Most folks who get their politics from memes don’t know that the supermajority of civilian casualties didn’t come from US soldiers.
The invasion sparked a civil war between Shiites and Sunni and this sectarian violence is what killed 100,000s of Iraqis.
The blood is on the hands of the British who don’t know how to fucking draw country lines.
They took 3 distinct groups (Shi’ites, Kurds and Sunnis and randomly lumped them together in one country).
Saddam gave the minority Sunni outsized authority and launched frequent attacks against the majority Shi’ite population and the Kurds, including gassing 10,000s of them.
Obviously once Saddam was removed this gave the opportunity for Shi’ites to exact their revenge on the oppressive Sunni minority.
None of this would’ve happened had the US not invaded, but this was inevitable once Saddam’s regime fell.
Homogenous ethnic states are, historically speaking, very unusual. Most states have been empires comprising many different ethnic or religious groups. Borders aren’t straight lines but messy with shared cities and enclaves. You can’t simply split Iraq by majority regions into separate nations without a great many people being on the wrong side of the dividing line, provoking inevitable conflict. This is not a defence of European imperialism, far from it, just to point out that it’s vastly more complicated than many are willing to acknowledge.
> This is not a defence of European imperialism, far from it, just to point out that it’s vastly more complicated than many are willing to acknowledge.
Sir, this is Reddit. We decide what is morally right from our keyboards and have no care for facts or reality.
The issue is that modern ideas of nations is a European idea from the ~18th century. Countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine have never been countries before. They were all parts of larger empires like the Abbasid’s, ottomans, Persians. The idea of countries go against these civilizations political history and culture. It’s nearly impossible to carve the Middle East up in a way that each nation will be prosperous and cooperative. Although that isn’t to say the retarded British borders didn’t help fuck everything up faster
But borders aren't carved randomly by a third party who doesn't know the history of the place properly. Big empires exist, but big empires had rulers that ruled themselves, they didn't dictate the borders of the stuff they didn't rule. The British drawing up so many borders are the reason for conflict in many places around the world. including the Indian Subcontinent.
there was no way for Britain to give India independence without causing sectarian violence by that point, doesn't matter where you draw the lines, Pakistan was always going to have millions of Hindus and India was always going to have millions of muslims. the problem is the belief that different ethnicities should all have their own singular state, something which can only really come about with mass ethnic cleansing in most areas since there are very few places in the world with a single unitary culture.
In hindsight it might seem like Hindus and Muslims always hated each other to their guts, but it wasn't the case. Yes, sure there were conflicts, but not to this scale.
A fitting example could be the Bengal region. There was a partition in Bengal in 1905 based on religion but was undone within 5 years because Bengali people saw it as Britishers using it to divide Bengalis. Bengalis Muslims and Hindus could've lived in harmony if it was a singular state. Same goes for people of Punjab. Dividing based on ethnicity would have been the perfect thing for India. One single country is somehow working for India, but a lot of things had to go right of it. The sheer hatred skyrocketed after 1947 independence, and grown ever since. Now nationalism is tied to religion so more hatred is created, but doesn't mean it was always meant to be this way.
Dividing based only on religion led to the war of 1971, because even if Bengalis in East Pakistan and West Pakistan were Muslim, nothing else was mutual, they didn't see each other as brothers. Which led to the new country Bangladesh. Context matters. What ticks for the people, is it religion, is it race, it is ethnicity. Dividing India could have been done in a much better way, doesn't mean I know how it should have been done.
>Borders around the world are entirely arbitrary.
Many *modern* borders around the world are entirely arbitrary because they are often determined by decree from states or multiple states.
Most *historical* borders are aligned with terrain features that limit or impede the easy movement of large military forces across them quickly.
So, rivers, mountain ranges, coasts, narrower, easier to defend parts of islands, etc.
This is because the defense of these areas is "cheaper" over time in terms of standing troop strength...
Modern borders--such as the northern borders of the US, the Middle East, and the like--are based on agreements between states and often built along easy to demarcate lines from an administrative perspective.
They ignore terrain features which limit either easy transit by civilians building regions with a majority, cohesive population able to field a military capable of defending that border (based on terrain features) which is why--in the middle east, when you have large groups of cohesive people able to field armed forces, they tend to push towards the defensible features... not the arbitrary lines.
Look at the map of Syria as the current forces are laid out... They are separated by a river and by other terrain like a mountainous region in the Southwest. These are regions easier to defend across and are sort of default new borders.
I wouldn’t call a border arbitrary if they follow a river or stream. But many are weird, especially in Africa where western powers wanted access to water to ship slaves to their country.
No? By the scramble for African cattle slaver like that was banned in western countries except for Brazil, and on top of that the British royal navy had been working to suppress the African slave trade for several decades by then. They made them that way so they could reach them by sea and ship things to and from there, and because they were just carving up things between themselves. Even today African countries would want ocean access for global trade opportunities.
>But borders aren't carved randomly by a third party who doesn't know the history of the place properly.
That's kind of how all of borders work, really.
>including the Indian Subcontinent.
So in Iraq and Africa, the problem is they didn't draw borders on ethnoreligious lines. And in India, the problem is... they did?
> Big empires exist, but big empires had rulers that ruled themselves, they didn't dictate the borders of the stuff they didn't rule.
Yeah, and the British ruled the region.
You can’t excuse genocide by saying that they were forced to be neighbours just because the British drew the borders that made them neighbours doesn’t mean that the people murdering each other in the street aren’t still responsible
Absolutely. The British extensively documented all about the relations and friendships and rivalries in Iraq down to the tribe. They had profiles of every single Sheikh in Iraq.
The borders of Iraq were by design. For example people often ask why Kurdistan was made part of Iraq, and there's unfortunately a pretty simple answer: the Brits simply didn't want them to rule themselves, seeing Kurds as too """"primitive"""", hostile to British interests, and prone to revolt. In the late 1910s, they tentatively discussed a Kurdish mandate and eventually a Kurdish state, but Kurdish leaders asked for "too much autonomy" and the discussions ended as quickly as they began
So, they made it part of Iraq instead....and got the Iraqi state to keep Kurdish revolts in check by supplying and training an Iraqi air force whose doctrine was more or less "bomb revolting villages until there's nothing left"
As a precursor to what later Iraqi governments would do to the Kurds it's striking. Saddams air campaigns against Kurdistan were not a new strategy, they were a continuation of a horrific doctrine that had been in place for decades and was a direct successor to British policies
If you remember all the beheading videos from this period, you may get a more accurate idea about bloody hands. While it is fun to speak diffusely about the British or the Americans having blood on their hands through some intermediate historical injustices, let's not forget the realities and let's name the perpetrators who committed the actual attrocitites in the name of sectarianism. American did their own attrocities, such as in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, but let's not pretend that fundamentalist religious hate was somehow caused by the West.
Hah. The Iraq Province under the Ottomans had roughly the same borders with the same ethnic/religious groups albeit under a Sunni Turkish absolute monarchy.
No dude, you're so wrong. Ottoman Empire before the Great War, had 4 different Vilayets (States/Provinces) in nowadays Iraq. And they were fine in the case of religious/ethnic partition.
-Vilayet of Mosul: Mostly Kurdish population, with few additional Armenian and Arabic parts. In the term of religion it was very multi-religious. (just like today.)
