Fear Extreme Islamists in the Arab World? Blame Washington

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Fear Extreme Islamists in the Arab World? Blame Washington
Saturday 29 January 2011
by: Jeff Cohen, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned US military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Were he alive to witness the last three decades of US foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: "Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable."

For decades beginning during the Cold War, US policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements. Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left...

In Afghanistan, beginning BEFORE the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the US armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters - some of whom went on to form the Taliban. To aid the mujahedeen, the US recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world - some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda. (Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence - in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians - covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)

http://www.truth-out.org/jeff-cohen-fear-extreme-islamists-arab-world-blame-washington67267

[malaise]

1. You can't claim to support democracy

and prop up dictators. People across the globe are not stupid.

[dmallind]

2. they are if they prefer theocratic dictators. NT

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. no they are not and that's what gives the US government a bad name worldwide

[scarletwoman]

4. K&R. (nt)

[FLPanhandle]

5. Trotting out the old "Blame Washington" argument is too simplistic to explain Islamic extremists

I'm not denying the US has propped up some despicable characters, but the rise of many religious extremists world wide is a phenomenon that is far bigger than the Washington.

It's even happened here with the rise of the Moral Majority and Christian fundamentalist takeover of the Republican party.

Just saying blame it all on Washington is ignoring a bigger global movement.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. that's a good point

[EFerrari]

8. In the context of the American public's perceptions, it is true.

The Bush Junta spent millions of dollars demonizing Muslims at their bully pulpit and in the media.

[upi402]

7. Jesus v. Christains & King v. Obama

I'd love to see that pair of discussions.