The Excuse of American Imperialism
BY Herschel Smith
17 years, 4 months ago
We have discussed before the use of American hegemony, colonialism and imperialism as an excuse for the actions of the Islamists. If we weren’t in their territory, the argument goes, 9/11 would not have happened. If our troops were not deployed throughout the Middle East, the root cause of Jihad would disappear or at least dwindle. But in Globalization, Religious Commitment and Non-State Actors, we observed that this argument doesn’t comport with the facts. “Prior to 9/11 U.S. forces had armed the Muslims in Afghanistan to enable them to drive the Soviet Union from their midst, saved the Muslims in Bosnia from extermination, assisted the Shi’a in the south of Iraq (due to the Southern no-fly zone), and saved the Kurdish Muslims in Northern Iraq from extermination (due to the Northern no-fly zone).”
Victor Davis Hanson has weighed in on this subject in one of his recent commentaries at National Review Online.
Moreover, it is not always what we do in the Middle East, or even who we are, that infuriates the radical Muslim world. Its frustration also rises out of fascination with the West — and the ensuing religious embarrassment over wanting what we enjoy.
It’s worth noting that the United States is not hated in numerous other places, such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, where it has had a military presence or adopted controversial foreign policies.
In contrast, the peculiar furor at the U.S. in the radical Islamic world arises because our culture, when viewed on DVD, satellite television, and the Internet, is judged to be incorrect in the ideal world of 7th-century Islam — and impossible for conflicted Muslims to enjoy fully in the 21st.
Read Hanson’s entire commentary: Their Western Ways (We infidels are good for something).
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