driven out of the country to Syria, which they are now fleeing from the Sunnis there.

Iran - while they are opposed to Sunni groups like ISIS, they have been supporting Shiite terror groups like Hizbullah, and also, sometimes, Sunni groups like Hamas & the Muslim Brotherhood. So they too needed to be toppled, and should have been next after Afghanistan & Iraq. Instead, they're now busy building a nuke arsenal, provoking the Arabs to want one of their own. Lovely - people who behead & stone people to death getting hold of nuclear weapons, so that they can live out their Islamic wet dreams on countries like Israel.

The other Arab states - w/ the possible exception of Jordan, there is none worth supporting. All these countries have spoilt unskilled populations incapable of doing anything, and depending on slave labor from East Asia. Once their emirs & sheikhs are flush w/ cash, the remainder goes not in helping fellow Muslim countries like Bangladesh or Bosnia, but in building mosques and madrassahs worldwide and trying to spread Islam. Exactly the sort of stuff that enables ISIS in creating their caliphate. So yeah, none of them are our 'allies', and I'd be more than happy to see the entire region in turmoil - not just Syria, Iraq & Yemen. Like I said above, get them all in an eternal civil war, so that they are no longer a threat to those outside.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[Attila Dimedici]

The only part of your post which is accurate is that Assad is a puppet. He is a puppet of the Iranian government.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[unixisc]

First, within Syria, you have the Assad regime. Within the country, they had to suppress the majority Sunnis, for reasons I describe below

I forgot to mention why, so here it is. Mohammedans don't have the practice of 'live & let live'. Their goals within their borders is always to ensure an Islamic state. When it's a case of them vs others, be it Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, et al, it's fairly simple - see Malaysia. However, it becomes trickier when it comes to different Islamic sects within a Muslim country, such as Iraq.

Whenever Mohammedans state that they want to establish an Islamic state, it's important to note that by 'Islamic state', they mean their brand of Islam. E.g. both Iran & Saudi Arabia are Islamic states, but for Iran, that means being Shiite, while for the Saudis, it means being Sunni. Essentially, the majority sect of a Muslim country will determine which Islam it is they follow. For Iraq, that makes it Shiite, while Syria would be Sunnite.

It's in this context that 'Secular' credentials of Muslim rulers ought to be examined. Neither Saddam nor Hafiz al Assad were really secular: Saddam changed the Iraqi flag to include 'Allahu Akbar' in order try and win Muslim sympathies worldwide. But the reason Saddam didn't declare Iraq an Islamic state was that it would have made Iraq a Shiite state, which would have left him in the minority. Same thing w/ Assad - he belonged to a sect called the Alawites, that were 5% of the country, but which controlled Syria's military. Knowing that his sect would be wiped out if Syria became a 'democracy' - which in Muslim terms means mob rule - he made it a non-Sunni dictatorship, incorporating even Christians (since the Alawite sect happens to honor Virgin Mary). Syria was the only Arab, if not Muslim country where Christmas was an observed holiday. So despite the contention of many Leftists that Baathists were/are secular, real fact is that the only reason they are 'non-Islamic' in their respective countries is that the official definition of 'Islamic' doesn't include them, since they don't belong to the majority sect.

This also was the reason that Saddam and Assad, despite both being Baathists, hated each other: Assad supporting Iran during the 8 year war w/ Iraq. Saddam was a Sunni suppressing a Shiite majority, while Assad was an Alawite suppressing a Sunnite majority. While Alawites were not recognized as Shiites, one seminary in Iran - probably linked to the regime - gave them the recognition as Shiites. But if anywhere Alawites & Shiites were the only 2 groups, they'd flare up again.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[unixisc]

Bashar al Assad is a puppet. However, his father was not: he was a strongman in his own right, and intervened in Lebanon in 1975, and wasn't forced to leave until the 2000s. Today's Syrian regime has been an important link b/w Iran and Hizbullah, enabling Iran to arm that group and conduct terror attacks on Israel. But aside from that, the regime is fighting for survival, once the Arab Spring started and the Sunni genie was out of the bottle.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[unixisc]

