Islamic State militants gave the world yet another shocking atrocity this week by executing a 7-year-old Syrian boy in front of his parents because he cursed. ISIS insists that Islamic justice, or Sharia, demanded that the boy be shot.
The boy was accused of “cursing divinity” while playing in the street with his friends. He was taken before an Islamic court which held that “the act was considered an insult to the Caliphate, regardless of the age of the boy.” He was killed in front of a crowd and his sobbing parents made to watch.
Another victory for Sharia “law” and the great Caliphate.
Karen S,
FYI, the original source of AQI – the forerunner to ISIS that was defeated in the COIN “Surge” before reconstituting as ISIS in the Syrian civil war – was the terrorist alliance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network. Saddam’s terrorism breached UNSCR 687 of the Gulf War ceasefire and, as such, was part of the casus belli for OIF. The ISIS foothold in Syria was due to the Assad regime’s collaboration with the terrorists before and early in the Syrian civil war.
Iraqi Perspectives Project:
Kyle Orton – The Islamic State Was Coming Without the Invasion of Iraq (or How Saddam Hussein Gave Us ISIS):
Iraq Survey Group:
Our intervention in Iraq did not the cause the ills in the region. It was the cure until President Obama deviated from President Bush. The Saddam regime, with accomplices like Russia and Syria, was a cause of the ills in the region.
Eric, back again to continue your relentless attempt to rewrite history!
Karen S,
On the law and the facts, the decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was correct.
To properly and precisely explain the grounds for the Iraq intervention in order to set the record straight in the public discourse, review this explanation of the law and policy, fact basis – the why – of OIF. Share it with your friends. It’s essentially a cheat sheet that flags and synthesizes the primary sources of the mission, which are linked in the further reading section of the explanation. I recommend you learn the primary sources as well.
Excerpt from the preface:
The casus belli for OIF to “enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq” (Public Law 107-243) was the Saddam regime’s evidential material breach across the board of the Gulf War ceasefire, including and especially the disarmament mandates of UNSCR 687, terrorism mandates of UNSCR 687, and humanitarian mandates of UNSCR 688 in Saddam’s “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441).
The principal trigger for OIF was the UNMOVIC finding of “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues” in the UNSCR 1441 inspections that confirmed “Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687” (UNSCR 1441).
Here’s how the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, characterized the UN weapons inspectors’ findings:
The Iraq Survey Group post-war investigation corroborated the UNMOVIC confirmation of Iraq’s breach of the Gulf War ceasefire disarmament mandates: “ISG judges that Iraq failed to comply with UNSCRs”.
On January 28, 2004, David Kay, who preceded Charles Duelfer as head of the Iraq Survey Group, reported to the Senate Armed Services Committee:
The truth is, among Saddam’s categorical breach of the Gulf War ceasefire that triggered OIF, Iraq had not disarmed as mandated and was in fact rearming in violation of UNSCR 687.
And this essential one for karen…
“…it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”
Indeed, it does take a special kind of obtuse and darkness to find anything to hate about Zinn.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1899.Howard_Zinn
I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.”
― Howard Zinn
“The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
Zinn is factual disabled.
Who better to know but Paul?
Even Zinn admits he is factually challenged.
People in glass house throwing stones…!?
He is not factually challenged, he is biased in favor of the oppressed.
Zinn is factual challenged and biased in favor of what ever group he feels is oppressed. He conveniently overlooks that some of his oppressed were actually oppressors.
“Even Zinn admits he is factually challenged.”
Speaking of . . .
Paul, I must be a legend in your own mind too…
Like I said, it must be physiological. More importantly if the A’s can’t even win one game against Boston and get clobbered three in a row like that, we’re in for a hell of a season. It must have been a Billy Beane blasphemy.
The way I seen it is that there is an almost physiological difference between those who believe in a superior being however it is designed and those that can’t, not don’t but simply can’t. I mouthed the words without feeling anything for my first fifteen years as I was trotted through the communion routine. I witnessed the sparkle in the eyes of those that taught and others that learned. However, eventually I could simply not understand. There was no great revelation or treason that made me refuse to believe. I simply didn’t believe. When I grew older I studied religion and religions. I marveled at the workings of Christianity, Judaism, as well as Islam. However in the end they were nothing more than instruments of power designed by mankind to organized and control itself so as not to fall into chaos. This is reiterated continuously in all religions in one way or another. Mankind is doomed if it doesn’t allow a divinity or whatever philosophical iteration design life.
The only constant truth that keeps surfacing and resurfacing is that the divinity is mankind and the mumbo jumbo is a device to engage the ignorant and superstitious. Understand that ignorance is a state measured in degrees. Everyone is ignorant to some degree.