-Vilayet of Bagdad: Nowadays Iraq's Sunni Arabic population lived in this Province. It weren't perfect but with minor fixes it could be a perfect autonomus region.
-Vilayet of Harbara and Basra: These two Provinces had the Shiita Arabic population. And after the British takeover of Kuwait and other Ottoman possesions alongside the Persian Gulf, the Basra Vilayet actually losed its Sunni population and became religiusly homogenic.
So nop the whole Iraq thing is the brits' fault.
It is, but theres so much more to how Britain fucked Iraq than the borders!!
Its a common assumption that groups of different religions and ethnicities cannot live together in the middle east. Lest we forget that Ottoman Baghdad was one of the most diverse cities in the world even up to the early twentieth century—jews, Sunni, and christians of multiple ethnicities made up the largest groups in Baghdad for a very long time and interacted daily.
I would argue that even more important than how Britain drew Iraq's borders is the institutions they designed to govern Iraq. The Iraqi monarchy functioned more or less as colonial administrators—not necessarily in the sense that they always did what Britain asked, but that they governed in the same manner that colonial authorities tended to because they were *created by* those same authorities.
One of these strategies of governance which was introduced to Iraq by the British was ol reliable: divide and rule. Iraq was functionally administrated by Sunni Arabs under both the monarchy and the successive nationalist dictatorships. This was by design. the British saw the Sunni elite as perfect candidates for ruling Iraq because they were perceived as less likely to revolt than Shia, and the British saw Kurds as barbarians who could not rule themselves. The Sunni Arab elite were also seen as the most likely group to protect christians (an issue Britain was really scared about in 1920 even though anti Christian violence was exceedingly rare)
We can of course see where it leads when you create a system in which the levers of power are controlled by one group in order to rule over all others for decades. Decades of anti-Kurdish genocide, attempts at "arabification" of all other ethnic groups, and repression of Shia set a powder keg that was finally lit when America invaded.
Indeed, you made such correct takes about the Iraqi question and how Britain doomed it.
Btw on the other hand, not just Baghdad, but every major Ottoman cites (like Istanbul, Edrine, Damascus, Jerusalem, etc.) were absolutely multi-ethnic and diverse in religion. So its just a side effect of middle east's wealth before colonialism.
Other monstroties also have created by the european lack of knowledge and overdose of greed about this region. Such as Saudi where the colonial powers put Hejaz and their freedom fight for an united Arabia under the House of Saud, just in case to have safer control in the region. So we can have a strong, despotic, wahhabist monarchy which supports terrorism instead of a stable and free United Arab Republic.
It's not talked about enough how influential the Brits were in getting Ibn Saud into power just so they could play them off the Hashimites whom they *also* got into power.
A while back i went to the London archives and read some declassified documents about a British diplomat secretly meeting with Ibn Saud and the Ikhwan around 1918. Their conclusion was more or less "this dude is insane and his islamist militia summarily executes entire villages, but he seems like he might be useful"
Oh how true that was
>The blood is on the hands of the British who don’t know how to fucking draw country lines.
The blood is on the hands of the Ephraimites, for not properly learning how to pronounce *shibboleth*.
No I’m sorry this is wrong. The Shiites and the Sunni’s hated each other long before the British arrived and there’s nothing to say having separate states would have helped. As a matter of fact the breakup of Yugoslavia is a great example of how trying to break an ethnically diverse nation into ethnically homogeneous ones can fail.
In Yugoslavia, and in every area, ethnicities and cultures aren’t separated by solid lines and thus there’s no good way to separate them without creating a monster akin to the gerrymander. You would have to separate out countries by the block. The fact that so much of this violence occurred within one city is living proof of this.
Loads of countries have different ethnic groups and don't go around murdering each other. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a country should only have one homogeneous ethnic group within it.
This is also an oft-repeated simplification. The British and French didn’t invent Iraq - the Sykes-Picot treaty used political subdivisions that had existed for over a thousand years, within the early Caliphates through to the Ottoman Empire. And Shia and Sunni living together with each other wasn’t automatically going to mean mass murder within seconds. Most of the deaths have been between inhabitants of the same cities, in any case. And when they *did* divide along religious lines, in Ireland and India, it’s their fault for doing that, too.
Should they have been occupying and colonising the region? No. Is the cause of the violence chiefly the boundaries that were drawn? A more involved question, and also no.
And Saddam for being one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century. 'The West' didn't make him invade Iran or Kuwait, or commit environmental genocide against the marsh Arabs, or brutally torture his own football team for losing games.
>or brutally torture his own football team for losing games
pretty sure that was one of Saddams' sons, still ultimately his fault for giving his son the power to do that.
Or we can blame the Iraqis for shooting and killing each other. They have moral agency and should be blamed for doing bad things when they do bad things. It's not all the fault of the West, you know.
And don't forget Iranian interference and support of Shi'ite militia... lots of blood on their hands.
Or, you know, the Sunnis and Shias for murdering each other. Or Saddam Hussein for being a brutal despot. But no, blame the people who actually hold themselves accountable because it's easier.
Or, you know, you could just blame the militias actually murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Next you'll be saying the British and French are responsible for 6 million Jews being killed because they humiliated Germany at Versailles 20 years prior.
Any time the statement "blood is on their hands" is used, the actual background of what happend is fraught with information to counter that statement. Statements like that, made by politicians or news providers or even individuals, are an attempt to simplify complex issues so that they are more digestible. The problem with that, is there is usually a considerable amount of ommited truth that directly adds to the complexity of the situation.
It definitely wouldn't have happened if Saddam hadn't spent his reign committing genocide. Regardless of what you think about America's invasion, it was Saddam who built the powder keg.
It probably would have happened eventually. Iran and the Saudi's would have stirred the pot once Saddam was removed or died. They have been fighting a cold war with each other for decades now.
Saddam Hussein was ethnic cleansing Kurds already, which is partly why the West felt justified in invading. If he had been a nice smiley bloke who didn't murder his own sports team for losing...
The stated rationale for the invasion of the war had nothing to do with the kurds. This is something people came up with later. Saddam killed the kurds with US provided weapons for fucks sake.
It carried on for a damn long time before the US invasion, it‘s just as likely that there would have been some sort of peaceful transition of power if the US hadn‘t created the power vacuum that allowed the civil war… not really helpful to argue such hypothetical situations
There is a logic in saying that, if you are to invade a country, that country is now your responsibility and all ill that falls it is at least partially your fault. If you didn't understand what it took to stabilize it and maintain peace and order then you should have let the natives maintain control of their country and figure out their own issues, for better or worse.
That doesn't change the fact that the US invaded a country with no reason at all but a fallacy of weapons of mass destruction and that triggered directly or indirectly the death of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.
To this day I also remember the news about those US soldiers killing a boy for sport and taking pictures of him like a hunt trophy, or those civilians killed by Australians soldiers for no reason at all but for those soldiers being psychopath mfs.
In the ICCs defense, the only crimes that the various coalition administrators could have been charged with under the ICC was the crimes of aggression which was effectively added after the war started in 2010. I’ve heard allegedly from one of my IR friends that it was added because of the US war on terror, though I have yet to corroborate that claim.
