"Baghdadi Killed by US Special Forces" Topic

I hope this report is true, since there have been several false reports in the past.

Looks like the US Special Forces may have finally killed Baghdadi. If so, that is excellent news.

link

Now, they just need to find and deal with Mullah Omar.

Special thanks to our British allies, and the SBS.

Another One Bites the Dust,👍

Buh-Bye!

Congratulations to the entire chain of command and everyone else involved in the success of this highly complex mission.

Unbelievable that the Washington Post described this evil man as an "Austere religious scholar". He was a known murderer, rapist, and terrorist. The main stream media in this country has gone nuts.

Ok seems that he was in the Turkey zone in northern Syria around Idlib. So we now understand what was exchanged for the Kurd betrayal…

However let celebrate the death of this piece of …, and congratulation to all the servicemen involved.

It was always a matter of time (and opportunity). This is another nail in ISIS' coffin, but the idea they embody is far from dead.

"Austere religious scholar" and genocidal authoritarian lunatic are hardly mutually exclusive, in fact history seems to be littered with such people, unfortunately… Anyway hopefully it will now be awhile before we see another one.

Will have to send a few bucks to that unit's Morale, Welfare, and Recreation committee.

"Austere religious scholar" and genocidal authoritarian lunatic are hardly mutually exclusive,

True, but it is disingenuous for a newspaper to headline Baghdadi as a scholar instead of as the leader of a terrorist organization. It would be like a newspaper reporting Hitler's death by headlining the author of Mein Kampf has passed away.

Latest reports say he detonated a suicide vest and killed himself, along with some nearby children, when trapped by US forces in a dead-end tunnel.

I'm not surprised by the WP description, even though that is appalling. Little from the media surprises me nowadays.

Any idea which US units were involved? a dozen chinooks sounds like Rangers

Delta with Rangers in support, AFAIK.

Why is, or rather was, Baghdadi so successful ?

There is a complex process which boils down to conditioning people into reacting in a certain manner.

Muslim religious leaders have a lot of experience in "swishifying" people's heads, they have perfected the tools to use religious and social rules as a system to radicalize people. They do this by creating a highly emotional climate. Which to many people is highly distressing, disorienting and confusing.

Once people are in such a state, they sell you a way out … (incidentally this also applies to politics, drugs, gangs, lotteries, collector's items etc)

They offer simple answers to complex problems. "You're out of a job, no opportunities in a country lead by corrupt leaders ? Radical Islam gives you all the answers. Let's go back to the time of the prophet, when everything was awesome !!!"

This doesn't happen overnight, but people are more or less vulnerable to such tactics and they are easily spotted, better yet in our modern age they will jump on the bandwagon themselves via social media.

This isn't a case of "I'm bored guys, let's have a Jihad …" It's about creating the conditions that will allow thoughts to slip into your head, one by one, until they have a permanent influence on behaviour. The people who do throw bombs and commit acts of terrorism have a "logical" chain of events in their head, their mental flowcharts lead to predictable outcomes.

People are not radicalized by a single tweet offending a religious figure, it's a culmination of many tweets, small outrages which at some point boil over …

Religious leaders have a keen eye for that, they will engage you in personal conversation and then gently probe you to find the triggers. But why do it when social media can trigger people all the time, by creating a constant stream of points for you to react on. And the nice thing about Social media is that those nice algorithms do the job for you. Not because of some nefarious plan, well not entirely. They want to know you intimately so they can get more and better hits. The system knows you better than yourself and the fun bit is that it narrows your social circle to the things you keep responding to by feeding you even more of the same so you keep on reacting until it has painted you in a corner. If you happen to be socially, religiously or politically reactive it will feed you more and corner you in a hermetically sealed feedback loop of more of the same …

"Would you like to be radicalized ? please click like."

And it can hit close to home …

The vast majority of people wouldn't notice the WP headline since it's pretty much a factual account of the guy's life, warts and all, what's missing is the emotional hyperbole some people behind the media find so handy to get your attention.

Put another way some media uses virtue signaling in trying to outdo everyone else on the outrage bandwagon that people are conditioned to be triggered by angry tweets, which are picked up by media feedback and reprocessed.

Look, it's OK to hate Baghdadi, for the record I hope he is permanently reincarnated as toilet paper at a Mexican restaurant with failing hygiene record.

