The Middle East Massacre

On my way into work this morning, I was listening to a BBC Newshour segment on a man’s account of a night raid in Afghanistan. My initial thought was, ‘This is never a story you’d hear on any mainstream American news outlet”. My second thought was, ‘Wow, and we wonder why “these people” “hate” us?’

At the Tea Party Debate on September 12th, Ron Paul was attacked by Rick Santorum for writing  this article. In a nutshell, Ron Paul explains that the people in the Middle East who want to attack us do not want to do so because we are free, democratic, prosperous, or even predominantly a “Christian nation”; they want to attack us because we are over there occupying their land and meddling in their affairs. The Tea Party Debate crowd booed Ron Paul as he continued to defend his viewpoint.

Some people might wonder how these statements are even controversial. The term “blowback” was coined by the CIA and the CIA has admitted that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a result of our own foreign policies. So how is this even disputed? How has it become “un-American” to question the government’s foreign policies and how they affect us worldwide? Does the MSM (mainstream media) keep us that far removed from what is happening over there on the ground? Or are we that desensitized to the Muslim region that we just don’t care?

The man who BBC profiled this morning spoke of the many night raids that the American troops conduct. Even though the troops killed two members of his family, a 12-year-old girl, both of his neighbors, and many others, he didn’t ask the government to stop–he just pleaded that the U.S. provide warning, like in the form of an announcement at a local Mosque, ahead of time. Why? Because many Afghanis irrigate their crops at night; because they don’t have indoor restroom facilities, so they must leave their houses to relieve themselves; because just like anyone else in the world, people still carry on at night.

This is one story. These tragic events happen daily for the civilians of this region. Take for instance, this story, where troops “executed” 10 Iraqis, including an elderly woman and an infant. Or this one, where troops killed Afghani men for “sport”. In 2006, in Iraq alone, the civilian death toll was 655,000. The numbers across the region are in the millions now.

My goal here is not to vilify American Troops. Like any given large population, you are going to have your “bad apples”. The majority of troops are good people who want to make a living serving their country. What’s concerning to me is our Middle Eastern foreign policy, but most importantly, public opinion regarding these policies. The U.S. has more civilian blood on its hands than any Extremist ever could, and probably ever will. Since our presence in the Middle East, the Taliban has doubled. These people were safer without us there (and so were we). What I can’t understand, is how pointing out these figures and making logical deductions regarding American sentiment in the Middle East, is controversial?

Like Ron Paul said in his article, put yourselves in these people’s shoes for one moment. Imagine, that as a sovereign nation, another “big kid on the block”, let’s say China or Russia, send hundreds of thousands of troops over our borders. They start bombing our streets and turning our neighborhoods into war zones. Women and children are killed, sometimes on “accident”, sometimes on purpose. Because of this, there is an insurgence of violence and radicalization.

….Ask yourselves, how would you feel about China or Russia? What would you want to do to them? Maybe you would become a “radical” yourself.

The examples above are just some of the reasons America isn’t popular in the Middle East. There are others, like propping up dictators, our blind support for Israel, or imposing sanctions that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Knowing this, how can you not understand “their” position on America? Instead of looking at external factors for these threats, we need to start looking inward…