ISIS is enjoying a renaissance and the West is fighting back with a shadow war, free of public debate or political scrutiny.
By Paul Rogers Published 9-3-2020 by openDemocracy
Others do the dirty work. Screenshot: CNN
In the run-up to November’s US election, a sub-plot of the Trump campaign will be his claimed success at “bringing our boys back”. And indeed there will have been substantial troop withdrawals from Afghanistan as well as a more modest drawdown in Iraq, although that will still involve a reduction from 5,200 to 3,500.
Some of the Iraqi changes are redeployments to neighbouring states but there has certainly been an overall decrease in Afghanistan, even if few figures are available about the thousands of private security personnel operating under various government contracts. Continue reading