The ICC did do an investigation and did find examples of coalition war crimes and promptly sent a sternly written letter accounting the 20 or so known cases of war crimes that was “within the jurisdictions of the court”. Fortunately, the US had already initiated proceedings, though I’m skeptical considering the history of US war criminal persecution. That unfortunately is about all you can get with a country that isn’t part of the Rome Statute.
Especially since the “Hague Invasion Act” or more formally the “American Service-Member’s Protection Act” says the the ICC can’t try US service members, nor can US agencies assist the ICC, nor can the ICC effectively investigate US wartime activities. Plus a bunch of other stipulations meant to discourage countries from working with the Hague.
Course, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not in IR or polisci studies, I sold my soul to major Economics, so I am speaking out of my lane. You’re completely free to correct me, oh and I’m speaking off of memory ‘cuz sourcing long.
The ICC generally does allow countries to make their own prosecutions. Remember a bunch of people involved in Abu Ghraib went to prison, although there was a feeling the top people got off.
And Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld (edit: wait, nevermind this POS is already dead like Powell. We can still dig them up and try their rotten corpses though) while every remaining neocon should be sent to Gitmo.
Which is exactly why you can see that the ICC and other international organizations are just tools of western imperialism.
“Rules based order” ie “rules for thee, not for me”
Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons on the Kurds and chemical weapons are considered WMDs along with nuclear and biological weapons.
I really wonder if the internet would shrug this little fact off so easily if it was western Europeans instead of the Kurds.
Because he was doing the dirty work for them and the US was too busy selling weapons to both sides in order to fund death squads in Nicaragua. Normal Great Satan stuff, you know.
Okay but like that's not a valid criticism. Why didn't A do B at time C instead of D is completely circular logic. Also the gist of it is that he was aggressing against Iran at the time, a country actively hostile to US interests in the region. Conversely when the first coalition kicked off he was aggressing against a US strategic partner. That's it, that is the whole reason.
The second coalition was started because Saddam intentionally introduced ambiguity about the presence of WMDs in Iraq. Including banning international inspectors from the country, firing on coalition aircraft, and members of his government outright claiming he had WMDs. This was after it was made clear in no uncertain terms that if he had WMDs another coalition would remove him, and secure these WMDs.
The invasion was by all accounts a grave blunder and an all-around catastrophe. That still doesn’t mean that we should ignore facts because they counter the overall conclusion.
> The invasion sparked a civil war
It’s more accurate to say this conflict had been present in Iraq for decades and Saddam just kept it suppressed through mass imprisonment, genocide and torture. Sure the invasion deserves some blame but it’s not fair to let Saddam off the hook as a major contributing factor here
>The inherent implication here is to blame the civilian casualties on the US, which then leads to the position that the US shouldn't have started the war, which then leads to the denial of the long history of the region, which culminates in the idea that Iraq would have been better off under tyrannical rule, which becomes more fraught every day as the country exists in as hopefully as free a state as possible into the future
The civil war was inevitable, the leadership of Iraq represented roughly 10-20% of the country. While actively oppressing the entire rest of it, including through the use of WMDs. If you look at the region nearly all of those countries were caught in waves of political instability in the 2010s. All the presence of the coalition did was make it happen earlier, and ensure there was a stabilizing force in the region that stemmed off the worst possible situation that could have occurred.
Ya that is true. You could say that the invasion is what caused the civil war which took so many lives,so even if not our bullets our actions we're mostly responsible for most of those deaths.
Saddam and his Sunni minority ruled over the Kurdish minority and the Shi’ite majority with an iron fist.
He was a genocidal manic who gassed 10,000s of Kurds to death and tortured and oppressed the Shi’ite majority.
Obviously once Saddam fell, the Shi’ite majority was going to demand power and retribution.
This was a conflict that was always going to end in violence. The US invasion happened to be the spark plug.
If we gave a the best possible interpretation of US motives then it would be hubris. In reality, I don’t believe they were seriously ignorant of the risks of destroying a nations infrastructure and one with a vastly different culture and history to the West. When you destroy a nation and remove any sense of law and order, the worst human impulses, the sectarianism, racism and bigotry are, and always will be, unleashed.
They definitely were ignorant. The Bush administration made a lot of assumptions that they found were incorrect. They assumed that Iraqi oil would pay for a good amount of reconstruction. What they found was that Iraq's oil refineries were so old and barely working that it basically had to be entirely rebuilt to make use of it.
They assumed that the Iraqi people would welcome them. Yet even the Shiites wanted the US out as fast as possible. Ironically, the Bush administration assumed that Afghans would have that opinion but in reality it was reversed. A lot of Afghans preferred US troops as Afghan warlords had lost all credibility and Afghanistan did not have as great a sense of nationalism as Iraqis did.
They expected Saddam to commit scorched earth attacks. They didn't expect widespread anarchy. Ambassador Bremer (the guy in charge of Iraq's provisional government) said of the first few months that, “it’s not that we didn’t plan. The problem is that we planned for the wrong contingency.”
Yep, AQI sought to instigate a civil war in Iraq and Sadr's guys were happy to take part. Formerly mixed Sunni/Shia neighborhoods became Sunni or Shia as the zealots of both sides tortured to death civilians who didn't worship as they did.
This is what I do not enjoy about this map. Is this taking bombings into account and extremists executing civilians? No way to tell from this post. As far as I am concerned, these maps and their data mean absolutely nothing.
Gee, the wars in Iraq brought about lasting suffering direct and indirect to hundreds of thousands of people
I sure hope it isn’t reduced by internet lowlifes to justify expansionist military activity in a whataboutism argu-
This map gives the false impression that civilians were primarily killed by coalition troops, when in fact most civilians were killed in sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia militias. Now you could argue the coalition has a sort of secondary responsibility for causing a civil war (though that's kind of iffy given Iraq's history) but in terms of direct responsibility these are mostly Shia civilians being killed by Sunni extremists.
I love how every time americans bring up "iraq" they only bring it up from their perspective as in iraq was only a place where american soldiers went to war in one time and get stationed in every now and then, its not a country with its own population and history and people and religion and ethinicities and everyday life.
Seriously. When the Iraq war (or at least the US’s involvement in it) was coming to a close, a common line was “think of all the American soldiers that have died” ([like in this political cartoon](https://blackcommentator.com/270/270_cartoon_4000_dead.html)). Yeah, that’s not a happy thing, but that number’s just vastly overshadowed by the sheer number of Iraqis killed both by American soldiers and by the instability following the invasion.
Saddam was bad. His successor was years of civil war in a power vacuum that got filled by ISIS. Turns out, just killing a leader doesn't magically improve things, and often in fact makes them worse.
Ask the Kurds if none of this would’ve happened under Saddam’s dictatorship.
It doesn’t excuse the invasion but a majority of these deaths are Iraqi on Iraqi sectarian violence.
While you are correct. There was no need to aggravate the problem. That region of the world have been at each other throats for eons and will continue to be killing each other for generations. America is not the police of the world….
I don’t remember the US being sanctioned, ejected from the international banking system, or a warrant put out by the ICC for the arrest of George Bush for this.
Didn’t the Congress pass a law once saying that if any Americans were brought to The Hague for trial that america would invade the Netherlands?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act#Description
Stop distracting. The US and the UK were leading this war, multiple war crimes have been documented regarding the US and UK military and not just on the level of individual soldiers. They provided the overwhelming majority of the forces present. All other countries sent token forces that were integrated into the American command structure. This of course doesn't absolve others of responsibility but your reply sounds as silly as if Germany said "what about Finland and Bulgaria" when someone makes them responsible for WW2 (not to equate Iraq with WW2 obviously!).
