At Least 37M People Have Been Displaced by America’s War on Terror
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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.
Most of the world do not experience them either.
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
"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-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-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-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_th...
Consider that our foreign policy can have the effect on others that school shooters have on our own children.
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.
I am not personally familiar with any school shootings in the United States that were perpetrated by militants from Iraq or Afghanistan.............?
The 'War on Terror' is real, and ongoing today, and involves almost every state in the world.
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".
The US occupied vast swaths of the world after WW2, and instead of permanent occupation and extraction of wealth and resources, the US set up, where it could some of the most successful civilizations in history.
Contrast that with almost every other Imperial power in history, and even current regimes such as USSR/Russia, China etc..
In fact, the only successful Asian states i.e. Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, S. Korea, and Hong Kong - were established and reformed by Anglo-American powers.
More obviously, the US keeps House of Saud in power, liberated Kuwait and Iraq - and could have easily used this opportunity for massive wealth extraction.
If the US were an 'Imperial Power' the entire surpluses of the Oil wealth of the entire Middle East would be in the pockets of the US - long ago.
The US didn't make a dime in Iraq, as most Oil contracts went to other nations (i.e. Total) and most of the Oil goes elsewhere, including to China.
But far from that, US foreign policy is mostly dedicated to stability (which benefits the US economy), hopefully through Western Liberal institutions and possibly even democracy but that of course is more of an aspiration than otherwise.
And of course, we're not even getting into issues such as 'freedom of navigation' of international waters, the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal (and soon S. China sea) by all participants, including Russia, China, Iran - which is guaranteed by the US Navy - and were US power to not exist, there would be no such thing as 'open seas'.
And not counting the 'Big Peace' in the ME between Egypt and Israel which is kept intact by major geopolitical contributions including by far the largest cash outflows of direct foreign aid by any nation to any other nation in the world, which is of course by the US to Egypt and Israel respectively.
And though it's hard to tell for sure, more likely than not: Taiwan.
And on and on.
That the US makes poor choices is obvious, but it's equally obvious they are not an Imperial power.
I think that says enough about your worldview to preclude engaging with you. I suppose I should be wistful that my country didn't have the opportunity to be nuked and/or occupied by Anglo-Americans. (A specious enough category as it is)
It takes a certain level of historical ignorance and narcissism over and above your garden variety American-exceptionalism to say something like:
> The US occupied vast swaths of the world after WW2, and instead of permanent occupation and extraction of wealth and resources, the US set up, where it could some of the most successful civilizations in history.
As opposed to the rationale for the invasion which was Iraq building stockpiles of WMD from their own factories?
Or are you talking about a different cache of chemical weapons?
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war...
"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_...
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).
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The mass defection of Syrian Army soldiers and officers to the Free Syrian Army guaranteed that the conflict was going to a bloody mess with arms falling into hands of all parties, long before the US started supplying arms. And no, you can't for certain say that Iraq would have fared better, as Iran would have fueled Shia sectarianism all the same in Iraq as it did post US invasion. Iran in fact was Sadam's greatest concern before his WMD bluff backfired.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_attacks_...
Yes, and that has contributed to make the ISIS mess even worse. In that way the US is responisble for that.
>The mass defection of Syrian Army soldiers and officers to the Free Syrian Army guaranteed that the conflict was going to a bloody mess with arms falling into hands of all parties, long before the US started supplying arms.
The Free Syrian Army, which was also incidentally funded and armed by the US.
>And no, you can't for certain say that Iraq would have fared better, as Iran would have fueled Shia sectarianism all the same in Iraq as it did post US invasion. Iran in fact was Sadam's greatest concern before his WMD bluff backfired.
In which case either he would have been overthrown or the country would have fragmented. In both cases, the state or states would have been able to crush ISIS.
Just one big snowball landing at the doorstep of one of the planet's poorest countries.
ISIS (whatever the longer, more complicated history) was empowered and truly came into being in Syria during the uprising against Assad, initiated, ironically by whistleblower Chelsea Manning during the 'Arab Spring'.
ISIS was able to spread into Iraq because of the lack of US power, not because of the presence of it.
