Not only that but this very airfield has already been targeted twice by Allied airstrikes! Have you ever seen the destructive force contained within a modern, professionally manufactured bomb? On an oilfield? Remember all the pictures of burning Iraqi oilfields during the first Gulf War? How can this oilfield possibly have been the target of two allied airstrikes this year and still be a "prime source of revenue of Islamic State"?

Firstly, the West, even the Western media, seems to have a very detailed and precise picture of ISIS' structure, its strategic and financial assets and their locations. Yet these assets still exist, are operating and are producing vital revenues for ISIS. Considering that the West is aware of all this, and has been bombing ISIS for a year is it not a little strange that such assets are still operational and still "a prime source of revenue for Islamic State"? Surely if the West has such a detailed picture of ISIS' assets, and has flown around 10,000 sorties against them in 2015, how can so many of those assets still survive and thrive?

There are several more paragraphs of analysis but already a number of startling facts present themselves.

Overnight four RAF Tornadoes dropped bombs on the Omar oilfield in eastern Syria, a prime source of revenue for Islamic State. It has been hit twice before by America and France....."

"There was a palpable sense of relief last night as ministers toured television studios this morning to explain how they will build on the vote for airstrikes in Syria.

There are two possibilities: Either what the media has been telling us about what is going on in the Middle East is total bullshit, or ISIS is completely invulnerable to Western bombs. Certainly invulnerable enough that the UK launching an air war against them is completely pointess. Worse than pointless, because it will ensure new recruits for ISIS whilst killing civilians.

Finally, the way the story is presented to us is a classic example of the way the media likes to build a false narrative structure around events so that their readership can make sense of those events. In this case they are making out that the UK is making a vital contribution to the war effort by bombing a "prime source of revenue for Islamic State". As if we have aleady achieved something. As if the Allies, while knowing about the oilfield, were just waiting for the Brits to donate the services of their six jets before destroying it. As if the two previous strikes were not effective because they were not carried out by British bombers.

There was an even stranger article in the Standard's sister paper, The Independent, entitled:

IS ISIS IN CRISIS? SYRIANS WHO ONCE SUPPORTED IT ARE NOW REPULSED BY ITS BRUTALITY.

It begins:

"The very foundations of the Caliphate appear to be crumbing. Territories once enjoyed by the 'Islamic State', and brutally enforced public support are, for the first time, under serious threat...."

The thrust of the rest of the piece is, I hope, fairly obvious. Local populations in the Middle East used to support ISIS but now that support is waning. The reason it is waning is because those people are repulsed by its brutality. But get this: they only supported ISIS in the first place because that support was "brutally enforced"!

So, the paper is eager to inform us that IS is losing public support. But that implies ISIS had public support in the first place, and so offensive is this idea to the paper that they can only suggest it on the grounds that this support was enforced. First of all, how can support be enforced? Non-resistance can be enforced but support cannot be, and the article is crowing over "lost support"

Secondly, why would brutality previously lead to support but now suddenly loss of support?

Finally, instead of claiming illogically that the support was a result of brutal enforcement it would surely have been more useful to examine the real reasons for that support.

None of the above is intended as cheerleading for ISIS, but as a way of pointing out that the information we are getting from the media about ISIS and the war, about what is going on around us, is not an accurate one. In fact much of it makes no sense. I do not know what the reasons are for it making no sense, but we should nevertheless probably be trying to find them.

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