ISIS leader reportedly dead.

Religious factors were a vehicle and the socio-political factors a rocket-fuel for their rise. If there was no Iraq War, there would be no ISIS - that is a fact.

Religious factors were a vehicle and the socio-political factors a rocket-fuel for their rise. If there was no Iraq War, there would be no ISIS - that is a fact.

I assume you tagged the wrong person.

I was talking about the end of your post, 'where did all the billions go'. Sorry if it wasn't clear

This classic... probably older than some users on here.

Come Mr. Al-Assad, turn over Baghdadi
Daylight come and we bomb Raqqa

Anything by bomb the base... maybe megablast?
Bang Bang - N Sinatra
Bye Bye Badman - Stone roses
Blow up - James Taylor Quartet
Go to hell - Motörhead
Another one bites the dust - Queen

How about Sean Kingston - Fire Burning?

Bonus tracks of Bad Guy, Shotgun and Love the Way You Lie

Come Mr. Al-Assad, turn over Baghdadi
Daylight come and we bomb Raqqa

Bat crazy out of Hell

If there had been no 9/11 then its unlikely they would have wanted to go there.

Who said anything about the Iraq War? Nice strawman.

And I don't agree that there would have been no ISIS. Maybe it would have taken longer but ISIS would have come about either way. Stop blaming the West for the toxic politics of the Middle East.

9/11 was not linked to Iraq at all - that was Afghanistan lmfao

Can't believe 3 people repped your post

Not a strawman at all - I was explaining the limited capacity that religion plays in the existence of ISIS, as I was showing it is a vaneer which covers a deeper issue and cause.

Generally speaking, one would have to be an ignoramous to not be cognizant of the West's role in Middle Eastern politics, and obviously not all of it is the West's fault. It is not black or white - rather there are shades of grey in between. You should not live by or assume that others live by polar paradigms when issues are more complex and multi-faceted. It insults your inteligence and it insults mine.

9/11 was the beginning of the so called war on terror. They are all linked. If it hadnt happened, then maybe the Americans would have had such a beef with certain countries and leaders in the middle east. No 9/11 no Afghan war and most likely no conflict with Iraq.

Would you rather ISIS and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had survived?

Does your knowledge of Middle Eastern politics extend back only to 2001? The US had issues with Iraq for a long time.

Though in some ways we all think it is, the US is not such a stupid country with thousands of people employed and involved in international relations, intelligence, diplomacy, millitary strategy, etc, that it invades countries on a whim or because of a 100% unrelated conflict thousands of miles away - it is usually only after extensive planning and risk assessment on multiple levels both at home and abroad, and perhaps with a grander strategy in the long run too that nations action things like this.

I never said anything like that - I would rather they were all dead or at the very least repentant and disarmed.
Going back to the original point: I will not stay silent about people using his death as a free pass to publicly mock the religious beliefs of my fellow Muslims.

We were talking about 'digs at religion being a factor in the rise of ISIS', not the Iraq War.

Obviously the West has a role in the politics of the Middle East. But then so does everything. Blaming the West for the Middle East's toxic and violent politics is just wrong. No, it's largely down to the instability of the different ethnic and religious groups constantly fighting and suppressing one another. It's a ****show.

And as I said, it is a limited factor.

Eh, not quite - you understate the role of the West; it would not be an overstatement to tie in a lot of the problems in the Middle East with the West, even if on the surface they appear to be religious or ethnic. Glazing over very quickly, one can see the following having origins or signicant ripples resulting from Western actions:

> The creation of Israel in 1947 due to British mismanigement of the Palestinian mandate.
>> Subsequent Wars and refugees impacting surrounding countries
>>> Ongoing hostilities between Israel and other nations resulting in the funding of terror groups e.g. Hezbollah, and sabre rattling by Iran
>>>> Communal tensions enhanced by refugee issue and intercomunal violence between Jews and Muslims within Palestine and also other countries where Judaism has been conflated with Zionism in anti-semitic attacks.

> The breaking up of the Ottoman empire by the British and French promoting pan-Arab sentiments only to purposefully divide and mislead the Arab people into many different nations, each with power vacuums that needed filling.
>> This also eventually caused pan-Arab parties to rise to fill some of these vaccuums e.g. the Ba'ath party which had noteable regimes under their banner - Saddam in Iraq and the Assad family in Syria, or other military dictators/pan-Arab dictators like Gaddafi.
>>>> These dictators have collectively been responsible for the deaths of several millions of people in the Middle East - more recently in the Syrian Civil War, but also other wars like the Iran-Iraq War and the Kurdish genocide.
>>>>> Wars like the First Gulf War which centred around control of oil, e.g. when Iraq conquered Kuwait and the West did not like that so intervened, and the unwarranted Iraq War of 2003 which has cost over a million Iraqi lives.

> The first pro-democracy Iranian revolution was inteferred with by the West and the Shah was backed as he maintained favourable relations which saw BP remain in control of most of Irans oil production.
>> This later bubbled over into greater anti-Western sentiment for forcing the Shah onto the people who didn't want him resuling in popular protest and the "awakening" of the Iranian population to religious-politics as the 1979 revolution took place. This too also received some covert funding from the Americans for whatever reasons.
>>> The Iranian government is hostile to Israel, the West, the Gulf countries and it exacerbates sectarian issues by pumping Shia militia from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan into Syria, and it funds the militia in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebonan (and now Syria), and the Houthis in Yemen.

And I could go on, talking about Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Libya, etc, but the point is made - Western interference has rarely been a positive force in the Middle East, to my knowledge.

If there is an afterlife then he has now discovered that Islam was a lie all along and that he fought his entire life for nothing