So, we are left with nothing but direction. What is, to me, inescapable is that we are the driver of this bus, not some water walker, flying horseman, or converser with burning shrubs. In the end we are left with ourselves and the myriad fantasies we engage to lighten the load. However, taking on the load does appear to bring positive results. History illustrates that negative results are neither peculiar to the secular nor the religious worlds. In today’s world the secular world is evolving in the right direction while the religious world is too often open for any interpretation of power mongering at costs that, as seen in the above article, are horrendous. When the secular world commits atrocities there is a statement of pure power regardless of guilt, blame, or justification. Mankind wears the coat. When atrocities are committed in the religious world there is always this ticket out of jail, god’s will, WTF.
Isaac
It is unfortunate but I see it more and more that atheism is based on either rejection of the symptoms which are believed to be the disease (rejection of God because of religion, rejection of religion because of the religious, rejection of all of the religious because of the few…). In that, atheism has failed itself. You see the proverbial cutting of nose to spite the face… Great atheists of old who did not believe, disbelieved not as a reaction to religion, but because the physical world simply could not convince them of a/the need for a creator.
Toady’s atheist however, the new atheist specifically, disbelieves chiefly out of an anti-religious stance, which is what your posts today seem to fit you in.
AS I said, when we start conflating issues, we end up being unable to distinguish the valid from the invalid and we keep talking about elements that actually do not relate.
For example, we conflate God with religion, as in, how could there be a god when these things are being done in His name?
-How could there be a God when these inhumane things keep happening?
-The religious need to create God because they cannot think for themselves…
-I reject any God who demands such things as ….
The first fallacy is to link God with religion. They are not one and the same, and in fact they do not necessarily have anything to do with each other. Why? because if God exists, He must have existed before religion, and therefore outside of religion. This suggests that religion is not an essential aspect of God’s nature, He does not need religion to exist. Therefore what , who is religion for? Obviously humanity? Why? As a guidance, divine guidance to tell humanity how to best co-exist.
But let us start anew.
Does God exist? No? How do we know He doesn’t? Is there a definite proof of His non-existence? No? Then what do we rely on? Rejection of the consensus that He exists or self-derived conclusion that He doesn’t. Either one being a subjective conclusion.
Does He exist? Yes?
How do we know that? Belief in the consensus or self-derived conclusion. Either one a subjective conclusion.
Other questions arise:
Do we need religion to believe in God?
Can we come to faith individually?
Have we done the work to clearly refute the existence of God? How would one go at it?
Have we done the work to positively feel the existence of God? How would one go at it?
Unless you have asked yourself those questions and answered each actively, you have deceived yourself.
Finally, God’s will does not mean what you think it means. it does not mean to leave oneself into the hands of randomness and hope for the best. It is to take control of one’s life fully, with the awareness that AFTER one does whatever is required of us as responsible person, whatever happens is out of our hands.
A good example is of one of my female Israeli friends. She is atheist but culturally Jewish (celebrates all the tradition.) She was going through a rough patch emotionally and physically. She confided in me and I told her to go see a doctor, do all the necessary tests, do the treatment she needed to do for what she thought she had…and she wondered, and then what, what if it doesn’t help?
I answered, if you do everything you must do and it doesn’t then you just accept what you cannot control and leave it into his hands.
She replied: I envy your faith, because you can always reach a point where you are able to make the best of any situation.
That’s what faith does and nothing more, to know that there is a higher being and to seek refuge in Him for that which we are unable to deal with. And also to spur us to be better than we are, to be more generous, more caring, more patient before adversity.
po – I am here to discuss, not debate.
The fact of the matter is that fingers can be pointed at just about any group: Christians, Jews, Muslims, the Secular, etc, for any number of atrocities. However, this is the era of the Muslim religion’s being the receive of the pointed finger award. Yes, Po I am ignorant of religion because I don’t believe in a superior being and a flying horseman, water walker, someone who talks to burning bushes, etc. I have spent many years studying the subject through art, architecture, literature, etc and have come to understand that there is one common aspect of all religions, they make one feel just a little bit closer to the truth, just a little bit holier, just a little bit more massaged. The problems lies with those who feel more than just a little bit and those that understand how to harness this force. The Western secular nations did feel, do feel, and will continue to feel superior to others but most don’t anymore and those that remain, the US, Russia, France, GB, etc kind of know that it is a material thing and doesn’t have anything to do with the club one belongs to. That is to say, a religious person, when they screw up can always figure a way to attribute it to a divine design or god’s will. A secular person is stuck with themselves at the end of the day. This is a greater burden but takes one to the other side of the wall that separates people.
When one needs to bring in the ‘you’re ignorant’ argument it is time to split. This has gotten a lot of bang for Turley’s buck.
I don’t disagree with your last post, Isaac. What I disagree with, and it should be obvious to you especially as a rational, logical person, is that the less you know about something, the least you can speak about it.
