Islam Takes Out A Few Of Us Here, We Take Out A Lot Of Them There

[Athena]

Today marks (pardon the pun) what may be the deadliest Ally attack on civilians in Syria yet. I say "yet" because this is hardly the first and far from the last.

A U.S. air strike killed roughly 85 civilians mistaken for terrorists in Syria, today.

Some eight families were hit as they tried to flee fighting in their area, in one of the single deadliest strikes on civilians by the alliance since the start of its operations in the war-torn country.

Pictures of the aftermath of the dawn strikes on the Isil-controlled village of Tokhar near Manbij in northern Syria showed the bodies of children as young as three under piles of rubble.

If you google "air strike kills civilians", you will find dozens of reports of U.S. and British air strikes that have taken out civilians. Neither government keeps public numbers on the matter.

So, for those of you who find a little more hate in your heart for every violent attack a terrorist or immigrant is responsible for...

Can you explain to me why the thousands of civilians in the Middle East killed by Allies is acceptable?

 

[Pete Bondurant]

We should negotiate with ISIS. Send every white guilt liberal to Iraq, and we will take goats in exchange, so as to prevent them from being sexually violated.

 

[biteme]

Do t know why I bother
To stop this

UN concluded that in the first eight months of 2014, at least 9,347 civilians had been killed and at least 17,386 wounded. While all these deaths are not attributable to ISIS alone, ISIS is identified as the primary actor.

And this

.
Islamic State’s ‘four weeks of pain for infidels’ claim more than 800 lives: Huge death toll of attacks in Iraq, Bangladesh and the US following Islamists’ call for slaughtering Ramadan

And much more of the same, only to get worse without intervention

 

[Countess Olenska]

It's not okay. Thank the media for watering down our news to coverage of which kardashian is showing her butthole today. They are the reason so many Americans are clueless about what our own people are doing in other countries.

 

[Sudonim]

They have been doing studies on those involved in recent terrorist acts and have found that IS is unlike any other terrorist group, ever. Only a few of the attacks have been organized by IS, the rest are done mostly by mentally ill people, acting alone, who feel the need to do something sensational. Similar to all the mass shootings in schools etc. IS of course takes credit even if they didn't know of the attacks, or the people committing them, because why not! They want to instill fear, and if an attack did just that, it's in their benefit to take credit.

It's because of this that bombing isn't working. They can bomb all they want, they can kill IS leaders, but it doesn't stop the lone wolves from acting. There is no effective way of dealing with IS terrorist acts at this point. The lone wolves aren't crossing borders to commit these acts, they are already citizens in these countries. Some of them aren't even radicalized in the normal sense. They literally have done google searches to see how to commit radicalized terrorist attacks. That's not radicalization. That's trying to make your crime appear that way. This is why so many of them break every rule known to Islam, because they don't care about the religion and are using it as a means to an end.

Since Nice, France has said it's going to ramp up their actions in Syria and Iraq. The US is going to assist. You will see many more citizens killed, on both sides of this war because the governments aren't taking heed of the warnings being given. The US, France and the UK are the 3 main forces fighting IS, all 3 were warned long ago, by their own advisors, that the more territory IS loses the more likely they are to lash out with attacks. They were warned that this is a war unlike any other.

A good chunk of this falls back to western countries sticking their noses were they don't belong. We feel some sort of inherent right to make other countries just like ours. We want them to have the same rights, laws, etc. We want them to be westernized, yet we fail to see they have completely different socioeconomics. They are not us and we shouldn't be trying to make them into us. Not every country should be a democracy, especially when we are trying to force our broken models onto them. Look at what we've done to Iraq. The country was far more stable under Saddam.

 

[BostonBurns]

Simply put, the answer is intent, we're not purposely targeting civilians and take great steps to avoid killing or injuring them.

They purposely target non-combatants, including women and children and actually have been known to hide behind civilians to avoid attack.

 

[Athena]

Intent. We aren't trying to. Yes, that would be the primary justification for downplaying the effects these air strikes.

For the purposes of this conversation, what they do is not germane. They are terrorists. Of course they're fucking awful.

