Tuesday 22 September 2015

It's all shit.

From The Daily Mail:

Tap water in Syrian city under ISIS control is an undrinkable brown sludge filled with worms after Islamic State engineer in charge of the water plant steals its funds and goes on the run

Somebody pointed out ages ago that all this jihadi stuff is great fun for a while but the novelty wears off, and until and unless ISIS are actually capable of organising the day-to-day stuff like clean tap water, refuse collection, electricity supplies, medical care and all the other trappings of a civilised country which most Syrians or Iraqis (or Westerners) are used to, then they will just fade away again and be yet another bandit/terrorist group holed up in the proverbial mountains.

Say about Assad or Saddam what you like, they were reasonably good at the day-to-day stuff; ISIS clearly are not, so there's hope for us yet.

4 comments:

JohnM said...

Say about Assad or Saddam what you like, they were reasonably good at the day-to-day stuff; ISIS clearly are not, so there's hope for us yet

A parasite recognising that it can't suck the host dry doesn't quite equate to "reasonably good at the day-to-day stuff". But I share your final sentiment.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JM, this is the trade off any government has to make -

a) take the piss with lining its own pockets and treat the population like shit but risk you will be thrown out, or

b) being a lot more modest with the old kleptocracy and enslaving but reduce the risk of being thrown out to virtually zero.

It is not necessarily benevolence that makes politicians and dictators keep a sufficient proportion of the population happy, it is naked self interest.

Random said...

b) aka China now.

Graeme said...

I'm not sure the drinking water in Syria was ever top-notch. It was definitely iffy when I was there in 2002. In fact, i returned home with a parasitic infection after visiting Damascus.