In the wake of the demise of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi it seems a good time to remember how ISIS can to be what it was. The origin of ISIS is said to have gone this way
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi came to helm of al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2010 after serving as long as four years in the U.S. prison facility Camp Bucca along with other future top ISIS officials. But after taking power in 2011, al-Baghdadi cut off ties with al-Qaeda and changed the name of the group to the Islamic State in Iraq. He targeted Shiites and planned to unite the Arab world under a single Sunni regime. In 2013, he changed the group’s name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) to reflect the expanded ambition.
Today on CBS This Morning, “expert” Fran Townsend stated that while Bin Laden dreamed of establishing a caliphate, al Baghdad did it. And Baghdadi did it under barack obama’s nose.
The actual release date of Baghdadi is in dispute but it is agreed upon that he spent time in Camp Bucca. Bucca was closed and emptied of prisoners after obama declared the war in Iraq over and began withdrawing US troops in 2011. It was the departure from Iraq and the overthrow of Libya that gave ISIS it room to grow and metastasize. n
When George Bush left office John Brennan estimated that there were approximately 700 ISIS fighters left:
The Islamic State “was, you know, pretty much decimated when US forces were there in Iraq. It had maybe 700-or-so adherents left. And then it grew quite a bit in the last several years, when it split then from al Qaeda in Syria, and set up its own organization,” Brennan said.
Under obama it grew significantly
American Enterprise Institute scholar Marc Thiessen noted in a recent dispatch on Brennan’s remarks that this translates to around a 4,400 percent growth.
“This means that, by the CIA’s own estimate, ISIS has grown on President Obama’s watch from just 700 fighters to between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters,” Thiessen wrote on the organization’s website, citing figures from the CIA. “That is an increase of between 2,700 and 4,400%.”
The rise of ISIS “surprised” obama
ISIS’ march across Iraq and Syria — a campaign that’s forced President Barack Obama to return small numbers of US troops to the region, even after touting an end to the decade-long ground offensives there — came as a surprise to US intelligence, the President told CNN in a new special report.
The terror organization’s rise in a tumultuous Middle East has provided Obama some of the toughest decisions of his presidency, choices that CNN’s Fareed Zakaria explores in “The Legacy of Barack Obama” airing Wednesday.
“The ability of ISIL to not just mass inside of Syria, but then to initiate major land offensives that took Mosul, for example, that was not on my intelligence radar screen,” Obama told Zakaria, using the administration’s term for the Islamic State terror group.
In 2014 obama referred to ISIS as the “JV team”:
At that time, ISIS was confined to the immediate area of Iraq and Syria. President Obama famously referred to ISIS nine months later in January of 2014 as the “JV team.” Just over a year later, however, according to ABC News, on “the second anniversary of the declaration of its Islamic ‘caliphate,’ or kingdom . . . the group has gone from obscurity . . . to the world’s most brutal terrorist network, not only responsible for thousands of deaths in the Middle East but also linked to hundreds more in dozens of terrorist plots in the West.”
Late in his tenure obama still had no plan to deal with ISIS
It’s too soon to say what steps the United States will take against ISIS in Syria, President Barack Obama said Thursday.
“I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Obama told reporters during a White House news briefing. “We don’t have a strategy yet.”
Obama said he’s asked America’s top defense officials to prepare “a range of options” about what the United States could do to go after ISIS in Syria, which he described as “a safe haven” for the Sunni extremist group that calls itself the Islamic State.
As late as 2015 Charles Krauthammer put it this way:
John McCain had the best line. He said when Obama says he doesn’t have a complete strategy perhaps he will tell us what his incomplete strategy or partial strategy, any idea of a strategy is. And the answer is there’s nothing here.
That was left to Donald Trump. Nine months after he took office US forces took Raqqa
Nine months after President Trump promised to defeat ISIS “quickly and effectively,” U.S.-backed forces captured Raqqa, which until Tuesday had served as the ISIS capital. The battle now is over who deserves credit: Trump or President Obama.
Trump, not surprisingly, claims it for himself: “It had to do with the people I put in and it had to do with rules of engagement,” Trump said in a radio interview.