While they are all Sunni thugs, they are different factions, all wanting to seize power. However, ISIS has managed to globalize their brand, under a Caliphate claim - and are attracting volunteers worldwide - something that al Nusra, Khorasan and FSA have all been unable to do. But yeah, forget the FSA, even arming the Iraqi army has ended up arming ISIS, since the Iraqis are a bunch of cowards who flee the moment ISIS arrives: even Iran has been unable to do much for them.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[dave420]

You are making massive generalisations without any sense of appreciation for the inaccuracies you are proffering as evidence of your position. You sound scared. Really scared. Intelligent, but scared shitless, and lashing out at that which scares you, whether it will help you or not. Wow.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[shutdown -p now]

It is true that there are more than two sides, but the other trap that you seem to be falling into is trusting the labels too much. For example, al-Nusra is not ISIS, but a most of what is now ISIS used to be al-Nusra, and then rebranded themselves (the original ISI part is comparatively small). Similarly, while FSA is not al-Nusra, a large chunk of al-Nusra came from FSA - those very same "moderates" that you tried to arm.

Yes, al-Nusra is better than ISIS. And Assad is better than al-Nusra. Are Syrian moderates better than Assad? In theory, yes, but only if they can actually hold power, and I very much doubt that they could do it unless they were to use the same methods that Assad is using today.

The West tried to arm and support moderates in Libya. How did that turn out?

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[fustakrakich]

His money comes from the Russians. Whatever Iran gave him came from American dollars. And despite all the bullshit, the US is still feeding them, Iran and Syria, and all the others that will buy. You can deny the rest if you want. I have no dog in this race. If you want to believe the BS of the Official Narrative, by all means, knock yourself out.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[fustakrakich]

Oh please! Where do you think the money comes from? Look at the country of origin on all the arms being shipped over there. Iran is a middleman. They would be fighting with swords and shields if not for all the outside 'help'. You're just reciting mass media news bites.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[unixisc]

The money comes from Iran - it's estimated that Iran spends anything around $3 BILLION a year to support the Assad regime - w/o which they wouldn't have an easy passage for their arms to Hizbullah. Syria uses cash from both that aid, as well as their own oil sales, to buy weapons from Russia & China. Of late, however, Syria's oil, which is mainly in their North East - in ISIS occupied territory - has been in ISIS hands, so they no longer have that. But Russia & China have just commercial interests in keeping the sole customers for their weaponry alive - unlike the Soviets, which had a clear interest in seeing to it that the US didn't dominate the Middle East.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[unixisc]

When you have so many coincidences b/w so many countries & groups - all of which have just one thing in common - them being Islamic - there is little other conclusions to draw. I am scared, not of them, but from the fact that both Democrats & Republicans see allies in this. They may differ on who the allies are or ain't, but they see allies nonetheless. Which is the scariest part, b'cos they'll simply not shut America's doors to them. And as long as they don't, you'll see Muslims freely entering & leaving the country on Jihad missions for their favorite Jihadi group.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[fustakrakich]

Oooo 3 billion... No, if you want to see where it's coming from, look at the 60 billion dollar deal Hillary made with the Saudis, and look at the 8 trillion dollars 'missing' from the pentagon, and 500 million in hardware 'missing' from Yemen, who knows how much 'disappeared' from Libya, Egypt, you name it. And brand new stuff is still 'disappearing' in Iraq by the billions. This is business... And the Russians and Chinese are bit players. Their market share shrinks by the day. The scheme is working.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[Attila Dimedici]

I just have trouble imagining that there is somebody with the ability to manage the world the way you imagine someone is doing, let alone believing it.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[fustakrakich]

You don't have to 'imagine' anything. Just follow the course of events. It's just plain old gangsterism, Yakuza vs. Bratva vs. The Five Families on a global scale. I cannot control your emotional denials that government is corrupt by nature. The mafia state rules. With such a submissive population that can't be bothered to oversee the authorities it can't be any other way. They let criminals run the world. They should read your sig, that's the first hint. Even the 'honest' ones sit under the mob's Sword of Damocles. That sword is supposed to be ours.

