If Most Muslims Like Americans But Hate American Government, What Does That Indicate?

It indicates that your government is lying to you. It also indicates that Americans ought to quit electing shysters to government--because the reasons that most Muslims have for hating our government are mostly good reasons.

Update 6/17/2008: The addition of a quotation that supports my claim that the Bush Administration cast al Qaeda and radical Islam as capable of taking over the world.

The Prophecy.
George Orwell was prescient when he wrote the book 1984, the principles of which have been part of American foreign policy for at least the last 50 years. A main theme of the book regards how government maintains power by

Most Muslims do not harbor animosity for the American people. We must, therefore, start electing people who don't hate Muslims.

keeping the people in a state of perpetual siege by conjuring up enemies that don't really exist. When the Communist "juggernaut" was suppressed, the American Establishment had to find a new bogey man, for which--to them--radical Islam was perfectly suited. George W. Bush has been the enemy-conjurer extraordinaire, but he's not been the only one.

At first we heard the claim that Saddam Hussein had the capability of dropping chemical (and nuclear?) weapons on the United States using remote-piloted airplanes, despite the fact that he had no air force at all, and that not one US aircraft had ever been shot down during over a decde of patrolling Iraqi airspace. On this and other specious pretexts we attacked Iraq.

It may be too late not to elect a Muslim-hating president this time around, but it's not too late to start wondering how we keep getting ourselves into such a mess every four years.

When that didn't hold water, we decided that we were there to build democracy.

Now we have to be worried that al Qaeda is on the verge of creating a world-dominating caliphate and that Iran will have nuclear world dominance by tomorrow? Yet rumors abound that an attack on Iran by the US or Israel is imminent. For the love of Pete!

Ironically, the United

When the Communist "juggernaut" was suppressed, the American Establishment had to find a new bogey man, for which to them radical Islam was perfectly suited. Oh, the irony that we created radical Islam.

States helped to build up radical Islam as a supposed bulwark against Communism. Is it possible that 50 years ago, the Establishment thought that radical Islam would someday make an excellent enemy? It's making a "good enemy" for the Establishment now, and most of the rest of us are dumb enough to believe the lies.

The Reality.
The reality is this:

(1) al Qaeda has no possibility of taking over the world.
(2) Iran is years away from making a nuclear warhead, let alone having the means to catapult it half way around the world to hit us with it, and
(3) most Muslims hate us exclusively for our foreign policy, but otherwise appreciate what America stands for.

Michael Scheuer, in his book Marching Toward Hell, has this interesting observation:

Polls taken in the Islamic world by reliable Western firms...over the past fifteen-plus years invariably find two consistent realities. First, enormous majorities in Muslim countries...express hatred for the same set of foreign policies that Osama bin Laden and other Islamist leaders have identified as mortal attacks on Islam. ...Second, majorities (sometimes sizable ones) in the same Muslim countries express admiration for the stiving of Americans for political and social equity for all citizens, for American generosity..., and for the ability of American parents [to take care of] their children. Taken together, these poll results strongly suggest that U.S. leaders are lying when they tell Americans that they are being attacked for how they think and live and not for what their government does overseas. (p. 155)

Update 6/17/2008: In his book Devil's Game, Robert Dreyfuss describes how the Bush Administration dramatically overstated the radical Islamist threat to suit its imperialistic aims:

...the Bush Administration deliberately inflated the specific threat from al Qaeda itself. Despite Attorney General Ashcroft's unsubstantiated claim in 2001 that thousands of al Qaeda operatives had infiltrated the United States, however, in the...years since after 9/11, not a single violent act by al Aqeda occurred in America. And there is no shred of evidence that al Qaeda has acquired or is about to acquire any nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.

No combination of Middle East states [or other entities]...is able to mount a threat to the United States in a manner that would justify an enterprise called "World War IV". But by describing the Islamist threat in such an exaggerated way, the Bush administration and its neoconservative allies created a pretext for an imperial expansion of of the U.S. presence... (p. 305)

Barack Obama held his foreign policy cards close to his chest--until Hillary suspended her campiagn. Now, with his recent revelations at AIPAC, the cat is out of the bag, and we know that regardless of whether Barack Obama or John McCain becomes president, US foreign policy will not substantially change.

This is not difficult, folks. Most Muslims do not harbor animosity for the American people. We must, therefore, start electing people who don't hate Muslims. It may be too late not to elect a Muslim-hating president this time around, but it's not too late to start thinking about how we keep getting ourselves into such a mess every four years.

This lesser-of-two evils tap dance has got to stop. Let's resolve ourselves not to be duped, but rather to elect leaders who have America's--and the world's--best interests at heart.