But the mechanisms he built his little murder state on, are not that dissimilar to what others are trying to do with other brains in other parts of the world. Being outraged on a forum for an apparent outrage by evil infidels who hate us or being outraged on a forum for an apparently outrage by a leftist newspaper who hates us … the line is very thin sometimes.

This isn't a criticism of anyone's politics here, but a remainder that it may be a good idea to step outside of your own head and reflect on the contents once in a while and try to figure out if your opinion is formed by your own thoughts, or came prepackaged by somebody else.

Celebrating the death of an enemy.

A rather thoughtful response to this question:

link

(BTW my personal position is that although I'm hardly a fan of Baghdadi but I'm not going to dance on anyone's grave.I want our side to defeat people like this. I don't want to become like them).

I will not only celebrate the killing of this monster but also the fact that not one American was hurt while accomplishing the mission.

Except for the doggy … Don't like it when doggies die.

It seems that the mission went off about as perfect as one could. A great credit to those involved. Thanks to all who participated in any way.

Patrick +1

Yes, people like their answers all too simple and the line is sometimes very thin indeed.

As for the WP apparently they had a little trouble picking a headline and sticking with it….

Apparently the dog was wounded, but is going to be okay. Reportedly, he or she has already returned to duty.

There is no moral equivalency with a monster like this, even to people who might dance on, or want to dance on his grave (which is apparently a watery one, so that will be very difficult to do, unless you are an accomplished, synchronized swimmer).

Such assertions are just silly.

I will not only celebrate the killing of this monster

Such assertions are just silly.

Indeed, one is reminded of the final pages of 'Animal Farm'.

Let's never forget that ISIS burned to death in a cage a Jordanian fighter pilot. No equivalence whatsoever ochoin. Celebrating anyone's death may be in poor taste, but what ISIS did is evil. Or can't you differentiate between "poor taste" and evil?

I can. I'm assuming you could eschew both? Can I also assume you didn't read the link I provided with far more erudite & subtle arguments than your black/white equivalence?

If I had anything so infra.dig. as a personal motto, it would be, "Aim High". Indeed, behaving as a civilised and moral human being seems to me to be the anthesis of ISIS & the likes of Baghdadi.

The world is a better place today. I'm glad the dog is doing well.

Me too! Thresher's post yesterday about the K9 had me smiling, and after searching a bit I had this stupid grin going on :-)

One of our readers asks me to add these credits:

ARMY Delta Force, Rangers and US ARMY 160th Special Operations Air Regt[SOAR].

Here's the K9 (name still classified :-)):

link

Off on a bit of a tangent, things we perhaps didn't need to know about this raid …

"IS leader's underwear 'stolen' for DNA test"

link

We can celebrate that the mission was carried off with text book precision apparently and that none of our troops were seriously injured. We can also feel relief that Baghdadi is dead and should be relieved that another threat has been removed. However, I feel it should be viewed as a somber event as it still is death. It is sad that we needed to carry out this raid because people like Baghdadi exist. It is sobering that there are more folks like him out there. The use of lethal force while sometimes necessary (more times than we would hope) it should never a cause for celebration.

Sorry, PM. With the utmost respect to you, I have to disagree, especially in this case.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, and your enemy respecting you upon your death is a "thing" … historically. I totally get that. And agree with it in many cases.

But this guy … indeed his entire cohort … had & has nothing that deserves respect or recognition, or status as an honorable combatant … he promulgated a philosophy of religious genocide.
He was a butcher. His minions are butchers. There is – IMHO – no saving "grace" about this guy and his creed.

Treating a foe who acted honorably in his fight with honor in death I can get with.

This guy? Not so much … Rapists, butchers, murderers, torturers, misogynists, homophobes, etc. etc. … may he and his ilk rot in hell.

I disagree as well, PM.

I don't recall people thinking Hitler's death, and/or Bin Laden's were events to be "somber" about.

Yep, totally agree to "live by the sword, die by the sword" as a philosophy.

In my opinion, Baghdadi got off far too easy, given how he treated others, and encouraged his followers to treat their opponents, including the Jordanian pilot.

Even Al Qaeda rejected his tactics as being too extreme, and they are blood-thirsty terrorists too.

+1 Private Matter

Couldn't have put it better myself. A credit to you.

I would like to emphasise, though it should not be needed, that no-one here is denying the depravity of the Isis Caliphate.

Actually … it … :-)

I can't really really be bothered.

