Where were you in 2001? Al Qaeda dominated the Taliban government of Afghanistan and had the run of the country. One reason that the Taliban were so easily run out of power was that most Afghans despised the "Arabs" that were dominating their politics in partnership with the Taliban.
Yes, anti-Muslim violence is being inflamed by the likes of Trump, Carson, and Santorum, and also by anti-religion bigots like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, who studiously ignore the complexities of modern Islam and tar all Muslims as holding the same fanatical beliefs as ISIS.
President Obama decided to give the entire Bush administration a free pass for all the lies, hypocrisies, and crimes regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq, so it's hardly surprising that these bad pennies are turning up again. It wasn't even necessary for Obama to prosecute anybody (though this was richly deserved by many); a truth and reconciliation commission about the Iraq War would have been of inestimable value, and certainly would have exposed and discredited the frauds that led Americans into that war.
Instead, by ratcheting up their hyperbolic cold war rhetoric, Obama and Kerry have overturned the rock these incompetent jingoists have resided under. There's a sad poetical justice as Obama and Kerry get derided as ineffective weaklings by the people their own rhetorical excesses have provided with undeserved credibility.
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Where were you in 2001? Al Qaeda dominated the Taliban government of Afghanistan and had the run of the country. One reason that the Taliban were so easily run out of power was that most Afghans despised the "Arabs" that were dominating their politics in partnership with the Taliban.
Afghanistan.
Yes, anti-Muslim violence is being inflamed by the likes of Trump, Carson, and Santorum, and also by anti-religion bigots like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, who studiously ignore the complexities of modern Islam and tar all Muslims as holding the same fanatical beliefs as ISIS.
President Obama decided to give the entire Bush administration a free pass for all the lies, hypocrisies, and crimes regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq, so it's hardly surprising that these bad pennies are turning up again. It wasn't even necessary for Obama to prosecute anybody (though this was richly deserved by many); a truth and reconciliation commission about the Iraq War would have been of inestimable value, and certainly would have exposed and discredited the frauds that led Americans into that war.
Instead, by ratcheting up their hyperbolic cold war rhetoric, Obama and Kerry have overturned the rock these incompetent jingoists have resided under. There's a sad poetical justice as Obama and Kerry get derided as ineffective weaklings by the people their own rhetorical excesses have provided with undeserved credibility.