idk why I do this to myself- on reddit, arguing about the AUMF and here these idiots are saying that Saddam didn't have sovereignty rights because he was a dictator- which is guess is free reign to drop white phosphorus on people? Jesus fucking christ- and some other loser on there saying that voting works! We got 20 million more people healthcare (that covers nothing and can barely afford) so that's proof voting works!
I was in a bookstore the other day, and they had a small "war on terror" section. Most of it was "Cool army guy do cool shooty-shooty stuff." Then there were books on ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, groups that any Westerner wouldn't want to exist. It's setting up a pipeline of "this is a problem" to "violence is how we fix it".
Context is sadly missing. The other side is missing. The actual human consequences are missing.
If you step back, it's easy to see the whole thing was a disaster, morally and militarily. But some people don't do that. To them, individual stories of soldiers and terror victims are all there is.
So many problems would be almost instantly solved by the US NOT SELLING FUCKING WEAPONS TO ISIS . The Iraqi army (mostly regular fucking people that just want to be left alone like writers, engineers, farmers, etc.) Is still using soviet surplus while ISIS has brand new AR-15s and night vision goggles as well as armored units that the Iraqi civilian army has no access to.
Don't know if it's still as bad as it was in 2015, but God damn was that a problem entirely created by America.
The US didn't sell weapons to ISIS. They sold weapons to Moderate Rebels™ who defected to ISIS. And left a bunch of untrained militiamen to guard giant arsenals ar the epicenter of a growing Al Qaeda network. And flooded the black market with guns.
But hey, at least they got rid of evil bad guy dictaor Bushar Al Assad.
You say that like the US wasn't aware that that was happening/could happen and doesn't continue to pump weapons into Saudi Arabia knowing full well that ISIS is getting their hands on a lot of that weaponry.
:assad-must-stay:
They can't do that! But did you hear? Tehran is EVIL! "You seem woefully ignorant about how EVIL Tehran actually is" kill me