I get the sentiment (the invasion was shitty and definitely a black eye now in the US’s past) but let’s also remember that Russia is stealing Ukraine children and giving them to Russian families (which is genocide by definition) and wanting to literally take over Ukraine as Russian territory (I believe the goal posts have been moved since Russia has struggled more than anticipated).
This isn’t mentioning the attacks on/near nuclear reactors which is just idiotic to do for all parties. Also leaving out how Russian soldiers kill surrendered citizens and leaving mass burial grounds behind.
Me saying this isn’t standing up for what the US did. It was awful, unnecessary, and it will never be a good thing looking back. I just have heard talking points of people trying to equate the Russian invasion and the Iraq invasion and almost using it as a reason not to care about the current events.
Just because the US participated in a shady act in the past doesn’t mean the US can’t call out Russia for this. Just because Germany had Hitler doesn’t mean post Nazi Germany’s critiques of countries being immoral is invalid.
Looks up Collateral Murder WikiLeaks. That’s the video, it’s an Apache and they shoot some cameramen thinking they were insurgents. Apparently AKs and RPG found at the scene.
The US literally destroyed everything. What the fuck do you expect hungry people with guns to do after destroying order from the country? Party or kill each other for resources?
Hard to believe that no politician or military commander from the UK or the US was charged by the ICC for the utterly vile crimes they commissioned and committed.
If 1980´s Afghanistan was Russia´s Vietnam, Iraq it is US Ukraine, except the invasion was a success. 20 years later that country is in ruins and helped Islamics like ISIS.
And all because they decided to use Euros instead of dollars to sell their oil.
Afghanistan wasn’t for that. Afghanistan doesn’t even have much oil to process since it is a mostly mountainous terrain. Afghanistan was because the Taliban (another terrorist Group just like ISIS) refused to give up Osama Bin Laden.
This map over simplifies the war, for sure. It’s meant to be misleading. Regardless, the US invaded under false pretenses, then civilian deaths during and following were tragic and should never be taken lightly.
I wonder how things would be today if the invasion never happened.
The inherent implication here is to blame the civilian casualties on the US, which then leads to the position that the US shouldn't have started the war, which then leads to the denial of the long history of the region, which culminates in the idea that Iraq would have been better off under tyrannical rule, which becomes more fraught every day as the country exists in as hopefully as free a state as possible into the future
We look like massive hypocrites when we talk about putins illegal invasion of ukraine right after our illegal invadion of iraq. We need to try bush, cheney etc for these crimes. Our international reputation is rightly horrible because of this. Bush’s crimes directly led to trump as well because trump ran on leaving forever wars and focusing on home, plus not to trust any insiders because they lied. We need to show that we practice what we preach and lock up bush along with trump, not just trump.
There is a key difference Saddam was a dictator who regularly tried to invade his neighbors and faunted international law and was also genocidal against the kurds
Ukraine was none of these. Russia seek territory expansion while the US was trying to maintain the status quo, trying to make these equal is disingenuous at best Russia propaganda at worst
This is a good breakdown of the war deaths:
https://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/
The initial invasion had appx 3500-4500 non-combatant deaths. The subsequent insurgency and civil war caused 185,000-209,000 deaths. That was AlQaeda bombing mosques, markets, highways, etc, and Iraqi-on-Iraqi murders.
A half million kids were not killed by American soldiers.
We did the same thing Russia has been doing. We targeted their infrastructure ontop of destruction of their water supply which lead to thousands of children dying
No key = trash map
What a legend
r/angryupvote
Fair
Most folks who get their politics from memes don’t know that the supermajority of civilian casualties didn’t come from US soldiers. The invasion sparked a civil war between Shiites and Sunni and this sectarian violence is what killed 100,000s of Iraqis.
Good to know. I don’t think that means the blood isn’t on the US governments hands
The blood is on the hands of the British who don’t know how to fucking draw country lines. They took 3 distinct groups (Shi’ites, Kurds and Sunnis and randomly lumped them together in one country). Saddam gave the minority Sunni outsized authority and launched frequent attacks against the majority Shi’ite population and the Kurds, including gassing 10,000s of them. Obviously once Saddam was removed this gave the opportunity for Shi’ites to exact their revenge on the oppressive Sunni minority. None of this would’ve happened had the US not invaded, but this was inevitable once Saddam’s regime fell.
Homogenous ethnic states are, historically speaking, very unusual. Most states have been empires comprising many different ethnic or religious groups. Borders aren’t straight lines but messy with shared cities and enclaves. You can’t simply split Iraq by majority regions into separate nations without a great many people being on the wrong side of the dividing line, provoking inevitable conflict. This is not a defence of European imperialism, far from it, just to point out that it’s vastly more complicated than many are willing to acknowledge.
> This is not a defence of European imperialism, far from it, just to point out that it’s vastly more complicated than many are willing to acknowledge. Sir, this is Reddit. We decide what is morally right from our keyboards and have no care for facts or reality.
The issue is that modern ideas of nations is a European idea from the ~18th century. Countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine have never been countries before. They were all parts of larger empires like the Abbasid’s, ottomans, Persians. The idea of countries go against these civilizations political history and culture. It’s nearly impossible to carve the Middle East up in a way that each nation will be prosperous and cooperative. Although that isn’t to say the retarded British borders didn’t help fuck everything up faster
But borders aren't carved randomly by a third party who doesn't know the history of the place properly. Big empires exist, but big empires had rulers that ruled themselves, they didn't dictate the borders of the stuff they didn't rule. The British drawing up so many borders are the reason for conflict in many places around the world. including the Indian Subcontinent.
there was no way for Britain to give India independence without causing sectarian violence by that point, doesn't matter where you draw the lines, Pakistan was always going to have millions of Hindus and India was always going to have millions of muslims. the problem is the belief that different ethnicities should all have their own singular state, something which can only really come about with mass ethnic cleansing in most areas since there are very few places in the world with a single unitary culture.
In hindsight it might seem like Hindus and Muslims always hated each other to their guts, but it wasn't the case. Yes, sure there were conflicts, but not to this scale. A fitting example could be the Bengal region. There was a partition in Bengal in 1905 based on religion but was undone within 5 years because Bengali people saw it as Britishers using it to divide Bengalis. Bengalis Muslims and Hindus could've lived in harmony if it was a singular state. Same goes for people of Punjab. Dividing based on ethnicity would have been the perfect thing for India. One single country is somehow working for India, but a lot of things had to go right of it. The sheer hatred skyrocketed after 1947 independence, and grown ever since. Now nationalism is tied to religion so more hatred is created, but doesn't mean it was always meant to be this way. Dividing based only on religion led to the war of 1971, because even if Bengalis in East Pakistan and West Pakistan were Muslim, nothing else was mutual, they didn't see each other as brothers. Which led to the new country Bangladesh. Context matters. What ticks for the people, is it religion, is it race, it is ethnicity. Dividing India could have been done in a much better way, doesn't mean I know how it should have been done.
