Ex Head of US Special Forces: Iraq Invasion Created ISIS

Those circumstances exist in many other places, sadly. Islam is the unique variable

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sam-harris-the-salon-interview

 

This is exactly true.

Was the Iraq war a mistake by Bush? In my opinion, yes.
Was it then a mistake how Obama handled it afterwards? In my opinion, yes.

Did all of that "create" ISIS? No, it was a contributing factor, but the ultimate motivation of these Islamist extremists had been simmering before it broke out due to the favorable conditions created by the power vacuum after the previous ruler had been overthrown (Bush) and then the only stabilizing factors were pulled out prematurely (Obama) - it's political Islam.

And the only reason these extremists could gain traction is because their ideology is closely linked and related to mainstream Islam.

Like it or not, that is the truth.

 

How do you plan on spying on overseas targets if you're not occupying? Saddam wouldnt comply to UN inspections. Do you think he would let us fly drones and install intel sites all over his country?

 

You mean, like, back when anarchists killed William McKinley and several world leaders, the IRA bombed Thatcher, the Shining Path wages a continual killing campaign (Maoists which bombed the American embassy in 2002), Aum Shinrikyo, a doomsday cult, used sarin gas to poison Tokyo (the only use of WMD by a terrorist group on a massive civilian population)?

Or mass shootings in America which happen at a rate of more than one per day.

Are you arguing that terrorism is specific to Islam? Because it isn't and it never has been.

If you're arguing about one very specific tactic of terror, suicide bombings, well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_attack

You know what the unique variable in repressive regimes is?

They never end well, and people end up fighting back, one way or another. Your best hope is a Mandela in that situation, but to be perfectly frank, South Africa never deserved Mandela, and neither do any of the theocratic, repressive regimes today. He was the hero they needed, not the one they deserved.

 

The inability to integrate the factions in Iraq is what "created" ISIS.

 

You could have occupied and not introduced terror squads that tore the country into civil war. Not only was the Iraqi War a deep strategic mistake, it was executed very poorly.

And was Saddam ever really the threat you're referring to anyways?

 

1. What's the point? There are 1.5 billion Muslims. Should we be angry at all of them? Mistrust all of them? Make war on all of them? What is the point being made?

2. America kills more humans than Islam. What then? Is it a problem of our ****ed-up ideology?

 

Is it wasn't isis it would be some other group. In general the US is safer then it was 10 years ago.

 

Thread title is wrong and very much click bait. Dude was not ex-head of special forces. When you get something so easy so wrong it's easily exposed as partisan propaganda.

Let's be fair shall we,

1. Blame Obama for underestimating ISIS and extremely slow response.

2. Blame the rest -- Tenet, Cheney, etc..., among others including non-American leaders.

3. Blame Bush, Iraq war contributed to growth of ISIS.

4. Blame Clinton for not taking out Bin Laden multiple times in 90s. Could have prevented 9/11 and then Homeland Security, Iraq, TSA, ISIS might never have happened. Imagine a world without Homeland Security and TSA!!! I miss those days.

5. Blame Bush Sr. for Gulf War.

6. Blame Saddam for invading Kuwait.

7. Blame CIA for supporting Bin Laden in Pakistan/Afghanistan. Operation Cyclone, created by Carter expanded by Reagan.

8. Blame more as we travel back in time.

Let's not cherry pick history to take partisan shots. That entire region and our relationships over there are messed up and have been for decades. Real talk, we don't care about any other region in the world like we do that region. Energy independence and GTFO should have always been the policy.

 

True, but overthrowing the established order in Iraq caused the meltdown. Integrating the various factions in Iraq was a Bush administration utopia that had no chance of happening. The notion of "if we make Iraq democratic, we can make any Mideast country democratic" was complete garbage, a con job.

 

Are you suggesting we don't spy on any countries we don't occupy?

 

Enabled maybe, but Iran and Iraq had already fought a war that killed more than a million people. It's probably wrong to think the Sunni/Shia civil war wouldn't have continued through their proxies.

Maybe you guys were not interested at the time, but Saddam invaded Kuwait. He was killing and torturing on a grand scale. His son's, set to succeed him, were more murderously psychopathic than he was. Only in retrospect can overthrowing him be called a mistake. At the time it seemed like the beginning of a united planet of democracy.

 

Who said anything about countries? Al Qaeda and ISIS are not countries.

How do you propose we spy on decentralized political groups such as ISIS and an Al Qaeda? Do you really think they are getting on Facebook and saying "lulz, i am a terrorist"? These groups are very sophisticated. If these middle east countries are not going to let the US run freely, how else are we going to gather their transmissions.

 

they literally use Telegram and Tor, they're not building new encryption technologies, anybody who is reasonably decent with computers can track their activity on Twitter and get root access to their domains lol

Anon took down one of their dark web sites, and Anon aren't exactly Bruce Schneier.

ISIS publishes a magazine that details group activities, they're not exactly super-private either.

To suggest that the United States would have to invade Iraq and Syria to gobble up their digital communications (often hosted on American servers) is quite a misguided view of how espionage and encryption work in the 21st century.

 

Cloudflare (an American technology company) alone probably has the billing addresses of several ISIS members, their payment methods, and, hell, maybe even their names.

(with that said, I am strong proponent of digital privacy--but to suggest you have to invade a nation to spy on its inhabitants is an incoherent argument in a digital world where data passes back and forth in servers around the world)

 

hhhhmmmmm Who was Governor of Florida at that time?




Rocket River

 

You mean around 2007 when we had 166 K troops in Iraq?

 

Yes..... the Nazi elite were Christians......

Except they were not.

 

And neither are the tea party except where it is beneficial to say they are.
So the same.