The situation in the Middle East is a morass of failed regime-changes, failed nation-building, and broken promises. Where our country once had the sympathy of the world, we now have made enemies. Where we once had goodwill, we now have enmity. With our country in almost to the homestretch of the 2008 presidential campaign, it may be useful to examine the situation a little more closely. Just because there are parties in the U.S. that would prefer you ignore it, the rest of the world will not.

First a little history. Back in 1952, the CIA under Eisenhower (Republican) helped oust the popular Iranian PM Mossadegh, which enabled the Shah to consolidate his power. The Shah's regime, while nominally secular and pro-American, was brutally oppressive and his secret police--the SAVAK--was as terrorizing as anything the Nazis could have envisioned. By 1979, the people had had enough and fundamentalism burst forth, sending the Shah running and allowing the Ayatollah Khomeini to ascend into power. The hostage crisis, which happened under Carter, was manipulated to continue until Reagan was inaugurated, putting partisan politics ahead of the hostages' lives.

Under Reagan's watch, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Because the communists were the Bogeyman, the CIA was allowed to train and arm Afghani tribes into making war against the Soviets, which eventually led to the Soviets leaving the country just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. While Republicans would argue that the secret war in Afghanistan was a success, one of the CIA's brighter pupils was Osama bin Laden. In fact, the bulk of his terrorist network received training courtesy of your tax dollars.

Also under Reagan's watch, Iraq's tin horn dictator, Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran. Very quickly, his troops were being beaten back. Probably still smarting from the situation in Iran, Reagan sent Iraq real time intelligence on Iranian troop concentrations and gave other aid. Most egregiously, Reagan gave Saddam Hussein the materials and means to develop chemical and biological weapons (famous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein) even after Saddam Hussein used such weapons against his own people at Halabja.

The first Gulf War in 1990 would not have even been possible were it not for the Bush Sr. Administration. See, the Kuwaitis had been slant drilling illegally (according to international law) into the Iraqi oil fields for some time. Saddam Hussein rightfully wanted the Kuwaitis to cease drilling, which they refused. In a conversation with April Gillespie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Hussein expressed his concerns and was reassured by Gillespie that the U.S. had no problem with Iraq handling this on their own. Hussein invaded Kuwait and was probably very surprised when Bush Sr turned the world against him. Iraq was still in shambles and the Iraqi Republican Guard, which held Iraq's best engineers and tradesmen, needed to be disbanded to rebuild the country, but it never got the chance. The country that Bush claimed to have been a threat to the entire Gulf region was already broken and only had a 4th rate military.

Rather than sending all the troops home and leaving the Gulf nations to run themselves, Bush Sr.--whose family had long ties with the bin Ladens of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family--built permanent bases and used coercion suggestive diplomacy to tell other countries how to live. Then, at the United States' urging, the UN Security Council levied a series of sanctions against Iraq--not against Saddam Hussein but against the Iraqi people--to get the people to overthrow their leader. Tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children died as a result. (Not to mention the promise the Bush Administration made to the Kurds in Northern Iraq to give them assistance to help them overthrow Hussein and, once their attacks were underway, Bush's support for them disappeared and they were left at the mercy of Hussein.)

Osama bin Laden, being an Islamic fundamentalist, took exception to the presence of the international bully remaining in the Middle East and began waging the kind of war our own government trained him to fight. Contrary to the claims of Dubya Bush, Iraq was a secular country and Osama bin Laden felt that Saddam Hussein was an infidel, so they didn't have a collaborative working relationship or any relationship at all.

9/11--We don't know what really happened and probably will never know what happened. There are too many inconsistencies in the official story, too many coincidences to make the official story completely kosher. The tangible outcomes of the war are as follows: 1)world opinion, which had been turning against Israel for its treatment of Palestinians, turned sharply against Muslims; 2)world sympathy was held out to our country; 3)Bush implemented war plans he had already made and invaded Afghanistan; 4)a phony war on terror was begun, which didn't make our country any safer from outside terrorism, but it did expand the Executive Branch of the government and create a huge bureaucracy to oppress the rights and liberties of the American people.

Iraq--The invasion of Iraq contrary to international law and against the wished and desires of the people of the world. Yes, the tinhorn dictator was caught and executed, but world opinion turned sharply against the United States, who viewed and continue to view us as a bully and the greatest threat to world peace. Tangible outcomes: The dollar, which has been the world's reserve currency, is being replaced by the Euro and the dollar is dying if not dead already. The M3 money supply chart was disbanded by Bush, so we really don't know how many dollars are in circulation, which is an indicator of the true health of our economy. Our borders are still wide open. Our people have fewer rights than in 2000, thanks in no small part to Patriot Acts 1&2, which were brought to the American people by the Republican White House and Congress.
-------------------------
Getting back to the politics of genocide. Our country trained the terrorists to fight the exact same war they are successfully waging against us. We had world sympathy--even from Arab countries--but squandered it by invading Iraq and bombing and torturing civilians. Those people who have been brutalized by the Bush Regime now hate us, which puts them squarely in the camp of the terrorists. They attack us in defense of their homes, so we bomb them some more and torture more "terror suspects", making more enemies for us to bomb and torture.

No matter how you cut it, the Republican War on Terror is genocide because the longer we are there, the more fighting and dying we will have to do to subjugate people who don't want us there. Eventually, we will either have to leave to break the cycle or the Muslims will run out of people. Considering that Republican candidate John McCain want to remain their another 100 years, we can see where this is going.

Contrary to what the most chauvinistic Republican Nationalists claim, the world is not laughing at us for doing this. If anything, they are looking on in horror and wondering when we are going to attack them.

War on Terror=Genocide
----------------------
"Every politician in the world is all for revolution, reason, and disarmament--but only in enemy countries, not in his own."--Herman Hesse

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."--H.L. Mencken

"How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?"--Howard Zinn

"We cloak ourselves in cold indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others--even when we cause it."--James Carroll

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."--James Madison