The terrorist organization calling itself the “Islamic State” has approved a 2015 budget in its desperate attempt to brand itself as a legitimate sovereign state.
The majority of the two-billion-dollar allowance will go towards paying the salaries of its militant fighters—individuals who are making between $500-650 a month for torturing, raping, looting, and murdering.
According to the al-Araby, $250 million will also go towards “monthly wages for the poor and disabled, orphans, widows and families of individuals killed in the airstrikes carried out by Iraqi and US-led coalition forces.”
Essentially, while ISIS strips people of their individual autonomy, it is using welfare programs to force reliance on the “state,” and it willing to try anything.
As reported by the Daily Beast:
“This weekend, the Orwellian depiction of legitimacy became ever more surreal and desperate with the announcement of a new medical school in one city they control and the release of a propaganda video featuring a British hostage touring another town, claiming “this is a normal city going about its business.”
In the Syrian city of Raqqa—the main stronghold of the self-styled Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL—posters appeared over the weekend, according to local activists, which announced the opening of a school of medicine and invited applications from high-school graduates between the ages of 18 and 30.
The medical school follows recent claims of plans to mint ISIS currency and the opening of a bank in the Iraqi city of Mosul—another was opened in the Syrian town of al-Bab several weeks ago. But locals there say any money deposited is thrown into an unlocked cupboard behind the tellers, hardly inspiring confidence.”
In the latest propaganda video, the kidnapped British war photographer John Cantlie is shown on camera walking through bustling streets in supposed ISIS controlled regions, creating a fictitious sense of prosperity and peace.
“The media likes to paint a picture of life in the Islamic State as depressed, people walking around as subjugated citizens in chains, and beaten down by strict totalitarian rule. But really apart from some rather chilly, but very sunny, December weather, life here in Mosul is business as usual.”
Note ISIS' careful placement of the word “citizen.” The terrorist group is trying every tactic to present itself as functioning, valid state. However clever it may be with its mind games, this is the same governing head that created a document justifying child rape and sex slavery. No amount of propaganda videos, war relief funds, or yearly budgets will change the illegitimacy and rancor of this group.