9 ms·

At Least 37M People Have Been Displaced by America’s War on Terror

80 points by chishaku 6y ago

phobosanomaly 6y ago
The degree to which ordinary Americans are isolated from the violence of these conflicts is mind-boggling. The notable absence of car-bombs alone is telling how privileged we are to be able to lead our lives without fear of getting murked on the way to Starbucks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_car_bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_car_bombings
- beervirus 6y ago
  Why is that mind-boggling? We spend a lot of money and employ a lot of people to prevent domestic terrorists from doing such things.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    The mechanism itself is not mind-boggling to me. I'm in awe of the degree to which a democracy can set in motion tremendous violence seemingly on a whim with the voting constituents of the democracy being utterly divorced from the end-result.
- ardit33 6y ago
  Mass shootings (either, school shootings, shootings in church, shootings in clubs, that vegas shooter, the occasional incel shooter, etc.. etc..), are a form of terrorism, albeit not necessary with political motives. Most of the world do not experience them either.
  - sharkweek 6y ago
    I can say we have been effectively terrorized by mass shootings when things like this hang in kindergarten classrooms: https://i.imgur.com/ztiYy9R.png https://i.imgur.com/ztiYy9R.png
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      It's terrible, right? But, it's important to contextualize it with the level of violence occurring in these countries destabilized as a result of US foreign policy. Much of it makes the violence in the US (as horrific as it is) look like Sesame Street: "On 9 August 2018, Saudi Arabian expeditionary aircraft bombed a civilian school bus passing through a crowded market in Dahyan, Saada Governorate, Yemen, near the border with Saudi Arabia. At least 40 children were killed, all under 15 years old and most under age 10." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahyan_air_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahyan_air_strike "MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — Four attacks across Afghanistan on Saturday night and Sunday killed at least 26 government security officers, while two schools were also set ablaze, according to Afghan officials." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/asia/afghanistan-attacks-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/asia/afghanistan-at... "BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives on the playground of an elementary school in northern Iraq on Sunday morning, killing 13 children and the headmaster, the police said. Shortly afterward, another suicide truck bomb struck a police station in the same village, killing three officers." https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/world/middleeast/deadly-bombing-at-elementary-school-playground-in-iraq.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/world/middleeast/deadly-b... "HELMAND, Afghanistan/KABUL (Reuters) - At least 40 civilians attending a wedding party were killed by explosions and gunfire during a raid by U.S.-backed Afghan government forces on a nearby Islamist militant hideout, officials in Helmand province said on Monday." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack/at-least-35-people-at-wedding-party-killed-during-nearby-afghan-army-raid-idUSKBN1W80MI https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack/at-lea... This stuff just goes on...and on...and on... But, compare it with the death tolls from school shootings in the United States within the last 20 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... Consider that our foreign policy can have the effect on others that school shooters have on our own children.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
      Do they learn to sing that like a hymn?
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    I would say that most of the world isn't running around overthrowing governments. My point is that we are insulated from the fallout of overthrowing governments. Not that we don't have a problem with school shooters. It's that we can roll into a country, overthrow the leader resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and feel zero domestic impact from that.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  What are you talking about? Nearly all American children lead their lives with the everyday fear that they are going to get shot at school.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    > "The degree to which ordinary Americans are isolated from the violence of <these conflicts> is mind-boggling." I am not personally familiar with any school shootings in the United States that were perpetrated by militants from Iraq or Afghanistan.............?
claydavisss 6y ago
No surprise - the entire NYT comments section refuses to accept that Barak Obama continued these policies for a solid eight years.
sudoaza 6y ago
"War on Terror" is newspeak, it's well known that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 nor had they WMD as claimed to invade them.
- jariel 6y ago
  Terrorism is a legit issue, and the 'war on terror' is very real, ergo, it's not remotely 'new speak', rather, it's ill-placed propagandastic term that can possibly be used out of context.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    The War on Terror is newspeak because we invade states for fabricated reasons in order to wage it. It's not a War on Terror, it's a war of extermination of actors that refused to fold to US interests.
    - jariel 6y ago
      It's false and extremist to suggest that US response to 9/11 and ISIS etc. however misplaced in some areas, is a 'war of extermination'. The 'War on Terror' is real, and ongoing today, and involves almost every state in the world.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        The US War against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, the economic war against Iran and the shooting war against Yemen are not a misplaced response against terrorism. It is the US State Department deciding that actors opposed to US interests must be exterminated with unbelievable violence no matter the cost. It has nothing to do with terrorism, it is purely for military domination and imperialism.
        forgot_account 6y ago
        >>>It has nothing to do with terrorism, it is purely for military domination and imperialism Nitpick: military domination is not an end-goal in and of itself. Arguably, it is (rightly or wrongly) the US government's primary methodology for enforcing continuance of the Petrodollar system and US global economic domination. Most of the military actions revolve around ensuring the security of Saudi Arabia, the key player in OPEC. I've tried to find scholarly articles on what the US economy might look like without the Petrodollar. Maybe my Google Scholar-fu is weak, but there's not a lot of useful, detailed projections beyond "not good".
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
onepointsixC 6y ago
This seems to imply unfounded causality placing the blame at the feet of America. If ISIS wasn't fought then there would have been millions of people displaced all the same. There has been a decades long ongoing civil war in Somalia. There's nothing which suggests that things would be peaches and roses in Somalia if only the US hadn't been fighting Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda there. If anything there could have been greater displacement of people fleeing the more successful and bolder Islamist forces.
- emilsedgh 6y ago
  But ISIS was direct result of war on terror.
  - jariel 6y ago
    ? ISIS was founded in Syria not Iraq, if anything, ISIS was strongly emboldened by the withdrawal of US power in Iraq which freed up al-Maliki, the Iraqi PM to embark on a fairly vengeful and heavy handed attack in Sunnis. This is why Sunni tribes 'allowed' ISIS in. A small US presence would have kept ISIS out.
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      I don't see anything as to which country the group specifically emerged in, but it looks like they've been around longer than I thought they had. "ISIL originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and participated in the Iraqi insurgency following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces at the behest of the United States. In June 2014, the group proclaimed itself a worldwide caliphate." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_...
    - emilsedgh 6y ago
      ISIS was strongly emboldened by the withdrawal of US power in Iraq Right. And why was US in Iraq in the first place? Yes. War on terror. US started war on terror, destroyed a couple of existing orders; was not able to restore any order; left prematurely and irresponsibly, leaving a vacuum which was exploited by ISIS (and others).
beervirus 6y ago
> While the United States is not the sole cause for the migration from these countries, the authors say it has played either a dominant or contributing role in these conflicts. This makes the scary-headline conclusion pretty worthless.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  It really isn't. US actions made it possible for the problem to become what it is. If it wasn't for US involvement Iraq would have been a strong state and would have destroyed any force like ISIS, Al Qaeda wouldn't be much more than a reading group, Syria would be peaceful, Libya would still exist, and so on. It can be true that you have had a strong contributing role and that it wouldn't have happened if you weren't there - that's just how multicausal events works.
  - beervirus 6y ago
    That's all awfully speculative, especially the part about Al Qaeda being just a reading group.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      And yet, it turns out that every single major terrorist group has had the US implicate in their origin and rise. Isn't it funny how that turns out?
      - beervirus 6y ago
        “Implicated” as in they hate the US and wouldn’t exist without us as their enemy.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        No, as in were founded due to direct action and were allied with the interests of the US.
Proven 6y ago
That's why a foreign policy should be non-interventionist (aka isolationist). In this case Trump's America first or Ron Paul's call to end foreign wars would have helped. Is Trump the only president since the 90's who hasn't started new wars?