But, 85 killed in just one air strike. There have been 450 air strikes since May. Literally countless civilians killed or injured as a result. And at the same time, they catch wind of Americans shaming them for wanting to leave, suggesting they stay and fight for their country, trying to ban refugees from their states. Fight what? These are supposedly the good guys, right? 450 air strikes in under three months.

Can we begin to understand how the line between "good guy" and "bad guy" gets blurred in such a scenario?

Obama was asked at a news conference about an increase in the number of people targeted in drone strikes against extremists in Libya, Syria, Somalia and elsewhere.

“In the past, there was legitimate criticism that the legal architecture around the use of drone strikes wasn’t as precise as it should have been,” Obama said. “There’s no doubt that civilians were killed that shouldn’t have been.”

He added that over the last several years, the administration has worked to prevent civilian deaths.

Libya... Syria... Somalia... and elsewhere. And, we were completely willy-nilly with that shit for a while. Not as precise as we should have been is an exceptionally gentle way to phrase it. Meanwhile, civilian populations pay the price for our ineptitude while we hone our drone skills.

How can the people of these nations not see two enemies?

Recent drone and other airstrikes against extremist targets have killed large numbers of people. A strike on an Islamic State training camp in western Libya in February killed more than 40 people; a drone strike in Somalia against al-Shabab on March 5 killed 150 people. Another drone strike, in Yemen in February, killed dozens.

We are at war with giant chunk of the planet. Is it really necessary, or have we fallen down the rabbit hole? Does this strategy have any hope of ending the threat, or does it just churn out more? How much of this is really just an attempt to help stabilize the region for the Saudis?

 

[JackBurton]

Can you explain to me why the thousands of civilians in the Middle East killed by Allies is acceptable?

I understand what this thread is, but i'll play along anyways.

The biggest difference is that the civilian casualties are either total accidents or deemed acceptable in regards to the greater good the elimination of a certain target will provide.

And "acceptable" is a tricky word to throw out there, kinda unfair i think. If i find stories like this sickening, but i still think this is a war worth waging regardless, does that mean i'm accepting of them? I suppose it would, but that hardly makes me a shitty person, it doesn't mean i have little regard for the civilians in the middle. It doesn't mean i'm not sickened by stories like these or that i don't think the gov'ts of the countries involved should be held accountable.

I find them "acceptable" cuz it's a war, and one that needs to be fought. There's a reason thousands of refugees have fled, and are still fleeing, these countries. It's either we turn our backs and ignore the cause of that, or we bomb and unfortunately some civilians will die. There's no other options in this, not at this stage in the game.

And it's not Western nations working alone out there. We have very very very few boots on the ground. The overwhelming majority of these airstrikes are a result of intel and targets provided by Syrians, by Iraqis, by Kurds. This really isn't a case of big bad America or big bad Western civilization callously and carelessly and selfishly causing mayhem and strife in the third world. These people share responsibility for these botched airstrikes.

Look at what we've done to Iraq. The country was far more stable under Saddam.

We don't want them stable. It's better for the West in the long run if extremists have a place to congregate and focus their efforts on. A muslim country will only be peaceful if it's rich, or if it has an iron fisted gov't that wil lsquash the people. The best we can hope for for the majority of these countries is a fish in the barrel type of situation, where extremists filter in and cause chaos there instead of perpetrating events like the Sept 11th attacks, where we can more easily target and blow up large numbers of them.

Intent. We aren't trying to. Yes, that would be the primary justification for downplaying the effects these air strikes.

I don't think anyone is downplaying. You asked a loaded question, you got a reasonable answer. No one was coming anywhere close to downplaying the severity or horror of such things.

It's perfectly fine to be of the mindset that if there will be a single civilian casualty, then war isn't worth it. However, to have a more nuanced opinion on the matter doesn't mean we're seeking to justify mistakes or downplay the horrors of war.

For the purposes of this conversation, what they do is not germane. They are terrorists.

If you didn't wish to incite comparisons then why did you title this thread "Islam takes out a few of us here..."?

Plus, again, the airstrikes are directly tied to this war with ISIS. Why would it not be relevant to discuss the intended target? There wouldn't be airstrikes at all if they weren't doing what they do.

Is it really necessary, or have we fallen down the rabbit hole? Does this strategy have any hope of ending the threat, or does it just churn out more?

Hasn't been another attack on the level of Sept 11th, not even close, so it might be working. As the other poster pointed out, most if not all these attacks are lone wolf, crazed nutter type of deals, not the hand of ISIS itself reaching out to strike down Westerners. And what other choice does the West have? In a perfect world, we'd simply leave the middle east forever, have no dealings with these nations at all, to include Israel. Of course, there's no chance of that ever happening, it's simply not a reasonable possibility, not in the slightest. The threat and the hatred will ALWAYS exist, whether we bomb or not.

Things would be worse for civilians in Syria if ISIS went unchecked by the West though.

 

[Pete Bondurant]

I understand what this thread is, but i'll play along anyways.

The biggest difference is that the civilian casualties are either total accidents or deemed acceptable in regards to the greater good the elimination of a certain target will provide.

And "acceptable" is a tricky word to throw out there, kinda unfair i think. If i find stories like this sickening, but i still think this is a war worth waging regardless, does that mean i'm accepting of them? I suppose it would, but that hardly makes me a shitty person, it doesn't mean i have little regard for the civilians in the middle. It doesn't mean i'm not sickened by stories like these or that i don't think the gov'ts of the countries involved should be held accountable.

I find them "acceptable" cuz it's a war, and one that needs to be fought. There's a reason thousands of refugees have fled, and are still fleeing, these countries. It's either we turn our backs and ignore the cause of that, or we bomb and unfortunately some civilians will die. There's no other options in this, not at this stage in the game.

And it's not Western nations working alone out there. We have very very very few boots on the ground. The overwhelming majority of these airstrikes are a result of intel and targets provided by Syrians, by Iraqis, by Kurds. This really isn't a case of big bad America or big bad Western civilization callously and carelessly and selfishly causing mayhem and strife in the third world. These people share responsibility for these botched airstrikes.



We don't want them stable. It's better for the West in the long run if extremists have a place to congregate and focus their efforts on. A muslim country will only be peaceful if it's rich, or if it has an iron fisted gov't that wil lsquash the people. The best we can hope for for the majority of these countries is a fish in the barrel type of situation, where extremists filter in and cause chaos there instead of perpetrating events like the Sept 11th attacks, where we can more easily target and blow up large numbers of them.



I don't think anyone is downplaying. You asked a loaded question, you got a reasonable answer. No one was coming anywhere close to downplaying the severity or horror of such things.

It's perfectly fine to be of the mindset that if there will be a single civilian casualty, then war isn't worth it. However, to have a more nuanced opinion on the matter doesn't mean we're seeking to justify mistakes or downplay the horrors of war.



If you didn't wish to incite comparisons then why did you title this thread "Islam takes out a few of us here..."?

Plus, again, the airstrikes are directly tied to this war with ISIS. Why would it not be relevant to discuss the intended target? There wouldn't be airstrikes at all if they weren't doing what they do.



Hasn't been another attack on the level of Sept 11th, not even close, so it might be working. As the other poster pointed out, most if not all these attacks are lone wolf, crazed nutter type of deals, not the hand of ISIS itself reaching out to strike down Westerners. And what other choice does the West have? In a perfect world, we'd simply leave the middle east forever, have no dealings with these nations at all, to include Israel. Of course, there's no chance of that ever happening, it's simply not a reasonable possibility, not in the slightest. The threat and the hatred will ALWAYS exist, whether we bomb or not.

Things would be worse for civilians in Syria if ISIS went unchecked by the West though.

Jack Burton is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

 

[Athena]

I understand what this thread is, but i'll play along anyways.

Yes, it's a debate thread. It's intentionally loaded. Those are the instructions for this particular sub-forum. From day one, I've been encouraged to start threads of this nature, and remove threads that are not of this nature. (And I've been slackin'.)

I find them "acceptable" cuz it's a war, and one that needs to be fought. There's a reason thousands of refugees have fled, and are still fleeing, these countries. It's either we turn our backs and ignore the cause of that, or we bomb and unfortunately some civilians will die.

We don't want them stable. It's better for the West in the long run if extremists have a place to congregate and focus their efforts on. A muslim country will only be peaceful if it's rich, or if it has an iron fisted gov't that wil lsquash the people. The best we can hope for for the majority of these countries is a fish in the barrel type of situation, where extremists filter in and cause chaos there instead of perpetrating events like the Sept 11th attacks, where we can more easily target and blow up large numbers of them.

These two statements seem contradictory. Are we fighting the good fight, or are we using a particular populace as bait, essentially? If we're striking Syria partially in the hope that terrorists focus their efforts there, knowing that they attack their own communities - terrorists are killing them and we're killing them - might turning our backs actually be a more noble option?

Not to mention our strategy of training and arming locals, which has done a whole lot of backfiring. Given the fact that so many of the people we've trained and armed seem to turn against us eventually, is it possible that our lack of understanding the tribalism in these regions before training and arming them is doing more harm than good?

I don't think anyone is downplaying. You asked a loaded question, you got a reasonable answer. No one was coming anywhere close to downplaying the severity or horror of such things.

I was using the societal "we". Not we here in this forum, we here in these countries. This story wasn't on my local news, was not shared widely on my Facebook page, was not mentioned during the national news I caught...

It's perfectly fine to be of the mindset that if there will be a single civilian casualty, then war isn't worth it. However, to have a more nuanced opinion on the matter doesn't mean we're seeking to justify mistakes or downplay the horrors of war.

And this is the crux I had hoped to get at. I am not of the opinion that war isn't worth even a single causality. I am asking, how many civilian casualties makes the effort counter-productive? Where's the tipping point?

If you didn't wish to incite comparisons then why did you title this thread "Islam takes out a few of us here..."?

Plus, again, the airstrikes are directly tied to this war with ISIS. Why would it not be relevant to discuss the intended target? There wouldn't be airstrikes at all if they weren't doing what they do.

Sure, what ISIS does here. The point was to juxtapose the civilian casualties western nations have incurred on home turf vs. civilian casualties allies have imposed in the Middle East. The damage we cause there is more easily excused when it's compared to the damage they do there. Kinda like how people always bring up black-on-black crime when we're talking about cops shooting blacks. Yeah, it's an issue... but a separate one.

 

[JackBurton]

Are we fighting the good fight, or are we using a particular populace as bait, essentially?

Both.

You're never going to have peace in countries like Syria and Iraq. Ever. These countries were doomed before we started meddling. The best thing you can say about Iraq is that Saddam controlled the extremists better, yeesh wow, how bout that. It's pretty much a choice of who do you want brutalized and how do you want it done, when it comes to the "was iraq better off before America stuck its nose where it didn't belong" question. Syrias descent began on its own, they themselves rebelled, then we poked our nose in. They were heading for chaos already.

Some Western leaders will genuinely strive for stability, at least at first. We've learned quite painfully how difficult that is and how surely such efforts are to fail though. The next best option after that fails miserably is to embrace it and simply encourage a breeding ground, and then try to spot control via intense bombing. It's like letting some maggots into a persons infection, to eat away the dead and decaying flesh. It's for your bodys overrall health, however you don't want to let the maggots get out of control and start infesting the rest of you or your bed/belongings/etc. The Western world would be the overall body and the chaotic mess of violence and terror and Islamic extremism would be the maggots in that analogy.

The West gets a hunting ground as well as a magnet for the prey that's chosen us, and the folks living in these countries(and again, important to note these folks were and always will be completely fucked, no matter how noble or well meaning anyones efforts may be) benefit from American military power.

? If we're striking Syria partially in the hope that terrorists focus their efforts there, knowing that they attack their own communities - terrorists are killing them and we're killing them - might turning our backs actually be a more noble option?

Extremism isn't going anywhere, groups like ISIS will exist and thrive no matter what America does. That's important to note too. A lot of the decisions and strategies the West has employed has been to the detriment of the stability of these countries, but again, they weren't going to be very nice places regardless. Terrorist groups would cause some level of problems regardless, or they'd simply find another country to fuck around in, or another cause to put all their efforts behind(like destroying America for example). We didn't create the mess, we just took advantage of it.

What we've done in Syria and after years of failing, Iraq as well, is the best way Western civilization has found yet to manage the shitshow in that region of the world. You can't make these countries wealthy, you can't give them stable/effective gov'ts(we tried with Iraq and Afghan). Therefore, you can't eliminate the violence and extremism and bloodshed, the best you can do is enact some method of control, some manner of managing it. We've done a solid job i think when it comes to that, finally. It took well over a decade of war in two different countries, but we figured it out and Syria is a shining example of this.

