ISIS is not our problem. The Syrian Civil War is not our problem. Nobody put a gun to these people’s heads and forced them to be terrorists, and if they are hurting Syrians and Iraqis, then those dumbfucks can live with the monster they created. The Arab world gave birth to this abomination and they can be the ones to put it down.
Additionally: For the last 14 years I’ve put up with listening to pacifists, anti-war activists, and human rights organizations tell me that I am a criminal. They call the US is a terrorist nation, and say that our overseas wars are criminal acts, and that everything we do to combat terrorism just makes the problem worse. You protest our funerals, thank God for IEDS, and I’ve had friends assaulted just because they wore their uniforms in public. And now Congress is determined to put one-fifth of us into the unemployment line.
Okay, no problem. Message received. You don’t want, or need, our help.
Since America is evil, the American military is full of brainwashed baby killers, and everything we do is wrong, we’ll just sit this one out. I’m not even sure why anyone would WANT us to intervene, since we are obviously incompetent and would just fuck things up if we tried.
So let’s take them at their word and sit this one out.
And finally, as for Syria and Iraq, you’re on your own. I thought you wanted an Islamic state and now that you have one you want to bitch and whine about how much it sucks? Fuck you. Syrian rebels whine about why the US isn’t helping them? Fuck you, too. You think we’re stupid or something? And Iraq, you know, we were totally willing to hang around and keep helping, but you wanted us gone and you got what you asked for. Have fun with that, shitheads.
Thank you! Someone talking sense from your neck of the woods for once! Now maybe you guys can stop making things worse with every giant step you take. :mad:
I do feel the need to point out that when G.W. Bush was planning the invasion of Iraq, many people pointed out that it would destabilize the region and unlock long simmering ethnic and sectarian tensions. I can only assume that everyone who will chime in to agree with the OP (as well as the OP) were all opposed to the invasion of Iraq and actively tried to stop it?
I do not agree with the posters claims, nor their justification and probably not even their intent, mostly I just wanted to brag as a person who was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and actively tried to stop it.
Note: We did put guns (or drones) to peoples heads, we did help create this.
I agree that we should stay out of ISIS and the region in general for the most part. As far as the rest, it’s a weird combination of nutbar criticism of the US (which I assume is sarcasm) and whining. It was indeed incredibly stupid to invade Iraq, and our leaders who decided to do this deserve a lot of criticism at the very least. That doesn’t mean that America is evil (or servicemen like you and me are evil).
The US drone attacks, with at least a 10:1 collateral damage rate are quite evil and have been a instrumental recruiting tool for ISIS in several theaters.
It is very hard to justify those killings are in any way moral.
Why would you assume that? A person makes a mistake once, even a big one, and they are never allowed to be right again? I was opposed to the Iraq War, and I’m opposed to the war on Da-esh. But if someone finally comes around, I’m glad to welcome them to the fold.
Ugh. I’m opposed to most of the drone attacks, but I’m also opposed to bullshit.
Because there is a certain type of idiot who doesn’t understand that the US created Somalia on the Tigris when we invaded and created the conditions that allowed the rise of ISIS. If someone supported the invasion, I need to hear them say they were wrong before I hear any of their ideas on Middle East policy; that goes for Clinton too. If they aren’t admitting they are partially complicit in the creation of the problem, they can shove their ideas and outrage up their asses.
I’m not aware of this or similar tragic backstories being applicable to any of terrorist attacks against the West this century. Not 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, Charlie Hebdo, Paris, the Boston marathon bombing, or San Bernardino. I’d welcome a counter-example. Might apply to some of the Russian attacks, revenge for Chechyna.
Really? So the West has treated the Middle East looked a giant gas station, arbitrarily drew its borders, propped up despots and actively undermined democracy in the region and you can’t think of any reason why the residents there might have had a bone to pick with us?
Bullshit. Nobody forced them to be terrorists. They could have just as easily thrown their effort behind a democratic Iraqi government, built hospitals and schools, supported law enforcement and rule of law, and raised their children to be decent and hardworking folks. But they didn’t. They chose the path of violence and terror. By this logic, the policeman who shoots a bank robber is responsible for creating the bank robber in the first place. It doesn’t follow.
