Did the US pulling out troops pave the way for ISIS?

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I first heard this from my dad, who is a pilot in the Air Force. He didn't go into a whole lot of detail (we weren't really having a big discussion about it) but basically he told me that a lot of soldiers were angry because rather than stay to "finish the job", so many people wanted us to pull the troops out that it ended up happening, and a lot of people who went and fought against terrorism over there did it for nothing, because rather than wait to establish a strong government to oppose these kinds of groups, we left it open for another terrorist group (ISIS) to rise up and take its place.

Personally I'm not sure whether or not sending troops over to Iraq in the first place was the right move, but I think that regardless, it's stupid to half-ass a job like that once it's been set in motion. Yeah, war is a terrible thing, but not everybody agrees with that, and somebody has to be there to stop those people, right? I don't think it's just black and white like a lot of anti-war people seem to think. Not that being anti-war is bad, I just mean the ones who think we should just not involve ourselves regardless of the fact that other people are starting wars and killing innocent people. Just because it's not happening near us doesn't mean it's none of our business.

But then again, I don't have all the facts, which is why I'm asking. It is really hard to get the full story on issues like this.

Right or wrong, it cost a fortune in money and blood, and the situation was only stable because we were there.

Obama got reelected on pulling out. He was also involved in State Supported Terrorism in Syria, and having Americans holding the Iraq border trapped his hired guns. They were between the Kurds and the Syrians, just like now, but could not resupply through Iraq.

ISIS seems another party, Saudi, some other Gulf States, who did not want a democratic outcome in Iraq or Syria. The Saudis are a religious dictatorship, with too much money. To them the government we left in Iraq was a Iran puppet, and they have long standing bad blood. Iran does not believe in Kings who are also head of religion.

That is all water under the bridge, what we face now is 200,000 well armed and funded troops, who just want to chop off heads and take over the world.

We went into Iraq and Afghanistan to not let it be a base for head chopping world conquest. We joined a religious war that has been going on for some 1200 years. You cannot just quit and go home, that is not how the Middle East works.

You may think of yourself as a person, in the most developed part of the world, but to the Middle East you are just another tribe upon whom they have sworn blood revenge. They do not mind dying to get revenge, and if it takes a hundred years, bombs will be set off in your tribal lands. Revenge is not war, it is waged against women, children, goats, it never stops.

Fighting can be stopped, Saddam did it, better than us. When a Kurd tries to kill you, gas 8,000. If that seems harsh, we do not talk much about what happened in Fallujah. The short version it was surrounded then turned into a parking lot. Saddam lost zero gassing Kurds, we lost a lot at Fallujah.

I happen to think that invading Iraq was one of the dumbest things ever, only topped by leaving.

All wars are dumb, and once you send in the Green Tribe, who are only there to get the job done, you have to join their tribe. We hold these truths to be self evident, that they have earned an eternal right to piss on the parking lot that was Fallujah.

Obama claimed he withdrew the troops because Bush had made an agreement that American troops would have to answer to Iraqi Law. Big deal, Iraqi Law would have to answer to the troops. What parking lot would they try Americans in? Your Honor, there are a hundred American troops outside. What are they doing? They are pissing on the Courthouse.

As recent events show, Iraqis will not do anything, unless told. We did not have to occupy the whole country, five, thousand man bases would do, and not have to leave the base.

Bush spent several weekends in the Texas National Guard, and Obama Debated at Harvard. Not Warriors.

Obama said the Arabic people must stop ISIS. Then they lost Libya, Egypt, Sinai. Reality is an army of 200,000 well armed and funded, and it has to be stopped. Bomb them they grow.

This has moved from political error to world problem.

Ask your father, What would staying and "finishing the job" have entailed?

Well war and killing isn't the best option, I guess because even if you were able to kill all the people causing something, eventually one of their sympathizers will strike again which would lead to more death.

The whole thing from invading the wrong country, to doing it wrong in many ways once we did invade, to quitting once we realized we screwed up led to ISIS

It was the Iraqis' lack of fortitude and military discipline that caused them to crumble before ISIS the way that the French did before the Nazis in WWII -- which is another case when American forces had to step in to fight for someone else.

We gotta stop doing that, and let military Darwinism work its magic.

We've been meddling in the middle east for a long time now. We've created many power vacuums in doing so that lead to the formation of a new group that we later had to deal with. We don't learn from our past mistakes, we just keep repeating them.

No, toppling the bath party did

This!

