Thread by @StringwallApp

I have a probably-naive question: I’ve been thinking about the various organized crime figures who’ve managed to avoid serious legal consequences by serving as confidential informants on terrorism related cases. And this has made me consider the reasons that certain crime states

https://twitter.com/vickerysec/status/1390169116858732545

…are sponsors and supporters of a variety of different terrorist groups whose cause and wacky beliefs are not even taken seriously the state sponsor.

bbc.com/news/world-512…

Clearly some of this is part of their hybrid warfare strategy to use proxies to attack, divide, and weaken the target societies. Some of this is presumably to divert law enforcement and NATSEC resources away from other endeavors.

But how much is purely to engineer opportunities for meaningless “cooperation” so that they can essentially buy a get-out-of-jail-free card, whenever the need arises?

https://twitter.com/stringwallapp/status/1387855456908062721

Sort of like how criminals use the return of stolen art as bargaining chips with police and prosecutors.

independent.co.uk/arts-entertain…

‘“…it is true that stolen paintings are used as collateral in exchange for drugs, weapons and sometimes as what we call ‘get out of jail free cards’ to bargain with the police,” said Christopher A. Marinello of Art Recovery International.’

Do these crime states inflame and support the jihad just so that they can throw the jihadists under the bus later on, if necessary, to negotiate protection for the profitable criminal networks?

And I wonder how the jihadists would feel about it, if they ever figured out that they were being set up and used as an expendable asset to protect a criminal enterprise in which they shared no meaningful portion of the profits?

cnbc.com/2017/07/31/fin…