Sebastian Junger: When a society collapses into anarchy
And violence, civilians inevitably take matters
Into their own hands.
They form armed militias.
They put up checkpoints and roadblocks.
They kill or expel anyone in the area who might threaten
Their grip on power.
Sebastian Junger: In that kind of environment,
Radical ideologies are almost guaranteed to take hold.
Radicalism depends on desperation.
It depends on grievance.
And it then provides its own harsh answers to the
Corruption and the violence that afflict much
Of the world.
Sebastian Junger: People will always turn to radicalism once
They have exhausted every other option.
Militant: Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
Sebastian Junger: They have to.
Their very survival is at stake.
Robin Yassin Kassab: At first it wasn't a revolutionary movement.
They weren't calling for the fall of the regime or
The execution of the president.
Robin Yassin Kassab: It was very simple.
"we want our children to be released."
They were calling for dignity,
Which is important in a country where people
Were used to being humiliated and pushed around.
Sarah Chayes: It's really remarkable the degree to which
Corruption has played an important role in driving a
Variety of security crises that had been breaking out in
The last five to ten years.
Every single one of the Arab spring revolutions was
Explicitly an anti-corruption revolution.
These were countries run by extremely sophisticated
And successful criminal organizations.
The people who are paid to uphold the law are the very
Ones violating it.
It's humiliating.
Tunisia catches fire.
Libya catches fire.
Egypt catches fire.
Bashar al-Assad looks at that and says,
"I'll be damned."
So he was willing to respond to peaceful
Demonstrations with maximal use of force.
Sarah Chayes: The bet that he made was
"there's, at this point, no compromising
With this movement so if I wanna stay in power,
I have to absolutely take it to the limit."
Robin Yassin Kassab: Very quickly we got into this
Cycle of protests that were met by gunfire which led
To funerals the next day.
The funerals became bigger protests.
The demands, then, began to get bigger.
Social justice and freedom, an end to corruption.
The regime responded again with more and more violence.
Zaidoun al-Zoabi: I participated in demonstrations
And I was detained twice afterwards.
In that jail, I witnessed at least the death
Of 80 people who died just because of the conditions.
There was no oxygen, there was no medicine.
There was no space for you.
You can't sleep, there's no sleep.
Wardens did not have to beat us.
We used to do it to each other.
You know, just like a couple of rats put in a small, small,
Small space, and we were, we were just biting each other.
It is a factory of terrorism.
You would go inside as an ordinary person and
Leave as a terrorist.
Linda Ibrahim: I was almost 16, 17
When the revolution started.
I wanted to do something.
I mean, I wanted to participate in demonstrations.
I wanted these things to stop.
Emely Issa: That night, I tried to prevent them.
I told them you are young and we don't know yet how will
The regime behave against you.
I was afraid they will shoot.
They will shoot.
I tried, but they insisted so I told them
"okay, I will be in front of you.
I will be the first, but you have to follow my instructions."
Emely Issa: If God gave me 1,000 years to live,
I will never forget that sound.
Linda Ibrahim: When you see such sufferings,
There is no childhood.
So many of my friends were killed.
And this is the hardest thing, you know.
Before, we wanted many things, we wanted to change,
But now we just want peace, you know, for,
Stop killing children, I mean.
Stop killing innocent people.
BBC News: Mr. President, human rights watch, for example,
30th of January this year, has said that forces loyal to
Bashar al-Assad "have deliberately and viciously
Attacked civilians in opposition-held areas using
Bashar al-Assad: No, there's no indiscriminate weapons.
When you, when you shoot, you aim, and when you shoot,
When you aim you aim at terrorists in order
To protect civilians.
Again, if you're talking about casualty, that's war.
You cannot have war without casualty.
Man: Alahu Akbar...
Alahu Akbar.
♪
Robin Yassin Kassab: The regime wanted a war.
This sounds strange.
Why on earth would any regime, or government,
Or state provoke a war against itself?
