[systemvoltage]

> Since at latest 2004, a significant goal of the group has been the foundation of a Sunni Islamic state. Specifically, ISIL has sought to establish itself as a caliphate, an Islamic state led by a group of religious authorities under a supreme leader – the caliph – who is believed to be the successor to Prophet Muhammad.

Furthermore, it is worth studying the Arab Spring and what the underlying causes were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring#Causes

[alaricus]

Doesn't change the fact that America spent the last 20 years on a mass-murder spree in the Middle East.

[systemvoltage]

If you want to call wars mass murders, that’s your call. I support complete defeat of ISIS/ISIL to the last member. Seems like you have a rhetorical axe to grind, mass murders sounds like a dog whistle to the people with anti-US sentiments. Not an objective argument.

[alaricus]

America was murdering people in the Middle East more than a decade before ISIS was formed. How is what America did in Fallujah any less evil than what Russia did in Mariupol?