Basic math with ISIS

Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 12:17pm

Remember back in 2014, when ISIS overran an area the size of Great Britain?
According to the CIA, they did it with a modest sized army.

A CIA assessment puts the number of ISIS fighters at possibly more than three times the previous estimates.
The terror group that calls itself the Islamic State "can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria," a CIA spokesman told CNN on Thursday.
Analysts and U.S. officials initially estimated there were as many as 10,000 fighters, including those who were freed from prisons by ISIS, and Sunni loyalists who have joined the fight as the group advanced across Iraq.

So ISIS had about 30,000 at the peak of their power, right?
Fast forward four year. The ISIS caliphate has collapsed.
How many jihadists did we kill?

During a discussion at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, Army Gen. Raymond Thomas, head of US Special Operations Command, cited estimates saying that the US-led fight against ISIS had killed 60,000 to 70,000 ISIS militants.

OK. So we killed 70,000 jihadists out of an army of 30,000. Gotcha.
Now here's where it gets hard to believe.
Guess how many ISIS jihadists are still alive?

A report by UN sanctions monitors published Monday said the "Islamic State" (IS) militant group has between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters still in Iraq and Syria.

To sum this up:

30,000 minus 70,000 equals 30,000

Vietnam body counts, anyone?

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Submitted by HenryAWallace on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 12:56pm

to say, that assessment would be triplety mucho big stuff top top secret, not something we could google.

Remember the comment that Gaddafi was often seen in public with a blond or something to that effect? A banality about something that had been happening in public view--and it was classified. (IIRC, that was in the batch of stuff that Chelsea Manning had given wikileaks.)

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Submitted by vtcc73 on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 1:31pm
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Militants and terrorists are being born faster than they can kill the? Why? There’s something for the CIA to ponder.

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"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

Submitted by CB on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 1:48pm
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it's a feature, not a bug.

@vtcc73

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Submitted by vtcc73 on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 2:18pm
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@CB They’re pushing a narrative that we should all be scared spitless. Most Americans are so exceptional that they can’t differentiate between a message to be scared from another saying that we’re kicking ass. “‘Murcia!! Fuck yeah!!!!!”

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"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

Submitted by leveymg on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 1:44pm

Based on the same sources. Goes back decades. Nice that one federal agency takes cost-cutting seriously. They don't have to hire any new analysts or produce new intelligence. So efficient.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 5:36pm
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@leveymg

"If we don't act immediately Iran will build nukes in less than 3 years." 25 years later he's still saying that. Why is it that evil people seem to live forever? How in hell is Cheney still breathing? Or Kissinger, Albright, etc?

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

Submitted by CB on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 5:45pm
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@snoopydawg

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 7:08pm
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@CB

Smile

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

Submitted by arendt on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 1:59pm
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Submitted by QMS on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 2:11pm
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singin' the isis rag. Bunch of amateurs. Press gotta get some new tuna forks for that. (jive for tuning forks, meaning the key they play is disharmonious).

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question everything

Submitted by dance you monster on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 2:41pm
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. . . they would seem to be Schrodinger's jihadists. The equation just needs to be seen in that light, as one possibility.

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Submitted by CB on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 5:41pm
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@dance you monster
tells us that the very act of going into the country to count the jihadists will in itself change the numbers. That is why the discrepancy between the official counts.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 5:51pm

@CB
Just because you kill 30,000 jihadists in one universe doesn't mean there isn't another 30,000 jihadists in a parallel universe.

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Submitted by CB on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 6:11pm
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@gjohnsit
our solar system is just a pimple on the butt of some superior being. One of these days we are going to get popped.

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Submitted by Amanda Matthews on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 5:04pm
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John Owen Brennan was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from March 2013 to January 2017.

Who’d have thunk it???

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Submitted by dervish on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 5:28am
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@Amanda Matthews stole our election, and whom the establishment Dems vehemently trust.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 08/15/2018 - 1:59pm
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@Amanda Matthews  
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/us/politics/john-brennan-security-cle...

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