Re:ISIS is a CIA operation

[ganjadude]

is that what "they" told you???

Knowledge

[SuperKendall]

"Hey, I'm gong over to Syria to kill westerners and enslave Christians for the raping and whatnot. Give me a lift?"

How is that not aid?

If he didn't know, that would be one thing. But the Twitter stuff makes it seem pretty likely he did know why the guy was going...

Re:Knowledge

[chihowa]

Is imparting (academic, general) knowledge really "aid", though? And where do you draw the line?

"Hey, I'm going over to Syria to kill westerners and enslave Christians for the raping and whatnot..."

"but my car broke down Ms Librarian. Do you have a book on automotive repair?"

"but my car broke down Mr Mechanic. Can you point out the distributor for me?"

"but it costs money to get there. Do you have any investing advice?"

"but I have no idea where Syria is. Can you point me in the general direction?"

At some point, you can't be held for responsible for the intentions of others, even if they tell you what they are.

Re:Knowledge

[Nutria]

At some point, you can't be held for responsible for the intentions of others

Yes, at some point. There *is* a big grey middle, but the edges are also pretty clear.

Re:Knowledge

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Telling people how to do something, knowing they will use it in a crime, makes you a participant. It's legal to say that house over there sells cocaine, but not if I'm a roving salesman for them drumming up sales.

Re:Knowledge

[Rei]

Where do you draw the line? Somewhere long before you get to here.

Re:Knowledge

[SuperKendall]

In none of the cases you listed were your own personal resources put forth, it was either transactions or freely given information (which as I stated earlier, knowledge transfer I feel is free speech and not aid).

Using your own gas and wear and tear on a car is quite clearly aid, just as donating even a single dollar to ISIS knowingly would be. The punishment may seem disproportionate and that could be argued, but not the fact they gave aid...

Re:Knowledge

[MobSwatter]

The kid had to be put up to it, there is no anonymity involved when you have the entire blockchain with TX times and IP addys at your fingertips. I'd wager there is a bank in the wood pile. For anon, cash is the only option so screw the fed for promoting not only counterfeit money, but terrorism as well, and putting agents of the alphabet soup kind up to shit like this as a dig at crypto currency. As corrupt as the US has become, you pricks had to know a comment like this would come up.

Re:Knowledge

[chihowa]

Yikes, fair enough. I, of course, didn't read TFS and was operating off of the poor summary.

Publishing a blog called, "Evading security systems for cat burglars: a vocational manual," sounds just as sketchy and well-past-that-line.

Re:Knowledge

[omfgnosis]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Knowledge

[SuperKendall]

But that is pure information, removed from any intent for use.

BTW that particular book is also REALLY POORLY WRITTEN. Some of the things in that book are wrong, some are so wrong I swear it was written by the CIA so terrorists would off themselves first. I guess in that sense the book is good, there's no telling how many lives it saved due to crappy malfunctioning bombs in the past... but its time is over as terrorists have more accurate info now. At this point that book is only hurting miscreant 14-year old boys.

Re:Knowledge

[omfgnosis]

But that is pure information, removed from any intent for use.

Yo, if you want to explode some things there is explosives info in this publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - now am I a terrorist?

BTW that particular book is also REALLY POORLY WRITTEN. [etc]

Yet people are still trying to ban it.

Any way you slice it, how-to content should be protected speech.

Re:Knowledge

[Noah Haders]

he should have taken uber...

Re:Knowledge

[Noah Haders]

i dunno, it sounds kinda tongue in cheek. like a Burglary for Dummies book.

Re:Knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

You draw the lines by applying common sense. Sadly common sense is the most scare commodity on the planet today with honesty coming in a close second place.The extremists on both the left and right of every issue of note represent a tiny minority of people yet they garner the most attention by their never ending rhetoric and screeching hyperbole geared to distort issues until it matches their warped sense of reality. And the Internet has provided the perfect tool for fanning the flames of discord and fracturing societies across the entire globe.

