Since the video of The Free Burma Rangers rescuing that little girl came out, I've been paying more attention to the battle for Mosul.

The Old City is utterly destroyed.

The newer city areas are everything from unmarred to destroyed.

Estimates are there around 800,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), now camped in insecure, over-crowded temporary shelters. Thankfully the UN Humanitarian organizations learned from the last few crises that before you build these camps, you make a plan for closing the; however, with this degree to destruction, I'll wager those camps will be home for a long time to come.













And to think this might have been avoided, had the Iraqis stood and fought three years ago.

Reminds me of Europe after WWII.

3 things...

1. Reports that ISIS has confirmed that Baghdadi was killed. Statement from CENTCOM reflects the fact that Mattis is in charge now:



2. Statement from the president on the liberation of Mosul:



3. I posted this less than a week ago in the Trump thread...We are seeing the difference between a containment strategy (Obama) and a strategy of annihilation (Trump/Mattis):

Defense secretary Mattis says US policy against Isis is now 'annihilation'

Real news you won't see reported in the media: