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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

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).
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > And why was US in Iraq in the first place? Because George W. Bush had daddy issues (both of the “you tried to kill my” and “by outdoing I can escape the shadow of my” forms) and Dick Cheney (and the whole PNAC crew in the Bush Administration) had oil issues (of the “we must control it” form), all of which distracted from the war on terror.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > ISIS was founded in Syria not Iraq, if anything It was founded in Iraq. It was an Iraq Islamist group, that became al-Qaeda in Iraq around the time of the US invasion (shortly before, IIRC) when associating with al-Qaeda was an opportunistic way to capitalize on al-Qaeda’s Islamist brand strength in the wake of 9/11; when it was strong enough locally that it no longer needed the al-Qaeda brand it dropped it and became the Islamic State in Iraq. As ISI it sent a splinter group to fight in Syria, which it reintegrated later and adopted the name translates variously as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, the dominant translation used publicly by Western governments) or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, the name that became most popular on the public media); it later dropped geographic monikers at the height of its power and branded simply as the Islamic State (though lots of people kept calling it ISIS.)
phobosanomaly 6y ago
I would counter that Iraq and Afghanistan both offered an excellent training ground for militants from around the planet, which provided Al-Qaeda and other groups with thousands of battle-hardened soldiers. The US basically created a factory for 'bolder Islamist forces.' On top of that the power vacuum created by dismantling the Iraqi government (especially the dissolution of the Iraqi military) directly led to the emergence of ISIS in newly unstable areas filled with weapons where the new Iraqi government had zero reach.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  The problem here is several fold, while America's disastrous invasion of Iraq exasperated certain conditions, that does not mean that similar conditions couldn't have come about without American intervention. Who is to say that should the US had not invaded Iraq there wouldn't right now be an Iraqi civil war just as there is the Syria Civil war. None of this addresses the Somalian civil war which is the on going conflict and predates US invasion of Iraq as well as other on going Islamist conflicts throughout Africa.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    Sure there's always the what-if, but in the counterfactual there likely wouldn't be nearly as much cash and weapons floating around. There are significant ties between groups. They may not be under a unified command structure, but training, funding, and fighters pass between regional organizations. Al-Qaeda has done more than a fair share of mischief in Somalia, and there's no doubt that groups like al-Shabaab have reaped the benefits of learning from Al-Qaeda.
sudosysgen 6y ago
The creation of ISIS is a direct and predicted result of the catastrophic US policy in the Middle East. The conditions for ISIS to exist were not there before US involvement, and wouldn't have arisen. Al Qaeda themselves likely wouldn't have been an issue if it was not for US meddling in the Middle East.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  That's just not true. It's precursor, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, predates the Iraq war. It is true that the downfall of Saddam gave them opportunity, you can't definitively say similar opportunity wouldn't have come about in an Arab spring uprising just as there was in Syria. Islamist and Jihadists groups are all throughout the region and sub Saharan Africa. To claim that these are just American reactionaries is a self centered western view.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    There does definitely seem to be a pattern with Western intervention in these states and the emergence of hardcore religious militant groups. The Western interventions tend to piss everybody off and flood the country with cash, guns, and training opportunities, and it's easy to hit up wealthy princes in UAE and Saudi for cash for your militant group when it's a matter of driving the US out.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    It's precursor would never have been able to pose any challenge to the Syrian military if it wasn't for the weapons the US and it's allies pumped into them. The Syrian Army would still have been able to destroy the Jihadists if it wasn't for the US waging war against the Syrian Army, by the way of airstrikes and missile strikes. I can definitively say that Iraq would not have collapsed into a failed state if Saddam had been deposed organically. Hell, if it wasn't for the occupation of Iraq by the US up to and including this very day its possible the Iraqi state would have been able to rebuild itself, one way or another. That being said, a large amount of terrorist groups in the Middle East find the roots even earlier, in the US support of jihadis against the Soviets. And wouldn't you know it! The founder of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, was financed and trained in order to go fight against the USSR in Afghanistan. Financed by who exactly? By Bin Laden, of course. Which himself got his money and material for who? Wouldn't you believe it, it's the old red white and blue again.
colinmhayes 6y ago
ISIS wouldn't exist without the Iraq war. You could argue Sadam would be worse, but I doubt he kills as many iraqis.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  The Kurds were Iraqis when he ethnically cleansed them so he wasn't nice to Iraqis either
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    No, but the US effectively put a stop to that with a no-fly zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones

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).
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > And why was US in Iraq in the first place? Because George W. Bush had daddy issues (both of the “you tried to kill my” and “by outdoing I can escape the shadow of my” forms) and Dick Cheney (and the whole PNAC crew in the Bush Administration) had oil issues (of the “we must control it” form), all of which distracted from the war on terror.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > ISIS was founded in Syria not Iraq, if anything It was founded in Iraq. It was an Iraq Islamist group, that became al-Qaeda in Iraq around the time of the US invasion (shortly before, IIRC) when associating with al-Qaeda was an opportunistic way to capitalize on al-Qaeda’s Islamist brand strength in the wake of 9/11; when it was strong enough locally that it no longer needed the al-Qaeda brand it dropped it and became the Islamic State in Iraq. As ISI it sent a splinter group to fight in Syria, which it reintegrated later and adopted the name translates variously as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, the dominant translation used publicly by Western governments) or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, the name that became most popular on the public media); it later dropped geographic monikers at the height of its power and branded simply as the Islamic State (though lots of people kept calling it ISIS.)

phobosanomaly 6y ago

I would counter that Iraq and Afghanistan both offered an excellent training ground for militants from around the planet, which provided Al-Qaeda and other groups with thousands of battle-hardened soldiers. The US basically created a factory for 'bolder Islamist forces.' On top of that the power vacuum created by dismantling the Iraqi government (especially the dissolution of the Iraqi military) directly led to the emergence of ISIS in newly unstable areas filled with weapons where the new Iraqi government had zero reach.

onepointsixC 6y ago
The problem here is several fold, while America's disastrous invasion of Iraq exasperated certain conditions, that does not mean that similar conditions couldn't have come about without American intervention. Who is to say that should the US had not invaded Iraq there wouldn't right now be an Iraqi civil war just as there is the Syria Civil war. None of this addresses the Somalian civil war which is the on going conflict and predates US invasion of Iraq as well as other on going Islamist conflicts throughout Africa.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  Sure there's always the what-if, but in the counterfactual there likely wouldn't be nearly as much cash and weapons floating around. There are significant ties between groups. They may not be under a unified command structure, but training, funding, and fighters pass between regional organizations. Al-Qaeda has done more than a fair share of mischief in Somalia, and there's no doubt that groups like al-Shabaab have reaped the benefits of learning from Al-Qaeda.

sudosysgen 6y ago

The creation of ISIS is a direct and predicted result of the catastrophic US policy in the Middle East. The conditions for ISIS to exist were not there before US involvement, and wouldn't have arisen. Al Qaeda themselves likely wouldn't have been an issue if it was not for US meddling in the Middle East.

onepointsixC 6y ago
That's just not true. It's precursor, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, predates the Iraq war. It is true that the downfall of Saddam gave them opportunity, you can't definitively say similar opportunity wouldn't have come about in an Arab spring uprising just as there was in Syria. Islamist and Jihadists groups are all throughout the region and sub Saharan Africa. To claim that these are just American reactionaries is a self centered western view.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  There does definitely seem to be a pattern with Western intervention in these states and the emergence of hardcore religious militant groups. The Western interventions tend to piss everybody off and flood the country with cash, guns, and training opportunities, and it's easy to hit up wealthy princes in UAE and Saudi for cash for your militant group when it's a matter of driving the US out.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  It's precursor would never have been able to pose any challenge to the Syrian military if it wasn't for the weapons the US and it's allies pumped into them. The Syrian Army would still have been able to destroy the Jihadists if it wasn't for the US waging war against the Syrian Army, by the way of airstrikes and missile strikes. I can definitively say that Iraq would not have collapsed into a failed state if Saddam had been deposed organically. Hell, if it wasn't for the occupation of Iraq by the US up to and including this very day its possible the Iraqi state would have been able to rebuild itself, one way or another. That being said, a large amount of terrorist groups in the Middle East find the roots even earlier, in the US support of jihadis against the Soviets. And wouldn't you know it! The founder of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, was financed and trained in order to go fight against the USSR in Afghanistan. Financed by who exactly? By Bin Laden, of course. Which himself got his money and material for who? Wouldn't you believe it, it's the old red white and blue again.

colinmhayes 6y ago

ISIS wouldn't exist without the Iraq war. You could argue Sadam would be worse, but I doubt he kills as many iraqis.

bananabreakfast 6y ago
The Kurds were Iraqis when he ethnically cleansed them so he wasn't nice to Iraqis either
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  No, but the US effectively put a stop to that with a no-fly zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones