How to Stop Women and Men from Joining ISIS

I could not agree more with the majority of what you typed, though there was one thing that I both agreed and disagreed with. Social Media: What I agree the most with is ISIS’ use of social media to recruit its militants. Shutting down ISIS’ mainstream social media pages could be beneficial in preventing some people from joining, though governments often analyze various extremists’ websites to gain traction on possible terror attacks, new types of recruitment methods and verbiage, and connections. For the United States, it is the NSA that does this. Social Media Analysis (SMA) is actually not that new of an idea. Matter-a-fact, back in the winter of 2001, Valdis Krebs was one of the first data collects to start what many today call a connection web. A connection web is identical to a food web, but is populated with people who are acquaintances, friends, and family with other people. Which is used today in tracking down head leaders of gang and terrorist groups, and is extremely effective. Though the first ever documented social network analysis—not social media analysis; they are slightly different—was back in 1967 by Stanley Milgram. His experiment’s objective was to understand how people connected with each other. To do so, he asked random people to send a package to an acquaintance that would most likely receive it. Conclusively, he discovered that the majority of people were connected with six acquaintances (which prompted the famous phrase “six degrees of separation”). A bit later in 1973, Mark Granovetter published an article titled “The Strength of Weak Ties,” in which he concluded through a series of tests that for the overwhelming majority of people, their acquaintances were more important (called “strong ties”) than friends or family (“weak ties”). So, just some interesting studies that have led to today’s SMA that has been not only used by governments, but by hacker groups such as Anonymous. SMA is a very promising solution to helping the decline of ISIS recruitments via social media sites, especially in the future when even terror attacks will be predicted and hopefully prevented. Here are two links to where I got this background and more detailed knowledge from: (1) https://www.hsaj.org... and (2) http://www.digitaltonto.com.... Here is the link to the image of the connection web I was referring to: Digital Tonto ISIS’s Appeal: It is great that you bring up the issue with people rudely making-fun of Islam and its believers, labeling them all savages or terrorists when that is simply not the case. Just last week I came across the image that had an ISIS supporter cheering and holding a sign that read “Behead those who insult Islam”. What the Muslim has on his sign is a pretty strong statement. On a more political note, an article published just two days ago on Business Insider by Jim Tankersley stated in its title “Thomas Piketty might have the most controversial theory for what’s behind the rise of ISIS” (Business Insider). Piketty’s theory directly address ISIS’s appeal to the masses in the Middle East. In its most basic form, his theory is that “inequality is a major driver of Middle Easter terrorism” (Business Insider). And his definition of inequality ranges from religion to income. The article talks about how there are oil monarchies that control the super majority of the oil, but have extremely low populations, making the countries around it with larger populations poorer in comparison. Tankersley specifically wrote if one is to view the region between Egypt and Iran—including Syria—that “you [will] find several oil monarchies controlling between 60 and 70 percent of [the] wealth, while housing just a bit more than 10 percent of the 300 million people living in that area” (Business Insider). And in those countries that are controlling the wealth, only a select few families bear the wealth, leaving the rest of the population in near or absolute poverty. The fortune of some countries and selfishness of the rich is a strong motivation for people to join forces with ISIS. There are many more motivations, depending on the person, but this is just in relation to Thomas Piketty’s theory. To try and prevent that, something that could be tried would be to force the rich to spread their wealth with those struggling with poverty. Another possible solution would be to increase the education standards and construct various technology manufacturing and distribution plants to insure that the main export out of the Middle East was not just oil. Here is a link to the image of the ISIS support with the sign: Before its News War and Drawing War Lines: I do agree that bombing civilian populated areas is in no way helping those who wish to put an end to the Islamic State. But I both agree and disagree on is when you stated that pushing away refugees is not helping the fight against ISIS. First, I will explain why I agree. Forcing millions of civilians to leave their homes to seek asylum in foreign countries does not help because (as we learned with the most recent attack in Paris) the potential of insurgents slipping through security checkpoints is really high. So united countries that are fighting against ISIS have now essentially given ISIS and other terrorist groups a good excuse and way to blend in with society so they can further spread their propaganda and plot more mass attacks. Speaking on Syria in particularly, nearly 7.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes, about four million of which are seeking asylum in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and parts of northern Africa (The Guardian). Now advocating for governments receiving immigrants, they are simply being overworked with limited resources. Toward the end of June, the United Nations announced that it would cost around $5.5 billion to help with handle the Syrian refugees, of which only 25% was paid for (The Guardian). As it can be inferred, organizations like the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) declared that it was running out of money to make food and would have to pull back some of its assets in some countries. Though I also disagree with you a bit since pulling civilians out of the war-torn areas (in this case the Middle East) are extremely beneficial to defeating the opposing force since it (1) reduces the number of people likely to join ISIS, (2) prevents civilians from being killed, and (3) possibly gives some people a chance at a new life in a new world. As of now, nearly all refugees are being more stress factors to nations than contributors to nations’ economies. But with time, refugees will increase the number of labor workers in countries that need them the most, driving that country’s economy on an upward slope. For example, there has been a noticeable wage increase in formal jobs in Turkey ever since the recent influx of Syrian refugees (World Bank). In the end, I guess determining whether driving out millions of locals from their homes is a good depends on the lens that the judge is looking through. Something that I do want to add is that there are more than just the two fates of either dying by allied forces strikes or joining ISIS to fight the attackers. Another choice Syrians have is to hide from both the government and ISIS—though some say there is not much of a difference between the two—and attempt to carry on life in their war-torn homeland. Conclusion: The various problems that you listed were very good and made me think a few things in ways that I have not before, which is exactly what I was looking for. Something that I would like to challenge you with though is in your response, to please present solutions instead of restating the problems and possibly site a couple sources. Now if this first “rebuttal” in our discussion was simply your establishing the first building block to your assigning possible solutions to each of the problems you stated in the next round or two, then that is totally fine. Simply put, just please make sure to include solutions to your problems that are—possibly—blended in with information derived from a couple websites (and create a formal or informal works cited at the end of your response). P.S.: I know one citation in my works cited has “23 March 2016” as a publishing date, but I think the date is more or less a deadline or the time when the speaker, Mathis Wagner, will give his speech on the research paper he made. P.S.S.: Check the comments for why I could not respond...technical issue, XP. Works Cited Jones, Sam. Shaheen, Kareem. “Syrian Refugees: Four Million People Forced to Flee as Crisis Deepens.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 9 July 2015. Web. 1 December 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com...;. Ressler, Steve. “Social Network Analysis as an Approach to Combat Terrorism: Past, Present, and Future Research.” Homeland Security Affairs. Center for Homeland Defense and Security. July 2006. Web. 30 Nov 2015. <https://www.hsaj.org...;. Tankersley, Jim. “Thomas Piketty might have the most controversial theory for what’s behind the rise of ISIS.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc. 30 Nov. 2015. Web. 30 Nov. 2015. <http://www.businessinsider.com...;. Wagner, Mathis. “The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Turkish Labor Market.” The World Bank. The World Bank Group. 23 March 2016. Web. 2 December 2015. <http://www.worldbank.org...;. Wales, Josey. “ISIS: Explains Proper Way to Behead Infidels (Video).” Before It’s News. Before It’s News, Inc. 15 September 2014. Web. 2 December 2015. <http://beforeitsnews.com...;.