29 November 2016
By Jacob G. Hornberger
With Donald Trump's accession to the presidency, the U.S. anti-Muslim crusade
is going into full swing. According to an article in the November 14 issue of
the Washington Post, hate crimes against Muslims hit their highest level since
2001. An article in yesterday's Post stated that four mosques have received
letters stating that Trump will do to Muslims what Hitler ''did to the Jews.''
Ever since the 9/11 attacks, religious bigots have used that event as the
excuse to go after Muslims. The problem with their mindset — or at least one
problem with their mindset — is that they letting their religious bigotry
prevent them from recognizing that the root cause of anti-American terrorism
is not based on religion but instead on the U.S. government's interventionist
foreign policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
In other words, if there had never been the Persian Gulf intervention, the
tens years of deadly sanctions against the Iraqi people, the stationing of
U.S. troops near Islamic holy lands, and unconditional foreign aid to the
Israeli government, there never would have been the 9/11 attacks, which means
there never would have been U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which
would mean that we wouldn't be living under the never-ending ''war on
terrorism'' and ongoing anxiety over Muslims, Islam, the Koran, and
caliphates.
Think back to the Cold War era. Interventionists never expressed any concern
about Muslims. The concern was exclusively on communists. The communists were
coming to get us. There was an international communist conspiracy based in
Moscow. If U.S. troops weren't sent to Korea, the commies would soon be
walking the streets of Washington, D.C. If U.S. troops weren't sent to
Vietnam, the dominoes would begin falling and the Reds would soon be running
the IRS and the Interstate Highway System. Cuba was a communist dagger pointed
at America's neck, requiring the CIA to do everything it could to murder Cuban
President Fidel Castro. U.S.-instigated military coups in Guatemala and Chile
to keep communists from being democratically elected. Spying on Martin Luther
King and left-wing organizations as suspected communist fronts.
It was all about communism. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The anti-communist
crusade was all that people talked about and thought about.
Nary a word about Muslims, Islam, the Koran, or caliphates.
With one big exception. U.S. officials praise extremist Muslims, partnered
with them, and glorified them.
Recall when it was the Soviet Union, rather than the United States, that was
doing to occupying of Afghanistan. When the U.S. government decided to oppose
the Soviet Union's occupation of that country, take a wild stab at who they
partnered with.
Yep, you guessed it! Muslims. And not just any Muslims. Radical Muslims.
Extremist Muslims. Muslim fanatics. People who held the same religious
convictions as Osama bin Laden, who was one of those extremist Muslim fanatics
who were fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
It was those extreme Muslim fanatics with whom the U.S. government partnered
during the Cold War. The government gave them money. It gave the weaponry. It
thanked them and glorified them.
Were Americans concerned about any Muslim threat to America and the Western
world? Nope. Not a peep about those big, bad, scary Muslims who were coming to
get us. Nothing about the worldwide caliphates that were going to be
established. No fear of anti-American terrorist attacks. Everyone was just
scared of the commie boogeyman.
In fact, read what Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national
security advisor, said in January 1998 (some three years before the 9/11
attacks):
When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended
to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan,
people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't
regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect
of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The
day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President
Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.
Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the
government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the
breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism,
having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the
collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of
Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic
fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam.
That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner
and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world
with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian
fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or
Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian
countries.
After the end of the Cold War, interventionists didn't know what to do. Many
of them held on the communists and communism as their official enemy and
undoubtedly would have continued doing so if the 9/11 attacks had never
happened.
But then came 9/11, which began as an anti-terrorist crusade but quickly
morphed into an anti-Muslim crusade. Soon, interventionists transferred all
their fears, anxiety, and negativity that they had had for commies to Muslims.
But what the interventionists have never wanted to confront is that the 9/11
attacks had nothing to do with religion. They were instead rooted in anger and
rage over what the Pentagon and the CIA were doing to people in the Middle
East, most of whom happened to be Muslims. One good example was the deep anger
over the U.S. government's killing of innocent children in Iraq, with its ten
years of brutal sanctions for regime change. Another example was UN Ambassador
Madeleine Albright's infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million
Iraqi children from the sanctions were ''worth it.''
When a foreign regime is killing people, especially children, most of whom
happen to be Muslims, it shouldn't surprise anyone when retaliation time
comes, those who are retaliating are likely to be Muslims. So, once that
happened, the interventionists seized on the opportunity to blast Muslims and
Islam rather than point out and oppose the root of the problem — U.S.
interventionism in the Middle East.
As I have long been pointing out, there is no good reason for any American to
wage an anti-Muslim crusade. All that Americans have to do is pull the
national-security state — i.e., the military and the CIA out of the Middle
East and Afghanistan. Just bring the troops home and discharge them. No more
killing, bombing, or assassinating at the hands of U.S. forces.
At that point, the threat of anti-American terrorism dissipates. No more war
on terrorism. No more anxiety over Muslims.
Who then will be made a new official enemy? Hey, there are always drug users,
illegal aliens, and maybe even Russia or China.
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in
economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the
University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He
also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught
law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become
director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has
advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the
country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and
he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show
Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full
Context.
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