Before dismissing this as typical Trump self-aggrandizement, consider that for several years Obama insisted that a quick and decisive victory against ISIS was all but impossible.
After belittling ISIS as a “JV” team and then being surprised by its advances, Obama finally got around to announcing a strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the militant Islamic group.
As his strategy dragged on and seemed to go nowhere, Obama kept telling the country that this was just the nature of the beast.
By December of 2017:
On Jan. 20 — the day Trump was inaugurated — an estimated 35,000 ISIS fighters held approximately 17,500 square miles of territory in both Iraq and Syria.
As of Dec. 21, the U.S. military estimates the remaining 1,000 or so fighters occupy roughly 1,900 squares miles of mostly barren desert primarily in Syria, where few people live, and where they will be forced to surrender or die.
Between September 2014 when the counter-ISIS campaign began, and January 2017, U.S.-backed forces in Iraq and Syria liberated 13,200 square miles of territory and 2.4 million people from Islamic State rule.
In the 11 months since Trump took office, an additional 15,570 square miles have been reclaimed and 5.3 million people have been liberated.
He is winning because he changed the rules of engagement:
Trump’s role in the transformation is not insignificant.
It is unfair to U.S. and coalition troops to claim, as Trump does, that they didn’t “fight to win” until he arrived in the Oval Office. But as the Times admits, there was one significant difference. In the spring, Trump loosened the rules of engagement to allow commanders in the field more authority in day-to-day decisions about fighting the enemy. Under Obama, the White House micromanaged the conflict in a manner that calls to mind the way President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara fought the Vietnam War with similar dismal results.
Trump loosened the rules of engagement to allow commanders in the field more authority in day-to-day decisions about fighting the enemy.
The Times and other Trump critics blame Trump for the increase in civilian casualties in the fighting against ISIS since then. But if you are going to link Trump to that statistic, it isn’t logical to assert that the new rules of engagement had nothing to do with freeing up the coalition to attack the enemy with more aggression. Though the number of air strikes hasn’t increased, their impact has been greater, and that is probably because competent military commanders in the field are making the decisions rather than civilian staffers posing as military experts in the White House situation room.
It’s true that the taking of Raqqa and the collapse of the caliphate as a functional state won’t end the war. ISIS fighters will probably reassemble to fight a guerilla war. Trump’s defense team will have to be nimble enough to adapt to the shift. Trump must also understand that the fight against ISIS shouldn’t distract the U.S. from Iran, which remains the main threat to Western interests in the region. Ultimately, he’s going to have to choose between his correct instinct to confront Tehran and his desire for better relations with Russia, Iran’s ally in Syria.
Yet none of that changes the fact that ISIS is being defeated on Trump’s watch and, at least in part, because of decisions he has made. There will be plenty that happens during his presidency for which he will deserve to be blamed but, his boasts notwithstanding, this victory also belongs to him.
obama left Trump a mess and Trump is cleaning it up. obama got credit for taking down Bin Laden, so should Trump get credit for ending al Baghdadi and decimating ISIS.
Townsend said getting al Baghdadi was a big deal and it made not only America safer, but Europe as well.
The story is not over, but these victories belong to Trump – the guy democrats so desperately want out of office.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
The only thing that is surprising is that Obama would say it was surprising. From the beginning of the Iraq war, many cautioned that if not done properly, a power vacuum would be created and terrorists would take over. Surprising? It is surprising that Obama would be so stupid (well… maybe not. See Libya).
Those people were dead when ISIS captured their homes. ISIS was not going to surrender or retreat. They were indoctrinated to fight for their virgins; only their leader will shield himself with children and kill himself in the face of a fight. (oh… I hope that doesn’t offend any liberals) They were going to have to be bombed and shot out of there. Since they are cowards that shield themselves with civilians, civilians get killed.
Obama killed hundreds of civilians in drone strikes, killing terrorists in onesies and twosies. Trump’s actions resulting in civilian deaths while liberating cities, provinces and nations. But, Obama made it necessary. Obama’s legacy.
DJ, as I predicted some tine ago, your arguments have grown to a level of nonsense one would see in a 30 second advertisement of an extremely tight state senate or governor race in it’s final days.
