Globe Trot: ISIS ground truth versus the Obama narrative

‘SIX-SIDED WAR’: Among some military experts, worries are deepening about the U.S. strategy in the battle against the Islamic State. One military official calls the conflict a “six-sided war,” as reports from Iraq and Syria show Islamic State militants continue to advance and seize territory, despite U.S. airstrikes.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales told The Wall Street Journal bombing alone isn’t working, and the Obama administration isn’t acknowledging the reality of the battle: “There is a separation between the ground truth and the administration narrative.”

As militants continue to make gains in Anbar Province, Scales warns even if the fighters don’t immediately launch a full-scale attack of Baghdad, it doesn’t mean they don’t aim to take the city. Instead, the militants may surround the capital and shut down the airport with surface-to-air missiles. “They will lock the city down and send Americans into a panic,” he says.

Administration officials have insisted saving Anbar Province from Islamic State control isn’t critical to the U.S. battle, but Christopher Harmer of the Institute for the Study of War says losing the province would be significant: “You can say it is just one battle. You can say the deck was stacked against you. But you cannot say it is irrelevant. … It would be much easier to prevent ISIS from taking Anbar than it will be to push them out.”

AERIAL VIEW: As the ISIS onslaught rages, Syria continues to fight its own civil war that has killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced some 9 million. A series of satellite images over the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan over six months in 2012 and 2013 offers a gripping view of the dramatic expansion of the refugee crisis.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY LOST: At a religious liberty conference at Cedarville University last week, WORLD Editor Mindy Belz offered a sober assessment of the nature of the war in Middle East.

“We face a very serious war. What we face in the Middle East, is a religious war, and a war that is likely to grow worse, much worse, potentially overnight, before it lessens in any way. … The very survival of our brothers and sisters, Christians in Iraq and Syria, not to mention hundreds of thousands of others in this region, is a vivid picture of religious freedom lost.”

EBOLA LONG-READ: The Washington Post offers a lengthy analysis of how the worsening Ebola crisis spiraled out of control, noting the World Health Organization didn’t declare a global emergency until four-and-a-half months into the epidemic:

“The epidemic has exposed a disconnect between the aspirations of global health officials and the reality of infectious disease control. Officials hold faraway strategy sessions about fighting emerging diseases and bioterrorism even as front-line doctors and nurses don’t have enough latex gloves, protective gowns, rehydrating fluid, or workers to carry bodies to the morgue.”

When the head of Doctors Without Borders heard about another round of UN talks to discuss the crisis, she expressed her frustration bluntly: “We cannot wait for those high-level meetings to convene and discuss over cocktails and petits fours what they’re going to do.”

The Post report includes a detailed graphic about how Ebola affects the human body, including a lesser-reported affliction: In some pregnant women, the virus may cause mothers to spontaneously miscarry their unborn children.

TRUSTING GOD: Officials report two nurses who treated Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan before his death at a Dallas hospital have fallen ill with the virus. Duncan died after traveling to the United States from Liberia and developing symptoms in Dallas. One of the nurses—Nina Pham—is a graduate of Texas Christian University and a devoted member of a Vietnamese Catholic congregation. A local priest reported Pham is doing well so far: “She’s calm. She trusts in God. And she asks for prayers.”