How to create more Terrorists in 2 easy steps

[Carolina]

13. "we were doing just fine decades ago"

Yeah before US started meddling in the affairs of other nations:

Look at the violent history of the US and the violence it has wreaked in the Middle East and South America, especially since the 1950s.

In 1953 the US/CIA overthrew Mohammed Mosaddegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. Why? Because he wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil, i.e. use Iran’s natural resource for the benefit of Iranian people. However, British Petroleum (yes, the same BP that continues to despoil the Gulf of Mexico) and the US/CIA said no way. So, there was US/CIA coup in which the Shah of Iran was installed because he would do the bidding of BP and the US, meaning the Iranians would only get 20% benefit from their land’s natural oil resources. There was a reason Khomeini ousted the Shah and rebels overtook the US embassy in 1979. There is a reason they hate the US, and wouldn't we feel the same if the situation were reversed?! But all the general American populace knows is the post 1979 history.

But it doesn’t stop there.

From 1980-1988, Iran and Iraq were at war. The US was still mad at Iran for ousting the Shah, etc. so it therefore armed Iraq and was cozy with Saddam Hussein, another US puppet… until he wasn’t. The US gave Iraq those chemical weapons which the Bush/Cheney regime morphed into a lie-filled crisis in 2003, manipulatively linking Iraq with 9/11 despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers (plus mastermind bin Laden) were Saudi Arabian while the other 4 were from Yemen, Egypt and United Arab Emirates (home of Dubai and Halliburton!). In short, Iraq which had been under miserable UN sanctions since the first Bush/Gulf War (1991), was a totally innocent victim of the US war machine, and little Bush’s Shock & Awe campaign was a massive act of terrorism. But they hate us for our freedoms…

Speaking of bin Laden, when the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1980, the US/CIA trained the Mujahideen to overthrow a “mighty power.” Among those warriors was none other than Osama bin Laden! He was our specially trained go to guy. The Mujahideen, the Taliban and Al-Queda are all linked. Needless to say, the Russians left Afghanistan “defeated” because they had wasted billions there. Sound familiar? It was money, not Reagan, that tore down [that] wall; and look where the US is… still (since 10/7/2001) mired in a wasteful war in Afghanistan with the only things to show for it being: death, destruction, destabilization and DEBT.

To go further back, the US had no real Middle East problem until the establishment of Israel in 1948. Until then, that land was Palestine. But the Palestinians have been treated as the Native Americans were treated in this nation and further abused, as settlers in their own land, by Israel’s government which acts against them much as the Nazis treated the Jews during WWII. Yet the US turns a blind eye, gives Israel military and financial aid (your tax dollars at work) no matter what Israel does… including killing American citizens like Rachel Corie or Furkan Dogan. Look them up. Israel thumbs its nose at the UN in a way no Arab nation would dare, and what does the US do? Sanctions? Invasio? No way. Rather, it’s whatever you say/want, Mr. Netanyahu? Our politicians bend over backward to aid and abet Israel. Just look at AIPAC’s power.

But it doesn’t stop there!

The US supported Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, another ruthless dictator until last year’s Arab/Egyptian spring. The US installed Pinochet in Chile, after ousting Allende. The major US export is weapons, and now we have drones which as Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Guardian:

“… the vast majority of Americans have no clue that bombing one target and then targeting rescuers with "double-tap" attacks is precisely what the US now does with its drone program and other forms of militarism. If most Americans knew their government and military were doing this, would they react the same way as they did to Boston’s attack... Whatever rage you're feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that's the rage -- in sustained form -- that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for Boston's victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs. However profound a loss you recognize the parents and family members of these victims to have suffered, that's the same loss experienced by victims of US violence... The administration says: "When multiple (explosive) devices go off that's an act of terrorism." If that’s what terrorism is, that encompasses what the US does in the world on a very regular basis.”

I could go on and on, but the problem this nation has is a lack of perspective coupled with ignorance and violence. A violent nation begets more violence and the US is good at violence. Look at the fanatics in the US Congress and in state houses across this country as well as the truly ignorant/uninformed or willfully ignorant Americans who swallow corporatized infotainment as fact, demonize anyone who is not a white Christian, value only money and worship GUNS.

Or read Chalmers Johnson Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire