Lara Seligman at Foreign Policy writes—Baghdadi is Dead, But ISIS Remains Emboldened Since Trump’s Drawdown:
“The incredible thing is that this operation succeeded despite all the ways in which the Trump Administration made it more difficult,” said Dana Stroul, a former Pentagon official who is now a senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. [...]
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spent five months working with the U.S. government to gather intelligence on Baghdadi’s whereabouts, according to Kurdish and U.S. officials. Gen. Mazloum Abdi, SDF commander, was the only foreigner to know about the target, he told Foreign Policy through a translator. His account was confirmed independently by the senior U.S. official.
The operation was delayed for a full month by Turkey’s military activity at the border and the subsequent incursion into northeastern Syria, Mazloum said. Ankara moved into Syria days after Trump withdrew U.S. forces from the border in early October, a move that was widely seen as a green light for the Turkish operation.
“Trump rejected [intelligence community] assessments and spilled classified intelligence, cut off our military operations at its knees with unplanned decisions like Syria, repeatedly treated Iraq with indifference, and appeared ready to throw out the relationship with the SDF only a few weeks ago,” said Stroul.
“Yet this operation relied on U.S. intelligence, our military in Syria and Iraq, intelligence breakthroughs by the Iraqi government, and an intelligence network cultivated by the SDF at U.S. request.”
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES • THE WEEK’S HIGH IMPACT STORIES
“Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.” ~~William Sloane Coffin, Once to Every Man: A Memoir (1977)
TWEET OF THE DAY
And then there’s these comments putting icing on the cake:
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Bush's Appalachian War: Bombing Ancient Mountains:
Bush cites his "global war on terror" and the need for energy independence as reasons to legalize the killing of mountains from a range that has lived for millions of years. There is no way to bring back the over 450 mountaintops that have been razed solely to permit profitable coal mining for his buddies. Instead of pursuing a clean energy policy, Bush has declared war on Appalachia. Many Americans are not aware that our self-proclaimed patriotic warrior who loves to preach adherence to religious doctrine is killing our "purple mountain majesties" that God has "shed His grace on" for the benefit of all. This is a war, complete with Bush authorizing mining companies to occupy Appalachia, literally bomb away the mountain summits and kill not just mountains and streams, but people, culture, environmental habitat and species. During 1985-2001, "approximately 800 square miles of mountains were leveled." What would this look like in your state? Well, some perspective is provided by looking at the 10,000 acre Hobet MTR Complex in West Virginia which was [superimposed over 38 US cities] to show how much land would be destroyed.