From the Annals of U.S. History: America's Role in Creating Islamic
Extremism
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/from_the_annals_of_recent_us_his
tory_america_helped_create_20151117/
Posted on Nov 17, 2015
Shutterstock
This is a refrain that has been played before, but some Americans might need
yet another refresher. In response to one of the inevitable questions-"Why
did this happen?"-following events like Friday's terrorist offensive in
Paris and the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., Salon's Ben Norton has helpfully
laid out a detailed answer.
The whole article merits a close read, but here is a key passage designed to
correct the country's collective short-term memory problem on the issue:
Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. government supported and armed bin Laden and
his mujahedin in Afghanistan, in their fight against the Soviet Union.
President Ronald Reagan famously met with the mujahedin in the Oval Office
in 1983. "To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern
arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love
freedom," Reagan declared.
Those "freedom fighters" are the forefathers of ISIS and al-Qaida. When the
last Soviet troops were withdrawn in 1989, the mujahedin did not simply
leave; a civil war of sorts followed, with various Islamist militant groups
fighting for control in the power vacuum. The Taliban came out on top, and
established a medieval theocratic regime to replace the former "godless"
socialist government.
There are extremists in every religion, but they tend to be few in number,
weak and isolated. Salafism, in its modern militarized form, has its origins
in the 1920s, and even before. For decades, this movement remained weak and
isolated. Yet, in the 1970s and '80s, Western capitalist governments,
particularly the U.S., came up with a new Cold War strategy: supporting
these fringe Islamic extremist groups as a bulwark against socialism.
The U.S. was by no means the only one to pursue such a strategy. Echoing the
U.S. policy in Afghanistan, Israel in fact supported Hamas - now its sworn
arch-enemy - when the Islamist group was first forming in the 1980s. Israel
backed Hamas' militant founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in order to undermine the
secular socialist resistance of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," a former Israeli
government official told the Wall Street Journal in a 2009 article titled
"How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas."
This Cold War strategy ended up being successful: After the fall of the
USSR, the secular socialist groups that dominated the resistance movements
of the Middle East were replaced by Islamic extremists ones that had
previously been supported by the West.
-Posted by Kasia Anderson
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
From the Annals of U.S. History: America's Role in Creating Islamic
Extremism
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/from_the_annals_of_recent_us_his
tory_america_helped_create_20151117/
Posted on Nov 17, 2015
Shutterstock
This is a refrain that has been played before, but some Americans might need
yet another refresher. In response to one of the inevitable questions-"Why
did this happen?"-following events like Friday's terrorist offensive in
Paris and the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., Salon's Ben Norton has helpfully
laid out a detailed answer.
The whole article merits a close read, but here is a key passage designed to
correct the country's collective short-term memory problem on the issue:
Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. government supported and armed bin Laden and
his mujahedin in Afghanistan, in their fight against the Soviet Union.
President Ronald Reagan famously met with the mujahedin in the Oval Office
in 1983. "To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern
arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love
freedom," Reagan declared.
Those "freedom fighters" are the forefathers of ISIS and al-Qaida. When the
last Soviet troops were withdrawn in 1989, the mujahedin did not simply
leave; a civil war of sorts followed, with various Islamist militant groups
fighting for control in the power vacuum. The Taliban came out on top, and
established a medieval theocratic regime to replace the former "godless"
socialist government.
There are extremists in every religion, but they tend to be few in number,
weak and isolated. Salafism, in its modern militarized form, has its origins
in the 1920s, and even before. For decades, this movement remained weak and
isolated. Yet, in the 1970s and '80s, Western capitalist governments,
particularly the U.S., came up with a new Cold War strategy: supporting
these fringe Islamic extremist groups as a bulwark against socialism.
The U.S. was by no means the only one to pursue such a strategy. Echoing the
U.S. policy in Afghanistan, Israel in fact supported Hamas - now its sworn
arch-enemy - when the Islamist group was first forming in the 1980s. Israel
backed Hamas' militant founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in order to undermine the
secular socialist resistance of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," a former Israeli
government official told the Wall Street Journal in a 2009 article titled
"How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas."
This Cold War strategy ended up being successful: After the fall of the
USSR, the secular socialist groups that dominated the resistance movements
of the Middle East were replaced by Islamic extremists ones that had
previously been supported by the West.
-Posted by Kasia Anderson
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