On Willis Hart's Idiotic & Islamophobic Assessment of Blowback

In a 3/9/2014 post the blogger Willis Hart addresses Ron Paul and says "for Mr. Paul or anybody to think that 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombings, and Benghazi wouldn't have happened had only our troops not been placed in Saudi Arabia for a spate is a little bit silly and naive in my estimation".

In reply I must say "what a dope". 9/11 was cited by bin Laden as his rationale, but a LOT more has happened since then, like the illegal invasion of 2 countries and sustained drone strikes that have killed thousands. The Boston Marathon bombings and Benghazi were blowback for those things, you dolt!

Mr. Hart goes on to list his problems with "radical Islam", and he has very valid concerns, but, in my estimation, a large number of those who have been "radicalized" chose the "revenge" route exactly because of our response to 9/11, which was for bush to take advantage of the shock of the nation, as well as the strong feeling at the time that we needed to strike back.

bush saw an opportunity to become a "war president", get political capital, use that to push his other agenda items and get elected to a second term. And it also presented a wonderful opportunity for the bushies to loot the treasury by way of "no bid" Afghanistan and Iraq "reconstruction" contracts.

And that Mr. Hart consistently has defended bush in regards to his lying and thieving is, in my opinion, thoroughly disgusting. Ron Paul, while I may strongly disagree with MOST of what he believes, is correct when he says 9/11 "was blowback for decades of US intervention in the Middle East". And he was also correct when he say "the last thing we needed was the government's response: more wars, a stepped-up police and surveillance state, and drones".

Yes, OBL "publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. military, arguing the two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the Prophet Mohamed received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims" and cited our military presence in that country as the motivation for the 9/11 attacks, but Al Qaeda was (prior to 9/11) an obscure Islamic movement and most likely faded from existence is not for our military response.

It was our response post-9/11 that continued the blowback (and made it worse). Another response and the blowback surely would be much less than it is today. The Boston bombers specifically stated that the motivation for their actions was our killing of Muslims in our "war on terror".

That Willis Hart only cites Saudi Arabia as the only reason for the rise of radical Islam is more than a bit silly and naive in my estimation. The main point of his commentary is to push his Islamophobic POV in which the US is blameless and all fingers should be pointed at the "rag heads" practicing a religion he is biased against. (for the record WH doesn't use the term "rag head", but reading his commentary you very much expect him to).

OST #2. See also TADM #21 and SWTD #239.