The US Has Screwed Up in the Muslim World for 36 Years

phill4paul · Jun 26, 2016

Beginning with the Carter Doctrine, the US has aggressively injected itself into the Muslim world but with little to show for it besides a record of misunderstanding, hubris, and failure.

In America’s War for the Greater Middle East, Andrew J. Bacevich, one of our most eloquent and incisive students of American foreign policy, military history, and the often-vexed nexus between the two, makes a startling claim: For the last 36 years, the United States has been engaged in an ill-advised, counterproductive struggle to shape the destiny of the Muslim world—not only in the Middle East proper, but in Southwest Asia, North and East Africa, and the Balkans as well.

Like Vietnam, this has been an undeclared war that started off small, and escalated in fits and starts into a major conflict. Like Vietnam, it has been poorly understood by policymakers, senior military officers, and the American public.

And like Vietnam, it is a doomed undertaking, with tragic implications.

Since the early ’80s, in “almost imperceptible increments,” the American military’s center of gravity has shifted from the plains of Europe, where it was deployed to fend off a Soviet attack against Western Europe, to the Middle East. After the 9/11 attacks, the conflict expanded exponentially, driven by invidious delusions about the efficacy of American military power, and a hubristic belief that the world’s only “indispensable nation” has both the right and the obligation to remake the region over in our own image.

Trouble is, millions of people in the Islamic world have rejected out of hand Western multiculturalism and the values of democracy and rule of law we see as universal, and seek to impose on them. They have come to see the United States not as an ally seeking to help them liberate themselves from repressive strongmen, economic dysfunction, and chronic instability, but as an imperialist purveyor of wantonness and materialism, bent on world hegemony.

Despite having been heavily engaged in the region’s geopolitics for 35 years, we remain deplorably ignorant of the region’s peoples and cultures, and continue to pursue political policies and military strategies in the region that exacerbate rather than diminish the region’s myriad difficulties. And we squander precious American lives and resources that should be devoted to far more urgent concerns here at home.
Bacevich’s book, in addition to providing a thought-provoking and penetrating account of the evolution of an ultimately futile conflict, is also a passionate plea to a self-absorbed American public to awake from their slumber, reflect seriously on what their leaders are doing in their name in the Islamic world, and force them to bring an end to the project.

Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ewed-up-in-the-muslim-world-for-36-years.html

pcosmar · Jun 26, 2016

36 years?

I think it is closer to 70 years.
Long before Mr Carter.

RJB · Jun 26, 2016

And some people think that after our thrashing their countries, killing their families, making them homeless, they'll move here and be happy Americans

Ronin Truth · Jun 26, 2016

Much longer than that.

puppetmaster · Jun 26, 2016

Yep and Islam have been screwing up the Muslim world for 1000's

Ender · Jun 26, 2016

pcosmar said:
36 years?

I think it is closer to 70 years.
Long before Mr Carter.

In 1953 we helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected PM.

We were also helping the UK & France in messing with the ME and Africa long before that.

younglibertarian · Jun 26, 2016

puppetmaster said:
Yep and Islam have been screwing up the Muslim world for 1000's

So did the crusades.

People have been screwing since the fall.

Zippyjuan · Jun 26, 2016

Conflict goes back centuries.

pcosmar · Jun 26, 2016

Zippyjuan said:
Conflict goes back centuries.

Nope..
It goes back to 1948,, and the creation of the State of Israel. (even further if you count Zionist aggression and terrorism).

timosman · Jun 26, 2016

pcosmar said:
Nope..
It goes back to 1948,, and the creation of the State of Israel. (even further if you count Zionist aggression and terrorism).

Balfour Declaration - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

enhanced_deficit · Jun 26, 2016

Ender said:
In 1953 we helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected PM.

We were also helping the UK & France in messing with the ME and Africa long before that.

pcosmar said:
Nope..
It goes back to 1948,, and the creation of the State of Israel. (even further if you count Zionist aggression and terrorism).

Good points.

Photo Essay: Crash course on origins of Al Qaeda

Afghanistan in 1970s before the US intervention with Saudi/Israeli help:

Click here to view the original image of 800x507px.

And then came the trainers of Jihadi freedom fighters :

USA prints textbooks to support Jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan

http://supportdanielboyd.wordpress.c...-and-pakistan/

Click here to view the original image of 979x731px.

US/Saudi/Israeli backed Afghani Jihadis with help from foreign fighters like OBL defeat invading Russian "infidels" triggering collapse of Russian economy and eventual collapse of USSR. Israel was second largest supplier of weapons to Jihadi "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan. Saudis helped with funding of the great Afghan Jihad and by flooding the market with cheap oil (prices dropped from over $100 p/b to $20 p/b) to hit Russian economy at the same time.

1980s/90s:
With collapse of USSR following "success" of Afghan Jihad, Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel/Palestinian territories and settlements growth explodes
Palestinians and Arab street angered by new settlers influx and continuous settlements expansion

Jewsih Immigration from Former Soviet Union to Israeli

[TABLE="class: cms_table, width: 55%, align: center"]
[TR]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 15%"][/TD]
[TD="width: 42%, bgcolor: #000000"]Total Immigrants to Israel[/TD]
[TD="width: 42%, bgcolor: #000000"]Immigrants from F.S.U.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: cms_table_xl31, bgcolor: #009900"]
[TD="width: 15%, align: center"]Total[/TD]
[TD="width: 42%, align: center"]

3,108,678