Second Point: If America’s policies somehow coercively forced them to be terrorists, then their grievance should be with America. But it’s not. They spend their time killing Yazidis and Shiites, not Americans. Hell, most of the ISIS fighters who quit complain that they focused too much on killing other Sunnis. It doesn’t follow that
America “forced” them to be terrorists and yet they spend their time killing other Arabs.
First Point: I have never seen a statistic that cites a 10:1 civilian kill rate. This is a blatant falsehood. There are plenty of reasons to criticize US foreign policy without fabricating statistics.
Second Point: The people targeted by these attacks are military targets. Killing them is the same as destroying an enemy tank, or airplane, or personnel for that matter. Last I checked, wearing brightly colored uniforms and standing in rows to shoot each other went out of style in 1860. Target-centric warfare is the way of the future, whether you like it or not.
The Arab world hates the West because they lost the competition of civilizations and they know it. The West has surpassed the Middle East in economic, political, and social terms. Rather than admit their inferiority and accept the humiliation that comes with it, they react with rage and violence and cling to their religion (which is the only thing that unites them as a shared culture and the only thing that the West cannot claim supremacy over).
By way of comparison, the Far East was likewise subjugated and out-competed. These same Eastern countries chose to reorient their societies and adapt so that they could be competitive in the modern world. The Middle East could have made the same choice, but they did not.
Also, it doesn’t follow that airstrikes and wars automatically promote hatred and violence. We invaded Japan and dropped atomic fucking weapons on them, twice, and yet I don’t see any Japanese suicide bombers. They realized their government was evil, swore off war as an instrument of policy, and adapted so that they could be successful and competitive in the new world. 50 years later, they’re only just now starting to question pacifism as a national policy. The Middle Eastern countries could have made the same choice, but they didn’t.
Further Marshmallow’s point is that none of the people implicated in these major attacks have suffered a personal tragedy. Name one of the 9/11 terrorists whose house was destroyed by an American drone strike. Boston Marathon bombers? San Bernadino shooters? Not one of these people actually suffered the injuries that people consistently claim are motivators for terrorist violence. They are overwhelmingly people from stable, wealthy societies, often with college degrees, with no personal connection to anyone actually harmed by US forces.
As I mentioned in my OP, nobody forced them to be terrorists.
The solution to ISIS is very simple: stop the flow of smuggled oil to Turkey-tell Erdogan that unless this stops (immediately, Turkey gets booted from NATO-and the USA will sponsor a Kurdish state. next, stop all money transfers (via Lebanese and Swiss banks) to ISIS. Finally,tell the Saudis to stop all funding of the Sunnis in iraq.
I love to mock people who make this argument…because of the blatant racism it exposes.
If you want to blame Bush for creating failed governments in the middle east… at least have the intellectual honesty to say “because we all know that the brown people aren’t fit to govern themselves.They can only create failed states like Somalia.”
Bush eliminated a cruel dictator, and allowed the people of Iraq to vote freely. On election day, reporters from the western press swarmed around the polling booths, full of exciting,positive reactions, showing pictures of voters smiling, proudly holding their ink-stained fingers up to the cameras.
What happened next, of course, was a disaster. The people chose to give up on democracy and return to their traditional tribal mindset, killing anyone who is not of their ethnic group.
Western liberals who blame Bush are right, of course…if he had left the tyrant in power, Saddam would have kept the brown people crushed, and we westerners wouldn’t have to worry about those natives getting restless. But the disaster was made by the Iraqi people, not by Bush.
And Bush-bashers who love to blame western white men for all the world’s problems should recognize their logical implication: that middle-eastern brown men are incapable of solving their own problems.
Absolutely correct. I am so sick of people blaming Bush for everything that went wrong. These people assume that the Iraqis couldn’t make their own decisions, as if America FORCED them to start killing each other in their sectarian civil war. Saddam was one of the cruelest, most violent dictators of all time and he spent decades keeping them in line through a campaign of mass murder. America gave them the freedom to choose their own destiny and they CHOSE to fight each other.
I’ll never understand how America’s invasion prompted their violence, and yet they put so much energy into killing each other. It doesn’t follow that they have a grievance with America and yet express their outrage by killing their own people. Clearly their primary motivation is greed and lust for power rather than a desire for revenge.