Channel72 wrote:I agree the situation is complicated. Most of the time I'm more inclined to take a more comprehensive approach to assigning blame - especially because "blame America for everything" is a common kneejerk reaction. And sure, there's a lot of factors at play here. But in this case, I don't hesitate to say that ISIS' success is like ... at least, say 90% the fault of bad planning, laziness, and incompetence on the part of the US.
I mean, yes, there's many other factors. Blaming ISIS themselves is of course not productive and totally beside the point ... that's like blaming a rapid dog for biting someone. Of course, we also have the general, wider problem of Sunni radicalism throughout the MENA region, but if we confine the scope of our blame to just the phenomenon of ISIS successfully creating a mini-state in Northern Iraq, we can say with confidence that this is like 90-99% the fault of US mismanagement and specifically Obama's decision to take the politically expedient move of withdrawing from Iraq, rather than listening to endless warnings (going back to 2010) from the Kurds and Maliki government that ISIS was a major problem that would spill over into Iraq. I mean, the Kurdish Iraqi president Jalal Talabani practically begged Obama to do something, many months before ISIS invaded.
For better or for worse (and a lot of people will argue its for the best), I don't think their was much political support/will for staying in Iraq. And while leaving a conflict unresolved is hardly a good course of action, I do think the question "How long are we expected to stay their?" is not unreasonable. Especially since a lot of the Iraqi people didn't want us their and a lot of people will argue that the state of Iraq is because the US intervened in the first place.
The worst fuckups, I think, came under Bush, who, like I said, should be facing trial right now. Or rather, he should have faced trial in 2008 and be currently serving his life sentence (presuming he was found guilty).
And yes, if you exclude blaming ISIS or Sunni radicalism and focus solely on ISIS's sudden expansion in Iraq, you can put the blame mostly on the US, but that's rather tipping the scales, don't you think?
I also think that saying ISIS isn't to blame for ISIS's actions because they're like rabid dogs is letting them off the hook and also rather... prejudiced, in a strange way. Which is not to say that I have the slightest sympathy for them- its the opposite, actually. While I fully recognize that ISIS's success was influenced by other factors, I take the approach that as ISIS members are still, technically, human (obviously), and thus sentient beings, they have responsibility for their actions.
The same, obviously, applies to K. A. Pital's virus analogy.
Does it do any particular good to say that? Maybe, maybe not. ISIS certainly won't care. But I think its important that we see ISIS for what it is, and encourage others to do so.
Edits: However, I don't want to take this thread off topic, so I'm prepared to say "Agree to partially disagree" and leave it at that if you are. It makes no difference to the issue of how we should address the refugee crisis to me- like I said, people need help, we can help, and that should be reason enough to help.