Robin Yassin Kassab: The regime knew very well that it
Couldn't survive a genuine reform process.
If there was a real reform process,
One thing would lead to another.
There would, there would be more and more transparency,
More and more crimes would be exposed, and in the end,
At best, the president and his top officers would have
Ended up in prison stripped of their stolen wealth.
They thought that in a military conflict, in a war,
They could win because they had done it before.
Under Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar in 1982,
They used artillery, they used aerial bombardment,
They probably used chemical weapons,
And they killed somewhere between 10,000 and
40,000 people, and the memory of that terror kept the Syrian
People silent until 2011.
Reporter: Pictures have emerged today apparently
Showing members of the Syrian army defecting to join
Protesters in the city of Homs.
Robin Yassin Kassab: You have a growing number of local
Volunteers and a growing number of military defectors
Who were joining together to form into hundreds of
Self-defense militias which eventually all came together
Under the umbrella titled, "the Free Syrian Army."
Ahmed: These groups the FSA had in Aleppo at that
Time were really helpful.
Once in Salaheddin, I was demonstrating in there.
People start just falling on the ground that,
From shooting from the regime.
They closed the road on us.
Ahmed: And then, like out of nothing, like angels,
Somebody shoot the thugs and they fell
And they were able to escape.
Soldier: Takbir!
FSA soldiers: Allahu Akbar!
Soldier: Takbir!
FSA soldiers: Allahu Akbar!
Soldier: Takbir!
Christoph Reuter: The propaganda of the regime was
"we are not confronted with a local revolution
Of people who demand rights.
No, we are confronted with a foreign-funded jihadi movement."
Peter Bouckaert: Actually, a lot of the
Jihadists were released by the Syrian regime
In the very early stage of the conflict.
There was an amnesty which allowed a lot of people with
Very nasty records to be freed from custody in Syria.
It was a strategy of survival.
Robin Yassin Kassab: The regime thought enough people
In the outside world would be scared away from the
Revolution by the size of these bearded working classmen
With kalashnikovs and they were right.
And America, in 2011, 2012, they were saying,
"we can't allow weapons to go into Syria.
We can't send the democrats, the nationalists of the free
Army weapons, because some of those weapons might get into
The hands of Islamist extremists."
Will McCants: In the absence of a major international effort
To build a army to oppose the Assad regime,
A lot of private individuals in the gulf began
To fund armed groups on the ground inside of Syria.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: FSA was a fantastic media labeled term,
But there was no central authority,
No one could command anyone, no one could have a one unity
On a frontline.
I would go to a village, it has five, six militias.
I would come few months later, they have multiplied into 50,
60 because forming a militia became a way of getting money.
The amount of money, the amount of ammunition,
The amount of weapons pumped into that conflict totally
Destroyed the revolution and turned it into the
Dynamics of civil war.
Peter Bouckaert: Early in the war, ISIS wasn't present.
There was a very diverse landscape.
So a lot of the Bosnians, and the Tunisians,
And the Libyans, the more extreme kind of elements of
Those groups came on there "el Muhadrim."
El Muhadrim means the immigrants,
The foreign fighters.
These groups fought alongside each other around Aleppo.
Ahmed: Fighters came 3:00 in the morning,
Sneaked inside Aleppo.
Nobody knew they were coming.
There were just, like, in every corner,
You could see one fighter.
And then in the morning,
Two tanks started shooting this neighborhood.
The FSA started shooting it.
They had only this RPG and it was not enough for that tank.
The second day, three tanks came.
They destroyed the first one and then they
Destroyed the last one.
So the one in the middle, just, like,
Surrendered himself.
Man: Allahu Akbar!
Allahu Akbar!
Man: Allahu Akbar!
Ahmed: In the same day, when all this happened,
Most of the people left Aleppo and
They went to the countryside.
Mahmoud al-Basha: Hanano military base was the biggest
Military base for Assad regime in Aleppo city.
So when the FSA took half of the city,
They decided to attack this military base.
