“In this new video series, Washington Institute experts assess the current state of military operations in Iraq and evaluate Abadi’s ability to extricate his country from deadlock, defeat, and disintegration.”
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/confronting-isis-and-the-future-of-iraq-video-series – 8/21/2014.
From the looks and sound of the productions, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (TWI) has launched a DIY-AH (do-it-yourself-at-home) effort to promote its fellows’ analyses. May the TWI powers that be give them an upgrade in audio-visual recording technology.
What follows is an incomplete relay of the series, but in the way of the web, whether the viewer starts out with e-mail (as I did) or on TWI’s web page or YouTube, all routers lead back to some kind of primary media content.
Of course, if you heard it from me first — after I’ve heard it from them — in the older fashioned way of news, good!
“They are very good at using psychological operations to very quickly establish the sense that they control areas, putting up their flags on all key administrative buildings, cross-roads, wide visibility locations, and they’re very good at pursuing what they want in the mergers and acquisitions model of growth whereby they ruck into an area and immediately try to recruit the most like-minded insurgent group in the area to become part of ISIS.” (1:28 – 1:59).
“First, you can’t address the ISIS threat in Iraq, without addressing the ISIS threat in Syria. Secondly, you can’t address the ISIS threat in Iraq and Syria without addressing the foreign fighter problem. And third, the U.S. really cannot “solve” the region’s problems, because they are rooted in issues of religious and political identity and legitimacy, and this is a problem that can only be worked out among Muslims themselves. ” (2:18 – 2:41)
My “big picture” thought, which might make sense of an $11 billion arms sale): what ISIS scours Qatar will devour.
One day.
However, there are many days between this day and that one, and the Ummah, bloodied from Afghanistan to Yemen, has been pushed by the ambitions and behaviors of its own subscription into a larger global conversation about rightful power, despotism, barbarism, and democracy.
Related on BackChannels
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/08/21/qatar-terrorist-refuge-and-financial-platform/ – 8/21/2014.
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