Re:Knowledge

[sumdumass]

It's not illegal to explode things- only certain things and people. In my neck of the woods, all i have to do is notify the sheriff in advance. In other areas you might need a permit and perhaps a license or more.

Re:Knowledge

[j33px0r]

Key point being that you know they will use it in a crime. Fairly easy to argue that the individual was just playing what he perceived as online role playing. Of course, it is a little more complicated than that...

Re:Knowledge

[sumdumass]

No. The sheriff cannot say no.

Explosives have been used in farming for a long time. They are not as common now because of the availability of heavy machinery. Your state laws are probably similar and no licensing is needed. The permit restrictions i know about in my area are within municipal city limits in surrounding cities. I can understand that because there's more people closer by. But it's not like they can deny the use. Just ensure certain precautions are taken.

Re:Knowledge

[91degrees]

"Hey, I'm going over to Syria to kill westerners and enslave Christians for the raping and whatnot..."

I guess the difference is between that and "Hey, I'm going to Syria for undisclosed reasons", when the possible legal reasons don't require a huge stretch of credibility. A complete stranger could be an aid worker, or a journalist, even a businessman (there is some trade even with US sanctions).

I think in this case, it's more a large number of borderline actions like this, and the DoJ are picking the ones with the best chance of success. Whether they should do things like this is something personally I'm undecided over.

Re:Knowledge

[TheGavster]

What I'm saying is that jailing a teenager for giving a lift, no matter how much he knew, isn't going to fix anything. Sure, he knew is buddy was going abroad to "wage jihad".

But how much meaning does that have for a 17-year-old who grew up in Virginia?

He needs to be taught about the horrors of war, and the difference between an independence movement and a terrorist organization. 15 years of prison is going to intensify his misguided anger towards western democracy, not weaken it. When he gets out, all he will have is no future (because he's an ex-con), social bonds only with criminals (because that's who he's had to talk to for half his life), and an abiding anger towards America.

Yes, this kid is screwed up. Yes, he was a tiny part of someone else's journey to do something very screwed up. But I don't think it's a felony, I think it's something that could be corrected by talking and by teaching.

Re:Knowledge

[Attila Dimedici]

"Hey, I'm going over to Syria to kill westerners and enslave Christians for the raping and whatnot...but my car broke down Ms Librarian. Do you have a book on automotive repair?"

The laws were written to hold you responsible for helping if you provided the book and there is a reasonable argument that they should. On the other hand, if they just ask for the book without mentioning what they plan on doing as soon as the car is fixed means that you cannot be held responsible for their intentions. In addition, if you can make a believable case that you did not believe them when they said they were going to Syria to kill westerners, etc, you are also off the hook. Or if you can make the case that if you can't afford a mechanic to fix your car, you can't afford a ticket to get to Syria either. If you can reasonably see no connection between the aid they are seeking and their criminal goals, you cannot be held responsible for providing that aid.

Re:Knowledge

[AmiMoJo]

It's not a grey line at all, it's a really simple test. If the person tells you that they intend to commit a crime it is illegal to help them with knowledge or in any other way. As soon as it becomes obvious to a reasonable person that they intend to break the law, you become an accessory.

That's how they got that guy who was teaching people to beat lie detector tests. If he had just been teaching it would have been legal, but because they were able to show that he knew some of his students wanted to learn specifically so that they could get government jobs they could claim he was helping them make a fraudulent application.

Once you know they are up to no good, you must discontinue helping them.

Re:Knowledge

[meta-monkey]

Intent. The same way we judge whether someone has criminal culpability for lots of other crimes.

"Hey can you pick me up at the corner of 1st and Main and give me a lift home?" -- No intent for wrongdoing. No crime.

"Hey I just robbed the bank at 1st and Main and need to get out of here. Can you pick me up and give me a lift home?" -- Knowledge of wrongdoing, intent to aid. Crime.

And the way you determine whether intent existed or not is evidence presented to a jury.