Not to mention our strategy of training and arming locals, which has done a whole lot of backfiring. Given the fact that so many of the people we've trained and armed seem to turn against us eventually, is it possible that our lack of understanding the tribalism in these regions before training and arming them is doing more harm than good?

Nothings perfect. Def agree America is fucking up with a lot of this shit.

At the same time though, if you don't form some partnerships, you'll have no intel on the ground, no way of knowing where the enemy is. And if someone desires to fight, they will find weapons regardless of what help America offers. The only way to ensure these people won't develop some grudge against the West for something is to cut off any and all interactions, which again is impossible. So, if there's a good chance no matter what that lots of folks there are gonna hate ya for SOMETHING sometime down the line, is it really that big a deal to make a partnership to benefit all in the here and now? We'll make some deals to kill ISIS shitheads, and then bomb whoever the next neanderthals are that want to express their dissatisfaction with the world they have no business trying to exert influence in.

Nothing wrong with a neverending cycle i don't think.

I was using the societal "we". Not we here in this forum, we here in these countries. This story wasn't on my local news, was not shared widely on my Facebook page, was not mentioned during the national news I caught...

Cool. I perceived(perhaps incorrectly) a more negative tone that led me to think much of this was you stating your viewpoint and coming rather hard about it too, rather then merely trying to spark discussion/debate/etc.

I could rant for days about my hatred for the media and the state of "journalism" today. It's sickening. But if that's the issue, we could make a thousand threads just like this one regarding allllllllll the serious, important, life and death shit going on in the world that gets the blind eye treatment. I think it is true that the mainstream media doesn't give a shit about this stuff, and unfortunately as a result your average American who doesn't seek out truth and reality for themselves will be left ignorant of it.

I don't think it would change most peoples opinions though. You have to think about the effect these terrorist attacks have on the average person. Most Americans aren't going, "ok, this shooting or bombing or stabbing wasn't the ISIS army invading my country, it's just some lone fucker who has subscribes to their ideology". And even the more sensible folks have still read about or seen the horrifying atrocities ISIS has committed. An unfortunate botched air strike, even if it killed 100 people, isn't going to make people with such an intense fear and hatred for the enemy stop and reconsider it all, won't stop them from having that fear or from thinking we NEED to be doing what we're doing. Again, the alternative to us not being there, not bombing ISIS, not disrupting their activities, is going to be worse than incidents like this.

I think it is worth mentioning though that the successes aren't big news either. I remember getting into it months ago in another thread when a number of people were making comments that seeemed to express a belief that America wasn't going after ISIS, or at least not hard enough. It was shortly after France got involved, Russia had fairly recently started their bombings. People were acting like Amerca was sitting on is ass while Russia was running away with it and even France was taking a more active role. It wasn't just here either, i read similar negative things on other websites and heard em from people in my real life. I got friends/relatives in the military, folks who have active roles when it comes to the shit going on over there, so i've heard from others first hand what's happening. And even if i didn't, the info is out there and you can find it if you want to explicitly search for it. But American success in killing ISIS fucks over there isn't huge in the news either. The record bombing campaigns aren't talked about much, the successful airstrikes aren't talked about much, the successful efforts made at targeting and disrupting the groups cash flow hasn't been huge news. There's been stories, but whether it's bad or good news, this shit isn't front page or primetime by any stretch. Whether it's bad or good news, the average American isn't aware of it, not in any serious detail for sure.

For as much attention as ISIS gets, the actual war effort against it simply isn't a story the media pushes too much, and not one most Americans are too interested in keeping a detailed account of.

I am asking, how many civilian casualties makes the effort counter-productive? Where's the tipping point?

Was it Afghanistan early this year or last year where a AC-130 blew the shit out of a hospital and killed a bunch of patients and doctors(many if not most of them western docs doing charitable work)? How many people still remember that shit? Fuck i can't even recall what country that happened in exactly.

It's a war, this shit blows over, gets forgotten about. ISIS does something else rotten and focus shifts away. I don't think Western sentiment, no matter the news coverrage, will ever substantially change or flip around on this.

