Are We The Bad Guy Too?

One of my earliest coherent memories was of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. My mother and I, or my grandma if I was staying with her, watched the news every night and tracked the progress.

They explained that Iran was another country on the other side of the world and that the hostages were Americans. My grandma also explained that the government over there was run by religious fanatics.

It opened my eyes to a larger world and sparked my love of international relations and politics in general.

The Trump administration killed my enjoyment of politics. Possibly forever.

As the years went by, I did my own research into the history of the Middle East. I can't explain how horrified I was when I realized a large portion of the blame for the chaos over there is squarely on the shoulders of the West in general and the United States in particular.

The realization went hand in hand with my comprehension that The United States wasn't always the "Good Guy."

I watched the chaos between Israel and Palestine and the war between Iraq and Iran with horror. I never understood why it seemed impossible for the leaders on both sides of the conflict to just talk to one another.

I still don't.

The United States bankrolled Iraq during its war with Iran, mostly because of the cheap oil Iraq supplied us in return.

Then, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, The United States invaded Iraq. I'm sure the vast Kuwaiti oil reserves had nothing to do with that. After The United States invaded Iraq, we seized the reserves of oil and kept it flowing.

Jump forward a decade, give or take a few years. You see that time after time, Israel bombed and/or invaded The West Bank and the Gaza Strip (all that reminded of the Palestinian nation) and crushed all resistance.

A little history note.

Following World War 2, the newly formed United Nations adopted a plan giving the Arabs already living in Palestine and the few Jews living there, along with displaced Jewish people following the Holocaust, independent states on the land occupied by the Palestinians.

All with United States support.

Two decades of Jewish settlers absorbing bites of Palestinian land followed. In 1967, the Arab States attempted to invade and occupy Israel. The Six Days War (Jun 5, 1967 – Jun 10, 1967) was a humiliating defeat for the Arab alliance and resulted in Israel occupying all of Palestine. An occupation that continues to this very day.

All with United States support.

Over the next six decades, Israel continued to absorb pieces of Palestine through Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory. In response, the Palestinians resorted to using guerilla tactics in an attempt to drive the Israelis from their land.

All with United States support.

In the wake of the failed invasion, all that remained of Palestine was two tiny slices. The West Bank on the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip on the Eastern Mediterranean coast. Both were occupied, and Gaza was slowly transformed into the world's largest and most densely populated open-air prison/concentration camp in the world.

All with United States support.

I could go on and on talking about attacks and retaliations, but suffice it to say NEITHER side is clean in this. The low-intensity conflict, with flashes of severe fighting, continued until this year.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas, the most vicious and fanatical of the Palestinian "resistance" factions, launched an invasion of Israel, resulting in the deaths of more than a thousand civilians, men, women, and children in a single day.

Following the attack, the ultra-rightwing (read fascist) government declared war on Hamas and Palestine. Since then, they've been bombing the hell out of Gaza and preparing for a ground invasion.m They've also been committing war crimes, such as cutting all power and shipments of food and medical supplies.

All with United States support.

Let's be clear on this. Hamas is a vile organization and deserves to be expunged from this Earth. They are a blight on our global civilization.

They are evil.

But let's be clear, Israel and the United States are culpable in the creation of this malignant cancer of an organization. They created the environment destined to result in the formation of Hamas.

Now, war rages, and the other Arab nations, even our allies, have officially condemned Israel's actions. The region is a powder keg waiting for the next spark to ignite it. The region was already shaky following the United States invasions on Iraq and Afghanistan following the 9/11 terror attacks.

These invasions set the groundwork for the current level of violence.

If we want to end this nightmare before it gets worse, we need to talk. All of the leaders in the region, along with the Western Nations, need to come to the table and hash this out.

But it won't happen.

Why?

The Israelis want this to continue until they destroy, invade, and absorb the former state of Palestine. And they will do this because the only power with the weight to make the groups talk supports Israel in all things. The far-right Israelis will get what they've always wanted.

All with United States support.

- Josh (10/12/2023)