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The Washington Post Tells Us ISIS Is Losing, Again
PJ Media ^ | February 10, 2016 | Robert Spencer

Posted on 02/10/2016 4:44:11 PM PST by Kaslin

The Washington Post published some terrific news last Saturday:

The Islamic State's recent defeats on the battlefield signal that its once-vaunted militia army has been hobbled by worsening money problems, desertions and a dwindling pool of fighters, analysts and monitoring groups say.

Before you break out the champagne, however, consider the fact that we have heard this before. And not only have we heard it before, but the Washington Post article then engages in revisionist media history:

Only a year ago, the Islamic State was seen as a juggernaut -- rich, organized and fielding thousands of motivated fighters -- that overran rival forces in Iraq and Syria with astonishing speed and brutality.

Actually, that's not what the mainstream was telling us at all "only a year ago."

In January 2015, The Atlantic announced:

ISIS Is Losing Its Greatest Weapon: Momentum: Evidence suggests that the Islamic State's power has been declining for months.

A CNN headline asked in November 2014:

Has ISIS peaked? Terror Group Suffers Setbacks in Iraq.

CNN followed that a few weeks later with:

For ISIS, Tough Times as it Seeks to Regroup.

The New York Times announced on February 4, 2015:

ISIS Is Losing in Iraq.

On April 15, 2015, Vox issued its own report:

ISIS is Losing.

That was all about a year ago. But in this current Washington Post report, we hear that they'e losing now, and that a year ago they were "a juggernaut."

The mainstream media was wrong then; they're telling us the same thing now and pretending last year's coverage never happened. Makes this new report hard to accept at face value.

Their new report also says:

U.S. military officials estimate that the group has lost as much as 40 percent of the territory it held in Iraq and as much as 20 percent in Syria. Kurdish and Arab forces, including Iraq's increasingly competent military, have advanced against the group with the help of airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition.

Here again, this would be most welcome and encouraging news, were it not for the fact that the Pentagon was caught last April falsifying its maps of Islamic State territory to make the Obama airstrikes appear more successful than they really had been.

So what is really going on here? Why is the Washington Post and so much of the mainstream media so anxious to pronounce the Islamic State dead, when in fact no one has managed to dislodge the Islamic State from its main power centers in Iraq and Syria, and it is gaining ground in Libya?

The answer is not hard to fathom. The Washington Post and its cohorts today are essentially the Propaganda Ministry of the Democratic Party and of Barack Obama in particular. During his State of the Union address in January, Obama said:

For more than a year, America has led a coalition of more than 60 countries to cut off ISIL's financing, disrupt their plots, stop the flow of terrorist fighters, and stamp out their vicious ideology. With nearly 10,000 air strikes, we're taking out their leadership, their oil, their training camps, their weapons. We're training, arming, and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria.

When the Post follows up on these declarations of success with a report about how the Islamic State is losing ground, it makes the president look good, and makes it more likely that more Democrats will be elected in his wake.

That's what this is really all about. To get real news, you cannot turn to sources such as the Post and the New York Times and CNN any more. They all just reflect the liberal establishment line.

And today, that line is that the airstrikes are a tremendous success and that the Islamic State is losing.

The Islamic State lost the key Iraqi city of Ramadi recently. Might they really be approaching their end, if not as a jihad terror group, then at least as a putative caliphate? Well, the media wolf-crying makes it difficult, if not impossible, to tell for sure. This should serve as a caution for anyone who might still believe they can pick up the Washington Post and get anything approaching responsible journalism.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Syria
KEYWORDS: isis; washingtoncompost

1 posted on 02/10/2016 4:44:11 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
My laughter is ...

... contained.

2 posted on 02/10/2016 4:44:49 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (I don't know what Claire Wolfe is thinking but I know what I am thinking.)
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To: Kaslin

That would be Barack Hussein Obama’s JV team, right?

And the Washington Compost has the play by play.

Gotcha.


3 posted on 02/10/2016 4:46:57 PM PST by AFreeBird
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To: Kaslin

If they are it’s because of Putin, not Obama.


4 posted on 02/10/2016 4:47:49 PM PST by Hugin ("First thing--get yourself a firearm!" Sheriff Ed Galt, Last Man St anding.)
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To: Kaslin
If ISIS is losing it is because many of their murderous personnel are leaving the front line fight to infiltrate western countries under refugee status.
5 posted on 02/10/2016 4:48:46 PM PST by drypowder
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To: Kaslin

Russians are doing all the work. They’re bombing ISIS’s source of income


6 posted on 02/10/2016 4:49:05 PM PST by 4rcane
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To: Kaslin; SJackson

Well, the ISIS forces did begin losing ... As soon as RUssia began actually fighting them. With real weapons actually dropped from aircraft (instead of merely being carried from place to place but never dropped), and real shells (instead of shell games), and with snipers (and not sniping at republicans) ...

Notice that the ISIS fighters are actually marching. in formation. in uniform. Odd that. if they were losing and were concerned about being hit by air power. instead of lawyers.


7 posted on 02/10/2016 5:12:30 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Kaslin

The media’s contempt for the public’s intelligence is staggering. They truly believe that no position is so ludicrous they can’ sell it to us. I make avoiding the mainstream media a deliberate activity.


8 posted on 02/10/2016 5:15:55 PM PST by Spok ("What're you going to believe-me or your own eyes?" -Marx (Groucho))
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9 posted on 02/10/2016 5:24:13 PM PST by DoughtyOne (the Free Republic Caucus: what FReepers are thinking, 100s or 1000s of them. It's up to you.)
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To: Kaslin

It’s nice to know that the JV team is contained. Again. Obama’s cheerleaders said so, which means it must be true.


10 posted on 02/10/2016 5:36:29 PM PST by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: Pollster1; All
The point to it all is this from the article

-- snip --

When the Post follows up on these declarations of success with a report about how the Islamic State is losing ground, it makes the president look good, and makes it more likely that more Democrats will be elected in his wake

11 posted on 02/10/2016 5:57:53 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Kaslin

Sure. Over there.

That’s because all the ISIS fighters have now infiltrated Europe and are infiltrating America disguised as *refugees*.


12 posted on 02/10/2016 6:18:50 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Kaslin

They are delusional!

Tell that to all the people that ISIS has tortured and burned alive!


13 posted on 02/10/2016 7:21:32 PM PST by luvie (Cruz or Lose! "Where the vision is lost, the people perish"--Proverbs 29:18)
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