RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
April 1 to April 6
Featured Investigation
ISIS dreamed of establishing not just a nation but a caliphate over the world. For nearly three years (2014-17) it did, in fact, control an area the size of Britain, with 12 million inhabitants that included territory in Libya, Nigeria and Philippines and at least 13 other countries. The largest city it ran was Mosul, Iraq.
Over the last year, journalists for The New York Times have made five trips to the old Islamic State offices in Mosul, gathering more than 15,000 pages of internal documents “abandoned by the militants as their ‘caliphate’ crumbled.”
Although ISIS is famous for its murderous ideology, the documents suggest that its leaders understood the importance of the mundane tasks of government. Rukmini Callimachi reports:
Individually, each piece of paper documents a single, routine interaction: A land transfer between neighbors. The sale of a ton of wheat. A fine for improper dress.
But taken together, the documents in the trove reveal the inner workings of a complex system of government. They show that the group, if only for a finite amount of time, realized its dream: to establish its own state, a theocracy they considered a caliphate, run according to their strict interpretation of Islam.
The world knows the Islamic State for its brutality, but the militants did not rule by the sword alone. They wielded power through two complementary tools: brutality and bureaucracy.
ISIS built a state of administrative efficiency that collected taxes and picked up the garbage. It ran a marriage office that oversaw medical examinations to ensure that couples could have children. It issued birth certificates — printed on Islamic State stationery — to babies born under the caliphate’s black flag. It even ran its own D.M.V.
The documents and interviews with dozens of people who lived under their rule show that the group at times offered better services and proved itself more capable than the government it had replaced. …
One of the keys to their success was their diversified revenue stream. The group drew its income from so many strands of the economy that airstrikes alone were not enough to cripple it.
Ledgers, receipt books and monthly budgets describe how the militants monetized every inch of territory they conquered, taxing every bushel of wheat, every liter of sheep’s milk and every watermelon sold at markets they controlled. From agriculture alone, they reaped hundreds of millions of dollars. Contrary to popular perception, the group was self-financed, not dependent on external donors.
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
Mueller Got Manafort Go-Ahead After Home Raid
Legal Insurrection
Rod Rosenstein’s August 2, 2017 memo purported to confirm Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s authority to go after Paul Manafort’s business dealings. And, in fact, Mueller already had already been doing that for weeks, culminating in the July 26 raid of Manafort’s home. But instead of confirming Mueller’s existing authority, the Deputy Attorney General’s memo appears to have been intended to provide after the fact justification for unauthorized conduct by Mueller’s office.
Andrew McCabe Raises Over $550,000 on GoFundMe
Intercept
Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired after investigators found that he had repeatedly and deliberately lied about his role in various media leaks, has raised more than $550,000 so far in a GoFundMe solicitation asking for help with anticipated legal bills.
Corrupt Contractor ‘Fat Leonard’ Wooed Navy Brass
Washington Post
A defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard,” who bribed officers and swindled the government out of at least $35 million, is at the center of one of the worst corruption scandals in Navy history. The Justice Department has filed criminal charges against 29 defendants who worked for the Navy or Francis’s company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia.
South Carolina: Army Engineers Failed to Fix Deadly Dam
The State
The U.S. Army found problems as early as 1979 at a Fort Jackson dam that crumbled during a deadly 2015 flood, but it failed to fix some of the problems cited by inspectors through the years. When the Army did work on the dam, its efforts increased chances that the earthen structure would break.
Hackers Have Attacked Dozens of 911 Call Centers
NBC News
There have been 184 cyberattacks on public safety agencies and local governments in the past 24 months. 911 centers have been directly or indirectly attacked in 42 of the 184 cases. Two dozen incidents involved ransomware attacks, in which hackers use a virus to remotely seize control of a computer system and hold it hostage for payment.
Diapers Becoming High-Tech, Unaffordable Luxury
Tampa Bay Times
Today’s diapers are small miracles of industrial science. They are softer, thinner and longer lasting than ever before. But this engineering marvel – the result of billions spent on research and development – has helped make diapers an unaffordable luxury for many Americans.
Calif.: Perhaps $1B Wasted in Inept Medicaid Expansion
Sacramento Bee
California signed up an estimated 450,000 people under Medicaid expansion who may not have been eligible for coverage, according to a report by the U.S. Health and Human Services’ chief watchdog. The report estimates the potential cost at more than $1 billion.
Goodyear Ignored Deadly Tire Failures for Two Decades
Jalopnik
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. received failure claims over a tire that was installed on thousands of RVs and is linked to at least nine deaths, dozens of injuries, and hundreds of crashes as early as 1996, the first year it was manufactured and installed on motorhomes. Goodyear appears to have vastly underreported the number of failure claims it had received over the tire to federal regulators during a previous inquiry more than a decade ago, and confirms the tire is almost certainly still on the road today.