Ahmed: In this military base, there were thousands of weapons,
Warehouses full of weapons.
So many groups, people I know, friends,
Were going to Hanano military base and they were
Just taking weapons.
Man: Then the bombardments started.
Day and night, non-stop.
Sebastian Junger: One of the problems with letting a
Civil war go on too long is that more
And more people get involved.
It's a little bit like a bar fight where all of a sudden,
Everyone's jumped in and is throwing chairs at each other.
Syria became a civil war in response to the violence
Of the government.
Eventually, Iran got involved through Hezbollah
To support the Assad regime.
The Kurds got involved.
Turkey got involved.
The Arab gulf states got involved.
Eventually, all the world powers and all the regional
Powers had some investment in the war in Syria and in many
Cases were actively involved in the fighting.
Once you get in a proxy fight, so many people have such huge
Interests in the outcome that it's almost impossible to stop.
President Obama: Obviously, this is a very tough issue.
I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has
Lost legitimacy that he needs to step down.
So far, he hasn't gotten the message and instead has
Doubled down in violence on his own people.
I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in
The situation, but we have been very clear that a red line
For us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical
Weapons moving around or being utilized.
That would change my calculus.
That would change.
Robin Yassin Kassab: When he said that,
A lot of Syrian revolutionaries were very
Upset because it seems to be saying that,
"look, you can use Scud missiles,
You can shoot them down in the street,
You can use warplanes.
Anything is fine except chemical weapons."
Robin Yassin Kassab: Then, of course,
He did use chemical weapons.
Robin Yassin Kassab: He killed 1450 people in five hours,
In the suburbs of Damascus.
Men, women, and children, choking to death.
Senator McCain: President of the United States called
Lindsey Graham and me over to the oval office.
Looked us in the eye and said,
"they've crossed the line, I'm gonna attack.
I'm gonna degrade Bashar al-Assad,
I'm gonna upgrade the capabilities of the free
Syrian army and I'm gonna reverse the momentum
On the battlefield."
We emphasized two.
We walked out and there was the usual cameras and said,
"we're with the president all the way."
Senator McCain: I'm sitting in my office and they're on CNN,
The president has decided not to.
President Obama: My fellow Americans.
Tonight I wanna talk to you about Syria.
Senator McCain: That wasn't just dISILlusioning
To me and Lindsey Graham.
The Saudis had planes on the runway when they found out
President Obama: Because we cannot resolve someone else's
Civil war through force.
Robin Yassin Kassab: The red line disappeared.
There were thousands of defections in that week.
Thousands of soldiers and,
And officers who'd be loyal to the regime,
Hadn't dared to jump, they thought now it's going
To change because the Americans are going to get
Involved and they defected in that week,
But nothing happened.
Robin Yassin Kassab: Quite a few fighters in Syria,
Quite a few revolutionary fighters said,
"look, we're never going to get help from the west.
This guy can do anything he wants.
He can kill us all with any weapons that he can find,
In any way he chooses and the west is never going
To come to our aid."
Zaidoun al-Zoabi: Syria is just a small triangle that
Is hardly visible on the world map.
You will see that this triangle is just like the
Heart of the world and if this crisis is not solved,
Believe me, everyone in the world will suffer.
Will McCants: In 2011, the Syrian civil war
Begins to take root.
At the same time, the American military finishes its
Withdrawal from Iraq.
So, the Islamic State has more freedom of action in Iraq
And they begin to look to Syria as a place to give
Themselves some strategic depth.
Robin Yassin Kassab: In Syria, it looks like ISIS is a creation
Of Bashar al-Assad.
It's a creation of his scorched earth policy.
Assad had in effect an undeclared non-aggression
Pact with ISIS.
And even today, when ISIS and the Free Army are fighting
Each other, Assad will come and bomb the Free Army.
General Flynn: It's a cancer that exists.
The Islamic world knows it exists.
The rest of the world now sees it, feels it,
Is bleeding because of it.