From the facts presented, this guy clearly intended to help swell the ranks and bank accounts of the worst group of bloodthirsty fanatics on the planet. If that's the case...justice boner.

Re:Knowledge

[StikyPad]

"Is imparting (academic, general) knowledge really "aid", though?"

Yes. We provide training to foreign militaries all the time as part of assistance packages.

Re:Knowledge

[Chelloveck]

The notification is mostly a courtesy to the sheriff. Once the booms start, people are going to call the sheriff saying, "Things are going boom out here!" If you've notified them they can just say, "Yeah, Bob Smith's out making holes in his yard, he should be done by sunset." Otherwise they have to find the location of the booms and pay a visit to make sure it's just some guy on his own property and not some guy blowing up someone *else's* property for shits and giggles.

I say this having been on the receiving end of such visits more than once. (Sometimes when you notify them they drive out anyway, but that's mostly because they're bored and like to see stuff blowing up as much as anyone else.)

Re:ISIS is a CIA operation

[ArcadeMan]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/...

Movie Plot again ?

[DrYak]

some asshole politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies

Googling around...
Apparently the story about this teen has been reported in the Washington post (among other).

I would have thought instead that this was straight out of Bruce Schneier's Movie Plot Threat Contest

THE REAL ARTICLE LINK

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the editors can't do there job, I'll do it for them.

http://www.itworld.com/article/2935195/enterprise-software/virginia-teen-pleads-guilty-to-giving-islamic-state-help-on-bitcoin.html

Pleaded Guilty to Conspiracy

[retroworks]

Dead 404 link in the Summary, but found article on CNN

First, the charge is "conspiracy" so that kind of covers all kinds of free speech if the intent is to help someone do something bad. It's not "speech violation" to keep your mouth shut and allow someone from ISIS to hide in your garage, but it's nevertheless conspiracy. Similarly it's not the bitcoin instruction, it's the conspiracy to help something bad happen with it. Second, if he and his attorney wanted to argue that twitter is free speech, they should not have pled guilty.

FTFOA "Niknejad was also charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and conspiring to kill and injure people abroad in the Eastern District Court of Virginia on Wednesday."

Re:What about John McCain?

[omfgnosis]

A whole lot of random stuff about ass and someone who's confused about whether the gays or the islams are the enemy. Sharpen your point.

Justice for Americans? Obama??

[Taco Cowboy]

Shame Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward is such a god damned weasel and is more concerned about protecting his reputation and wealth than in justice for Americans

Oh c'mon dude!

The day the Americans have to depend on Obama for justice (whether for the Americans or for anybody else) is the day America dies

You ought to know it by now, dude. Obama and 'justice' are mutually exclusive

This is good for bitcoin.

[beernutmark]

NT

Re:What happens in this case?

[sumdumass]

Without your knowledge is pretty key here. This kid was fully aware of what he was doing and that it was intended to aid terrorist.

You don't want it to seem too appealing.

[Dzimas]

No, the government has to keep up pretenses - Make it challenging to slip of to join ISIS so that only the hardcore religious fanatics actually make it to Syria. The last thing you want is millions of people signing up as cannon fodder, because that might actually enable ISIS to destabilize the region more than it already is.

As a side note, extreme religious fanaticism has all the hallmarks of a mental illness -- delusional thinking, belief in the supernatural, a willingness to do horrific things to please an invisible master. It should be treated as such.

you left something out

[cstacy]

US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About 3D Printing Bitcoins Via Twitter

ftfy

Re:you left something out

[Anonymous Coward]

US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About 3D Printing Bitcoins out of Graphene Using a Drone Running Linux Via Twitter

ftfy

Re:you left something out

[unixisc]

Yeah, this is just perfect for /. Toss in as many tech angles to ISIS, and it should be one heckuva story

Hello ISIL ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello ISIL and all other banned groups, criminals, conspirators, freedom fighters, druglords, mafioso, cash hoarders, money launderers, anarchists, revolutionaries, gun and rum runners, privacy nuts, journalists, lobbyists, leakers, whores, et al...