80 points by chishaku 6y ago

The degree to which ordinary Americans are isolated from the violence of these conflicts is mind-boggling. The notable absence of car-bombs alone is telling how privileged we are to be able to lead our lives without fear of getting murked on the way to Starbucks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_car_bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_car_bombings

beervirus 6y ago
Why is that mind-boggling? We spend a lot of money and employ a lot of people to prevent domestic terrorists from doing such things.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  The mechanism itself is not mind-boggling to me. I'm in awe of the degree to which a democracy can set in motion tremendous violence seemingly on a whim with the voting constituents of the democracy being utterly divorced from the end-result.
ardit33 6y ago
Mass shootings (either, school shootings, shootings in church, shootings in clubs, that vegas shooter, the occasional incel shooter, etc.. etc..), are a form of terrorism, albeit not necessary with political motives. Most of the world do not experience them either.
- sharkweek 6y ago
  I can say we have been effectively terrorized by mass shootings when things like this hang in kindergarten classrooms: https://i.imgur.com/ztiYy9R.png https://i.imgur.com/ztiYy9R.png
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    It's terrible, right? But, it's important to contextualize it with the level of violence occurring in these countries destabilized as a result of US foreign policy. Much of it makes the violence in the US (as horrific as it is) look like Sesame Street: "On 9 August 2018, Saudi Arabian expeditionary aircraft bombed a civilian school bus passing through a crowded market in Dahyan, Saada Governorate, Yemen, near the border with Saudi Arabia. At least 40 children were killed, all under 15 years old and most under age 10." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahyan_air_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahyan_air_strike "MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — Four attacks across Afghanistan on Saturday night and Sunday killed at least 26 government security officers, while two schools were also set ablaze, according to Afghan officials." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/asia/afghanistan-attacks-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/asia/afghanistan-at... "BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives on the playground of an elementary school in northern Iraq on Sunday morning, killing 13 children and the headmaster, the police said. Shortly afterward, another suicide truck bomb struck a police station in the same village, killing three officers." https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/world/middleeast/deadly-bombing-at-elementary-school-playground-in-iraq.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/world/middleeast/deadly-b... "HELMAND, Afghanistan/KABUL (Reuters) - At least 40 civilians attending a wedding party were killed by explosions and gunfire during a raid by U.S.-backed Afghan government forces on a nearby Islamist militant hideout, officials in Helmand province said on Monday." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack/at-least-35-people-at-wedding-party-killed-during-nearby-afghan-army-raid-idUSKBN1W80MI https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack/at-lea... This stuff just goes on...and on...and on... But, compare it with the death tolls from school shootings in the United States within the last 20 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... Consider that our foreign policy can have the effect on others that school shooters have on our own children.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Do they learn to sing that like a hymn?
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  I would say that most of the world isn't running around overthrowing governments. My point is that we are insulated from the fallout of overthrowing governments. Not that we don't have a problem with school shooters. It's that we can roll into a country, overthrow the leader resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and feel zero domestic impact from that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
bananabreakfast 6y ago
What are you talking about? Nearly all American children lead their lives with the everyday fear that they are going to get shot at school.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  > "The degree to which ordinary Americans are isolated from the violence of <these conflicts> is mind-boggling." I am not personally familiar with any school shootings in the United States that were perpetrated by militants from Iraq or Afghanistan.............?

