I recently read an article quoting Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff of the Combined Joint Task Force for Operation Inherent Resolve, who is fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the article Gen. Weidley describes ISIS as being on the defensive.
I’m no military expert, but defensive would not be the first adjective that comes to mind when describing ISIS at this stage in the game, nor are they the junior varsity, victimized, sluggish, unemployed, or under-funded.
“ISIS is changing its fighting tactics, which signals the group is on the defensive. When coalition airstrikes began in August, ISIS fighters would cover their vehicles and started wearing Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish uniforms. This isn’t the actions that an offensively minded, conventional force starts to undertake.”
“They’ve started to transition to the defensive when coalition airstrikes started to enter the battle space.”
ISIS is not a conventional force. To my understanding, they are an asymmetrical body. They know they can’t stand up under the full might of the United States military, so they use terrorism in the most brutal ways to break the will of any who would counter their offensive. Craig Hatkoff and Rabbi Kula describe it well in a September, 2014 Forbes article entitled, “A Fearful Scimitar: ISIS and Asymmetric Warfare”. They said, “…since the 1950s in wars and conflicts pitting Davids versus Goliaths, Davids come up the winner most of the time; the unconventional ‘weaker’ actors beat the conventionally stronger actors not by quality or quantity but by resilience and resolve. With no chance of overpowering the military might and sophistication of their enemy, the weaker actor must rely simply on strategies and tactics that will inevitably break the political will of the superior power.”
Who in the world would describe America’s political will to be strong on anything, except gay marriage and commemorating trans-genders and homosexuals? At least that is the message from this president.
Regarding funding, several articles within the last week report that ISIS in Iraq and Syria has raked in some $323 million by smuggling migrants fleeing the war-torn areas like Libya. The migrants apparently pay armed thugs thousands of dollars to board unseaworthy boats to head to Europe. Being that this is such a lucrative market, experts in international crime think ISIS may be targeting their attacks in order to drum up business for themselves. Makes total sense to me. They would make “buku” bucks and further their Hijra or the seeding of Muslims in non-Muslim lands, killing two birds with one stone so to speak.
As this Time article explains,
“Aside from oil, ISIS has recently earned between $22 million and $55 million a year taxing antiquities smugglers, who traffic looted objects out of Syria and Iraq, and between $168 million and $228 million a month taxing small businesses and residents in ISIS-controlled areas, according to the January intelligence report, which said ISIS has “a robust budget for a group numbering in the 30 to 40,000 range.”
Since the quoting of the general, Ramadi has fallen into ISIS’s hands. Now they will start gleaning money from businesses in that area, and the cycle continues.
Europe is not the only targeted continent for migrants fleeing the onslaught of Islamic terror, as the United States is expected to take in one million refugees over the next five years according to the United Nations. Who knows how many of those one million will be jihadists. But if just one percent are, the number that is touted by some as to how many radicals are out there, then we are just talking about 10,000 radical Islamists living quietly in our neighborhoods.
Leftists seem hell-bent on woefully misrepresenting our enemy, and furthering immigration policies that have been in place for decades that are dangerous to our American way of life. It is past the time we get to know our congressmen and senators personally, so they recognize our voices as we enter their offices to share our concerns. At some point America needs to be on the offensive when dealing with Islamic ideology.
