Was Iraq war Justified?

[felice]

 

It has a lot. You claim that people join ISIS because of anger at the USA for harming Iraq. The Yazidis, Christians, and other Iraqi minorities haven't done anything really to harm Sunni Muslims in the region, yet they are being viciously targeted by ISIS all the same. Likely to do with the fact of them having different religious beliefs.

 

The US isn't the only target of ISIS; that doesn't mean it doesn't drive recruitment. The other minorities are more convenient and vulnerable targets, but their mere existence isn't sufficient to motivate something like ISIS. They're collateral damage.

 

Many people joined the US Army for college tuition; the fact that the US Army also invaded Iraq doesn't mean college tuition wasn't a factor in attracting recruits.

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

I wonder whatever happened to Saddam's "Dr. Germ?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rihab_Taha

 

It says she was released in 2005.... and no info after that. Perhaps dead, or fled to the west?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

 

The US isn't the only target of ISIS; that doesn't mean it doesn't drive recruitment. The other minorities are more convenient and vulnerable targets, but their mere existence isn't sufficient to motivate something like ISIS. They're collateral damage.

 

Many people joined the US Army for college tuition; the fact that the US Army also invaded Iraq doesn't mean college tuition wasn't a factor in attracting recruits.

 

To suggest that US adventurism in the Middle East is the prime motivating factor of ISIS recruitment is, I think, both wrong and reductionist. Certainly, the United States bears significant responsibility for creating the conditions under which ISIS has been able to find military and political success in the region, but this mostly has to do with the power vacuum created in Iraq when the US military pulled out, and the international community's willingness to sit by and let ISIS make gains against Assad in Syria because everyone hates Assad.

 

I think it's a mistake to diminish the violence ISIS inflicts against ethnic and religious minorities and Muslims they consider apostate as mere "collateral damage" because it ignores the central role that violence against unbelievers plays in ISIS' theology and how it plays into the establishment of a pure Islamic State.