The news from the countries themselves will always be the same as well, reporting large groups praying for help and welcoming Western aid as well as large segments of the pop expressing anger. It's all par for the course. There's always going to be a split, collateral damage and botched strikes or not.

That was a fucking rant. My bad folks, didn't realize i was borderline pulling a saradownunder in here. Fuck i doubt this site could handle the bandwidth requirements once she gets wind of this thread.

 

[Athena]

The West gets a hunting ground as well as a magnet for the prey that's chosen us...

And that's why I offered mild support to the Iraq endeavor. It was drawing opponents to territory we could win in. Afghanistan was always going to be a shit show, and it was an arrogant and unwise military endeavor... and continues to be.

For the sake of clarity, I lean in a hard isolationist direction, and not because I disagree with the lives lost. I'm Armenian on one side and Croatian on the other. My lineage has two fairly recent examples of conflicts my heart would have wanted allied intervention in. But my brain looks at the information available and thinks the total death toll would be less, and regions could split and reorganize along more natural lines, without allied intervention.

...and the folks living in these countries(and again, important to note these folks were and always will be completely fucked, no matter how noble or well meaning anyones efforts may be) benefit from American military power.

But, do they? Do they REALLY? Or is it just the Saudis benefiting? I am hard pressed to come to the conclusion that heavy allied engagement has been a net benefit to any of these countries. It could be alleged that private contractors in those countries have made more money than has made it into the country itself via aid or infrastructure.

Cool. I perceived(perhaps incorrectly) a more negative tone that led me to think much of this was you stating your viewpoint and coming rather hard about it too, rather then merely trying to spark discussion/debate/etc.

When I'm a twat, which I've been plenty lately, maybe even a little too heavy-handed with it, it's by design, and I don't blame you one iota for assuming that. But, I swear, for realsy, I'm much more interested in civil, intelligent interchange. So, thanks.

An unfortunate botched air strike, even if it killed 100 people, isn't going to make people with such an intense fear and hatred for the enemy stop and reconsider it all, won't stop them from having that fear or from thinking we NEED to be doing what we're doing. Again, the alternative to us not being there, not bombing ISIS, not disrupting their activities, is going to be worse than incidents like this.

I agree with the first part. All the coverage in the world will do little to change world views, as world views are developed with input from many more sources than simply news coverage.

But, it can be argued that we created ISIS. From The Guardian:

A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.

Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)”.

pretty well exactly what happened two years later. The report isn’t a policy document. It’s heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language. But the implications are clear enough. A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren’t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of “Islamic state” – despite the “grave danger” to Iraq’s unity – as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria.

That doesn’t mean the US created Isis, of course, though some of its Gulf allies certainly played a role in it – as the US vice-president, Joe Biden, acknowledged last year. But there was no al-Qaida in Iraq until the US and Britain invaded. And the US has certainly exploited the existence of Isis against other forces in the region as part of a wider drive to maintain western control.

I tend to think we're lying to ourselves when we say the folks in these countries are better off. The way we're fighting this war suggests it's not about them, but rather western control. Honestly, I don't believe it's civilian casualties that prevents us from waging a definitive campaign. I think we don't because it doesn't benefit us. If we can't outright install a pro-western administration in these nations, keeping them destabilized is better (for oil transport) than allowing an anti-western administration comfortable rule.

Nothing wrong with a neverending cycle i don't think.

So, this is what it boils down to. Some people don't see anything wrong with perpetual involvement. Could any circumstance change your mind?

 

[JackBurton]

But, do they? Do they REALLY? Or is it just the Saudis benefiting? I am hard pressed to come to the conclusion that heavy allied engagement has been a net benefit to any of these countries.

Yep. ISIS has been pushed back from many cities where they were terrorizing the citizenry, holding them hostage in their own homes. Successful bombing campaigns are a major reason for that.

I lean in a hard isolationist direction

Me too. However given what reality is, it's just not realistic for me to rant and rave about ditching contact with other countries and cultures to the extent i think we should.

Could any circumstance change your mind?

Yep, however i don't think any such circumstances are likely to happen. Thus, the vicious cycle i'm talkin about really isn't a bad alternative, not for America at least.