The reason we are on this blog is because prof Turley is an authority on that which he tends to speak on, the law. None of us would dare try debate him on the law, because we are generally ignorant of its finer points.
on the other hand, you are debating religion, and especially islam without knowing the least about it. That is mind-numbingly irresponsible along with being intellectually dishonest.And to frame the debate as if I am requiring you to learn Arabic or to become an islamic scholar in order to discuss islam is certainly doubly dishonest.
Most Muslims do not speak arabic, the quran is translated in hundreds of languages for a reason. Your duty as an intellectual is to be somewhat familiar with that which you are talking about, and that always starts with reading the comic book. Reading it makes whatever criticism you offer valid because based on first hand knowledge. Based on your logic of not reading it because you don’t believe in god, it makes as much sense as not reading fiction because we don’t believe in imagining…or no reading Harry Potter because you don’t believe in magic…BUT then telling us what the books are about. I don’t believe karen makes any sense, or that Nick is a real human being (I think he is the proverbial monkey at a keyboard) but in order to criticize them the least I can do is read their silly utterances.
Your assumption is that to be secular makes one inherently more intellectual, which is false by any measure because MOST people across the globe are not secular, most people since the beginning of times have been informed by their faith, including our founding fathers, including the founding fathers of science, of political science and of every field of note.
Secularism has never contributed anything to society because it is not a fundamental philosophy. Being secular is an absence of something, therefore it does not contribute, it just is. To give credit to secularism for anything other than it is one less thing for humans to fight about is to be misguided.
And also, one can be both religious and secular. In fact a great many religious people are socially secular, in that their faith only informs their inner life, not their public one. Those are the ones who do not advocate for their religion or demand special rights above others.
On the other hand, you, as a new atheist are demanding not special rights, but the taking away of the right to faith from others. And that makes you akin to the fundamentalists who demand those special rights for themselves, or to take away rights from gays, for example.
All am saying is that you can criticize whatever you want, including religion, politics, gastronomy or science, as long as you speak of connaissance de cause. Your value to us is as an informed commentor. I if read your comments it is because I assume you know what you are talking about and because of it, you make sense; and in general, you do, but when it comes to religion, you don’t.
Finally, you can’t claim moral superiority while fighting below the belt. Your insistence on using the “”flying pedophile”” slur is an attempt as scoring low blows, which severely undermines your claim to be speaking as an detached, unemotional, rationally honest person!
Po, your post are tl;dr obfuscatory non-sequiturs, male fides, and tu quoques.
No worth the time for rebuttal.
You see, here it is again:
“karen is ignorant tout court, she is also a fundamentalist, imperialist extremist who sees the world the way Cheney sees it, and the 1% see it, and the KKK sees it, and ISIS sees it, and the Likud party sees, which calls for the annihilation of all Palestinians…us and them, black and white, we are good they are bad, we are divinely chosen, they are the lesser. She sides with power each time against the powerless, the strong against the weak, the have over the have nots, patriarchy over womanhood and the lives and welfare of children. She is the lone woman here who has justified the massacre of women and children…she reminds of Hillary Clinton, laughing before pain and violence… puppet on a string, the tool of patriarchy to abuse women and children.”
This is really sick, disturbing stuff. I oppose extremism, support moderates, and this is the reaction. How many paragraphs has he devoted, just in the past year, in his fixation to really disturbing comments about me? The level of hatred is quite odd, really.
THIS is Po. THIS is why I don’t typically respond or address him directly. Well, that he and he blames “Ze Jews” for everything.
Nope, karen, i am saying YOU are the ones who justified massacring muslims, just as you, in another life, justified massacring Jews, and before that, justified massacring Christians.
You are of the type that justifies massacring people because you are of the type that sees people as lesser than you, less human, less blessed, less deserving, more dissmissable.
Every horror human beings committed required people like you, whether they be the drone operator launching the missiles or Isis John cutting off heads, same principles.
Then again, perhaps it is your refusal to condemn ALL acts of civilian targeting violence by anyone, as I did, that makes me think of you that way.
I am the one who says anyone who commits an immoral act is blamable, no matter the ethnicity or religion, including Muslims, especially Muslims.
You are the one who jusitfies and defends millions of deaths at the hands of Americans, including the victims of the KKK.
Do you condemn all acts of violence, oppression and terror targeting any and all civilians anywhere, no matter who it is?
It is just a yes or no answer.
Here is the link. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/30/islamic-extremism-is-a-product-of-western-imperialism/
Po writes, “Here is the link. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/30/islamic-extremism-is-a-product-of-western-imperialism/”
I’m always reminded that having to explain this simple concept to people who can’t quite understand it is really a matter of their selective ignorance and worse their turning a blind eye to pillage and murder. We reap what we sow.