HERE is where you learn about money...
https://bitcointalk.org/
HERE is how you move money around...
https://bitcoin.org/
HERE is how you hide data...
https://www.gnupg.org/
HERE is how you move data around...
https://geti2p.net/
HERE is how you secure your computer...
http://www.openbsd.org/
HERE is a bunch more shit to play around with...
https://www.prism-break.org/

These are all dual use technologies, fully protected by freedom of speech, privacy, and other memes.
They're also basically the top search results in their respective classes as you have already discovered on your own.
Anyone telling you about them, educating you how to use them, even how to apply them to your cause... is engaging in fully protected free speech.
Killing someone is not.

Re:Hello ISIL ...

[Triklyn]

:) you're anonymous i see.

strength of convictions and all.

Re:What happens in this case?

[dbIII]

It's all pointless since they have got a massive flow of greenbacks coming in for the oil, antiquities etc flowing out and nobody able to shut those financial networks down so far they don't need to muck about with bitcoin. Since bitcoin records transactions and is far more tracable than greenbacks this kid probably gave then the sort of advice we want them to have. If they take up on it it's possible to work out in some cases where the bitcoins came from and where they are going to which may make it easier to shut down some of their financial networks.

Re:What happens in this case?

[johanw]

It's time all open source crypto development moved out of the US. Suppose they want to attack people like Moxie Marlinspike working on TextSecure, hiding messages from who knows who from the NSA? Fortunately the SMS fork, SMSSecure, is developed by European developers and while we don't have a true constitution (although the EU human rights treaty acts like one in practice, no wonder right wing politicians hate it) we are still free to talk about such things.

Re:Laugh

[Rei]

He already is - read the sort of stuff he's writing. He's damned lucky that they're not charging him as a member of a terrorist organization rather than, basically, their Booster Club.

Re:ISIS is a CIA operation

[PopeRatzo]

is there a difference?

No, but there's a hierarchy..

this might be the reason

[Amanda Parker]

This article says that US made harder for Terrorists to use their banking systems, that forced these to search for alternatives for funding their activities .. and thus the use of Bitcoin ....

Perfect storm!

[unixisc]

A perfect modern /. story - managing to combine Bitcoin, Twitter and ISIS all in one!!!! Bitcoin-hu-akbar!!!!

I don't know

[nomadic]

Is teaching someone about bitcoin really "aiding" them?

Asiatic....

[unixisc]

Different part of the continent. East Asia is China, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand... you can even extend it as far as India. However, the part you are talking about is West Asia - starting from Pakistan and going right up to Turkey. The Muslim part of the continent (sans Israel and Cyprus).

Re:Asiatic....

[dave420]

You should read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" - that's where that line was (kind of) from. Also Northern Cyprus has a Muslim majority (99% Sunni Muslim).

Re:If arabs or jews are "good people"

[unixisc]

Nice way to equivocate, but when was the last time that the Jews have done that?

anti-semites and conspiracy theorists come out

[schlachter]

I've seen interviews from the ME where many people claim that ISIS was created by Israel and is being commanded by Israel to take over the ME. Yup. That's just what Israel wants...an Islamic Caliphate surrounding/invading their country.

Anti-Israel is the new anti-Jew. If only the Jews would all die, the world would go back to being the happy loving peaceful place it was prior to 3,000 years ago when the Jews established the state of Israel....so goes the core meme...of deranged, deluded, and evil people the world over.

Re:anti-semites and conspiracy theorists come out

[dave420]

They'd be absolutely fine with that, though. The Israeli government's best gift is to be "under siege", as that allows them to get lots of more foreign aid for arms and so on, while appealing to voters' emotions to not risk upsetting the balance of power with the hordes at the door. I mean, if they're not totally down with that, their actions regarding expanding settlements seems rather bizarre, as they would be the first thing to have to go under any actual earnest peace agreement with the Palestinians. You can call me an anti-semite or a conspiracy theorist if you want - I'm vehemently neither. I can separate the machinations of the state of Israel and the Jewish faith and its followers, and know that an attack on the government is not an attack on the religion or its practitioners.

