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Removing Cancer of the Islamic State Can Kill the Patient

Not only has the Islamic State been driven out of Ramadi, but most of its citizens. Pictured: Government building in Ramadi. (Photo: Beshr / Flickr Commons)

Removing Cancer of the Islamic State Can Kill the Patient

The efforts of the U.S. and Iraq to extract the Islamic State have left Ramadi uninhabitable.
By | January 13, 2016

Iraqi security forces, with the help of the United States, may have managed to dislodge most of the Islamic State forces and personnel occupying Ramadi, Iraq. But the combination of Iraqi ground forces and U.S. airstrikes took a terrible toll on the city. Writes Ben Hubbard in the New York Times.

… the widespread destruction of Ramadi bears testament to the tremendous costs of dislodging a group that stitches itself into the urban fabric of communities it seizes by occupying homes, digging tunnels and laying extensive explosives.

…  Few civilians remain from a population that once numbered around 400,000, and the city lacks electricity and running water.

The Islamic State plays dirty by embedding with the population. But neither did the U.S. and Iraq do Ramadi any favors by killing the patient to save it.