Egypt and the Middle East.

[A-Four]

The big question is, where are they getting the $ from to pay the fighters of IS.

Each day these such fighters are paid around $20, add on to that food and keep, arms bullets, transport etc, etc. The total cost is around $100 per day, per man. So like I asked on this post a few months ago, Where is the money coming from.

When in the past, the likes of Boka Haram have demanded a ransom payment from any government it has always been around $100,000, which is peanuts to what IS is demanding these days, which tells me they have a vast number of fighters to support. You may remember that they demanded $200,000,000 from Japan for their two people, who as we know, were eventually executed. Seems to me they are desperate for $, a case that I am sure the intelligence services are looking at.

An interesting little note here that Western press did not wish to pick up on in June 2014, a huge raid was carried out on the Mosel Branch of Iraq's central bank. The terrorists got away with a staggering $430,000,000 in gold and hard currency. ( check this for yourselves ). I am told even Mossad blinked on getting this news. For that amount IS has enough cash to pay 60,000 mercenaries to fight for them at $600 per month for at least a year.

Mi thinks, Obama would need to deploy more than 6,000 troops even if they are only to be there as advisors

[carrie]

Little confused by this post, A four, if they ISIL stole so much money from this bank then why should they be short of money? A report on BBC this morning said that artifacts are being smuggled out of Syria that are worth millions. Seems that there is no shortage of funds for these people.

[Bullet Magnet]

Too much is never enough Carrie. Poverty breeds radicals, no rich man in his right mind would enter into a gun fight... That's what poor people are for...

[A-Four]

Little confused by this post, A four, if they ISIL stole so much money from this bank then why should they be short of money? A report on BBC this morning said that artifacts are being smuggled out of Syria that are worth millions. Seems that there is no shortage of funds for these people.

I think it was last week Carrie that an international agreement was signed that all artefacts from such countries had been banned, ofcourse this will not stop such sales, but they will certainly be devalued greatly.

[newcastle]

Money is the least of the problems confronting ISIS.

Huge sums lifted from banks emptied; substantial ransoms demanded...and paid; clandestine sales of oil from fields they control; funds supplied by the usual suspects in surrounding countries intent on undermining stability. It's not as if the ISIS fighters are mercenaries...there only for their daily handouts!

All this is well known...and well documented.

The coalition strategy is to constrain this supply as far as they can and it is having some success.

One of the problems about putting more "boots on the ground" is the likelihood of giving ISIS even more foreign targets to capture, ransom ...or behead.

[Luxor Pharoahs]

Cameron, rang President Sissi yesterday to offer condolences to the victims and asked if GB could have closer ties, he also offered help with the terrorists. Not the sort of thing an alienated Premier would do. But there again methods in madness, like cheaper rates through the Suez when completed.

[Who2]

Make no bones about it and do not believe them when they say terrorism does not work, history is littered with classic examples that terrorism does more often than not work…..
I once worked in country that was founded on terrorism and still practices it to this day, guess ?
Ps. That's why many daft governments sponsor it, the USA having been a major contributor….
So Cameron is thinking of sending in the Regiment, if you see any overweight long haired tough looking bas*** in bars then 'the boys are back in town'
Luxor,s better than Lashkar Gah any day.
Pss. Remember Maggie went to War when on her back foot and came out smelling of roses…

If you see any of these over Thebes let us know….From Russia with Love. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057076/?ref_=nv_sr_1
I love when "Bibi" Netanyahu states to his flock come to Castle Israel, but bring your money! he is a Scorpio and ex Sayeret Matkal.

[Hafiz]

Who2 - democracy doesn't have to follow the UK model and move at a glacial pace. Think Germany and Japan after the 2nd world war. Poland. Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Bosnia, the Czech's, Bulgaria, Romania etc etc all had no of little democratic experience before 1989 and have become democracies almost overnight. But the best is India - huge, riven by religious, class and regional hatreds and with no democratic experience before independence. In fact 20,000 budding politicians including Gandhi and Nehru were imprisoned by the British for the duration of the was. If you were taking bets in 1947 on the country most likely to fail and to end up being run by a dictatorship rather than the amateur politicians then it would have been India. Its the best example to contradict those dictators that say that they are necessary to maintain order and protect one group from another and that democracy wont work in their conditions.

In the region Turkey had no democratic traditions before the 1920's but has, with a few hiccups, become a functioning and generally secular democracy. Bangladesh is another Muslim country where democracy has started from zero and seems to be hanging on.

In each of these cases there was little in their history which would have predicted a democratic outcome.

The UK isn't the gold standard in democracy that it thinks itself with an hereditary and appointive upper house in the British Parliament, an hereditary head of state and an established church with unelected bishops from the established church exercising legislative power. Doesn't sound like a representative democracy to me.

On the other hand true democracy has emerged quicker in outliers like the US, Canada and NZ and not according to the rate of historical development in the UK. In fact if you look at the Australian colonial experience the colony, and all its transported criminals!, led the home country on suffrage, votes for women and the first secret ballot (known as the Australian ballot).

The more interesting question is why Middle Eastern Muslim countries seem to have more difficulty than most in establishing democratic institutions. Some have even gone backwards-Sudan, Algeria and Egypt.

[newcastle]

Who2 - democracy doesn't have to follow the UK model and move at a glacial pace. Think Germany and Japan after the 2nd world war. Poland. Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Bosnia, the Czech's, Bulgaria, Romania etc etc all had no of little democratic experience before 1989 and have become democracies almost overnight. But the best is India - huge, riven by religious, class and regional hatreds and with no democratic experience before independence. In fact 20,000 budding politicians including Gandhi and Nehru were imprisoned by the British for the duration of the was. If you were taking bets in 1947 on the country most likely to fail and to end up being run by a dictatorship rather than the amateur politicians then it would have been India. Its the best example to contradict those dictators that say that they are necessary to maintain order and protect one group from another and that democracy wont work in their conditions.

In the region Turkey had no democratic traditions before the 1920's but has, with a few hiccups, become a functioning and generally secular democracy. Bangladesh is another Muslim country where democracy has started from zero and seems to be hanging on.

In each of these cases there was little in their history which would have predicted a democratic outcome.

The UK isn't the gold standard in democracy that it thinks itself with an hereditary and appointive upper house in the British Parliament, an hereditary head of state and an established church with unelected bishops from the established church exercising legislative power. Doesn't sound like a representative democracy to me.

On the other hand true democracy has emerged quicker in outliers like the US, Canada and NZ and not according to the rate of historical development in the UK. In fact if you look at the Australian colonial experience the colony, and all its transported criminals!, led the home country on suffrage, votes for women and the first secret ballot (known as the Australian ballot).

The more interesting question is why Middle Eastern Muslim countries seem to have more difficulty than most in establishing democratic institutions. Some have even gone backwards-Sudan, Algeria and Egypt.

Why? Because an islamic theocracy & democracy are fundamentally incompatible. The Middle East will also have to change its patriarchal society before it can aspire to anything approaching western norms of 'democracy'

You appear to be employing a narrow definition of democracy. Fair enough.....but to me it means far more than having an "elected" government!