A history lesson
 

War on terror

Re: A history lesson
 

What I like most about this, besides the Chomsky-esque liberalism, is that it makes the point that should be obvious to everyone, that Islam, or for that matter any other religion, race, nationality, whatever does not breed terrorism and violence but rather these are the inevitable consequences of extreme social conditions; In this case and many others that means incredibly powerful forces having influence over people when they have exactly zero interest in their welfare.

See Vietnam, Korea, former Soviet-bloc Eastern Europe, Central America, Africa, inner cities in the US, Israel, Iraq et al.

Re: A history lesson
 

[ QUOTE ]
Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

[/ QUOTE ]

It's worse than I thought. My God! Everything I know is wrong!

Re: A history lesson
 

Excellent post. I can remember perusing the literature of the right-wing fringe in the late 1970's and it being filled with reference to the mujahideen "freedom fighters" who's goals and aspirations were fundmanetally consistent with the finest traditions of America's, etc. It's all disappeared down the memory hole, along with U.S. support for international terrorism, which was more much more extensive and deadlier than Iraq's.

Now that Iraq's proposed constitutions abolishes freedoms that women enjoyed under Saddam, watch how the right grumbles and then ultimately capitulates to continued support for Bush's new Islamicist regime.

Re: A history lesson
 

[ QUOTE ]
Everything I know is wrong!

[/ QUOTE ]

You have said this before (though this time you said it directly).

Re: A history lesson
 

You guys beat me to it, as I was about to post this link here myself.

I grew up as a Young Republican during the 1980's, and I remember extremely well how one of the litmus tests for "true believers" during that time was whether they supported the mujihadeen -- those "brave religious freedom fighters" -- in their battle against the Evil Communists in Afghanistan. And oh, how we praised Saint Reagan for standing up to the Evil Liberals so that the brave mujihadeen could have their guns, and their bombs, and their stinger missiles.

Now, flash forward to September 11, 2001, and suddenly every right-wing nut who supported these extremists develops instant amnesia. "Mujihadeen? Never heard of them! But did you hear about those Muslim Extremists in Afghanistan that just popped into existence out of nowhere?! Well, that's all I need to know! Let's go invade Iraq!"

To call these people ignorant of history would be far too kind. They know the history intimately -- how could they not? -- but they are utterly unwilling to take any responsibility for their own part in it. It just goes down the Memory Hole, everyone pretends it never happened, and the whole right wing propaganda machine moves on to a new list of talking points.

Anyway, it's good to remind them that not all of us have forgotten how we really got to this point.


q/q

Re: A history lesson
 

So... it's your contention that arming these people was wrong?

Re: A history lesson
 

Shameless kick.


q/q

Re: A history lesson
 

Orwell sure understood [censored] well.

Re: A history lesson
 

Having read this brings an important, very simple, but often overlooked point. Yes, we (US) gave the current group of terrorists much of their capabilities of which they turned it against us. Bad move with little or zero foresight on our part! US has been guilty of this stupidity for too many times to list throughout the 20th century. But the honorable professor makes one terrible leap beyond the collusion that the US is very guilty of, and that is to place the guilt or more succinctly, the ENTIRE blame upon the US as if the terrorist organizations are completely absolved of any crime or attrocity (equating them to mindless puppet employees of the US). This type of rhetoric smacks of the lack of logic that is prevelant in the left. The left is very good at "preaching to the choir" and this essay is no exception. Question: Although it would be very satisfying to many, do you really believe that locking up the current adminstration, all its cronies, and anyone else one might remotely link to them would END the problems in the Middle East, Asia, or South America?