Your arguments also reek of the soul-selling desperation such ads often exhibit.
@Ronald J. Ward: What is “tine”? Is this your mastery of the written language? Did you mean, “as I predicted some POINT ago…”?
What specific points (or tines, if you will) of Dr. John’s article do you dispute and where are your facts backing up your disagreement?
@Ronald J. Ward:
You’re really Adam Schiff, aren’t you?
If ISIS is wiped out, why are we moving troops in Syria to keep it from taking over the oil fields? Especially after we’ve supposedly decided to pull our troops out? What has changed, besides having abandoned the Kurds? Who are we protecting the oil fields for?
Everybody who tries to understand Muslims from their own Western POV is bound to fail.
Obama wasn’t the first to do this.
He, along with Bush II thought Islam must be a religion of peace.
But the emotional blackmail used in Islam to recruit men (and even a few women) into killing themselves in a jihad that (they hope) takes out a few of the enemy with them is as old as Islam itself.
Back when Hamas 1st took Gaza they would set up troubled youths to become jihadis/suicide bombers. 1. catch them doing something unIslamic. 2. promise them you’ll keep it a secret IF they suicide/jihad themselves….but threaten to “honor kill” them if they refuse 3. Isolate & train them. 4. Send them on their mission.
Loads of jihadis were fighting under duress, but in ISIS there was something different.
In al-Baghdadi Muslim youths found a SADIST leader who promised them a means to act out their most sadistic desires just by coming to the caliphate and joining up.
Many true sadists from all over the ME and Europe joined ISIS and their acts are the stuff of nightmares.
Anyone else recall how things changed in Australia after police announced that Muslim men would not be arrested for spousal abuse because it was “their culture to beat their wives?”
A few non-Muslim men who had records for spousal abuse simply “converted” to Islam and forced their wives to cover. Should a neighbor call the cops there was nothing they could do. Unless they changed their policy. And, they haven’t so far as I know.
That’s how Islam is, disfunctional and doomed to fail at all levels from family to nation.
Commie China made an astounding statement the other day about the Uyghurs there. 1/2 of them (Millions) have been interned in re-education camps with slave labor as their “reward” for being successfully brainwashed.
The Communist regime said their treatment of Muslims should be a model for all Islamic countries on how to turn their lazy populations into hard workers.
Heh.
Human rights violations, or way to fix Islam?
@Greg:
The Kurds will receive all the oil proceeds. There was never an abandonment, but hey what ever lies float your boat.
Pentagon chief Mark Esper said Friday that the United States will leave more American troops and armored vehicles in eastern Syria to help prevent Islamic State militants from gaining access to oil fields controlled by U.S.-allied Syrian Kurds. That deployment will likely include tanks, a U.S. official said.
@Greg:
Uh…who said “ISIS” was taking over the oil fields? I’ll let you figure the rest out, if you can.
Should have consulted with your boss first, before posting.
@Nathan Blue: He should try a minute of self research before he asks dumb questions, not just wait til Wretched Madcow makes attempts at forming a thought.
@Nathan Blue, #8:
Trump’s Secretary of Defense said we were securing the oil fields to deny them to ISIS:
@Nan G:
For someone to have human rights, they must first be human.
@Greg: But who said ISIS was “wiped out”? Until they ARE wiped out, the intelligent approach is to guard against them reconstituting themselves and continue wiping them out, not do whatever is convenient and fund international terrorism in Iran.
The statement you highlighted is true. Obama simply sat back and let it happen, because, you know… JV. Obama, the Great and Powerful, had conquered terrorism (and stopped the oceans from rising as well).
@Greg:
Well, we can’t believe anything that comes our of Trump’s mouth, or his admin’s mouths, as you’ve said again and again.
He’s craazyyyy!
Do you only believe him when it’s convenient for your political rhetoric?
And so fun, to see my question to your question commanded you, like a child, to go read…and get the answers yourself.
Good boy.
@Nathan Blue: He could just follow Obama’s strategy and let ISIS secure the oil fields.
