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Raqqa Falls, ISIS Reels
Osama bin Laden famously said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse.” These days, ISIS is looking more like a dead horse.
US-led forces have liberated Raqqa, the so-called capital of the terror group. Mop-up operations continue, but the city is swarmed with coalition fighters.
“Major military operations in Raqqa are finished but they are now clearing the city of sleeper cells — if they exist — and mines,” said a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed coalition of Arabs and Kurds. “The situation in Raqqa is under control and soon there will be an official statement declaring the liberation of the city.”
ISIS was founded in Iraq as Obama rapidly withdrew the necessary US military presence there. The Islamist group swept through ill-trained Iraqi forces and soon entered Syria, a nation reduced to anarchy by years of civil war. As they gobbled up land and flooded the media with grisly images, tens of thousands of jihadis flocked to their black banner.
But the group stumbled as the US targeted their finances and lucrative oil infrastructure. Then, with a new president in Washington, things really got dicey. This map shows ISIS’s precipitous decline over the past two and a half years:
ISIS has lost about two-thirds of its territory and is reduced to a trans-border strip of the Euphrates and the desert wastes surrounding it. Why have they fallen so far, so fast? Look at the change in airstrikes after January 20, 2017:
President Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis deserve tremendous credit, even though the media will be loath to give it. Where the previous administration was content with precision drone strikes and economic damage, the current Commander-in-Chief decided to snuff out the would-be caliphate. Well done.
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Published in Islamist Terrorism, Military
The civilian casualties are a direct consequence of ISIS shielding itself with civilians. By not targeting them when they did so, we allowed them to become stronger and put more civilians in danger. Maybe some will hate us; Maybe some will hate them for putting them in the situation. Maybe some will resist more forcefully the next group of terrorists that tries to hide among them. A lot of French were killed by American bombs meant for Nazis. I don’t remember many Frenchmen attacking American soldiers as a result.
Actually, you seem to have completely missed my point. I refer you to comment number 11, 14, 16, and 19. You might do well to reread them.
And do you seriously believe that ISIS could’ve actually built a fully-functioning economically sustainable caliphate? I find it unlikely, even if their state survive, it would end up with would either be “fully-functioning” or “economically sustainable.”
But perhaps my evaluation is incorrect. Who do you think would have traded with them to make their caliphate “economically sustainable”? You suggested it, so you might have some idea.
The civilian casualties are a direct consequence of US intervention. If we had no intervened, those people would not have died from American bombers. The increase in civilian casualties comes from increased US bombing operations with fewer targeting restrictions under the Trump administration. That would be Donald Trump’s promise to “bomb the [expletive] out of ’em.” (Because to Donald Trump, to “bomb the [expletive] out of ’em” carries no negative consequences.)
With regards to your comment about dead French civilians, you would have a point if the war against ISIS existed in a vacuum. However, we’ve spent the last 16 years dropping bombs on Muslims all over the world and the number of dead civilians, including children, has not gone unnoticed. It is a major source of anger against the United States and a major recruiting tool for jihadists.
Nothing in your previous posts suggested a method of preventing the Islamic State from consolidating their power and authority over a fairly broad expanse of territory. They would be free to continue their tyrannical rule.
As for economic sustainability, their control of oil fields supported their entire buildup and operations. They shipped most or all of it out through Turkey, if I recall correctly. They would have had a steady supply of income if we had decided to stay out of their “civil war.” I suppose the enslaved population could have waited for windmill energy to replace fossil fuels throughout the world, but last I checked, that seems to be a few years out.
I hear that argument again and again with very little evidence supporting it. The same argument was used against Guantanamo, with the same lack of evidence. The jihadists hated us thirty years ago, they hate us now, and they’ll hate us thirty years from now; it doesn’t matter what we do. They recruit through lying propaganda; anything we actually do, whether it’s a thousand bombs or zero, will have no effect on the propaganda. ISIS has murdered many times more people than we have killed accidentally. In addition, how do they know who caused those casualties? It is an incredibly complex war zone. Planes from at least five different air forces are in the air (Syria, Russia, US, Jordan and Iraq, and aren’t France and Great Britain involved also?); Plus artillery from any number of combatants, including numerous rebel groups; Plus ISIS may have used IEDs to slow advances, create barriers, or cause casualties themselves.
They would not be “free” to do so. Absent US intervention ISIS would still have to fight everyone else they were fighting, including those subject to their rule. If they US didn’t get involved, ISIS would still be at war with the Syrian government, the Iraqi government, the Russian government, the Saudi government, the Iranian government, al Qaeda, and a whole slew of other groups on the ground in Syria and Iraq.
Oil sold on the black market. There are limits to how much they could sell and to whom that way and there are ways to crack down on that short of military intervention.
And ISIS, supposing it had established itself as a state, would’ve been an international pariah. Sure they had oil, but other than small amounts on the black market, they wouldn’t be able to sell it to anyone.
You act as if we didn’t drop on bombs on ISIS that they would be free and clear and their march would continue unabated. That’s simply not the case.
The fall of Raqqah is more important than the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The media didn’t talk about that either.
And those limits are…?
Again…?
Being an international pariah doesn’t seem to have much practical effect upon North Korea — or Israel or the US, for that matter.
It doesn’t take much oil sold to finance a medieval society.
Another proclamation with no evidence. ISIS was having its way with its victims of choice, splashed over Utube for the enjoyment of all. Rogue regimes are like bad guys with guns. Only one thing can stop them.