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To Defeat ISIS, We Must Call Both Western and Muslim Leaders to Account
A Moroccan author remembers growing up without religious extremism, and what changed that.
We must call to account the governments of the United States, France, Britain, Russia, Iran, and many others, who lent support and succor to tyrant after tyrant in the Middle East and North Africa, and whose interventions appear to create 10 terrorists for every one they kill.
We must call to account George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, whose disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent disbanding of the Iraqi army destabilized the entire region.
Wahhabi ideas have spread throughout the region not because they have any meritbut because they are well funded.
We must call to account the Saudi kingsSalman, Abdullah, and Fahdwhose funding of Wahhabi doctrine gave rise to the scourge of Islamic extremism.
When I was a child in Morocco, no clerics told me what to do, what to read or not read, what to believe, what to wear. And if they did, I was free not to listen. Faith was more than its conspicuous manifestations. But things began to change in the 1980s. It was the height of the Cold War and Arab tyrants saw an opportunity: They could hold on to power indefinitely by repressing the dissidents in their midstmost of them secular leftistsand by encouraging the religious right wing, with tacit or overt approval from the United States and other Western allies. Into the void created by the decimation of the Arab worlds secular left, the Wahhabis stepped in, with almost unlimited financial resources. Wahhabi ideas spread throughout the region not because they have any meritthey dontbut because they were and remain well funded. We cannot defeat ISIS without defeating the Wahhabi theology that birthed it. And to do so would require spending as much effort and money in defending liberal ideas.
http://www.thenation.com/article/we-cannot-defeat-isis-without-defeating-the-wahhabi-theology-that-birthed-it/
We must call to account George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, whose disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent disbanding of the Iraqi army destabilized the entire region.
Wahhabi ideas have spread throughout the region not because they have any meritbut because they are well funded.
We must call to account the Saudi kingsSalman, Abdullah, and Fahdwhose funding of Wahhabi doctrine gave rise to the scourge of Islamic extremism.
When I was a child in Morocco, no clerics told me what to do, what to read or not read, what to believe, what to wear. And if they did, I was free not to listen. Faith was more than its conspicuous manifestations. But things began to change in the 1980s. It was the height of the Cold War and Arab tyrants saw an opportunity: They could hold on to power indefinitely by repressing the dissidents in their midstmost of them secular leftistsand by encouraging the religious right wing, with tacit or overt approval from the United States and other Western allies. Into the void created by the decimation of the Arab worlds secular left, the Wahhabis stepped in, with almost unlimited financial resources. Wahhabi ideas spread throughout the region not because they have any meritthey dontbut because they were and remain well funded. We cannot defeat ISIS without defeating the Wahhabi theology that birthed it. And to do so would require spending as much effort and money in defending liberal ideas.
http://www.thenation.com/article/we-cannot-defeat-isis-without-defeating-the-wahhabi-theology-that-birthed-it/
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To Defeat ISIS, We Must Call Both Western and Muslim Leaders to Account (Original Post)
yurbud
Nov 2015
OP
patsimp
(915 posts)1. bush and his cohorts, blair, and the muslin leaders.
cprise
(8,445 posts)2. Great article.
shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)3. The Nation
Thank you to The Nation magazine. Clear headed thinking in muddled times, cogent and timely writings from across the world like this article. And how can these ideas of conscience and reason compete with the madness that permeates our media? It's stunning how these views are so far from what is presented in the mainstream fawning corporate media.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)4. colbert nailed it at white house correspondents dinner
MSM takes dictation from those in power.