The weekend death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has fueled a massive surge in interest in a group whose defeats in Iraq and Syria had made them less and less relevant. Worryingly, on social media the surge is broadly pro-ISIS.
Far from being consigned to the annals of history, the death of Baghdadi has given ISIS supporters, and there are still a lot of them out there, a chance to remind everyone that they are still a thing, and try to drum up new support.
In the near term, this might mean revenge attacks. One ISIS prisoner was predicting a big ISIS attack in Europe, saying that he didn’t believe Baghdadi’s death would be a big impact, saying another leader will crop up.
That’s the way major terror groups have been, historically, and predictions of retaliation aren’t so outlandish. If anything, new leaders are often eager to put their brand on the position with a big, high-profile attack.
Trump took exactly the right “tone” in my opinion. He died like a dog being chased by dogs, he was whimpering and crying, he was a coward and human scum. Far from elevating his status, Trump did the opposite, he demeaned him and told everyone who wants to join ISIS that even if they become the leader they will be reduced to sniveling losers chased down by dogs. (That’s a very big insult to Muslims, perhaps the biggest) I doubt that Trump knew enough personally to frame it that way. Instead it seems to me that he had an expert on Psychology and one who knows the Arabic Cultures very well.
It reminded me very much of how they paraded Saddam’s son’s pictures around. That was done exactly the same way and for the same purpose. Trust me on this one, the fighters over there not only expect no mercy from us they would only see it as a sign of weakness if we did anything else. They respect force and power and not much more. Trump just made the leader of ISIS look powerless and in the process made the entire group look weak.
One of the biggest reasons fighters flocked to ISIS was because they were the most powerful and brutal of them all. That’s also why they put out the video’s of be-headings and burning and raping people, etc.. Showcasing your brutality while at the same time reducing your enemy as powerless to stop these brutal acts, worked very well as a recruiting tool. Yet somehow we are supposed to believe that reducing their leader to a sniveling dog chased wimp is supposed to be good for Recruiting? Nope, it doesn’t work that way. Sure you might have some dead enders who know their own days are numbered and they might try to pull off some attacks to jumpstart recruiting again. And those attacks might gain them supporters back eventually, if they are significant enough, but even then not it’s not going to be as effective if the possible recruits believe Trump’s story.
Two things the anti-war movement shouldn’t do in regards to their own propaganda.
1) Stop supporting world leaders who are scumbags just because they are anti-US.
2) If the president wacks a truly terrible human being, take a little time off with the Trump badman. If you don’t want to give credit that’s fine, The US created this guy so it’s not a great achievement that we finally rid the world of him. But Trump himself wasn’t the one who created this guy and 99% of the people out there are just glad he’s dead and anyone not partisan sees nothing but bias when he’s criticized for it.
Bitch about him using our troops as cannon fodder for the oil companies.
That’s at least clearly legit and who wouldn’t agree with us on that one?
He took the same snarky, demeaning tone he takes any time he describes something he doesn’t agree with. Everything he does is the “best ever, you’ll see,” “the most,” “the greatest,” everything he disagrees with is “the worst deal ever,” “failing,” “an enemy,” etc., etc. His enemies fail and die cowering and crying and begging for mercy. He has a pathological need to absolutely crush the opposition and demean them. He holds grudges and enjoys revenge. He’s a bad person to have running the country.
There seems no cogniscenti consensus on the announcement by Trump of Bagdadi’s demise.. Veterans Today & rt/Russia have both scorned the story as a scam & attempt by U.S., Israel & Saudis to rehabilitate their foreign leagion asset ISIS… and steal oil, territory and the big MO from Syria.
Just a note. A *lot* of details of how this raid *may* have happened are over at Colonel Pat Lang’s blog from various commenters. Some interesting details mostly centering around why al-Baghdadi was apparently hiding not far from the Turkish controlled area in Syria – implying that Turkey was protecting him. Worth reading TTG’s article and all the comments.
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/10/killing-baghdadi-ttg.html