“We’ve reached critical mass in terms of our geographical expansion. It’s not ours. It’s theirs, and they’re proving they’re just as red-blooded as any American in keeping it.”
———————-
That’s common sense 101 yet still lost on so many
To think that is exactly what we teach our children, hands off, keeps them off other people, don’t hit, don’t call people names, be nice, be nice!
To quote Isaac, it is physiological.
Po: Remember the MSM drumming up how al-Assad was gassing people? Even Obama was holding to the storyline.
https://www.sott.net/article/317458-Seymour-Hersh-reports-Hillary-approved-sending-Libyas-sarin-gas-to-Syrian-rebels
Steve, thanks for the link, that is indeed incredible.
We knew from the start that the sarin gas was not from Assad, made little sense, especially with a redline on and the inspectors right there. The fact that the administration and the media jumped right on it and accused him of it was proof enough of the attempt at deception.
Fascinating though, and not surprising really that the clues are leading to Hillary. She is at the core of a nexus of evil that comprises all the neocons’attempts to subjugate the world to their base aims.
And their tying it to Bengazhi is another interesting point.
Looking forward to more light being shed on this.
Po: She should be in front of the ICC in chains. Same with Obama.
The article points out, too, that the intention was oil and gas access through Syria and keeping Russia from it, until Russian intervened not long ago, saving al-Assad. So, give the Syrian rebel groups chemical weapons to pave the road, so to speak.
So much for moral ideations of saving innocent civilians from Muslim tyrants, a notion everyone here seems to think is the crux of the matter. It’s also consistent with my belief that the only reason Israel is there is to drive a wedge into the power structure, so that the oil-based western economies can have foothold there.
It’s about oil no matter how they paint it, and the American public if my eyes don’t deceive me doesn’t give a rat’s arse so long as they get to watch the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Master’s golf tournament. It’s truly pitiful how greed has driven this country since the end of WWII.
Well said, Steve.
I also read a thorough article stating that the underpinning cause for the Yemen war is Saudi Arabia working on a longstanding plan to build another pipeline through Yemen at the urging of the US and Britain, thereby bypassing the strait of hormuz, which is controlled by Iran.
Which explains why we are providing them with the weapons to bury Yemen forever.
But, nothing will change until these neocons and neolibs can blow the world up and remain unscathed. Hillary calls Kissinger her idol…Obama just decorated kissinger…they differ not at all.
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2016/05/nwo-scheme-exposed-obama-and-clinton-3349293.html
As for the ME and imperialism, couldn’t find a more comprehensive breakdown.
Now we know that karen, Isaac and Nick are all ME specialists, so obviously we’ll take their words against this essay, but I thought I’d just share it.
————————————————————————-
Islamic Extremism is a Product of Western Imperialism
by GARRY LEECH
As we struggle to come to terms with the latest terrorist attacks in Brussels, it is important that we understand the causes of such extremism. After all, Islamic extremism was virtually unknown fifty years ago and suicide bombings were inconceivable. And yet today it seems that we are confronted with both on a daily basis. So what happened to bring Islamic fundamentalism to the forefront of global politics? While there are many factors involved, undoubtedly one of the primary causes is Western imperialism. Western intervention in the Middle East over the past century to secure access to the region’s oil reserves established a perfect environment in which Islamic fundamentalists could exploit growing anti-Western sentiment throughout the Islamic world with some establishing violent extremist groups. The most recent consequence of this process is the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, which emerged out of the chaos caused by the US invasion of Iraq.
In order to understand the rise of the Islamic State we must first briefly review the history of Western intervention in not only the Middle East but throughout the world to reveal that Islamic extremism in not a unique phenomenon. For the past 500 years, peoples throughout the world have resorted to acts of violence that today would be classified as terrorism in efforts to resist Western imperialism. Indigenous peoples in the Americas often used violent tactics to defend themselves against the brutal European colonizers. There were also many violent slave revolts by Blacks who had been shipped from Africa to the Americas in the service of Western imperialism.
In Southeast Asia, the Filipino people first violently resisted the Spanish and then rose up again when the United States became the new colonial ruler of the Philippines in 1898. Apparently, Washington’s newest colonial subjects didn’t appreciate President William McKinley’s concern for their well-being when he arrogantly declared that since Filipinos “were unfit for self- government, … there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.” Meanwhile, in South Africa, the Zulu people were resorting to violence in an effort to resist British attempts to “civilize” them in the late 1800s. Back then, those who violently resisted Western imperialism weren’t labelled “terrorists,” we just called them “savages.” These are just a few examples of the countless attempts throughout the global South to resist the violent and often brutal expansion of Western imperialism, which included not only the imposition of Western values and culture on people, but also Christianity.
