What exactly makes people join ISIS? Is the US exploiting some legitimate tensions or disagreements? Is the US offering them control over the region or do they really believe the US won't stab them in the back later? I can almost always understand why leadership would be dogs for the empire, but what keeps the people on the ground radicalized? How do they recruit, what makes someone want to join and feel conviction? Is there a good Marxist resource for reading more about it?
The same reason people join any movement (not in any order):
Money
Religion
Ideology
Nationalism
Revenge
Psychopathy
Defense
Greater purpose
Growing up never questioning anything
Resource control
Legacy
Sympathy
Trickery
By force
Self perseverance
I don’t believe anyone truly thinks the US won’t stab them in the back. I mean officially, ISIS is at odds with everyone. But with #13, the US isn’t sending guys in dress blues to meet with an ISIS cleric. Sometimes they may send actual CIA/intelligence operatives (though sometimes actual politicians will meet with them, like Charlie Wilson). But usually they hire a guy who hires a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.
That guy may or may not know the chain of command, and he trains/recruits/passes on equipment and info to others, in this case ISIS, and the group may or may not be fully aware that they’re being played. The US is not always promising anyone anything. Sometimes they just have networks that believe their own agendas are progressing by their own merits.
Sometimes they’re also trying to play their circumstantial allies. For example, it is claimed by Israeli liberals that Netanyahu gave weapons and intelligence to Hamas to further divide Palestinian opinion on governance. This may be true, but it doesn’t mean you’re a puppet to your backers. It may mean you just take their shit and use it against them. Gaddafi, Noriega, and Saddam were US puppets at one point but decided they wanted to pursue other things.
However, with ISIS specifically, it was a movement that was birthed alongside al Qaeda and other terrorist movements. But it really took over after al Qaeda became irrelevant and the west destroyed the Middle East. Governments and security were barely functional. There is no food, no water, no hope except heaven, and that’s what ISIS essentially promised - a way to regain glory and blessing by seizing back resources, control, and spreading the word of “god.”
Muslims who suffered in the Middle East with no help from the government, the west, and with practically no leftist presence, they have three choices: continue working to provide what little they can for their families, and/or take up arms against the invaders and terrorists, and/or join the terrorists for the above reasons.