@DrJohn:
You got me. Nancy and I are considering holding up hearings to spend more time trying to rationalize with your 3 man cheer-leading squad.
We are kinda wondering why you haven’t joined Fox News and other right wingers in smearing Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman with all you got prior to him even testifying.
@Deplorable Me:
What’s a tine you ask? A tine is generally a prong such as on a fork.
See, I can on occasion answer some of your meaningless questions.
@Ronald J. Ward: As I stated, a tine is a point. So, what “point” did it have in your ridiculous remark? Or, as you enjoy accusing, do you lack the ability to use the written English language? Or, like Schiff (whom you obviously idolize and wish to be), are you just stupid and a liar?
@Nathan Blue: @Deplorable Me: Greg is just pissed that the President has the foresight Barry lacked, or he intentionally left a source of blackmarket income for the caliphate. Like heroine in Afghanistan, its so amazing we have an opiate crisis here huh. The same pattern showed up in the 80s with cocaine when we were messing with South American countries, its so coincidental.
@Greg: Actually, we are moving into the oil fields to make sure the oil is going to the Kurds. Did you miss that part of the deal? Maybe you should read something besides the MSN!
@Randy: Liberals prefer their own reality to facts. It doesn’t tend to totally disprove their ideology quite so much.
@Randy: The money used so they can rebuild and develop themselves without American tax dollars there will be other recipients as one tribe can not live under the rule of another, and its all tribal, the saudis as developed as they are, just a tribe.
Gaddafi proved the tribes could live together and his nation was very prosperous, high literacy, rights for women, he wanted to empower Africa. He had a plan to create a new African Union, based on a new African economic system, any questions why he was killed?
@kitt: @Deplorable Me: It takes a great deal of courage for Greg to look into the mirror each day and know how ignorant he is!
@Randy: Thats not the way it is, he looks at the boob tube and is told how dumb and evil we are, and they tell him how smart and good he is by agreeing with them. Facts, evidence, logic and self examination are not part of his psyche.
I’m trying to figure out why Greg or Ron would bother to come here and just try to knock over sandcastles. I for one love FA just to get a break from the 24/7 bombardment of Leftist viewpoints that are everywhere.
That anyone needs to seek FA out to just to parrot media headlines and attack the posters is pathetic.
I Greg is part of a larger misinformation campaign that believes in hammering on fed headlines that are also given to the media and Democrats. There is real collusion.
I’d not be surprised to find Greg’s employer is not in the US.
@Nathan Blue: Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a controversial paper in 2008 proposing that the US government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups.
https://www.salon.com/2010/01/15/sunstein_2/
Who knows, I just believe they are both so inept they wont get any Christmas er holiday bonuses.
There was every reason the State Dept wanted right leaning journalists monitored.
@kitt: @Nathan Blue: Well, FA must be low on the priority list if this is the best they deploy to change our minds. Don’t forget, they are reinforced with AJ.
@Deplorable Me: Reading comments on right wing non main stream news sights will bring to light better ones.
Back to topic, DOD records obtained by Judicial Watch contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria.
@Nathan Blue:
I can’t speak for Greg but didn’t you say I was getting a check for it?
I’m not all that much of a “regular” follower but have a tendency to visit these unhinged sites when Trump does something outrageous. I’m still waiting for Trump to actually shoot someone just to watch DJ and Curt blame it on Democrats while you and your clones deflect and spin. It’s just that no matter what the man does, you guys are here to protect him and blame Democrats.
And for me, it’s like throwing a stone into a hornets nest yet I’m protected because it’s just online amusement, like an imaginary game watching you and your clones bash yourselves into the backside of my monitor as if your gibberish and nonsense actually had some type of sting. It’s actually quite a show.
And again, I said some TIME ago that the more ridiculous, lawless, dictator like, destructive, deranged, etc that Trump becomes, the more you guys would follow suit. It’s like confirming my predictions each time I come here.
It’s just too damn funny.
@kitt: Well, I’m sure he cleared that through Congress, like they expect Trump to do with everything he does.