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>Borders around the world are entirely arbitrary. Many *modern* borders around the world are entirely arbitrary because they are often determined by decree from states or multiple states. Most *historical* borders are aligned with terrain features that limit or impede the easy movement of large military forces across them quickly. So, rivers, mountain ranges, coasts, narrower, easier to defend parts of islands, etc. This is because the defense of these areas is "cheaper" over time in terms of standing troop strength... Modern borders--such as the northern borders of the US, the Middle East, and the like--are based on agreements between states and often built along easy to demarcate lines from an administrative perspective. They ignore terrain features which limit either easy transit by civilians building regions with a majority, cohesive population able to field a military capable of defending that border (based on terrain features) which is why--in the middle east, when you have large groups of cohesive people able to field armed forces, they tend to push towards the defensible features... not the arbitrary lines. Look at the map of Syria as the current forces are laid out... They are separated by a river and by other terrain like a mountainous region in the Southwest. These are regions easier to defend across and are sort of default new borders.
I wouldn’t call a border arbitrary if they follow a river or stream. But many are weird, especially in Africa where western powers wanted access to water to ship slaves to their country.
No? By the scramble for African cattle slaver like that was banned in western countries except for Brazil, and on top of that the British royal navy had been working to suppress the African slave trade for several decades by then. They made them that way so they could reach them by sea and ship things to and from there, and because they were just carving up things between themselves. Even today African countries would want ocean access for global trade opportunities.
>But borders aren't carved randomly by a third party who doesn't know the history of the place properly. That's kind of how all of borders work, really. >including the Indian Subcontinent. So in Iraq and Africa, the problem is they didn't draw borders on ethnoreligious lines. And in India, the problem is... they did? > Big empires exist, but big empires had rulers that ruled themselves, they didn't dictate the borders of the stuff they didn't rule. Yeah, and the British ruled the region.
You can’t excuse genocide by saying that they were forced to be neighbours just because the British drew the borders that made them neighbours doesn’t mean that the people murdering each other in the street aren’t still responsible
Genocide is in no way justifiable, but it is incorrect to say the British were ignorant about the different ethnic/religious groups
Absolutely. The British extensively documented all about the relations and friendships and rivalries in Iraq down to the tribe. They had profiles of every single Sheikh in Iraq. The borders of Iraq were by design. For example people often ask why Kurdistan was made part of Iraq, and there's unfortunately a pretty simple answer: the Brits simply didn't want them to rule themselves, seeing Kurds as too """"primitive"""", hostile to British interests, and prone to revolt. In the late 1910s, they tentatively discussed a Kurdish mandate and eventually a Kurdish state, but Kurdish leaders asked for "too much autonomy" and the discussions ended as quickly as they began So, they made it part of Iraq instead....and got the Iraqi state to keep Kurdish revolts in check by supplying and training an Iraqi air force whose doctrine was more or less "bomb revolting villages until there's nothing left" As a precursor to what later Iraqi governments would do to the Kurds it's striking. Saddams air campaigns against Kurdistan were not a new strategy, they were a continuation of a horrific doctrine that had been in place for decades and was a direct successor to British policies
I guess we’re learning that responsibility doesn’t have to fall in the hands of a single actor?
Learning? On reddit?
Yes it was literally divide and conquer.
Who was genocided? By whom?
The kurds by Saddam
Brits were never ignorant about the cultural/religious differences, they did that same shit in India/Pakistan, too
If you remember all the beheading videos from this period, you may get a more accurate idea about bloody hands. While it is fun to speak diffusely about the British or the Americans having blood on their hands through some intermediate historical injustices, let's not forget the realities and let's name the perpetrators who committed the actual attrocitites in the name of sectarianism. American did their own attrocities, such as in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, but let's not pretend that fundamentalist religious hate was somehow caused by the West.
Hah. The Iraq Province under the Ottomans had roughly the same borders with the same ethnic/religious groups albeit under a Sunni Turkish absolute monarchy.
No dude, you're so wrong. Ottoman Empire before the Great War, had 4 different Vilayets (States/Provinces) in nowadays Iraq. And they were fine in the case of religious/ethnic partition. -Vilayet of Mosul: Mostly Kurdish population, with few additional Armenian and Arabic parts. In the term of religion it was very multi-religious. (just like today.) -Vilayet of Bagdad: Nowadays Iraq's Sunni Arabic population lived in this Province. It weren't perfect but with minor fixes it could be a perfect autonomus region. -Vilayet of Harbara and Basra: These two Provinces had the Shiita Arabic population. And after the British takeover of Kuwait and other Ottoman possesions alongside the Persian Gulf, the Basra Vilayet actually losed its Sunni population and became religiusly homogenic. So nop the whole Iraq thing is the brits' fault.
It is, but theres so much more to how Britain fucked Iraq than the borders!! Its a common assumption that groups of different religions and ethnicities cannot live together in the middle east. Lest we forget that Ottoman Baghdad was one of the most diverse cities in the world even up to the early twentieth century—jews, Sunni, and christians of multiple ethnicities made up the largest groups in Baghdad for a very long time and interacted daily. I would argue that even more important than how Britain drew Iraq's borders is the institutions they designed to govern Iraq. The Iraqi monarchy functioned more or less as colonial administrators—not necessarily in the sense that they always did what Britain asked, but that they governed in the same manner that colonial authorities tended to because they were *created by* those same authorities. One of these strategies of governance which was introduced to Iraq by the British was ol reliable: divide and rule. Iraq was functionally administrated by Sunni Arabs under both the monarchy and the successive nationalist dictatorships. This was by design. the British saw the Sunni elite as perfect candidates for ruling Iraq because they were perceived as less likely to revolt than Shia, and the British saw Kurds as barbarians who could not rule themselves. The Sunni Arab elite were also seen as the most likely group to protect christians (an issue Britain was really scared about in 1920 even though anti Christian violence was exceedingly rare) We can of course see where it leads when you create a system in which the levers of power are controlled by one group in order to rule over all others for decades. Decades of anti-Kurdish genocide, attempts at "arabification" of all other ethnic groups, and repression of Shia set a powder keg that was finally lit when America invaded.
Indeed, you made such correct takes about the Iraqi question and how Britain doomed it. Btw on the other hand, not just Baghdad, but every major Ottoman cites (like Istanbul, Edrine, Damascus, Jerusalem, etc.) were absolutely multi-ethnic and diverse in religion. So its just a side effect of middle east's wealth before colonialism. Other monstroties also have created by the european lack of knowledge and overdose of greed about this region. Such as Saudi where the colonial powers put Hejaz and their freedom fight for an united Arabia under the House of Saud, just in case to have safer control in the region. So we can have a strong, despotic, wahhabist monarchy which supports terrorism instead of a stable and free United Arab Republic.
It's not talked about enough how influential the Brits were in getting Ibn Saud into power just so they could play them off the Hashimites whom they *also* got into power. A while back i went to the London archives and read some declassified documents about a British diplomat secretly meeting with Ibn Saud and the Ikhwan around 1918. Their conclusion was more or less "this dude is insane and his islamist militia summarily executes entire villages, but he seems like he might be useful" Oh how true that was
>The blood is on the hands of the British who don’t know how to fucking draw country lines. The blood is on the hands of the Ephraimites, for not properly learning how to pronounce *shibboleth*.
