War Against ISIS

The systematic undercounting of civilian casualties by the Pentagon represents one of the most significant military deceptions of the modern era. The U.S. military acknowledges only 1,400 civilian deaths from 34,000+ airstrikes, while independent investigators like Airwars documented 8,000-13,000 civilian deaths — a ten-fold discrepancy. The military's methodology is deliberately designed to undercount: they only acknowledge deaths when presented with overwhelming evidence, exclude deaths from partner forces they support, and classify all military-age males as combatants unless proven otherwise. This systematic undercounting allows the Pentagon to claim precision while conducting one of the most intense bombing campaigns since World War II.

The destruction of Mosul and Raqqa to 'liberate' them raises fundamental questions about the morality of urban warfare in the 21st century. Both cities were essentially destroyed to save them — Mosul had 9,000-11,000 civilian deaths among a population of 1 million, while Raqqa was 80% destroyed with thousands of civilian casualties. Coalition forces dropped 20,000 tons of explosives on Raqqa alone. The 'liberation' looked more like the destruction of Dresden or Hiroshima than a precision military operation. For the civilians trapped inside, Coalition bombs were as deadly as ISIS executions.

The U.S. betrayal of Kurdish forces in 2019 was one of the most shameless acts of abandonment in modern American military history. The Syrian Democratic Forces lost 11,000 fighters defeating ISIS while U.S. casualties were minimal — Kurds did the dying while Americans did the bombing. Then Trump greenlit a Turkish invasion via a single phone call with Erdogan, displacing 300,000 Kurdish civilians and allowing 10,000+ ISIS prisoners to escape. The betrayal was so blatant that even Trump's Republican allies condemned it. Yet it revealed the truth about American military partnerships: local allies bear the casualties, America claims the credit, then abandons partners when convenient.

ISIS was a direct creation of American military intervention in Iraq, making the war against ISIS a $115 billion exercise in cleaning up America's own mess. Paul Bremer's decisions to disband the Iraqi military and implement de-Baathification in 2003 created 400,000 unemployed soldiers with military training and weapons expertise — the backbone of what became ISIS. At least 25 of ISIS's top 40 commanders were former Iraqi military officers. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was radicalized at the U.S.-run Camp Bucca prison. The sectarian civil war that followed the 2003 invasion created the conditions for ISIS to flourish. America spent $2 trillion destroying Iraq, then $115 billion more fighting the terrorist group that emerged from that destruction.

The use of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force to justify the anti-ISIS campaign represents the complete perversion of congressional war powers. The AUMF was written in three days after 9/11 to target al-Qaeda and the Taliban — groups that actually attacked America. ISIS didn't exist in 2001 and was actually fighting al-Qaeda by 2014. Yet this 60-word authorization has been stretched to justify bombing campaigns across Iraq and Syria against a completely different organization. The legal foundation for the largest U.S. military campaign since Iraq is a 20-year-old piece of paper that doesn't mention the enemy being fought.

The reliance on Kurdish proxy forces while simultaneously supporting their Turkish enemies revealed the complete incoherence of American regional policy. The U.S. armed and trained Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG/SDF) to fight ISIS while selling weapons to Turkey to fight the same Kurdish groups. America was literally arming both sides of a proxy conflict. Turkey's 2019 invasion of Kurdish areas was conducted with U.S.-made F-16s dropping U.S.-made bombs on U.S.-trained Kurdish forces. This triangular relationship — supporting Kurds against ISIS while supporting Turkey against Kurds — epitomized the contradictions of American Middle East policy.

The normalization of indefinite military detention at facilities like Camp Bucca actually created the ISIS leadership that America later spent billions fighting. U.S. detention facilities in Iraq became 'universities of jihad' where future terrorist leaders met, networked, radicalized, and planned. The irony is perfect: American prisons created the Islamic State, which America then spent $115 billion destroying. The same detention policies that were supposed to prevent terrorism actually incubated it.

The massive expansion of U.S. military presence across Iraq and Syria under the anti-ISIS umbrella created a permanent occupation with no congressional authorization or exit strategy. The U.S. now has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria — more than in Afghanistan at the end of that war. These forces control Iraqi oil fields and Syrian energy resources while operating under a 2001 authorization that doesn't mention either ISIS or Syria. The anti-ISIS campaign became a pretext for permanent U.S. military presence across the Middle East.

The partnership with Iraqi Shia militias to fight ISIS strengthened Iran's influence in Iraq — achieving the opposite of stated U.S. objectives. Iranian-backed groups like the Popular Mobilization Forces became the most effective Iraqi ground forces against ISIS, earning legitimacy and political power. The U.S. provided air support for Iranian proxy militias that later attacked U.S. bases and personnel. Fighting ISIS required empowering Iran's allies in Iraq, fundamentally contradicting America's broader regional strategy of containing Iranian influence.

The complete absence of accountability for creating ISIS reveals the impunity of the American foreign policy establishment. The officials who made the decisions that created ISIS — from the 2003 invasion to disbanding the Iraqi military to operating Camp Bucca — faced no consequences and in many cases were promoted. The same establishment that created the problem was then tasked with solving it, learning nothing from previous failures. Paul Bremer, who created the conditions for ISIS, has never been held accountable. The generals who failed to prevent radicalization in U.S. detention facilities were promoted. The cycle of failure without accountability guarantees that future interventions will produce similar disasters.