One of the reasons that Islamic extremism has only come to the fore in recent decades is the fact that Western imperialism in the Middle East is a relatively recent occurrence. Western imperialism didn’t begin to make serious headway in the Middle East until the early 20th century. Consequently, we haven’t yet succeeded in our quest to violently subjugate the peoples of that region to the degree that we have peoples throughout most of the rest of the world. In americanleechsome Middle Eastern nations, Western imperialism initially took the form of traditional colonialism, which involved direct rule. In other countries, it has constituted a neo-colonial approach utilizing international institutions such as the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as well as direct US and European intervention in the forms of military coups and outright war.
While European nations, particularly Britain, had made some inroads into the Middle East in the late 1800s, it was the discovery of oil in Iran in 1908 that marked the arrival of Western imperialism. The London-based Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) gained the rights to Iran’s oil and, because its major shareholder was the British government, Britain effectively controlled Iran’s oil sector. During the ensuing decades there were major protests by the Iranian people who were unhappy with foreign ownership of the country’s oil and the fact that Iran was receiving only 16 percent of its own oil wealth. In 1950, the Iranian parliament finally responded to popular demands and voted to nationalize the country’s oil sector. The following year, Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh established the National Iranian Oil Company.
Unhappy with Iran’s decision to claim ownership of its own oil resources and to use them for the benefit of the Iranian people, the United States and Britain orchestrated a coup to oust the moderate, secular and democratically-elected Mosaddegh government. Shah Reza Pahlavi was installed in power and the new pro-Western dictator immediately re-opened the door for Western companies to return to Iran. And to ensure that the Shah maintained iron-clad control over the population, the United States provided him with military aid as well as training for his secret police force, which would brutalize the Iranian people for the next 26 years.
Under the Shah, Western oil workers flooded into Iran and the country’s capital Tehran became a decadent playground for high-paid foreign oil workers who engaged openly in un-Islamic activities including alcohol consumption, casino gambling and prostitution. And while the country’s oil wealth was flowing into the pockets of foreigners and the Shah and his cronies, most Iranians were struggling to survive in poverty. Not surprisingly, Islamic fundamentalists began pointing to Western imperialism and Western decadence as an affront both to Islam and to the Iranian people. It was a narrative that began to resonate with many impoverished Iranians who had traditionally been moderates. In 1979, under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a popular revolution overthrew the Shah’s repressive regime and established an Islamic state.
Reflecting on the US role in Iran, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated, “In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”
The first significant success for Islamic fundamentalism directly resulted from the United States and Britain overthrowing a democratically-elected and secular government and their subsequent support for a brutal dictatorship, all in the name of securing access to oil. Today, we are not only still dealing with the consequences of this Western imperialism in our relations with Iran, but also with Iran’s support for other fundamentalist groups in the region such as Hezbollah.
The same year that Iran became an Islamic state, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to defend that country’s unpopular Soviet-backed regime from a growing insurgency. The mujahideen rebels, like the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran, were fighting against a Western-backed dictatorship. This time it was the atheist communists of the Soviet Union that were the imperialists. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan only boosted the strength of the mujahideen as recruits flocked from throughout the Islamic world to help liberate the country from the foreign infidels. Many of the tens of thousands of recruits came from Saudi Arabia, which contributed to the fundamentalist movement known as Wahhabism expanding from being a fringe sect of Islam that primarily existed in Saudi Arabia to a major religious force throughout the Sunni Islamic world.[ The record shows that the US/Britain cooperated with various countries such as Algeria and Bosnia to send fighters to Afghanistan against the Soviets. The same fighters who returned to their countries later to tear it apart]
The United States viewed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan through a Cold War lens and began providing weapons and training to the Islamic fundamentalist mujahideen rebels. During the 1980s, Washington supplied the mujahideen with $4 billion in arms that significantly strengthened the fundamentalists and President Ronald Reagan publicly referred to them as “freedom fighters.” One of the mujihadeen beneficiaries of US aid was a Saudi named Osama bin Laden. The primary objective of the war for this particular “freedom fighter” was the removal of a Western military from Islamic lands. The mujahideen succeeded in their holy war in 1989 when the Soviet Union withdrew its forces. And then, in 1996, following a civil war between various factions of the mujahideen, the recently-formed Taliban emerged victorious and established a fundamentalist government.
As a 1993 article in the British daily Independent made clear, Osama bin Laden was viewed by the West as a warrior, not a terrorist, for his role in the mujahideen. The article, titled “Anti-Soviet Warrior Puts His Army on the Road to Peace,” described bin Laden’s work building roads in the impoverished nation of Sudan in the early 1990s. But bin Laden was not only building roads, he was also establishing a new organization with his mujahideen fighters that would eventually be called al-Qaeda. The mission of al-Qaeda essentially remained the same as that of the mujahideen in Afghanistan: to drive Western military forces out of Islamic lands. This time the target was US troops based in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait following the first Gulf War. Consequently, bin Laden went from being a “freedom fighter” to a “terrorist” virtually overnight even though his mission hadn’t changed, only the target.