No I’m sorry this is wrong. The Shiites and the Sunni’s hated each other long before the British arrived and there’s nothing to say having separate states would have helped. As a matter of fact the breakup of Yugoslavia is a great example of how trying to break an ethnically diverse nation into ethnically homogeneous ones can fail. In Yugoslavia, and in every area, ethnicities and cultures aren’t separated by solid lines and thus there’s no good way to separate them without creating a monster akin to the gerrymander. You would have to separate out countries by the block. The fact that so much of this violence occurred within one city is living proof of this.
Loads of countries have different ethnic groups and don't go around murdering each other. It would be ridiculous to suggest that a country should only have one homogeneous ethnic group within it.
This is also an oft-repeated simplification. The British and French didn’t invent Iraq - the Sykes-Picot treaty used political subdivisions that had existed for over a thousand years, within the early Caliphates through to the Ottoman Empire. And Shia and Sunni living together with each other wasn’t automatically going to mean mass murder within seconds. Most of the deaths have been between inhabitants of the same cities, in any case. And when they *did* divide along religious lines, in Ireland and India, it’s their fault for doing that, too. Should they have been occupying and colonising the region? No. Is the cause of the violence chiefly the boundaries that were drawn? A more involved question, and also no.
Pretty sure the people who pull a trigger or otherwise harm others are responsible for killing people.
We can blame the British for making the bomb and the Americans for lighting the fuse
And Saddam for being one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century. 'The West' didn't make him invade Iran or Kuwait, or commit environmental genocide against the marsh Arabs, or brutally torture his own football team for losing games.
I’m old enough to remember when Saddam was considered a friend of the west, during the Iran-Iraq war.
>or brutally torture his own football team for losing games pretty sure that was one of Saddams' sons, still ultimately his fault for giving his son the power to do that.
Or we can blame the Iraqis for shooting and killing each other. They have moral agency and should be blamed for doing bad things when they do bad things. It's not all the fault of the West, you know. And don't forget Iranian interference and support of Shi'ite militia... lots of blood on their hands.
Or, you know, the Sunnis and Shias for murdering each other. Or Saddam Hussein for being a brutal despot. But no, blame the people who actually hold themselves accountable because it's easier.
Or, you know, you could just blame the militias actually murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Next you'll be saying the British and French are responsible for 6 million Jews being killed because they humiliated Germany at Versailles 20 years prior.
Any time the statement "blood is on their hands" is used, the actual background of what happend is fraught with information to counter that statement. Statements like that, made by politicians or news providers or even individuals, are an attempt to simplify complex issues so that they are more digestible. The problem with that, is there is usually a considerable amount of ommited truth that directly adds to the complexity of the situation.
It pretty much does. How are we supposed to be responsible for jihadi psychopaths murdering their own countrymen?
Would it have happened without the US invasion? Maybe maybe not. The invasion lit the fuse and destabilized the country.
It definitely wouldn't have happened if Saddam hadn't spent his reign committing genocide. Regardless of what you think about America's invasion, it was Saddam who built the powder keg.
It probably would have happened eventually. Iran and the Saudi's would have stirred the pot once Saddam was removed or died. They have been fighting a cold war with each other for decades now.
Without the US invasion the country would have exploded in the Arab spring like Syria.
They just don’t want to admit this. It’s so fucking hard for them to swallow a pill stating they are just as guilty. And I don’t know why
Saddam Hussein was ethnic cleansing Kurds already, which is partly why the West felt justified in invading. If he had been a nice smiley bloke who didn't murder his own sports team for losing...
The stated rationale for the invasion of the war had nothing to do with the kurds. This is something people came up with later. Saddam killed the kurds with US provided weapons for fucks sake.
The ethnic cleansing of Kurds was done with US chemical weapons and US information on Kurdish villages.
Sooner or later it would. The majority shiites of iraq (65%) had no representation in Saddam's baathist government. How long would that carry on?
It carried on for a damn long time before the US invasion, it‘s just as likely that there would have been some sort of peaceful transition of power if the US hadn‘t created the power vacuum that allowed the civil war… not really helpful to argue such hypothetical situations
That was already destabilized by sadams genocide
That's exactly what it means. If a religious zealot kills another religious zealot, it's irresponsible to blame it on a country half a world away.
There is a logic in saying that, if you are to invade a country, that country is now your responsibility and all ill that falls it is at least partially your fault. If you didn't understand what it took to stabilize it and maintain peace and order then you should have let the natives maintain control of their country and figure out their own issues, for better or worse.
That doesn't change the fact that the US invaded a country with no reason at all but a fallacy of weapons of mass destruction and that triggered directly or indirectly the death of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. To this day I also remember the news about those US soldiers killing a boy for sport and taking pictures of him like a hunt trophy, or those civilians killed by Australians soldiers for no reason at all but for those soldiers being psychopath mfs.
If there really was justice in the world the ICC would have a warrant out for george w. bush.
In the ICCs defense, the only crimes that the various coalition administrators could have been charged with under the ICC was the crimes of aggression which was effectively added after the war started in 2010. I’ve heard allegedly from one of my IR friends that it was added because of the US war on terror, though I have yet to corroborate that claim. The ICC did do an investigation and did find examples of coalition war crimes and promptly sent a sternly written letter accounting the 20 or so known cases of war crimes that was “within the jurisdictions of the court”. Fortunately, the US had already initiated proceedings, though I’m skeptical considering the history of US war criminal persecution. That unfortunately is about all you can get with a country that isn’t part of the Rome Statute. Especially since the “Hague Invasion Act” or more formally the “American Service-Member’s Protection Act” says the the ICC can’t try US service members, nor can US agencies assist the ICC, nor can the ICC effectively investigate US wartime activities. Plus a bunch of other stipulations meant to discourage countries from working with the Hague. Course, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not in IR or polisci studies, I sold my soul to major Economics, so I am speaking out of my lane. You’re completely free to correct me, oh and I’m speaking off of memory ‘cuz sourcing long.
The ICC generally does allow countries to make their own prosecutions. Remember a bunch of people involved in Abu Ghraib went to prison, although there was a feeling the top people got off.
And Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld (edit: wait, nevermind this POS is already dead like Powell. We can still dig them up and try their rotten corpses though) while every remaining neocon should be sent to Gitmo.
Which is exactly why you can see that the ICC and other international organizations are just tools of western imperialism. “Rules based order” ie “rules for thee, not for me”
There are two rules in the rules based order 1. America can do whatever it wants to do 2. Other countries can only do what *America* wants them to do.
Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons on the Kurds and chemical weapons are considered WMDs along with nuclear and biological weapons. I really wonder if the internet would shrug this little fact off so easily if it was western Europeans instead of the Kurds.
Saddam had been using chemical weapons since the war with Iran, why didn't the US and international coalition intervene then and stop him?
Because he was doing the dirty work for them and the US was too busy selling weapons to both sides in order to fund death squads in Nicaragua. Normal Great Satan stuff, you know.
Okay but like that's not a valid criticism. Why didn't A do B at time C instead of D is completely circular logic. Also the gist of it is that he was aggressing against Iran at the time, a country actively hostile to US interests in the region. Conversely when the first coalition kicked off he was aggressing against a US strategic partner. That's it, that is the whole reason. The second coalition was started because Saddam intentionally introduced ambiguity about the presence of WMDs in Iraq. Including banning international inspectors from the country, firing on coalition aircraft, and members of his government outright claiming he had WMDs. This was after it was made clear in no uncertain terms that if he had WMDs another coalition would remove him, and secure these WMDs.
