so now there s this question of what this does to isis whole propaganda message, right? people are angry when they re asked to sacrifice a lot on your promises. but one thing when you re promising them jobs or election win or the return you get in a ponzi scheme. another thing if you literally promise them the world, the end of the world and you go to the good place and everybody else burns, if that s what you re promising and then you can t deliver? if this were not election season in the united states, biggest story in this country right now would be what s happening to isis. the biggest city that isis controls, it s one of the largest cities in iraq, mosul, is now facing an assault between 80 and 100,000 iraqi troops. the previous battles to take back big cities fallujah and ramadi and tikrit those involve 15,000 troops this one is 80,000
still going to happen, they re still promising it will kick off the end of the world when that battle happens but this just wasn t it yet. hmm, minor setback, but we promise dabiq will still be really important some day. so now there s this question of what this does to isis whole propaganda message, right? people are angry when they re asked to sacrifice a lot on your promises. but one thing when you re promising them jobs or election win or the return you get in a ponzi scheme. another thing if you literally promise them the world, the end of the world and you go to the good place and everybody else burns, if that s what you re promising and then you can t deliver? if this were not election season in the united states, biggest story in this country right now would be what s happening to isis. the biggest city that isis controls, it s one of the
wasn t it yet. hmm, minor setback, but we promise dabiq will still be really important some day. so now there s this question of what this does to isis whole propaganda message, right? people are angry when they re asked to sacrifice a lot on your promises. but one thing when you re promising them jobs or election win or the return you get in a ponzi scheme. another thing if you literally promise them the world, the end of the world and you go to the good place and everybody else burns, if that s what you re promising and then you can t deliv deliver? if this were not election season in the united states, biggest story in this country right now would be what s happening to isis. the biggest city that isis controls, it s one of the largest cities in iraq, mosul, is now facing an assault between 80 and 100,000 iraqi troops.
be the path to isis becoming extinct. certainly from a strategic point of view, it is important. because it is the commanding city in northern iraq. the second largest in the country. it s near the syrian border. it s near the turkish border. it is iraq s most ethnically diverse city. symbolically, of course, it is the largest city that isis controls. it has a population or had a population in better times of up to about 2 million. now, however, many people have fled. what remains is somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million civilians there. it was there on the 29th of june, 2014, where the leader of isis, abu bakr al bagdadi, declared his so-called caliphate. that was the birth of isis as we know it today.
police when i was in iraq. i m sure that s still the case, especially in ramadi where a lot of policemen were killed in the initial doonslaught of isis. not only police to provide security but turning on electricity, water, getting the government working again. they re ready to do that but it s still going to take a little bit of time. i wonder if that will change from americans think about this. look at this poll obviously taken before this, 18% of americans say we are winning the war on terrorism. is there any truth to that? is perception reality here? i think perception is accurate in this case. compared where we are now compared to five years ago, the signs are not positive in any way. five years ago, iraq was relatively stable. today, isis controls a broad swath of territory in iraq. syria has fallen apart. libya has fallen apart and jihadist groups are a large part of that landscape.