Is terrorized because of it.
It's not 30,000 guys in Syria.
The Islamic State is a global problem.
Christoph Reuter: In its beginning it's an Iraqi
Organization, but what they had for Syria was a blueprint,
A very detailed plan, step a, b, c, d,
How to colonize a foreign country.
The first phase was training camps where they form a hybrid
Army from the incoming people from Tunisia, Egypt,
Daghestan, Germany who didn't even have one common language.
Christoph Reuter: It's an absolutely loyal army with no
Local affiliations.
And then, locally to know who is who in the
Respective villages, they started to open da'wah offices,
Missionary offices.
And they did so in many, many places.
In Tal Rifaat, in Mar'a, in al-Dana, in Mayadin,
In Deir ez-Zor, in Manbij.
And so, slowly, slowly, slowly,
They knew exactly what is the composition of this community.
Whom we could buy, whom we have to kill?
First, they did this secretly.
Then, only, once they felt powerful enough, they would,
With lightning stroke, take over a particular village.
Sarah Chayes: What they're doing is saying this system is
So rotten, it's so thoroughly rotten that the
Only way to improve it is by fire and blood.
Robin Yassin Kassab: The public display of horrific violence
Against individuals is something which goes way back in history
And every culture has done it at some time or, or the other.
In Britain, they used to hang, draw, and quarter.
In China, they were dragged into the street
And beaten to death.
In France, women who had slept with German soldiers,
Had their hair cut off and were beaten in the streets,
Stripped naked and paraded.
In the United States, people would take their wives and
Their children along to the lynching of the black man and
Then they'd stand there and smile and have their
Photograph taken next to his corpse.
This display of public violence was seen as a
Necessary part of government in order to send the message
Out into society.
"we can do anything we like with you.
Don't resist us because we have total power to do the most
Horrific things and there's nothing you can do about it."
Sebastian Junger: All societies are blind to
Their own violence.
From the use of napalm in Vietnam,
To the bombing of German cities,
To the use of nuclear weapons in Japan,
The United States has killed far more civilians
Than ISIS ever could.
In World War II alone, Allied forces are thought
To have killed around one million civilians.
We're focused on the wrongdoing of other groups.
It's an adaptive trait that's probably hardwired
Into the brain because it has survival value.
President Bush: Either you're with us or you're
With the terrorists.
Sebastian Junger: It allows us to demonize the enemy who we
May have to fight and to avoid the moral conflict
That comes with killing.
When the United States invaded Iraq,
They killed tens of thousands of innocent people.
You can't do that and imagine there won't be consequences.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: By early 2003,
The majority of Iraqis were happy to see the back
Of Saddam Hussein.
There is excitement, there is hope,
There is a degree of anxiety.
I remember two days after the fall of Baghdad,
People were talking about,
"why are the Americans aggressive?"
"why are they pointing their guns at the people
In the street?"
Saddam had committed massacres within the society,
Enormous levels of violence, but you couldn't see it.
Within the American occupation,
Violence is televised.
Pictures of the Americans putting bags on the head of
People and sitting them behind barbed wire,
Forcing people to be naked, humiliating people.
The loss of their credibility was enormous,
They could have paved the Iraqi roads in gold and still
They can do the humiliation of Abu Ghraib.
There was a burning American armored vehicle
In Haifa street in Baghdad.
As I'm walking I hear, see two small helicopters.
They fire a rocket into the crowd that was celebrating
Around the burning vehicle.
I run towards the scene and I see this circle with a young
Boy stunned, missing leg, a pool of blood and some liquids.
Other people scattered in the middle.
They're not screaming, they're not wailing,
The injured people are silent, the silence of shock.
The helicopters come again,
They fire another rocket into the crowd.
I'm trying to be as thin as the curb, you know,
And then you realize there is people left in
The middle of the road.
There's this guy who was injured in the first attack
And then was hit again.
He raises himself, he looks around, he falls,
Stretches his arm, and still waits.