Re:anti-semites and conspiracy theorists come out

[schlachter]

You can call me an anti-semite or a conspiracy theorist if you want - I'm vehemently neither. I can separate the machinations of the state of Israel and the Jewish faith and its followers, and know that an attack on the government is not an attack on the religion or its practitioners.

Of course. You sound reasonable. I'm not referring to people who attack government policies. Many Israeli's themselves do that. However, many of the protestors/activists I've observed are calling for the destruction of the state and the killing of it's Jewish/Christian/Muslim/Druze/Bahi citizens.

A recent example was when the Israeli Judo team when to Morocco a couple weeks back, the people in the stands at the event screamed "we're going to murder you. you'll never get out of this country alive" and the event organizers needed to organize a military escort for the team just to get them out of the country. Sounds extreme, but shit like this happens every other day.

Re:anti-semites and conspiracy theorists come out

[KGIII]

If my understanding is correct, and I am too lazy to verify it by looking it up, a documentary I recently watched put forth that, statistically speaking, the amount of aid that Israel gets is trivial compared to what they spend on their military. The assertion being made was that all foreign aid could be stopped and it would have no effect on Israel's military capacity. They threw a bunch of numbers up on the screen and cited them but I did not care enough then (or now) to verify.

I guess my point is that the aid given Israel is not that important to them and that they, supposedly, can afford it. I like Israel and I actually almost converted to Judaism (I did not end up getting married so that was an easy out) but I do think they need to change how they deal with Palestinians. There is a nice camp that is sort of nearby. They take a group of Jewish kids and a group of Palestinian kids, fly them here at no expense, and have them live and play together outside of their usual environment. It is small but it is a start. They get a donation from me every year even though their impact is quite small.

Re:Laugh

[StikyPad]

Exactly. The only point of contention is the one that seems to have been overlooked by many people, which is that he's 17. Presumably, he was as young as 16 when he started this. That's old enough to know that what he was doing was wrong, but not old enough to fully appreciate the consequences. Hell, some people never learn, but 16/17 isn't old enough to expect well-adjusted adult behavior either. There's a reason ISIS targets young people for recruitment, and it's not for their life skills.

Re:Bloody murderer != fighter

[Cederic]

Oh, so slaughtering innocent men is fine is it?

Anyway the women should fucking defend themselves, at which point it is a fight, thus negating your point.

Coverage of a caliphate

[unixisc]

They've stated that they want a WORLD caliphate, not just one for the Middle East. A Caliph in Islam would be the equivalent of the Pope in Roman Catholicism, except being more venal. Caliphs used to give Muslim rulers everywhere they were - from Spain to India (the East Indies wasn't Islamic by the time their effectiveness was over) their divine seal of authority to rule. The very declaration of a caliphate implies that ISIS wants to rule every country that's a member of the OIC, and also spread that beyond to non-Muslim countries.

The myth of Muslim 'Allies'

[unixisc]

The reason that the West is in the mire it is in - in Afghanistan, Iraq and soon Syria - is their buying into assumptions that we have any allies in the region. We really have only one ally - Israel - whom Obama has managed to piss off to the point that they no longer trust us. But I digress.

Let's take a look at the countries we call our 'allies'. The leading one in the region is Saudi Arabia - the same country that produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, and whose regime - the part of KSA that the US considers an ally - deflects popular rage against the regime by deflecting it against Infidels worldwide - which includes us. They make trillions doing nothing but sitting on their fat butts and selling oil, and what do they do w/ that money? The least malevolent of it is buying slaves from East Asia or building glitzy palaces either within the country, or in exotic Mediterranean locations. Their population is certainly not democratic - they are either pro al-Qaeda, if they are Sunni, or pro-Iran, if they are Shi'ite. So the only 'ally' we have in the largest country in the region (by area)? The Sauds.

