Why
Neocons Hate Muslims: The Way Of Racist Americans
24 February 2010By Jacob G. Hornberger
While there has been much discussion over why Muslims
hate Americans, much less attention has been given to
why neocons hate Muslims. While it might be true that
some neocons hate Muslims for their religious and
cultural values, I think there is a better explanation
for their hatred. I think the real reason that neocons
want to kill Muslims so badly is that people in the
Middle East, who are predominately Muslim, have
refused to accept the domination of the U.S. Empire,
especially in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the
U.S. became the world’s sole remaining empire. That
refusal has earned them the everlasting enmity of
American neocons.
Think about the U.S. invasions and regime-change
operations in Grenada and Panama. Once they were
completed, the citizens of both of those countries
meekly accepted the new order of things. They quickly
embraced the newly installed pro-U.S. regimes. No
terrorist attacks. No violent insurgencies in either
country. Instead, full and complete acceptance of the
new world order.
Not so, however, in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both
countries, large numbers of people have refused to do
what the people of Grenada and Panama did. Instead,
Iraqis and Afghanis have refused to kowtow to the
Empire. In both countries, both men and women have
refused to accept its invasions, occupations, and
regime-change operations. Countless Iraqis and
Afghanis have even been willing to sacrifice their
lives in resistance to the foreign interference with
their countries, much as they did when the British
Empire and the Soviet Empire invaded Iraq and
Afghanistan in the past.
Consider Iraq. After the Persian Gulf War, the U.S.
Empire imposed possibly the most brutal sanctions in
history on the Iraqi people. Year after year, Iraqi
children were dying from infectious illnesses arising
from untreated water and sewage owing to the inability
to repair water-and-sewage treatment plants that the
Pentagon had intentionally destroyed during the war.
Why did U.S. officials continue the sanctions year
after year for more than 10 years knowing that they
were causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Iraqi children? Because the Iraqi people, most of whom
happened to be Muslim, obstinately refused to comply
with U.S. demands to oust Saddam Hussein from power.
For that obstinacy, they needed to be punished. That’s
what the sanctions were all about. (See this link for
a compendium of excellent articles on the sanctions on
Iraq.)
U.S. officials emphasized that the sanctions would be
lifted once Iraqis complied with U.S. demands to oust
Saddam from power and install a pro-U.S. regime. Even
though the sanctions never succeeded in ousting Saddam
from power, when “Sixty Minutes” asked U.S. Ambassador
to the UN Madeleine Albright whether the deaths of
half-a-million Iraqi children had been worth it, she
replied that such deaths were, in fact, “worth it.”
After all, what better way to punish people for
recalcitrance to the Empire than to maintain a system
that kills their children? (See “Albright Apologizes”
by Sheldon Richman.)
Consider Iran. The reason that neocons hate Iran is
the independence that Iran shows toward the Empire. If
the Iranian regime were to adopt the subservient and
obedient attitude toward the Empire that, say, Libyan
military strongman and terrorist Mohammar Qadaffi has
adopted or, for that matter, that the pro-U.S. Shah of
Iran adopted, everything would be hunky dory.
The neocon mindset about Muslims is much like the
mindset of plantation owners in the Old South. As long
as the slaves were obedient, respectful, and
subservient, everything was fine. Oh, sure, slaves
would periodically complain about their condition in
life but, by and large, such complaints were
considered acceptable. What was not acceptable was
resistance and opposition to slavery itself,
especially when it turned violent. That was when a
message had to be sent. Such an uppity attitude simply
could not be tolerated.
And that’s the way neocons view Muslims in the Middle
East. They’re just too uppity. Like the slaves in the
Old South, it was incumbent on the people in those
countries to accept the new world order after the fall
of the Berlin Wall. When the U.S. Empire spoke, they
were supposed to listen, submit, and obey.
But as we all know — from the attacks on the World
Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on the USS Cole, the
attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
the attacks on 9/11, and the violent resistance to the
occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan — there are people
in the Middle East, who just happen to be Muslim, who,
unlike the citizenry of Grenada and Panama, have
refused to submit to the Empire and obey its commands.
And that is what has earned them the everlasting
hatred of the neocons.
Bart Frazier was manning the FFF booth. Over the three
days of the conference, he gave away, mostly to
students, hundreds of free copies of our publication
“Economic Liberty and the Constitution,” our book
Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State,
and our monthly journal Freedom Daily.
On Thursday, I had the good fortune of appearing on
Judge Andrew Napolitano’s second-ever live segment of
Fox News’ Freedom Watch. Here’s my blog on that event.
On Friday, we got to attend a nice cocktail party
sponsored by C4L, which Ron Paul and Andrew Napolitano
attended. That was followed by a program moderated by
Tom Woods, in which Paul and Napolitano lit up the
crowd with their talks.
Then, on Saturday, FFF co-sponsored a fantastic (and
provocative!) panel entitled “Why Real Conservatives
Should Reject the War on Terror,” which was attended
by an overflow crowd of about 300 people, mostly young
people. The four panelists were Philip Giraldi (former
CIA agent), Karen Kwiatkowski (former Pentagon
officer), Bruce Fein (former Justice Department
lawyer), and me, with Kelly Torrance from American
Conservative serving as moderator. Unfortunately, our
live-feed for the event didn’t work because of
Internet reception problems but we were able to record
it: http://www.fff.org/comment/com1002f.asp. I think
you’ll really enjoy these talks.
I suppose you’ve heard by now that Ron Paul was the
leading vote-getter in the CPAC presidential straw
poll. We libertarians are making progress, which is
reflected by the innumerable articles online (both
favorable and critical) about the strong libertarian
influence at this year’s CPAC. It sure was exciting to
be able to be a part of it all. Thank you to Campaign
for Liberty for inviting us to be there.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation.
©
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