[Vision2020] Response to Pat Kraut on Muslim Males

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

Although I think that Joan's response to Pat Kraut's attack on Muslim men 
was brilliant, I would like to try a different tactic and address the 
reasons why they hate us so much.

Back in the early 50s as Dulles brothers started their virulent 
anti-Communist campaign (including stiffing China and the North Vietnamese 
at the 1954 Geneva Accords), the CIA was instructed to undermine the 
democratic Iranian government of Mohammed Mossadegh, who was labeled a 
Communist, even though he was just a progressive democrat.

We brought back Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, even though it was well know 
that he neither had the desire nor credentials to run a country.  We helped 
him build up his military and a vicious secret police and we made sure that 
Iran's oil kept flowing into our gas tanks.  These were the conditions that 
radicalized an entire generation of young Muslims, inspired by leaders such 
as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led, from his Paris apartment, a 
massive nonviolent rebellion against the Shah.

The radical Islamic movement was intensified and internationalized by 
Reagan's support for these very elements in Afghanistan in the 1980s rather 
the more moderate Northern Alliance, whom we finally allied with in the 
recent overthrow of the Taliban.

So it is we who stirred up the hornets in the Middle East and Bush, Jr. has 
just stuck his finger in the hive once again.  One could argue that young 
Muslim men have very good reason to fight us, but what is the excuse of the 
actions of the white males that Joan mentioned in her response?  I guess it 
is simply because they could.  Lo, the power of top males.  It must feel 
soooo good.

Nick Gier



"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part 
by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the 
interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual 
life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and 
art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." 
--Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://users.moscow.com/ngier/home/index.htm
208-883-3360/882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift/index.htm