If the US hadn't pumped Syria full of weapons, ISIS would have been destroyed. If the US didn't invade Iraq, ISIS would have been destroyed too. Therefore, the rise of ISIS is a consequence of US intervention. There is nothing misleading or nuanced about it, it's just how it is. And people before the Iraq War and in the lead up to what happened in Syria were warning that exactly this would happen. And it did.
> If the US didn't invade Iraq, ISIS would have been destroyed too.
Yeah, and Saddam would still be in power, torturing and genociding. Wasn't exactly nice before either.
Iraq itself asked the US to leave, and they didn't. I believe the technical term for that is "occupation".
And by the way, if the US was so interested in stopping torturous dictators they'd go after the Saudis. And we don't, because the only thing the State Department cares about is US imperial interests. Notice in all these cases, the life of the common man got worse, but magically the US achieved all of its interests. How interesting.
You can't just do that and then go 'well, it's their own democracy now, they're good.'
We're still seeing the repercussions of slavery playing out on the streets of the United States in the form of protests to this very day.
Anyways, a lazy list of links:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48032/private-armies-...
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/03/14/who-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_military_contr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_contractor_dea...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_company
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/pentagon-...
The 'availability of weapons' is not a primary cause of the rise of ISIS.
Take a moment to learn about the 'Arab Spring' [1], which started the Syrian civil war, which was the definitive geopolitical even that enabled the real rise what we now think of as ISIS.
First - ISIS has origins as more of a rag-tag group, of which there were very many in Syria for decades, but through a variety of opportunistic mergers, splits, allegiances forged and broken, ultimately became what it is. To say 'ISIS' was 'this or that' in 1999 wouldn't properly describe what it was.
The 'Arab Spring' was sparked in the Arab world ironically by the leaking of US Diplomatic Cables by Chelsea Maning, which by the way, largely showed US foreign core trying to do their jobs in a world full of corruption and stupidity. The cables revealed to the 'Arab Street' just how corrupt their leaders were - and protests were set off in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Syria - and other places.
Various groups vying for power (i.e. Muslim Brotherhood) in the ME would use the opportunity to make a play for power.
The US was 'involved' everywhere, but mostly not to a material extent initially, except for Egypt obviously.
Syrian rebels of various kinds, rose up and civil war broke out with Assad against a variety of antagonists.
A weakened regime lost control over wide swaths of mostly empty territory in E. Syria near Iraq to what we now call ISIS.
None of this was materially caused by US occupation of Iraq.
Later, Barack Obama's will to 'get the troops out of the ME' inclined him to pull troops from Iraq. (FYI in retrospect even if we consider that the war in Iraq was a huge mistake itself, it was still probably a mistake to withdraw too early. It has echoes of Saigon).
Literally the day the US troops were gone, Shia Iraqi PM al-Maliki purged government of Sunni entities, pushed the Shia dominated federal Army into Sunni territory, setting of a soft-grade civil war.
The Sunni tribes, more fearful of Shia-laden government forces than they were of ISIS ... 'allowed' ISIS to come in from Syria and join up with sympathetic fighters.
As a side note: Iraqi Army units, surrounded by ISIS fighters in Sunni territory were told by Sunni tribes, that if they disarmed themselves, that the tribes would provide them safe passage back to Souther Iraq, essentially, the tribes would protect them from ISIS. But of course, they were double crossed. ISIS grabbed large Iraqi Army units, completely unarmed, and proceeded to execute them by the truckload in one of the worst massacres in modern history: literally rivers of blood forming from the lines of Shia Iraqi Soldiers beheaded one-by-one by ISIS.
And then of course ISIS had the run of Sunni Iraq until a very crude coalition of Iranian, US, Iraqi and Kurdish forces pushed them out, town by town.
Were the US to have left just a few battalions, literally 'behind the wire' in some empty plot outside of Bagdad, the US would have been able to maintain political leverage over al-Malaki in order to prevent him from his aggressive purge resulting in civil war, and the entry of ISIS.
It's important to remember that ISIS is 'the fault of ISIS' and their supporters. They're one of the worst stains of people on the historical record. Second, if there are more indirect issues we want to look at, it's the brutally uncivil, corrupt, selfish, power-hungry and irrational civil structures around the Middle East.
Is Trump the only president since the 90's who hasn't started new wars?
This makes the scary-headline conclusion pretty worthless.