From the perspective of Washington, bin Laden was a “freedom fighter” when he was fighting against the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan but was a “terrorist” when he fought against the presence of US military forces in the Islamic world. From the perspective of bin Laden and his Islamic extremist followers, however, nothing had really changed. Whether it was Soviet soldiers or US troops, both constituted Western military forces that had to be removed from Islamic soil.
Ultimately, Western intervention in the Islamic world gave birth to al-Qaeda. First, Soviet military support for a puppet regime in Afghanistan, then US backing of the Islamic fundamentalists who constituted the mujahideen rebels, and, finally, the establishment of US military bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the first Gulf War. As a consequence of these imperialist actions, Islamic extremists in the form of the Taliban and al-Qaeda emerged as powerful forces with the latter feeding off the growing disenchantment among Muslims angry at Western militarism in the Islamic world, Western backing for corrupt governments in the Middle East, and US support for Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
Following al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks against New York City and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001, the United States launched its war on terror and targeted the Islamic extremist group in Afghanistan. However, the Bush administration also sought to exploit the 9/11 attacks to justify ousting Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Top Bush administration officials launched a massive propaganda and misinformation campaign to convince the American people that Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks and linked to al-Qaeda, both of which were untrue. They also portrayed Hussein as a terrorist threat because he possessed weapons of mass destruction, which was another lie.
As the reports by UN weapons inspectors had made clear, Iraq no longer possessed any chemical or biological weapons; they had been destroyed in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions following the first Gulf War in 1991. Furthermore, the Bush administration’s propaganda campaign conveniently ignored the fact that the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq had possessed and used during the 1980s were supplied to it by the United States when Hussein was an ally against the fundamentalist regime that had come to power in Iran.
In March 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Iraq without authorization from the UN Security Council and in direct violation of international law. Four days before the invasion, Vice-President Dick Cheney declared, “From the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” But one year later an extensive nationwide poll in Iraq showed that 71 percent of Iraqis saw the US troops as “occupiers” rather than “liberators.” Such a response should not have been surprising given that some 100,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation.
The military occupation gave rise to an insurgency that sought to oust the foreign occupying troops. Prior to the US invasion there had been no Islamic extremist groups operating in the country. But the emergence of the broad-based insurgency and the post-invasion chaos opened the door for al-Qaeda to enter Iraq. And it was out of both the insurgency and al-Qaeda that the fundamentalist Islamic State (originally known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) emerged in 2006.
Following the invasion, the United States dismantled Saddam Hussein’s military and many of the unemployed former officers ended up joining the insurgency. Some of these military officers conspired with a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda in Iraq to form the Islamic State. The new extremist group sought to establish an Islamic caliphate in northern Iraq and Syria. The Syrian civil war in 2011 allowed the Islamic State to cross into Syria where it grew dramatically stronger and began to consolidate control over territory. It then re-focused its efforts on Iraq and easily defeated the new US-trained Iraqi army and consolidated its control over northern parts of that country in 2014. Meanwhile, the West’s military intervention in Libya in 2011 helped turn that country into a failed state and opened the door for the Islamic State to establish a foothold in that part of North Africa.
The Islamic State has had significant success recruiting disenchanted Muslims from around the world to join its ranks and to carry out terrorist attacks in Western nations such as France and Belgium. Last year, even former British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged “there are elements of truth” in claims that the invasion of Iraq led to the creation of the Islamic State. As Blair admitted, “Of course, you can’t say those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.”
Once again, Western imperialist actions in the Middle East had given rise to Islamic extremism. But the rise of the Islamic State should not have come as a surprise to anyone. That the Bush administration’s illegal invasion of Iraq laid the foundation for the emergence of the Islamic State was entirely predictable. After all, the West’s ouster of the moderate and secular Mosaddegh and its backing of the Shah’s ruthless regime in Iran had given birth to that country’s Islamic fundamentalist revolution. And Washington’s military support of fundamentalist rebels in Afghanistan and its establishment of military bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ensured the emergence of al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, Western imperialism in other parts of the Middle East over the past century has also contributed to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. While most of the Arab states in the region gained independence following World War Two, the United States and Britain essentially handed over most of Palestine to European Jews so they could create the Jewish state of Israel. And, ever since, Israel has received unconditional US support to brutally repress the Palestinian people and to repeatedly violate international law, which has generated widespread anti-Western sentiment throughout the Middle East. It wasn’t until after almost 40 years of Israeli rule over Palestinian lands that Islamic fundamentalism and the tactic of suicide bombing finally made inroads among the traditionally moderate Palestinian population. This occurred when Hamas was formed in the Occupied Territories in the mid-1980s. Similarly, it was Israel’s US-supported invasion of Lebanon that gave birth to the fundamentalist group Hezbollah during the same decade.
