Zach Beauchamp makes a pretty comprehensive argument about why ISIS is Losing.
If you want to understand what's happening in the Middle East today, you need to appreciate one fundamental fact: ISIS is losing its war for the Middle East.And apparently you have to read the Australian press to learn that the Islamic State is being hit by desertions and disgust at their brutality.
This may seem hard to believe: in Iraq and Syria, the group still holds a stretch of territory larger than the United Kingdom, manned by a steady stream of foreign fighters. Fighters pledging themselves to ISIS recently executed 21 Christians in Libya.
It's certainly true that ISIS remains a terrible and urgent threat to the Middle East. The group is not on the verge of defeat, nor is its total destruction guaranteed. But, after months of ISIS expansion and victories, the group is now being beaten back. It is losing territory in the places that matter. Coalition airstrikes have hamstrung its ability to wage offensive war, and it has no friends to turn to for help. Its governance model is unsustainable and risks collapse in the long run.
Unless ISIS starts adapting, there's a very good chance its so-called caliphate is going to fall apart.
Islamic State is facing increasing public disobedience and a rising numbers of defections, according to sources in two cities in Iraq and Syria.Meanwhile, some American pundits provide us with nothing more than the need for dick-swinging contests with ISIS because they can't be bothered to educate themselves about what is actually going on in the Middle East.
They offered similar claims of morale falling and of defections among Islamic State fighters in Mosul and Raqqa, and told of displays of disaffection and resistance, and of rising incidences of corruption among officials.
If you want to know when I get embarrassed by America - that kind of nonsense from people like Chris Matthews embarrasses me.
In addition to the fact that the kind of reporting above provides us with important information, what we can learn from these two pieces of journalism is that we don't need to get caught up in the media's version of the hysteria du jour. Whether its the obsession with people like Giuliani or Matthew's dick-swinging fantasies, its all a distraction.
I'd like to give my shout-out today to Zach Beachamp at Vox and Tom Coghlan at The Australian for some actual journalism.
Great finds! Not sure what Matthews is doing in this post. He is and always has been a neo-con. I didn't watch his tirade because I don't have to; there's absolutely nothing new about his neo-con positions. He's a fear-monger, which is why he has good ratings. People love that stuff. He knows it and exploits it.
ReplyDeleteExactly. The media is full of pandering circus clowns whom disguise themselves as "journalists". No one should take them serious at this point in time.
DeleteThanks for these links. I knew of a lot of these developments, but they look even more hopeful when all considered together like this.
ReplyDeleteThe situation is dauntingly complex and dangerous, but Obama's strategy of providing heavy air support while leaving the ground fighting to Kurdish and Arab forces was wisely designed to achieve results while minimizing risk, and has been vindicated by developments so far. It's actually terrifying to contemplate the mess everyone would probably be in right now if one of those know-nothing thud-and-blunder Republicans were in the White House right now trying to handle this.
"If you want to know when I get embarrassed by America - that kind of nonsense from people like Chris Matthews embarrasses me."
ReplyDelete"In addition to the fact that the kind of reporting above provides us with important information, what we can learn from these two pieces of journalism is that we don't need to get caught up in the media's version of the hysteria du jour. Whether its the obsession with people like Giuliani or Matthew's dick-swinging fantasies, its all a distraction."
Key word: distraction. Spot on Nancy.