[bitkrieg]

What the US public opinion is and what the US government does are two different things. Americans are hilariously self-delusional in that regard. Just compare the civilian death tolls between the first two years of the invasion of Iraq and the first two years of the invasion of Ukraine.

For the last twenty years in the Middle East alone, the number of civilian deaths in which the US is either directly or indirectly involved is easily in the millions

[pclmulqdq]

Unless you're counting a lot of definitions of "indirect involvement" (eg including things Israel does on its own and any proxy wars the Saudis start), you're going to have a hard time counting to 1 million civilians with any authoritative sources. Most of the civilian deaths in the US's "war on terror" were to IEDs and other devices set up to kill Americans.

People who create studies suggesting those wars killed 5 million people include a lot of ludicrous definitions of "killed" to get numbers that big.

[rjurney]

When you topple a foreign government, destroy all the infrastructure for pointless "shock and awe" and then send the ethnic majority but recently oppressed armed forces home... you bear responsibility for the millions of extra deaths that follow when traumatic civil war rocks the nation. You are the exact example of the delusional American he means.

[pclmulqdq]

You are the exact kind of person to demonstrate why the US builds the best precision weapons in the world and doesn't kill civilians if at all possible. If you are going to blame every single death in a conflict, including indirect deaths (eg excess heart attacks) and deaths at the hands of the other party (IEDs laid by the other side), on the US, there's no reason to give you any more ammunition or make your argument seem rational.

[jychang]

> You are the exact kind of person to demonstrate why the US builds the best precision weapons in the world and doesn't kill civilians if at all possible.

Wait is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[pclmulqdq]

No value judgment, but he's a good demonstration of why the US does the thing he's accusing the US of not doing.

The US goes out of its way to minimize collateral damage because it gets accused of causing all collateral damage in the first place.

[rjurney]

We took out tons of infrastructure in Iraq during shock and awe. Utilities were on the target list. We were about to occupy it. That was incredibly stupid. The infrastructure itself was not collateral damage, it was targeted. We have no occupation plan, it was that stupid. The destruction resulted in millions of extra deaths due to the impoverishment and destruction of Iraqi society. Yes, we bear responsibility for all those deaths. You break it, you own it. That's war.

[guappa]

I mean, USA could stop doing wars everywhere in the world no?

It's not like iraq had tanks by the USA border, ready to roll in no?

It also didn't have any of the terrible weapons that USA claimed they had.

[pclmulqdq]

When you are the world police and you stop "doing wars everywhere," everywhere starts doing wars with you (usually through your weaker/looser allies). Hence Ukraine, Hong Kong, the Mexican cartels, Iran's proxy wars, and let's not forget 9/11.

In all cases, the US has demonstrated a level of weakness on the foreign stage, and terrible people have come to exploit that. Like it or not, those little wars in Iraq were the long arm of the Pax Americana, which is ending now, to the tune of the first land war in Europe in quite some time. And one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history.

This is what happens when you are a world-spanning empire. An empire, by the way, that Europe, India, China, and the rest of the civilized world has benefitted massively from in the form of free security and safe transport of goods. When there is no dominant empire, the world gets messy.

[guappa]

This needs a very large "citation needed" banner.