Over the past one hundred years, the Middle East has been targeted by Western imperialism in the violent manner that the rest of the world has endured for centuries. Nowadays we use politically correct terms such as “democracy promotion” and “human rights” instead of “civilize” and “Christianize,” but they essentially mean the same thing because they are simply the latest justifications for stealing resources and imposing Western values on other cultures. Not surprisingly, as has been the case throughout the rest of the world over the past 500 years, there is widespread resentment and anger towards the West for its imperialist policies in the Middle East. And, also not surprisingly, some fundamentalist Muslim resisters to Western imperialism have resorted to extreme tactics.
Finally, perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of Western imperialism in the Islamic world is the fact that each consequence has been more extreme than the previous one. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were far more extremist than the Islamic government that came to power in Iran. And the Islamic State is even more extremist than al-Qaeda. Which begs the question: What new and even more extremist monstrosity are we currently creating with our ongoing military interventions and imperialist policies in the Islamic world?
What is obvious here, is this:
1-Isaac is very ignorant of religion, and when it comes to religion, his bias makes of his otherwise thoughtful mind a fundamentalist one that uses the conclusion of his ignorance as proof for his stance.
2- karen is ignorant tout court, she is also a fundamentalist, imperialist extremist who sees the world the way Cheney sees it, and the 1% see it, and the KKK sees it, and ISIS sees it, and the Likud party sees, which calls for the annihilation of all Palestinians…us and them, black and white, we are good they are bad, we are divinely chosen, they are the lesser. She sides with power each time against the powerless, the strong against the weak, the have over the have nots, patriarchy over womanhood and the lives and welfare of children. She is the lone woman here who has justified the massacre of women and children…she reminds of Hillary Clinton, laughing before pain and violence… puppet on a string, the tool of patriarchy to abuse women and children.
In another life she was Judas against Jesus, she was korah against Moses, she was the nazi apologist against the Jews, she wrote the leaflets calling for pogroms and defended the holocaust vehemently, as they, the Nazis, were chosen, had right to the lives and properties of the lowly Jews, the beasts, the lesser beings!
She was there too in the ear of the emperor…feed them christians to the lions, she urged, feed them to the lions, men, women, children, how do they dare stand up to our might, our right over them?
And the hieroglyphs show her bowing before the throne of the pharoah, eyes alight, permanent ricus, let’s slaughter their men and their sons and leave heir women. Let’s frighten them in their core, they are lesser.
She was in the mob that lynched the blacks, she was there when the pregnant woman was dragged out of her car, her belly split open, her fetus dragging, and she was hoisted atop the tree, and the noose swung down, her body lifted, swaying violently while the roar of the mob deafened any humanity in humans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6bgoW5M_Ls
Glad to see that lynchings of blacks ended.
http://rollingout.com/2015/03/21/5-horrific-modern-day-lynchings-blacks-america/
po – you are a sore loser!
Sore…
loser…
sore loser…
No better experienced testimony, Paul.
Having nukes gives us a level of protection against invasion. Preventing our enemies from getting nukes is in the interest of self preservation and the survival of all the life forms on this planet. Giving up all nukes when our enemies are rapidly working to obtain them would be suicidal, and invite our enemies to nuke us, which would be a threat to all life on this planet.
Karen writes, “Having nukes gives us a level of protection against invasion. Preventing our enemies from getting nukes is in the interest of self preservation and the survival of all the life forms on this planet. Giving up all nukes when our enemies are rapidly working to obtain them would be suicidal, and invite our enemies to nuke us, which would be a threat to all life on this planet.”
You know, Karen, it’s almost humorous how you and many subscribed here want less government in light of how much you want government to control the world.
You believe Iran is our enemy for which reason again? It couldn’t be propaganda, could it? We obviously would never install a Jewish state, a Shah, or want to take every last drop of oil in the region.
As for nukes, I would advocate that no one have them, and I can think of no better place to start the reduction to zero in any country which has ever used them.
The bottom line is that you put business before the living. It’s a vulgar philosophy, fascism at its core, and as I mentioned in another post you have to be taught to fear and hate.
Karen S: “Having nukes gives us a level of protection against invasion”
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEWWRbn4zG0
You talk about protecting the country from terrorists. What do you think they’re doing?
The best defense we could ever have against terrorists is to get the heck out of the business (and I mean business) of trying to control other countries. It’s piss-poor foreign policy and surely will lead to our eventual demise as it did all other empires, ad nauseum.