claydavisss 6y ago

No surprise - the entire NYT comments section refuses to accept that Barak Obama continued these policies for a solid eight years.

sudoaza 6y ago

"War on Terror" is newspeak, it's well known that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 nor had they WMD as claimed to invade them.

jariel 6y ago
Terrorism is a legit issue, and the 'war on terror' is very real, ergo, it's not remotely 'new speak', rather, it's ill-placed propagandastic term that can possibly be used out of context.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  The War on Terror is newspeak because we invade states for fabricated reasons in order to wage it. It's not a War on Terror, it's a war of extermination of actors that refused to fold to US interests.
  - jariel 6y ago
    It's false and extremist to suggest that US response to 9/11 and ISIS etc. however misplaced in some areas, is a 'war of extermination'. The 'War on Terror' is real, and ongoing today, and involves almost every state in the world.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      The US War against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, the economic war against Iran and the shooting war against Yemen are not a misplaced response against terrorism. It is the US State Department deciding that actors opposed to US interests must be exterminated with unbelievable violence no matter the cost. It has nothing to do with terrorism, it is purely for military domination and imperialism.
      - forgot_account 6y ago
        >>>It has nothing to do with terrorism, it is purely for military domination and imperialism Nitpick: military domination is not an end-goal in and of itself. Arguably, it is (rightly or wrongly) the US government's primary methodology for enforcing continuance of the Petrodollar system and US global economic domination. Most of the military actions revolve around ensuring the security of Saudi Arabia, the key player in OPEC. I've tried to find scholarly articles on what the US economy might look like without the Petrodollar. Maybe my Google Scholar-fu is weak, but there's not a lot of useful, detailed projections beyond "not good".

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

onepointsixC 6y ago

This seems to imply unfounded causality placing the blame at the feet of America. If ISIS wasn't fought then there would have been millions of people displaced all the same. There has been a decades long ongoing civil war in Somalia. There's nothing which suggests that things would be peaches and roses in Somalia if only the US hadn't been fighting Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda there. If anything there could have been greater displacement of people fleeing the more successful and bolder Islamist forces.

emilsedgh 6y ago
But ISIS was direct result of war on terror.
- jariel 6y ago
  ? ISIS was founded in Syria not Iraq, if anything, ISIS was strongly emboldened by the withdrawal of US power in Iraq which freed up al-Maliki, the Iraqi PM to embark on a fairly vengeful and heavy handed attack in Sunnis. This is why Sunni tribes 'allowed' ISIS in. A small US presence would have kept ISIS out.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    I don't see anything as to which country the group specifically emerged in, but it looks like they've been around longer than I thought they had. "ISIL originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and participated in the Iraqi insurgency following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces at the behest of the United States. In June 2014, the group proclaimed itself a worldwide caliphate." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_...
  - emilsedgh 6y ago
    ISIS was strongly emboldened by the withdrawal of US power in Iraq Right. And why was US in Iraq in the first place? Yes. War on terror. US started war on terror, destroyed a couple of existing orders; was not able to restore any order; left prematurely and irresponsibly, leaving a vacuum which was exploited by ISIS (and others).

beervirus 6y ago

> While the United States is not the sole cause for the migration from these countries, the authors say it has played either a dominant or contributing role in these conflicts. This makes the scary-headline conclusion pretty worthless.

sudosysgen 6y ago
It really isn't. US actions made it possible for the problem to become what it is. If it wasn't for US involvement Iraq would have been a strong state and would have destroyed any force like ISIS, Al Qaeda wouldn't be much more than a reading group, Syria would be peaceful, Libya would still exist, and so on. It can be true that you have had a strong contributing role and that it wouldn't have happened if you weren't there - that's just how multicausal events works.
- beervirus 6y ago
  That's all awfully speculative, especially the part about Al Qaeda being just a reading group.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    And yet, it turns out that every single major terrorist group has had the US implicate in their origin and rise. Isn't it funny how that turns out?
    - beervirus 6y ago
      “Implicated” as in they hate the US and wouldn’t exist without us as their enemy.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        No, as in were founded due to direct action and were allied with the interests of the US.

Proven 6y ago

That's why a foreign policy should be non-interventionist (aka isolationist). In this case Trump's America first or Ron Paul's call to end foreign wars would have helped. Is Trump the only president since the 90's who hasn't started new wars?