listen...

i don't know if this guy al-baghdadi ever existed or if he was like big brother to the islamists or what. i mean, i don't know if they killed bin laden when they said they did, or if they even killed him at all.

i do know this: when they push something like this down, it signals they're changing something.

so, the facts on the ground are never clear, it is true, and there's no use in trying to figure out specifics around something that might have only ever existed in fiction. but, when these figureheads die, this thing we call al qaeda - whatever kind of cia-saudi joint operation that it actually is - tends to shift.

it seems like they're broadly abandoning syria to the syrians and the turks and the russians. maybe not all of it. but, mostly.

we'll see what happens, but the experts always said that the best way to beat isis was to pull funding.