by Robert M. Traxler

The Battle of Mosul, Iraq, a city as large as Detroit, has been joined in force since Oct, 16, 2016. President Obama has been heralding its success since then; American media has sporadically covered the battle, mostly reporting on successes.

Let’s look at the battle from a strategic as well as a propaganda point of view. The ISIS/ISIL/DAESH forces number between 2,000 and 9,000 combat troops, but we have no way of exactly estimating the combat support and combat service support numbers that the locals are providing in all nine classes of supply: local people from Mosul who provide food, water, transportation, communications, intelligence, medical treatment, housing, engineering support, weapons and ammunitions. A rough rule of thumb is seven to nine support folks to every trigger puller, or 14,000 to 81,000.

The news folks do not want to make it appear that the Islamic radicals have popular support, so they downplay the number by only counting the combat arms ISIS forces. The problem with that is it that gives the radicals an enormous propaganda victory. The ISIS press is waxing heroically about the 2000 Warriors of God who are holding the city against 108,000 infidels, with support from 50 different “Godless” nations. The Infidel attackers have the might of the American, French and Iraqi Air Forces against them along with artillery from the United States. The world’s best troops have been sent against them for months, and they are with the blessing of Allah valiantly standing firm.

President Obama has called ISIS a junior varsity team; I would hate to see their varsity or professional teams.

In the early days of World War II, Bataan, Corregidor and Wake Island, all American defeats, were called victories because they held out against heavy odds. We should also look to the Alamo as an inspirational example of a valiant but losing defense. The ISIS media folks are daily extoling the valor of the Warriors of God against the infidels. Islamic radical Davy Crockett-type legends are being built every day; heroic stories of the valor of the Mujahedeen are being fed to the young Muslims around the Islamic world who will grow up to be radicals. The ISIS forces are winning the propaganda war and winning big.

As General William Tecumseh Sherman said, ” War is all hell;” his reference was justifying making war on the civilian population of Georgia. The civilians were supplying the Confederate forces and thus a combat multiplier. Depriving civilians of basic needs is not a popular thing to do, but necessary if you wish to win. Food, medical supplies, fuel and communications aids ISIS and prolong the siege, supplying ISIS first and then the people with only what is excess to military needs.

Tactically the ISIS forces are losing, very slowly losing, but losing nonetheless. At the current rate, it will take four months to a year to retake Mosul. ISIS will be defeated in Mosul but the radical Islamic world will honor the defenders as martyrs ordained by Allah. Every day that passes recruits swarm to the black flag of ISIS, every day that passes, ISIS grows stronger.

ISIS will be defeated in Mosul but they still own portions of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria. ISIS has the hearts and minds of the clear majority of the Islamic world (please note, not even one percent of American Muslims support ISIS). If ISIS can recruit one half of one percent of the Islamic world to their ranks they would be a force larger than the total worldwide standing military of the American, British, French, Chinese and Russian combined military forces, ground, air and sea.

It is six years past the time to destroy ISIS and the belief in Islamic invincibility, not just defeat them but annihilate them. The Second Jihad lasted for more than 200 years, and the world needs to understand that. If it takes working with the Russians to accomplish it, so be it. If it takes leaving President Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria, so be it. Destroy ISIS and get the heck out of the area, allow Islam to modernize and become more tolerant, as Christianity modernized during the age of enlightenment.