U.S. Intervention into the Muslim Countries
Is it time yet?
Lately, you and your next door neighbor-who go to the same church on Sundays- have not been in good terms. Apparently, they encroached when they repaired the fence, or at least you think they did. You have been trying to get them back off, but the neighbor is not willing to even take your argument into consideration.
One morning you get up and … here are the “Neighborhood Watch” volunteers, camping in your backyard. They brought flashlights, blankets, water, etc. with them; meaning they are “really” staying in your backyard.
You ask them to leave your property, but they tell you that they are policing the situation (argument) you are having with your neighbor. You insist and start threatening them, but they’re not leaving. How would you do feel?
This is how people in the ME Muslim countries feel about presence of the U.S. troops in their homeland.
Let’s roll back and look at some examples of the U.S. interventions in other countries and reactions to such involvements:
1915: The former Harvard professor, Muenter, placed a package containing explosives set for nearly midnight under a telephone switchboard in the Senate reception room in the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. He was particularly angry with American financiers who were aiding Great Britain against Germany in World War I, despite this country’s official neutrality in that conflict.
In a letter to the Washington Evening Star, published after the blast, he hoped that the blast would “make enough noise to be heard … He wanted to stop the U.S. support of the Allies in World War I.
1983: A blast tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s north wing at 10:58 p.m. and caused nearly $250,000. Minutes before the blast, a caller warned the Capitol that a bomb had been placed near the chamber in retaliation for recent U.S. military involvement in Grenada and Lebanon.
1993: Bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. The attack was planned by a group of Muslim terrorists including Ramzi Yousef, whose letters to some of the New York newspapers before the attack demanded the U.S. to cease intervention in the domestic affairs of the ME countries. Yousef stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met.
In the 1998 fatwā, al-Qaeda declared that to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim until the American troops move out of all the lands of Islam.
9/11: Bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.
In bin Laden’s November 2002 “Letter to America”, he stated some of al-Qaeda’s motives for their attacks against the U.S.:
• The presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia
• U.S. support of Israel
However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was born.
A Pew Center public opinion survey released in July 2010 found the percentage of Pakistanis holding a favorable view of Al Qaeda doubling from 9% in 2009 to 18% in 2010.
People only change when the pain of changing is less than the pain of staying the same. Isn’t this true? I think it is. I heard this from someone, but I’m not sure who gets credit for this, if any.
As much the U.S. intends to bring peace and democracy into these countries, we have to face the reality that: Democracy cannot be injected!!! Not to mention that what means democracy to us, may not have the same definition to many others.
Bottom line, in Muslims’ eyes, the U.S. is an anti-Islam trespasser, and life is meaningless if they don’t defend their religion and their homeland.
The U.S. must let the Muslim countries exhaust their conflicts amongst themselves. Billions of dollars deploying troops could be spent on strengthening the military and improving the country’s defense, while concentrating on the domestic affairs and, most importantly, our economy.