@Ronald J. Ward: “Outrageous” like restore the economy, lower unemployment to record lows, help those in poverty with better jobs, try to secure our border or kill the most wanted and vicious terrorist since bin Laden? Man, the things that outrage you whiny crybabies…
Actually, history tells a very different story.
President Barack Obama, on September 10, 2014 – Obama Announces Strategy to Destroy ISIS
Donald Trump, on September 25, 2015 – Donald Trump: Let Russia fight the Islamic State in Syria
Trump now takes full credit for the destruction of ISIS (which isn’t actually destroyed) just like he takes full credit for the nation’s economic recovery. (He’s spent more bailing out U.S. farmers from the results of his trade war with China than Obama spent saving the largest component of America’s automobile industry.)
@Deplorable Me: From the dude with the magic crystal ball
The biggest thing he has done recently is give the ok to wipe out a tiny terrorist nest and kill or capture the guy that lead the, Obama administration armed, genocidal terrorist expansion in the middle east.
I dont know why we would think that was a good thing killing such a scholar. A sweetie, beloved by the democrats. The entertainment this guy provided beheadings and burning humans in cages not seen since the roman empire fed their pet lions for cheering crowds.
@Greg: Sorry Greg documents and history show something very very different. His admin knew and did not stop arms going to what would become ISIS or was actually arming them through the port of Benghazi.
Allowing black market oil income, blocking any assistance to the Kurds.
@Greg: Cmon, Greg. Really. You have to wait at least 20 or 30 years to rewrite history.
Judicial Watch claimed ISIS had set up terrorist training camps in Mexico.
@kitt: Obama actually armed ISIS with weapons taken from the terrorists in Libya. That is the weapons that were used to kill our ambassador there. Obama was responsible for releasing Baghdadi from Iraqi prison. Yes, Obama did so much! Maybe he should get another Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing!
@Greg: JW doesnt claim anything they cant document with FOIA, we currently have a surge in Africans trying to cross our southern border. One of Holders guns ended up in Paris in terrorists hands.
Keep digging Greg you never know what you will make us show you.
@Greg: And that was true. They also have several in SA where they train terrorists to dress like Hispanics and speak phrases of English with a Spanish accent. This was started under Obama and the open border policy of the left is allowing them to enter the US. Isn’t that protecting Americans? After they get here, they are protected by sanctuary cities until they get to know what places would be the best targets for an event..
@Randy, #35:
Right. And shape-shifting alien reptilians secretly control the Earth. You can find as much “evidence” online supporting that conspiracy theory.
@Greg: Well Greg, At the time it was TS data from the DIA during Obama’s reign. Then again, you are so ignorant as to what is really happening in the World, you believe Biden is a boy scout and Billy never inhaled!
the terrorist pes setup hollyweird elites to donate to isis-and they did. monies filtered via a Philadelphia bank.
@Ronald J. Ward:
We’re aware you’re just following the memes you’re being fed…it’s funny to read. You sound like a teabagger during the Obama years, and it doesn’t even register to you.
It is funny, even more so because you don’t know you’re the entertainment.
It’s also too easy to clip your wings. You accuse “us” of doing the things you and your party supports, and does quite openly. It’s a psychological condition, little dog.
That’s one of the main indoctrination points, we know. Good job for being gullible.
You lack purpose in your life and have allowed a cheap ideology to fill the gap, whilst coming here pretty much when you party tells you too…
Anything else, little dog? Usually once I jerk your chain like this, you fall back on “everyone at FA is stuuupidd!!”
I’m glad a large percentage of the US population is using their brains and preventing people like you from getting us killed. But please, go back to CNN and be told you’re the “majority” and everyone agrees with your Democrat-issued talking points.
“ISIS has been wiped out!”
Typical neocon, Trump propaganda and lies. ISIS is now resurgent and you know it.
Why don’t you engage in some intellectual honesty and do an article describing their resurgence?
@Joachim:
Why don’t you?
@Deplorable Me:
I don’t have to as I didn’t write the pack of lies Dr. John wrote. the truth is axiomatic; ISIS is ascendant as it never was wiped out.
@Joachim: If it was, you would have already provided some evidence of it to prove your point. As it stand, it appears you, not Dr. John, are doing the lying.