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Terror Networks
Here's Why ISIS And Al-Qaida Will Lose Their War Of Attrition
2019-05-08
[NPR] The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 may be on the ropes, but is certainly not defeated. In an exceedingly rare video that came to light this week, its leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart...
, shows his face and renews his call for jihad against the terrorist group's adversaries by calling for, among other efforts, a "battle of attrition."
Posted by:trailing wife

#9  RJ, If you feed Erb he'll keep coming back.
Posted by: Skidmark   2019-05-08 20:09  

#8  Assuming (yes, yes, it's a purely utopian exercise) that we didn't have to spend a single dime on defense, we have between $25-400 trillion in debt to pay down before a single additional shiny thingee is bought. Just sayin'...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-05-08 11:30  

#7  Herb McCoy, how would we spend it on ourselves?

I agree the wars could have been fought cheaper and better but thinking the money would have somehow been used better with our current politicians is naive.
Posted by: rschwarz   2019-05-08 09:55  

#6  Democratic Iraq
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-05-08 06:53  

#5  Because the US. has shown itself willing to expend essentially infinite resources on warring playing dumb PC games with these terrorist groups Islam

We don't use bulldozers. If we used bulldozers, we'd be winning.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-05-08 06:51  

#4  Because the US. has shown itself willing to expend essentially infinite resources on warring playing dumb PC games with these terrorist groups Islam
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-05-08 06:50  

#3  First define "Lose". Then define "Winning".
The idea of the Caliphate is practically unkillable as long as the Koran remains sancrosanct to its worshipers. ISIS can be destroyed as an organized force in the same way as the Thuggees of India were obliterated...
Posted by: magpie   2019-05-08 02:16  

#2  If we spent it all on ourselves that would just have created new targets.
Posted by: Beau   2019-05-08 02:09  

#1  Because the U.S. has shown itself willing to expend essentially infinite resources on warring with these terrorist groups.
Yup, fell right into Bin Laden's plan. His plan was to bankrupt the USA by bogging it down in endless foreign wars. It's working well. We spent over $6 trillion since 9/11.

Just imagine that money spent on ourselves instead. The entire USA would be a sparkling park. We'd have high speed rail, bridges, roads without potholes, ports, subways, and probably flying cars too. But no. What did we get for it instead? Thousands of dead (working-class) Americans, thousands more with limbs blown off or PTSD, and a mountain of skulls of innocent people. And some dead terrorists. Yay?
Posted by: Herb McCoy   2019-05-08 01:22  

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