Meanwhile, thousands of ISIS followers, women and children, are living in mass detention camps where they continue to perpetuate the ideals of ISIS. They fly the ISIS flag, have religious trials of fellow prisoners, kill or mutilate fellow prisoners. This is the breeding ground of next generations terror. They will be back to bother us.

I didn't serve in the military, but I know death just the same. At the age of 20 I went into law enforcement. I was a detention officer for 3 years. I became a sworn officer at 23. By 28 I was a detective. I worked child abuse cases and gang intelligence. For a time I was part of a violent offender task force with the US Marshals. I did it as long as a I could and left with some personal problems that have taken me years to set right and I still have not overcome this.

Now that you know my background. I retired from one police department and went to work for another one for a time before leaving police work entirely. When I was working for the second police department I heard that there had been a officer involved shooting at my old department. I called a friend there and he said that a life long criminal whom I was well acquainted with was killed by one of our officers.

I had known this criminal since he was 10 years old. The relationship was never once a good one. He was 23 at the time of his death. He is suspected of murdering numerous people. He never made it to trial because all of the witnesses against him were murdered. I'll let you do the math on that.

I cheered. I did a Snoopy dance. That guy had it long in its coming and he will not be missed. Some people are nothing more than a waste of human flesh.

Right at the end of my career I testified in a death penalty case. It felt weird knowing that I was helping put someone to death. On the other hand, he killed a 16 year old girl who was about to testify against him for raping her at the age of 13.

There are some people whose passing is to be lamented and there are those whose passing could qualify as a celebration. We all have choices. If you live as a sorry sack of dog manure, then no one should be upset at your passing. I just hate it when the manure takes innocent children with them and bends to many minds of the weaker sheep to hate.

2 cents. Take it or leave it.

PS: Oh, and my son has been a Marine for a year and a half now. He went to boot camp 2 months after high school graduation. His choice, not mine. I didn't want him to do it. I'm both proud of him and terrified for him every single day that we're alive. I try not to think about it.

ninthdoc, remind your son that incoming fire has right of way. It will take him a bit of time to 'grow out' of the bootcamp 10-feet-tall-and-bulletproof mindset.

"Meanwhile, thousands of ISIS followers, women and children, are living in mass detention camps where they continue to perpetuate the ideals of ISIS. They fly the ISIS flag, have religious trials of fellow prisoners, kill or mutilate fellow prisoners. This is the breeding ground of next generations terror. They will be back to bother us".

Sad but true, and we are funding and feeding them.

@Lion in the Stars – The kid has always been a miracle. He started playing football in 7th grade for the first time ever. I do not watch football, so he actually played his first game without ever having seen a football game played. By the beginning of his 8th grade year, he was one of those kids who could have played on the A team, but got more play time and was more needed as a leader on the B team. So from first game played with no idea how a game should go to being a leader in one year is pretty amazing to me. He has also had a six pack since the 7th grade. He quit football after his Sophomore year just because he was no longer interested in it. In spite of that, he kept himself in tip top shape. On two occasions he worked out to the point of having to go the hospital with Rhabdomyolysis, the latest occurrence while he was working out with his sergeant while serving.

Yep, 10 feet tall and bullet proof does describe him. I was the same way when I was a young cop, even a young detective. He's a forward observer for an artillery crew, so as much pride as that gives me that he is essentially the "brains" of the gun, I fully recognize that he is the first target.

"Meanwhile, thousands of ISIS followers, women and children, are living in mass detention camps where they continue to perpetuate the ideals of ISIS. They fly the ISIS flag, have religious trials of fellow prisoners, kill or mutilate fellow prisoners. This is the breeding ground of next generations terror. They will be back to bother us".
Sad but true, and we are funding and feeding them.

Really, really, not a smart state of affairs, letting those places fester like that – you just risk the kids growing up with views that make Baghdadi look liberal! All I'll say is that western governments should stop doing the politically expedient and take ownership of all those that belong to them.

Indeed.
Looking after children isn't just the moral thing to do, it's reducing the chances they turn into the next generation of radicals.

Fwiw i think baghdadi crossed several lines of evil and the world is a slightly better place for his death. As distasteful and unpleasant as death is.
I can see why someone might celebrate his death.
Bad guy dead.
Yep.
Good thing.
He got what he deserved.

On the other hand.
I felt Trump's description left a bit of a bad taste.
So i can also see there's room for another side to this.

Not like he had the body stripped and dragged round for the crowd to abuse.
Maybe there weren't enough pieces left.