SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned U.S. military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Were he alive to witness the last three decades of U.S. foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: "Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable."
For decades beginning during the Cold War, U.S. policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements. Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left.
In these dictatorships, often the only places where people had freedom to meet and organize were mosques -- and out of these mosques sometimes grew extreme Islamist movements. The Shah's torture state in Iran was brilliant at cleansing and murdering the left - a process that ultimately helped the rise of the Khomeini movement and ultimately Iran's Islamic Republic.
Growing out of what M.L. King called Washington's "irrational, obsessive anti-communism," U.S. foreign policy also backed extreme Islamists over secular movements or government that were either Soviet-allied or feared to be.
In Afghanistan, beginning before the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the U.S. armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters -- some of whom went on to form the Taliban. To aid the mujahedeen, the U.S. recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world -- some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda. (Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence -- in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians -- covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)
This is hardly obscure history.
Except in U.S. mainstream media.
One of the mantras on U.S. television news all day Friday was: Be fearful of the democratic uprisings against U.S. allies in Egypt (and Tunisia and elsewhere). After all, we were told by Fox News and CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, it could end up as bad as when "our ally" in Iran was
Such talk comes easy in U.S. media where Egyptian victims of rape and torture in Mubarak's jails are never seen. Where it's rarely emphasized that weapons of repression used against Egyptian demonstrators are paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Where Mubarak is almost always called "president" and almost never "dictator" (unlike the elected president of Venezuela).
When U.S. media glibly talk about the Egyptian and Tunisian "presidents" being valued "allies in the war on terror," it's no surprise they offer no details about the prisoners the U.S. has renditioned to these "pro-Western" countries for torture.
The truth is that no one knows how these uprisings will end.
But revolution of some kind, as King said, seems inevitable. Washington's corrupt Arab dictators will come down as surely (yet more organically) as that statue of Saddam, another former U.S.-ally.
If Washington took its heel off the Arab people and ended its embrace of the dictators, that could help secularists and democrats win hearts and minds against extreme Islamists.
Democracy is a great idea. Too bad it plays almost no role in U.S. foreign policy.
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned U.S. military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Were he alive to witness the last three decades of U.S. foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: "Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable."
For decades beginning during the Cold War, U.S. policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements. Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left.
In these dictatorships, often the only places where people had freedom to meet and organize were mosques -- and out of these mosques sometimes grew extreme Islamist movements. The Shah's torture state in Iran was brilliant at cleansing and murdering the left - a process that ultimately helped the rise of the Khomeini movement and ultimately Iran's Islamic Republic.
Growing out of what M.L. King called Washington's "irrational, obsessive anti-communism," U.S. foreign policy also backed extreme Islamists over secular movements or government that were either Soviet-allied or feared to be.
In Afghanistan, beginning before the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the U.S. armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters -- some of whom went on to form the Taliban. To aid the mujahedeen, the U.S. recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world -- some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda. (Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence -- in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians -- covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)
This is hardly obscure history.
Except in U.S. mainstream media.
One of the mantras on U.S. television news all day Friday was: Be fearful of the democratic uprisings against U.S. allies in Egypt (and Tunisia and elsewhere). After all, we were told by Fox News and CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, it could end up as bad as when "our ally" in Iran was
Such talk comes easy in U.S. media where Egyptian victims of rape and torture in Mubarak's jails are never seen. Where it's rarely emphasized that weapons of repression used against Egyptian demonstrators are paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Where Mubarak is almost always called "president" and almost never "dictator" (unlike the elected president of Venezuela).
When U.S. media glibly talk about the Egyptian and Tunisian "presidents" being valued "allies in the war on terror," it's no surprise they offer no details about the prisoners the U.S. has renditioned to these "pro-Western" countries for torture.
The truth is that no one knows how these uprisings will end.
But revolution of some kind, as King said, seems inevitable. Washington's corrupt Arab dictators will come down as surely (yet more organically) as that statue of Saddam, another former U.S.-ally.
If Washington took its heel off the Arab people and ended its embrace of the dictators, that could help secularists and democrats win hearts and minds against extreme Islamists.
Democracy is a great idea. Too bad it plays almost no role in U.S. foreign policy.
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned U.S. military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Were he alive to witness the last three decades of U.S. foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: "Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable."
For decades beginning during the Cold War, U.S. policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements. Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left.
In these dictatorships, often the only places where people had freedom to meet and organize were mosques -- and out of these mosques sometimes grew extreme Islamist movements. The Shah's torture state in Iran was brilliant at cleansing and murdering the left - a process that ultimately helped the rise of the Khomeini movement and ultimately Iran's Islamic Republic.
Growing out of what M.L. King called Washington's "irrational, obsessive anti-communism," U.S. foreign policy also backed extreme Islamists over secular movements or government that were either Soviet-allied or feared to be.
In Afghanistan, beginning before the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the U.S. armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters -- some of whom went on to form the Taliban. To aid the mujahedeen, the U.S. recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world -- some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda. (Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence -- in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians -- covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)
This is hardly obscure history.
Except in U.S. mainstream media.
One of the mantras on U.S. television news all day Friday was: Be fearful of the democratic uprisings against U.S. allies in Egypt (and Tunisia and elsewhere). After all, we were told by Fox News and CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, it could end up as bad as when "our ally" in Iran was
Such talk comes easy in U.S. media where Egyptian victims of rape and torture in Mubarak's jails are never seen. Where it's rarely emphasized that weapons of repression used against Egyptian demonstrators are paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Where Mubarak is almost always called "president" and almost never "dictator" (unlike the elected president of Venezuela).
When U.S. media glibly talk about the Egyptian and Tunisian "presidents" being valued "allies in the war on terror," it's no surprise they offer no details about the prisoners the U.S. has renditioned to these "pro-Western" countries for torture.
The truth is that no one knows how these uprisings will end.
But revolution of some kind, as King said, seems inevitable. Washington's corrupt Arab dictators will come down as surely (yet more organically) as that statue of Saddam, another former U.S.-ally.
If Washington took its heel off the Arab people and ended its embrace of the dictators, that could help secularists and democrats win hearts and minds against extreme Islamists.
Democracy is a great idea. Too bad it plays almost no role in U.S. foreign policy.