Paul Brenner was put in charge of the occupational government of Iraq once Saddam was ousted.
Brenner's very first order issued was the one that disbanded the Iraqi military in 2003, it also prevented anyone who was Bathist and/or served under Saddam to join the new Iraqi military and serve in any level of government.
Brenner also for this second order purged the Iraqi government at every level of Bathest and those who opposed the occupation. They also were banned from serving in the new government and military.

These people were the ones who began the uprising against the occupational government.
The only reason why a brief state of peace happened was due to the new U.S. General paid the Sunni's tons of money to lay down their arms and work with the U.S.
This worked until Congress and the President found out, who then decided to stop it (though the general then used other money to pay for it).

Nouri al-Maliki succeeded Brenner and the occupational government on May 20th 2006.
He decided to exact revenge on the Sunnis for their doings and indifference to Saddam, using the powers of the new Iraqi government.
He and his party empowered and armed the Shiite (Shia) militias to exterminate the Sunnis for their treason against Iraq over the years.
He also wanted to make Iraq into Shiite state.
He was able to get away with this until mid 2014, because he had the backing of the U.S.
The Sunnis rose up again to protect themselves/overthrow the government

The majority of ISIS is formed by the people affected by these two situations.
When Nouri al-Maliki was ousted as prime minister, the new current prime minister cracked down and reigned in the militias.
Even many of the loyal Shiites took offense to this and took their American arms and joined ISIS.

Then Syrian uprising/civil war which greatly increased the ranks of ISIS due to Western and UN inaction (Russia primarily was blocking it).

QFT
Paul Bremer basically created the raging insurgency. I've always related it as a thought experiment. Suppose you were a national guardsman and the US was invaded, you get called up to whatever state you are in and get weapons and ammunition only the foreign power doesn't even bother with your state and just takes Washington, toppling the chain of command and leaving you scratching your head, wondering what to do. Guess what would happen if they fired you and said you'd probably never find gainful employment again?
Exactly what you'd expect to happen.

No, the invasion of Iraq and the banning of the Ba'ath Party paved the way for ISIS. Our support for "rebels" in Libya and Syria paved the way for ISIS. Pulling out troops results in save money and saved lives, period. We can't fix the middle east no matter what we do, we're just picking one bad guy over another.

ISIS was created by Jewish supremacists, who cowardly hide behind the majority of the Jews. If you don't believe me, then answer me this: why hasn't ISIS, which is a so called Muslim extremist group, attacked Israel?

For the same reason that the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbor, and that the Japanese never occupied Paris. ISIS is not yet strong enough, nor in a geographic position to attack Israel.

But for the moment the existence of ISIS does benifit Israel more than it threatens Israel because ISIS is a threat to Israel's enemies more that it is an immediate threat to Israel itself. Your insane rant does contain that one grain of actual truth.

I don't have time to go into great detail.

In a sense, yes, pulling out paved the way for ISIS.

On the other hand, unless we stayed there for another 50 years to raise a generation that was willing to fight and die for the freedoms they now enjoy, whenever we did pull out our troops, the collapse of those free societies was inevitable.

You cannot hand freedom to slaves and automatically expect that they will value and appreciate what it takes to preserve that freedom.

In other term, you are saying Shiite extremism/favoritism of Maliki (and Al Assad considering his sect is an offshoot of Shiism), supported by the Iranian regime pulled Sunni extremism out of the hat.

You are right though, just because dictators wear suits and ties and look somehow "western" doesn't mean that they aren't sectarian/tribal to the boots ...all of them were so, Maliki was one, Saddam was one, Qaddafi was one and Assad is one.

That explains the motives of the big dogs who use religious strives to get political and leadership gains; but it doesn't explain the insanity of their followers and their numbers.

Radicalism has been a real problem in Muslim societies for quite a while, Sunni and otherwise.

There's a serious problem in the religion itself.... and a secular social revolution is must needed. ISIS is a symptom of a bigger very old disease.

After we invaded Iraq we disbanded the old Iraqi army (Republican Guard, and all) putting a bunch of secular, but angry and disgruntled unemployed military men onto the street. They (and their military skills) became the core of ISIS.

And the above mentioned factors: the role reversal after the toppling of the secular (but ethnically Sunni) Saddam Hussien dictatorship and its replacement by the secular (but ethnically Shiite) Malaki regime.

Now the Shiites are the ass-kickers and that the Sunnies are now the marginalized. So when ISIS came to call the Sunni militia felt no gut urge to fight for Maliki, and may even have preferred to gamble on rule by the Sunni based ISIS. Hense the rout of the 200k man Iraqi army by 30k ISIS fighters.