[dralley]

I accept US responsibility for a great many of the civilian deaths caused in Vietnam. I don't accept US responsibility for Islamists of different varieties blowing up each other's markets and places of worship with weapons provided by Iran and Syria.

[ebbi]

So you don't accept the fact that a lot of this sectarian violence flared after the toppling of Saddam, which was because of the US? And how many of the deaths do you attribute to the sectarian violence, as opposed to the direct actions of the US in the region?

[UltraSane]

The VAST majority of the deaths were from sectarian violence.

[jokowueu]

That was caused by a power vacuum and US's intentional act to oust the Ba'ath Party, remove all control from a country and it will fall to chaos especially when blood feuds are involved .

[UltraSane]

This response seems to remove all agency from the actual people killing each other.

[hersko]

This seems to be a theme of people with certain political inclinations. "It's really America's fault they're blowing themselves up in crowded markets because...."

[cess11]

After toppling Saddam Hussein the US took political control in the country and decided who got to decide what. The slaughter that followed was a direct and rather predictable result of this.

[angra_mainyu]

Hey, get with the times. Whitewashing jihadis is in vogue these days.

[ebbi]

You might be into that. The rest of us like to analyse things honestly, especially given America is going down the route of making the same moves as history. If you don't see that, then it'd probably be better for you to go read something than to offer pithy comments on here.

[lostlogin]

Do you believe the violence would have happened without the US invasion?

[IncreasePosts]

Probably not the same violence. But Saddam would have kept genociding the Kurds if he stayed in power. And maybe launched another war against Iran.

[lostlogin]

So local carnage (which the US happily watched prior, and supports Turkey perpetuating) versus carnage spanning the whole region.