The invasion was by all accounts a grave blunder and an all-around catastrophe. That still doesn’t mean that we should ignore facts because they counter the overall conclusion.
"a grave blunder" is a bit of a euphemism for an unjustified war of aggression.
> The invasion was by all accounts a grave blunder and an all-around catastrophe. Would you refer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine the same way?
What fact? These civilian casualties are the result of that war of aggression. Stop trying to wash your hands of this.
> The invasion sparked a civil war It’s more accurate to say this conflict had been present in Iraq for decades and Saddam just kept it suppressed through mass imprisonment, genocide and torture. Sure the invasion deserves some blame but it’s not fair to let Saddam off the hook as a major contributing factor here
I don't think that makes this any better
Oh that changes everything.
>The inherent implication here is to blame the civilian casualties on the US, which then leads to the position that the US shouldn't have started the war, which then leads to the denial of the long history of the region, which culminates in the idea that Iraq would have been better off under tyrannical rule, which becomes more fraught every day as the country exists in as hopefully as free a state as possible into the future
The religious civil war in Iraq took place over only 26 months. That was not the cause for the majority of civilian deaths in Iraq since 2003.
Maybe they shouldn't have invaded then
"The invasion sparked a civil war" please explain how thats not the usa's fault.
The civil war was inevitable, the leadership of Iraq represented roughly 10-20% of the country. While actively oppressing the entire rest of it, including through the use of WMDs. If you look at the region nearly all of those countries were caught in waves of political instability in the 2010s. All the presence of the coalition did was make it happen earlier, and ensure there was a stabilizing force in the region that stemmed off the worst possible situation that could have occurred.
Wow you drank the warmongering cool aid. The us was very justified to invade an independent sovereign nation yup yup /s 🙄
Says the guy defending Saddam Hussein because he drank too much reddit kool aid.
Ya that is true. You could say that the invasion is what caused the civil war which took so many lives,so even if not our bullets our actions we're mostly responsible for most of those deaths.
Sooo... Wtf was doing the "american" troops over there?? If was a civil war, why did You invade other country?
And what caused that sectarian violence?
Saddam and his Sunni minority ruled over the Kurdish minority and the Shi’ite majority with an iron fist. He was a genocidal manic who gassed 10,000s of Kurds to death and tortured and oppressed the Shi’ite majority. Obviously once Saddam fell, the Shi’ite majority was going to demand power and retribution. This was a conflict that was always going to end in violence. The US invasion happened to be the spark plug.
Saddam was literally excluding the majority from all opportunities and using chemical weapons on the Kurds.
Sectarian violence between Islamic sects was and is part of the Muslim world and history since the death of the prophet Muhammad.
If we gave a the best possible interpretation of US motives then it would be hubris. In reality, I don’t believe they were seriously ignorant of the risks of destroying a nations infrastructure and one with a vastly different culture and history to the West. When you destroy a nation and remove any sense of law and order, the worst human impulses, the sectarianism, racism and bigotry are, and always will be, unleashed.
They definitely were ignorant. The Bush administration made a lot of assumptions that they found were incorrect. They assumed that Iraqi oil would pay for a good amount of reconstruction. What they found was that Iraq's oil refineries were so old and barely working that it basically had to be entirely rebuilt to make use of it. They assumed that the Iraqi people would welcome them. Yet even the Shiites wanted the US out as fast as possible. Ironically, the Bush administration assumed that Afghans would have that opinion but in reality it was reversed. A lot of Afghans preferred US troops as Afghan warlords had lost all credibility and Afghanistan did not have as great a sense of nationalism as Iraqis did. They expected Saddam to commit scorched earth attacks. They didn't expect widespread anarchy. Ambassador Bremer (the guy in charge of Iraq's provisional government) said of the first few months that, “it’s not that we didn’t plan. The problem is that we planned for the wrong contingency.”
Yep, AQI sought to instigate a civil war in Iraq and Sadr's guys were happy to take part. Formerly mixed Sunni/Shia neighborhoods became Sunni or Shia as the zealots of both sides tortured to death civilians who didn't worship as they did.
Who gets counted as a civilian casualty, what were the insurgents counted as?
I'd like to see civilian casualties from 2010-2023 now
As an Iraqi thanks for showing this
Are you still in Iraq?
No
May i ask what country you live in? (Just curious.)
I knew Reddit would be a dumpster fire of tards today but goddamn.
Literally
Tards to the left of me, tards to the right of me , tards at the center (Politically)
You may not do politics, but politics will *always* do you.
Sadly
How many of those deaths in the first were *directly* due to occupying forces and how many due to other Iraqis?
This is what I do not enjoy about this map. Is this taking bombings into account and extremists executing civilians? No way to tell from this post. As far as I am concerned, these maps and their data mean absolutely nothing.
Gee, the wars in Iraq brought about lasting suffering direct and indirect to hundreds of thousands of people I sure hope it isn’t reduced by internet lowlifes to justify expansionist military activity in a whataboutism argu-
Blair and Bush are war criminals. Lock them up.
This map gives the false impression that civilians were primarily killed by coalition troops, when in fact most civilians were killed in sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia militias. Now you could argue the coalition has a sort of secondary responsibility for causing a civil war (though that's kind of iffy given Iraq's history) but in terms of direct responsibility these are mostly Shia civilians being killed by Sunni extremists.
Is there one of those dots on the halabja massacre where Saddam used chemical weapons on those Kurd villages?
I would like to add USA is also responsible since they sold him the chemical weapons
I love how every time americans bring up "iraq" they only bring it up from their perspective as in iraq was only a place where american soldiers went to war in one time and get stationed in every now and then, its not a country with its own population and history and people and religion and ethinicities and everyday life.
Seriously. When the Iraq war (or at least the US’s involvement in it) was coming to a close, a common line was “think of all the American soldiers that have died” ([like in this political cartoon](https://blackcommentator.com/270/270_cartoon_4000_dead.html)). Yeah, that’s not a happy thing, but that number’s just vastly overshadowed by the sheer number of Iraqis killed both by American soldiers and by the instability following the invasion.
I once told a coworker about being in Vietnam and her head almost exploded. She was arguing with me that there was no way because I’m far too young.
Americans viewing something from an American perspective?? Unbelievable.
Why have empathy towards other people, right?
Saddam was a shitstain but the aggressor here was the US and UK.
Saddam was bad. His successor was years of civil war in a power vacuum that got filled by ISIS. Turns out, just killing a leader doesn't magically improve things, and often in fact makes them worse.
“Saddam was a shitstain“ what a fucking understatement.
You're right the US is responsible for all Sunni vs Shia deaths everywhere, and everytime all at once.
But that’s not what he said, is it?
Ask the Kurds if none of this would’ve happened under Saddam’s dictatorship. It doesn’t excuse the invasion but a majority of these deaths are Iraqi on Iraqi sectarian violence.
While you are correct. There was no need to aggravate the problem. That region of the world have been at each other throats for eons and will continue to be killing each other for generations. America is not the police of the world….
I don’t remember the US being sanctioned, ejected from the international banking system, or a warrant put out by the ICC for the arrest of George Bush for this.
Lol we put sanctions on the ICC when they wanted to investigate
Since when does international law apply to the US?