No one can help him, no one can do anything.
The helicopters were gone,
But everyone was mortified with fear.
Violence by the end of 2003, early 2004,
Is a normal fact of society.
When you see body parts in the street,
When you see pieces of flesh hanging from a tree,
When you see children killed because they were playing in
The middle of the road, I don't think there is
Difference in horror between seeing children just being hit
By an American rocket with their limbs scattered,
With their, with their legs oozing these fluids in the
Middle of the street of Baghdad and seeing someone,
You know, executed by ISIS.
You don't equate the two parties,
But from the perspective of someone who lost his leg
There is no good violence and bad violence.
Peter Bouckaert: It is very important for people to
Understand just how much what is happening in Syria today is
Related to what happened in Iraq over a decade ago.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a Sunni ruled country with
Both the Kurdish and the Shia majority that suffered very
Significantly at the hands of that Sunni dominance.
Whether you agree or not with the military intervention,
The main failures were not the military intervention.
It's the de-Ba'athification of the country,
Which completely marginalized the Sunni population.
Paul Bremer: I am today establishing an Iraqi
De-Ba'athification council.
General Petraeus: I was an occupation commander with all
Of the responsibilities that went along with that,
Which essentially meant running part of Iraq,
Firing the Ba'ath party, casting them on the ash heap
Of history, created tens of thousands of Iraqis,
Including the most educated and,
And influential in various Sunni-Arab communities
Especially, whose incentive now was to oppose
To new Iraq rather than to support it.
Huge mistake.
Dennis Ross: It didn't make sense to do this kind of
Wide-scaled de-Ba'athification when within Iraq itself,
You wanna get a job, you had to join the Ba'ath party.
So, you know, you, it's, it's a little bit like the
De-Nazi-fication.
Not everyone was, you know,
Part of shaping a repressive regime that
Suppressed everybody else.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: The Sunnis were oppressed by the
Americans, by the Shi'a government of Iraq.
ISIS comes and promises liberation,
Promises the end of that, promises bringing back the
Sunni's pride that they've lost from 2003 and bringing
Them back into control.
Christoph Reuter: If you called something Ba'athi
Nobody would follow, but once they discovered,
"hey, if you, if we say that we fight in the name of Islam,
In the name of jihad against the foreign occupiers,
We have something that resonates."
♪ . ♪
Robin Yassin Kassab: Their propaganda owes a lot to
Hollywood action films and to computer games
That kids grow up on these days.
ISIS knows that if they make a high production video shot
From various angles, if they get a white guy,
Put him in a Guantanamo style orange jumpsuit,
They get a child or an English speaker to cut his
Head off with a knife, they know that that night,
Maybe the film will not be shown on mainstream TV,
But they know that the story of the film will be headline
News everywhere in the world.
Lester Holt: There is breaking news tonight of a
Chilling new ISIS propaganda video.
Reporter: The men believed to be Syrian were shackled and
The video shows the Egyptian prisoners being marched onto a
Beach by militants dressed in black then the
Prisoners are beheaded brutally.
Robin Yassin Kassab: Nobody will be talking about Assad on
The same day he may have incinerated a hundred people
In barrel bombs, but we don't see those people dying.
We've, nobody has made a high-production video of it
And followed it up with a threat to the west.
It's very effective at striking fear into the hearts
Of their enemies because the prospect of being captured by
These people is too horrific to contemplate.
Daniel Koehler: The way they use social media sites like
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and messenger services is so
Incredibly sophisticated.
They have a type of member that only engage in
Online jihad.
This is the place where they spread the ideology,
Peter Bergen: You know, 6900 westerns have gone to join.
So, you know, it's not an insignificant number.
Some of these kids who are joining, you know,
Fairly living pretty humdrum lives in Belgium, France,
London, United States, and they're joining ISIS and
They're part of something bigger than themselves and
It's exciting.
