99.9% of the population of any country mostly just want to live their lives and politically all they do is talk and maybe fill in a circle on a ballot once in a awhile. There's a useful fiction that they're all collectively responsible which is used for various illegitimate justifications.
Just like soldiers fight for the person next to them, insurgencies are born because your family members got killed by foreign solders who parked tanks in your cities. Once you leave the rationalizations of the political theater behind and get down to the reality of where the individual acts of homicide are happening in the war, it is all the same thing.
What are you saying?
The war in Afghanistan was obviously a complete and total failure given that the Taliban are now back in charge, but it's hard to argue that after all this time that the Iraqis aren't better off living in an (albeit flawed) democracy than under the rule of Saddam Hussain.
A different clique is on top in Iraq now, but Iraqi standard of living does not appear to be an improvement over the Saddam years.
If you’re Shi’ite there’s no doubt it’s better now, though.
This hypocrisy is prevalent and disgusting.