We’ve reached critical mass in terms of our geographical expansion. It’s not ours. It’s theirs, and they’re proving they’re just as red-blooded as any American in keeping it..
steveg:
“Why do we, Israel, and Pakistan get nuclear weapons but Iran and Syria don’t?”
Easy. Because Iran opens its elementary schools daily with the “Death to America! Death to Israel!” chant. Because their postage stamps have bleeding Stars of David and burning American flags. Because they have promised to annihilate the West and Israel.
It would be suicidal to encourage either to get nukes. Especially since the dominant faith reveres martyrdom through jihad.
At least during the Cold War, we could count on the USSR having at least a sense of self preservation. Iran, North Korea, Syria, et al may still wish to survive. But if nukes ever reached the hands of ISIS and other terrorists, who actually want to achieve End Times (literally), they would blow up the whole world. Syria is a hotbed for terrorism (although it might be coming in second to Belgium now). It is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that arming nations known for ties to terrorism would put nukes in the hands of terrorists.
It’s like if you are pointing a weapon at a serial killer about to slaughter thousands of people, and he says, “Hey, wait! That’s not fair! I should be armed if you’re armed, and then you can try to have a shootout with me fair and square!”
And, yes, you are right that we have supported Turkey and the UAE, even though they engage in human rights violations. And yes, the extremists played Jimmie Carter like a fiddle and obtained his help overthrowing the Shah. The problem is that geopolitics does not remain within its borders. Afghanistan was going to be a jumping off point for the USSR to control the Middle East. Allowing ISIS to spread will destabilize the Middle East. Our fortunes are all connected. If we cut the ME out of our energy portfolio, then keeping cars running at least would not factor in to our decisions. You know what happened during the oil embargo of the 1970s? People were shrieking, “How could you let this happen!” If we remove the ME from our energy equation, we won’t have to worry about the cost of milk and eggs skyrocketing because the trucks can’t transport them. But even then, we have to keep the violence contained. When Iran openly plots killing every man, woman, and child within your borders, you are obligated to play chess instead of checkers in the region. You can’t say, “Yeah, they’re trying to get nukes, but we’re gong to ignore it and hope it all goes well.”
And you are right that we do not invest blood and treasure unless we are threatened. Otherwise, we would go broke instantly and a lot of our soldiers would die. Because since we are the “shining city on the hill”, many non-Western nations are plagued with atrocities. I wish we could be the world’s policeman, and save everyone. As it is, we invest billions of dollars in aid to impoverished nations, which is not in any way shape or form quid pro quo. There are dictators who do terrible things in many countries, human rights violations, and the tribal warfare in African countries has spiraled into nightmares, including child soldiers. The only solution to that would be colonizing Africa, taking complete control of various African nations, forcing them to stop, and then economically propping them up. Can we do that? The UN peacekeeping forces have been proven a complete joke, and China is on the human rights council for God’s sake. So it would fall to us. If you want us to solve the world’s problems, then we need to take over the world, and use its resources to pay for it. I predict, however, that such a move would be met with strong objection to colonizing the West. In fact, you voiced strong objections to our involvement in the ME, and yet you want us more involved in other nations. Which is a contradictory, isn’t it?
In the meantime, we offer asylum for those plagued by the world’s problems. Which, again, is not quid pro quo.
The surest cure for self hatred of being American is to travel to other nations where they do not enjoy freedoms, prosperity, or opportunity. You’ll return home and kiss our ground.
You will regret embracing Baghdad Bob.
Steve, There are too many travesties in the world. The phrase, “What aren’t we[fill in the blank] is boilerplate Zinn.
Nick writes, “Steve, There are too many travesties in the world. The phrase, “What aren’t we[fill in the blank] is boilerplate Zinn.”
Something was lost in the translation, but if it’s boilerplate Zinn, I’m happy with it.
Ted Koppell did a documentary a few years back about the KKK called, The Last Lynching. It took place in Alabama in 1981. For those educated in public schools and not able to so simple math, that was 35 years ago. The last ISIS beheading was today. They occur daily.
“Ted Koppell did a documentary a few years back about the KKK called, The Last Lynching. It took place in Alabama in 1981. For those educated in public schools and not able to so simple math, that was 35 years ago. The last ISIS beheading was today. They occur daily.”
Nick, tens of thousands have been slaughtered in sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade. Why aren’t we over there doing our containment bit?
Of course, it’s better that we aren’t, because we don’t get anything in return for such a moral obligation in that part of the world. We’re a collective bunch of rat’s arse quid pro quo humanitarians.
Steve has adopted the philosophy, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That always implodes.
Nick writes, “Steve has adopted the philosophy, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That always implodes.”
For people without an agenda, your comment is nonsense.
Nick – the enemy of my enemy is my friend is successful in the short term, but once the original enemy has been dealt with you still have an enemy.