Unhappy with U.S. role in wars

While it is easy to condemn the actions of ISIS (aka ISIL, Daesh, etc.), I believe the organization would not exist without the United States.

First, I believe ISIS is the direct result of the regional destabilization caused by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Initiated by President Bush, the rush to war enjoyed broad bipartisan political support and was approved of by the majority of Americans.

ISIS is a Sunni-based organization, and many of its members are former Iraqi military that the Bush administration had fired, who were then subsequently barred from working for the new Sunni government. Much of the weaponry ISIS possess and uses was paid for by U.S. taxpayers, some of which was taken (often with little resistance) from the current Iraqi forces.

Now, we are looking to pump more weapons into the equation, confident that “vetted Syrian moderates” will use them only as we direct. (Let’s not forget that we also created the Taliban and trained Osama Bin Laden, who we trusted to fight only the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan.)

Will Rogers once quipped that “No country should be allowed to start a new war until it has paid off the old one.”

The truth of this statement can be found in the folly of the Iraq War, for which America — and the world — seems destined to be stuck paying for in dollars and blood for many years yet to come.

This story was originally published November 29, 2015 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Unhappy with U.S. role in wars."