Will McCants: The men who run the Islamic State
For all of its pretense to be a religious organization, uh,
And all its quotation of scripture,
When you look at how they behave as an organization,
Um, in many ways, uh, it resembles, uh,
The rough and tumble politics of a criminal organization.
I mean, they put hits out on people,
They extort people,
Raising millions of dollars a year by these activities.
Christoph Reuter: They went into an area and the first
Thing they would do is the flour mill, the bakery,
The concrete factory has to be taken
Without damage immediately.
They thought about "what do we need to maintain the
Infrastructure of this area?"
Christoph Reuter: For example, for the,
From a policeman and soldiers on the Iraqi side,
They told him, "you're an infidel."
Theoretically, you have to die, but you can buy
A "forgiveness card."
The forgiveness card and the money you have paid for shows
That you are repenting and every checkpoint will know if
You show them the forgiveness card that
You have been forgiven.
So everybody bought for $400 a forgiveness card.
A few months later, the decree came out and,
"oh, the forgiveness cards have expired."
You can buy a new one, but it costs a bit more.
So everything, everything is costly.
Robin Yassin Kassab: The vast majority of the Syrian
People see, um, ISIS as a foreign occupation force.
In January 2014, the Free Army,
The Islamic Front Militias, and al-Qaeda,
All of them declared war on ISIS.
Robin Yassin Kassab: They kicked ISIS out of the whole
Of western Syria out of Latakia, Idlib, out of Aleppo,
But then in Iraq, because the Iraqi state had become so
Dysfunctional because the Sunni Arabs in Iraq had become
So alienated, they welcomed these people back in,
Or some of them did.
Christoph Reuter: They started their blitzkrieg in Iraq,
Taking over Mosul, Tikrit, Shirgat, Hawija.
And they managed to overrun the weapon depots of about
Four Iraqi army divisions.
They were drowning in weapons, they couldn't even take all
The weapons with them and burned some of them.
But now, they were a full-fledged army with
Humvees, with strikers, with tanks.
Robin Yassin Kassab: They captured all the money in the
Banks in the north of Iraq and they used this money
And the weapons to surge back into Syria.
And they took large parts of the country.
Christoph Reuter: It was the peak of their power.
And they used this moment to declare the caliphate.
Sebastian Junger: Only a few centuries after the birth of
Christ, the Muslim world started expanding.
They were at the forefront of the arts,
Of the sciences, of astronomy.
They really were the center of knowledge in the world.
There's a real yearning to return to those days of glory,
Understandably.
They have been enduring enormous oppression by
Dictators that are often propped up by the west and
Completely dominated by western technology
And western culture.
Part of what ISIS is doing is trying to regain the former
Glory of the caliphate and of the worldwide dominance that
Muslim society enjoyed many, many centuries ago.
Charlie Rose: Reports from Iraq today say the ISIS army
And other Sunni Muslim forces captured another major target.
It is the oil refinery in Baiji that produces
One-third of Iraq fuel.
Christine Romans: ISIS militants have seized a major
Uh, the field produces 75,000 barrels of oil a day.
It's the latest.
Amos Hochstein: From the early days of the conflict,
Gaining territory control over areas that have energy
Infrastructure were of primary focus because they
Give revenue, but they also give semblance of a state
To be able to provide natural resources, electricity,
Fuel, cooking oil.
All those things is what a government does.
They had people that were able to handle the expertise part.
There are enough Syrians in the local areas that have been
Working on these oil fields for decades.
Amos Hochstein: And while they controlled a relatively
Smaller portion of the overall Syrian territory,
They controlled an overwhelming percentage
Of the oil and gas infrastructure and fields.
George Kiourktsoglou: Based on our research,
We came up with a number of 45,000 barrels a day.
You are looking at a ceiling of roughly two million dollars
A day income for Daesh.
George Kiourktsoglou: Daesh is a different beast.
Daesh has a whole portfolio of financial resources
And of course, the smuggling of crude oil is
Just a part of this portfolio.