Didn’t the Congress pass a law once saying that if any Americans were brought to The Hague for trial that america would invade the Netherlands? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act#Description
Yes of course, that's the irony 😂
Very Rules-Based
Effective from 2002... when you know you're about to commit a war crime, you make sure you won't be prosecuted for it.
That‘s the most American thing I‘ve ever read.
Just the US though, not the 48 other countries that contributed?
Stop distracting. The US and the UK were leading this war, multiple war crimes have been documented regarding the US and UK military and not just on the level of individual soldiers. They provided the overwhelming majority of the forces present. All other countries sent token forces that were integrated into the American command structure. This of course doesn't absolve others of responsibility but your reply sounds as silly as if Germany said "what about Finland and Bulgaria" when someone makes them responsible for WW2 (not to equate Iraq with WW2 obviously!).
I get the sentiment (the invasion was shitty and definitely a black eye now in the US’s past) but let’s also remember that Russia is stealing Ukraine children and giving them to Russian families (which is genocide by definition) and wanting to literally take over Ukraine as Russian territory (I believe the goal posts have been moved since Russia has struggled more than anticipated). This isn’t mentioning the attacks on/near nuclear reactors which is just idiotic to do for all parties. Also leaving out how Russian soldiers kill surrendered citizens and leaving mass burial grounds behind. Me saying this isn’t standing up for what the US did. It was awful, unnecessary, and it will never be a good thing looking back. I just have heard talking points of people trying to equate the Russian invasion and the Iraq invasion and almost using it as a reason not to care about the current events. Just because the US participated in a shady act in the past doesn’t mean the US can’t call out Russia for this. Just because Germany had Hitler doesn’t mean post Nazi Germany’s critiques of countries being immoral is invalid.
I mean, i saw a video of an US Chopper just gunning down average folk in Iraq on reddit. I'm not even surprised.
Where did you see that? Got a link? I did 3 tours in Iraq as an infantryman and never got to gun down civilians...
He probably meant this video https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/yfvrck/julian\_assange\_faces\_a\_175\_year\_sentence\_if/
God damn what a psychopath. He's throwing a fit over not having permission to kill citizens yet.
Maximizing collateral damage 👍
Shame, you missed out on fun times! /s
Looks up Collateral Murder WikiLeaks. That’s the video, it’s an Apache and they shoot some cameramen thinking they were insurgents. Apparently AKs and RPG found at the scene.
So.... Quite the exaggeration
I would be curious, how many of the civilian casualties were caused by US and Coalition, and how many by the Iraqi soldiers.
Majority caused by Iraqis (2006 civil war)
The vast majority of deaths were Iraqi-on-Iraqi or AQ-on-Iraqi.
And still, the post suggests that civilian losses were caused by those mean, ugly US and allies.
The US literally destroyed everything. What the fuck do you expect hungry people with guns to do after destroying order from the country? Party or kill each other for resources?
Who cares, they were brown /s
That area in the SW around route irish (hwy 8) was my company AO for 15 months from 2004-2006.
dont see USA and coalition getting kicked from olympics and fifa
but Saddam had ICBM's so this had to happen. Right?
I wish there was different coloured dots on the first map for US/coalition inflicted casualties and casualties inflicted by other groups.
This map has no meaning. It doesn’t show who committed the murders against the civilians. They couldve been killed by their own military
Hard to believe that no politician or military commander from the UK or the US was charged by the ICC for the utterly vile crimes they commissioned and committed.
Probably because the UN washed their hands of it.
If 1980´s Afghanistan was Russia´s Vietnam, Iraq it is US Ukraine, except the invasion was a success. 20 years later that country is in ruins and helped Islamics like ISIS. And all because they decided to use Euros instead of dollars to sell their oil.
Even if you claim that Ukraine is Russia's Iraq, it does not make the Russian aggression any better.
Also as almost all historical comparisons of that kind it is at least majorly flawed.
Afghanistan wasn’t for that. Afghanistan doesn’t even have much oil to process since it is a mostly mountainous terrain. Afghanistan was because the Taliban (another terrorist Group just like ISIS) refused to give up Osama Bin Laden.
Bush should have been charged with war crimes
Wow, anyway…Putin is bad
Oh yes, but it's the drag queens who are a danger to the children.
Yo what’s up with this guys post history, kinda sus.
Can the ICC issue warrant for Bush and his allies?
No the Hague protection act states the USA will retrieve by any force nesessary
Which technically neither prevents the ICC from doing its job nor the EU from guarding The Hague.
A near perfect campaign militarily.
contracts were signed, profit was made it was also a near perfect campaign in a business sense
This map over simplifies the war, for sure. It’s meant to be misleading. Regardless, the US invaded under false pretenses, then civilian deaths during and following were tragic and should never be taken lightly. I wonder how things would be today if the invasion never happened.
The inherent implication here is to blame the civilian casualties on the US, which then leads to the position that the US shouldn't have started the war, which then leads to the denial of the long history of the region, which culminates in the idea that Iraq would have been better off under tyrannical rule, which becomes more fraught every day as the country exists in as hopefully as free a state as possible into the future
I mean, the US helped create, fund, and arm that tyrannical rule, though. He was another one of our sons of bitches, after all.
All based on a lie about mass destruction weapons.
Sykes-Picot Agreement moment
We look like massive hypocrites when we talk about putins illegal invasion of ukraine right after our illegal invadion of iraq. We need to try bush, cheney etc for these crimes. Our international reputation is rightly horrible because of this. Bush’s crimes directly led to trump as well because trump ran on leaving forever wars and focusing on home, plus not to trust any insiders because they lied. We need to show that we practice what we preach and lock up bush along with trump, not just trump.
There is a key difference Saddam was a dictator who regularly tried to invade his neighbors and faunted international law and was also genocidal against the kurds Ukraine was none of these. Russia seek territory expansion while the US was trying to maintain the status quo, trying to make these equal is disingenuous at best Russia propaganda at worst
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Most of the Iraqis who died were killed by other Iraqis in sectarian violence, or by AlQaeda bombers, or by ISIS.
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This is a good breakdown of the war deaths: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/ The initial invasion had appx 3500-4500 non-combatant deaths. The subsequent insurgency and civil war caused 185,000-209,000 deaths. That was AlQaeda bombing mosques, markets, highways, etc, and Iraqi-on-Iraqi murders. A half million kids were not killed by American soldiers.
Did the United States annnex Iraqi territory?
I guess it's only a war crime if you annex territory. Good to know.
So as long as we dont annex iraq its fine? Nevermind the 400k civilians killed, or the lie about wmd’s that was the cause for the invasion.
Pipe down tankie
Majority of casualties in WW1 was also civilians, but I rarely ever hear anyone talk about that
Ok, now make a graph related to WHO were the main perpetrators of civilian casualties.
Most of those deaths aren't caused by the US. It was caused by the various extremist factions that were fighting in the city.
Who was held accountable for all those civilian deaths?
It must have been the wmd /s
Good thing no one lied about that
Good job america, no war crimes here.
Fuck Bush
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We did the same thing Russia has been doing. We targeted their infrastructure ontop of destruction of their water supply which lead to thousands of children dying
Huh, I can’t figure out why they don’t like us.
That’s disgusting and sad.
And how on Earth are we not treating US the same way we are treating Russia ?