It's barely ever given to the west, and never in major media. And when someone in an anonymous internet comment dares suggest we might be morally accountable for vast amounts of innocent deaths - a trifle of a blip of a nothing in the discourse - we can count on certain people getting their feewings hurt and becoming overly defensive. "I'm always being accused!" cried Tony Soprano.
> No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the 2003 United States invasion. However, we know that between 184,382 and 207,156 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the U.S., its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through October 2019. [1]
[1] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/ir...
It was a 24/7 talking point by everyone on the left politically from the day the US invaded Iraq until the day Bush left office. Across all forums, anywhere a comment could be posted.
Google: "nytimes iraq death count" or "nytimes bush iraq civilian deaths"; or any number of dozens of variations on that same premise.
You must have missed the endless media parade about the Bush death count, and deaths from drone strikes. The headlines and discussion were everywhere across social media, mainstream media, on blogs.
You must be kidding, or never ever read any major Western media.
> And when someone in an anonymous internet comment dares
Oh no. Someone disagreed with you on the internet. It's horrible even thinking about this. Nobody should ever be victimized like this.
War introduces a lot of entropy into nations. It is the ultimate dice roll in terms of outcomes. You are taking a gamble. And history would suggest that civilians suffer hugely whatever the political outcome. If we know that then how can we shut our eyes to that effect?
That just sounds crazy given that our first retaliation for 9/11 was Iraq. Which had nothing to do with 9/11, and further...no "WMDs".
The first retaliation for 9/11 was not Iraq. That's a really bizarrely inaccurate claim.
The US invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from control of the country by the end of 2001. Operation Enduring Freedom launched in October 2001.
The Iraq invasion was 2003.
The US initially sent its special forces into Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 to work with the Northern Alliance to route the Taliban and pursue bin Laden, and then invaded.
Source?
Bin Laden initially declined responsibility, saying his hosts the taliban, would not allow such a operation.
(surely not out of being nice, but because of wanting to keep the power)
And later (after he confessed) the US was on full war with the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden not with them anymore.
I'm referring to that, not to his preinasvion evasion.
The Taliban didn't even cut relations with him or his associates after he confessed, and they were not without influence in AfPak.
Surely the Taliban should have been very upset with their 'guests' for getting them involved in Al-Qaeda's war, right? Unless the Taliban knew from the start... Obviously they did, since this wasn't Al-Qaeda's first attack against America.
As I wrote, there's little reason to give any credence to their not knowing, and even if we did, there were plenty of other things they should have given up Bin Laden for.
I am pretty sure, they were upset and maybe there were actual heads rolling behind the scenes. But on the outside, they had the US as common enemy. An enemy that hit them both as hard as he could, without making any difference.
So of course at that time, talking about extradiction was over.
But the Taliban while at power did made the civic offer to extradict Bin Laden, if presented with evidence.
So of course, it is not sure, if they actually would have done it. Maybe they would have ended in a civic war by themself over it.
But we never knew, because the US choose to go the brutal way. No evidence. No extradiction. Just war.
Now 20 years later with the Taliban back in power and stronger than ever, I can just say, awesome outcome with this approach.
No evidence of it, and I find this entire debate odd.
Again, the Taliban hosted a terrorist group which had publicly declared war against America, and launched known attacks - all this well known before 9-11. What did anyone expect this public antagonist group to do? Play volleyball?
If someone hosted a group called "Death to X" and the group predictably attacked X, that someone shouldn't get to claim innocence. Especially not after the nth attack!
>Now 20 years later with the Taliban back in power and stronger than ever
A completely predictable result of the ideological way the retreat was done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud#Assassinati...
Most of them killed by the same people the US targeted. Funny how all responsibility is always given to the West even when the people doing the killing are their enemies.
>the taliban back then only refused to hand over Bin Laden without evidence presented
Also after he publicly confessed, not to mention his previous crimes. Their refusal had nothing to do with 'evidence'.