This portfolio also include weapons trafficking, uh,
Human trafficking, smuggling, and of course, antiquities.
Doctor al-Azm: Looting of antiquities in the region,
Not just in Syria, in the region as a whole,
Is a time-honored tradition.
In times of hardship, what do people do?
They find alternative sources of income.
And so now, they just start to loot at will.
Doctor al-Azm: The Islamic state institutionalized the
Process of looting.
They made it part of the state.
Doctor al-Azm: As the looting process became more and more
Sophisticated, they would issue permits to allow people
To bring in heavy machinery.
They established auctions in which to sell
These looted items.
Colonel Bogdanos: History be damned, get me more material,
More canay-formed tablets, more cylinder seals.
More anything.
More is just more.
More means more money.
From Syria alone, ISIS was making
Tens of millions of dollars.
While tens of millions of dollars may not mean much to
You, how much does an ied cost?
How much is a 7.62 mm bullets?
How much do 50 of those bullets go for?
How much does an ak-47 cost?
How much is an RPG?
How many RPGs can you buy with a million dollars?
Doctor al-Azm: ISIS sees cultural heritage as
An exploitable resource.
And so for them, they will loot what they can sell,
But one of the primary uses has been propaganda.
Colonel Bogdanos: Once you destroy the cultural heritage
Of a people, you are in effect attacking and
Destroying their cultural identity.
Once you destroy their cultural identity,
It's but a short step to destroy and eradicate
The people themselves.
♪
Reporter: Tens of thousands of people from the Yazidi
Religious minority fled to this mountain ridge to escape
ISIS militants who recently captured the
Nearby town of Sinjar.
Christoph Reuter: The Kurdish regional government made it a
Huge international outcry that we have tens of thousands
Of Yazidis thirsty and starved to death on this mountain.
It was like you are touched, the Biblical maze of Masada.
People on the mountain, 50 degrees,
In hot summer without water, and all the jihadists sitting
Around the mountains waiting to kill everybody.
You had old conflicts, old hatreds between the Yazidis
From Sinjar and the Sunni's ultra-loyalists to Saddam.
They were keen to make clear that this area will never be
Inhabited by Yazidis again.
♪ . ♪
Sebastian Junger: One of their slogans is "we the jihadists,
We love death more than you in the west love life."
A lot of people think that that means that they're psychotic.
Only crazy people would act like that.
But there is no way to fight people who frame their
Struggle in those terms without also taking into
Account some kind of social and historical justice.
♪
President Obama: Our objective is clear.
We will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a
Comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.
Christoph Reuter: ISIS had not anticipated this reaction
Because when two months prior, they had overrun Mosul.
Obama's reaction was basically,
"oh, we should do something about it."
But nothing happened.
Once the Americans started to attack the Islamic State,
ISIS needed to react somehow.
So it was a message for the U.S.
ISIS militant: We are willing to lay down our blood
On this soil.
So try, try to come.
I will kill every single soldier, bismillah.
We will chop off the heads of the Americans,
Chop off the heads of the French, chop off the heads of.
Sebastian Junger: Every war is a form of dialogue between
The warring parties and all actions are a
Form of communication.
When President Obama decided to bomb ISIS forces,
He was communicating to ISIS that we were not gonna stand
By and let anything happen.
And ISIS needed to be communicating to the west that
They could not be messed with.
ISIS member: Today, your military air force is
Attacking us daily in Iraq.
So any attempts by you, Obama, to deny the Muslims their
Rights of living in safety under the Islamic caliphate
Will result in the bloodshed of your people.
Sebastian Junger: As a result, ISIS cut off James Foley's head.
That didn't stop the bombing, so they kept cutting off heads
And we kept bombing.
ISIS member: I'm back, Obama, because of your arrogant
Foreign policy towards the Islamic State.
You, Obama, have yet again, for your actions,
Killed yet another American citizen.
David Cameron: We will stick to the very clear
Strategy that we have.
To help make sure the Kurds get the arms they need
To fight off, uh, these brutal, uh, extremist militants.