Next comes Qatar, which replaced Saudi Arabia as our main base in the region, so that the people of Saudis ain't pissed off at the American Infidels for being in the land of Mecca & Medina. What does this regime do? It created al Jazeera, which started off as al Qaeda TV, and now, sadly, is a legitimate channel in the West (where it should have been banned). That was b/w 9/11 and now. In the pre 9/11 days, their royal family members were buddies of Osama. And more recently, they are the principle guys funding ISIS. You actually think their population is pro US?

Qatar is then followed by UAE, which ain't much different, or better. One of the 3 countries worldwide, that recognized the Taliban, that country is heavily invested in by Iran, which is where the Iranians make their money. Oman is pretty neutral b/w Iran and the US. Bahrein has Sunni royals ruling over a 75% Shiite country. The population is pro Iran, while the royals are again pro Saudi & Saudi backed. Kuwait - majority of Kuwaitis are pro al Qaeda despite the US role in liberating Kuwait. Yemen - that's the real original home of Osama, so people there are either pro al Qaeda, or pro Iran (if they are the Shiite Houti rebels).

Going across the gulf, we next have Iran, Pakistan & Afghanistan. In Iran, there was the theory that the people are pro US, but there is little evidence that the people would be willing to jettison Islam for something else, if it came to that. In the last election, the main symbol of the 'Green Revolutionaries' was another Mullah. In Pakistan, most of the people are heavily anti-US, and so is most of their leadership. In Afghanistan, even Karzai has talked in the past about uniting w/ the Taliban - so much for even gratitude there. Do you want me to go up north & touch on the 'stans'?

Going from there across the Red Sea, Egypt again is a country where the populace is not pro US. However, luckily, the damage done by the Muslim Brotherhood was constrained, since Egyptians were in no mood to lose the Sinai again due to the Ikhwan ending Cairo's treaty w/ Israel. Libya, where the geniuses like Hilary and McCain thought they were being progressive by supporting the ouster of Col Qadaffi, is now in the hands of a pro-ISIS regime.

Back to the Levant, we're back to Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Pali territories. Turkey is flat out pro ISIS, which is why Jihadis from around the world first head to Turkey and then go to Raqqa, Syria to join them. Syria - talking about the population there - is either pro Baathist, if they are Alawites, Shiites or Christians: Druze, who were once part of that coalition no longer feel safe within it. The Sunni part of Syria is squarely pro ISIS. Lebanon - the part that's not allied to Hizbullah is allied to the Saudis. The Kurds owe allegance only to Kurdistan - be it within Iraq or Syria. In Jord

Re:The myth of Muslim 'Allies'

[unixisc]

I forgot to mention - the other thing that the sheikhs & emirs do when they're not busy in self aggrandizement schemes - is sending that money abroad to build mosques and madrassas and not just convert people to Islam, but also radicalize them so that they'd be willing to fight a Jihad. Also, their population that migrates to the West then becomes the backbone of Islamic campaigns, like the one against Charlie Hebdo and Jylands Posten in Europe, and against Pamela Gellar here. If these guys are our allies, I'd hate to see who our enemies are.

Re:What about John McCain?

[unixisc]

He has always been a sucker for Muslim allies, be it supporting the ouster of Gadaffi and deeming the Libyan Jihadis as allies, recognition of Kosovo as an independent country or sending more US troops to Iraq to help our 'allies'

Re:What about John McCain?

[tmosley]

I guess anything anyone does is okay as long as they take a dick up their ass, right? McCain was shown on video with a bunch of guys who were way to friendly with him for who he was, which leads one to assume that there was a sexual relationship involved somehow. But I guess that is lost on you, as your lib-dar is so finely attuned to offense you miss the fucking point every fucking time.

In case you missed it again this time, let me spell it out for you. You. Are. A. Fucking. Tool. And. An Idiot.

Reality not computer game kids!

[dbIII]

Credible to you maybe. When was the airstrike or even raid by Mexican or Canadian police? Didn't happen, thus not credible to me.

By taking the fantasies of these people so seriously you are helping them. File that with your accusations of "treason" that don't match the actual definition.