Isis, Syria and Iraq: The Zone

[rich]

interesting and surreal tidbits about life and war in the middle east. the
broader and ill-informed reportage we get from the area and in general
which tends to look a things like good guys vs bad guys (which is also a
them in Adam Curtis' new film now that I think of it) which unable to
explain the complexities and downright contradictions of modern
geo-politics and global finance and terrorism and state-sponsored violence,
settles for schoolyard explanations, foolish and folly and basically bad
shit

rich
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b2c6b5ca-9427-11e4-82c7-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl

e.g.
In Isis-controlled Syria, electricity still functions a few hours a day —
courtesy of Mr Assad’s regime. Mahmoud, an engineer, and his colleagues
still file into the same power plants where they worked for years before
Isis took over. But while the militant group’s oil and gas authority now
oversees them, the Damascus government still pays their wages. Thousands of
civil servants have similar arrangements in Isis-controlled Syria and Iraq,
where locals risk long and dangerous drives to pick up their pay in
Baghdad.
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