ISIS member: This British man has to pay the price for your
Promise, Cameron, to arm the peshmerga against
The Islamic State.
Your evil alliance with America will only accelerate
Your destruction.
Peter Bergen: The long-term prognosis of ISIS is not great
Because they made a world of enemies.
That is not a winning strategy.
Napoleon was the greatest general of the modern era but
So everybody, then, coalesced to get rid of him.
ISIS is making the same mistake.
Peter Bergen: They're already suffering the consequences.
They keep losing territory.
Basically the whole world is ganged up against them.
Dennis Ross: Putin didn't go into Syria to fight ISIS.
If that was the case, he would've fought ISIS.
80% of the bombing was on non-ISIS targets.
Senator McCain: I see what looks like the future now and
That is a very influential Russia with a Bashar Assad
That is able to at least control the areas of Syria
That are of most importance to him.
Robin Yassin Kassab: The Assad regime and lately Russia, too,
Have been bombing not just militia formations on the
Ground, they've been bombing bakeries, schools, hospitals.
Because the people can't defend themselves from this
Aerial bombardment, it's absolute hell on earth.
Assad wants those in the middle to be eliminated so the
Choice is either him or ISIS.
Peter Bergen: The airstrikes are killing about a thousand
ISIS members every month, and ratcheting down the oil,
And getting rid of some of their money.
That is really going to impact them.
If you control several million people and you're
Taxing them for pretty much everything they do.
That's all the money.
So every time they lose a big city which is
That's several hundred thousand people they can't tax.
Alex Jordanov: This new form of terrorism was introduced by
Al-Qaeda's ideologue Abu Musab al-Suri.
In his writings where he calls for a form of low cost terror,
Many terror acts all over the place conducted by the people
That actually live there.
Reporter: San Bernardino, California
Mass casualty situation.
A terror attack in the French city of Nice.
At least 80 people.
The 17-year-old used an axe and knife
A lone gunman called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS.
Woman: Oh my God.
General Flynn: This is what terrorists do.
They instill fear in societies.
If you instill fear in a society,
It comes at a big cost.
With some of the, you know, some of the comments that are
Being made about various,
Parts of our society and what to do about them.
You know, the whole issue of immigration is a big,
Big deal, uh, and that's,
That's playing out terribly in Europe.
Teun Voeten: The summer of 2015,
Suddenly hundreds of thousands of people came,
Syrian refugees from Turkey.
There are a lot of extremely decent, sophisticated, uh,
People among the immigrants.
But you have also small time criminals
And infiltrators from ISIS.
A lot of people feel overwhelmed by what they
Perceive as an invasion of Muslims threatening
Our way of life.
The Muslim people in Europe it's only around
5% but in certain cities, for instance in Brussels,
One generation from now,
The Muslim community will be the majority.
This has caused an enormous political backlash
And resurgence of right-wing movements.
General Flynn: The resources that are gonna be required to
Correct some of these problems that we have, refugees,
Displaced people around the world, is,
Just the numbers are staggering.
We have to get back in there, stabilize that area to the
Point where you can then tell all these people who would
Rather live in their own homes,
You can tell them and they'll all come back.
Otherwise, the likelihood of a far greater conflict grows
Higher and higher every day.
Sebastian Junger: Any reasonable person would flee
The kind of fighting that we've seen in Syria.
They'd happily risk their lives to be
Smuggled across the border.
They'd collect by the millions in neighboring
Countries even living in squalid refugee camps.
Eventually, they'd make their way to the west to look
For a better life for their children.
People say "look, it's not our problem."
Okay, it's not your problem but that doesn't mean
You won't be affected by it.
You can say that you don't actually care about human
Suffering but the truth is that all violence and misery
Eventually affect the entire world.
In that sense, there is no escaping the fact that we are
All part of the human race.
There is no escaping the fact that borders become
Irrelevant once people start dying and societies
Begin to collapse.
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