With Imperialists Like These, Who Needs Communists?

There is no question that Communism is the greatest scourge the world has ever known, having to its credit the murder of approximately 100 million of its subjects. But since the victor writes the history, very few people are as aware of the suffocating effect that Western imperialism has had on democracy and liberty, particularly in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Whenever it has suited Western governments--including the United States--democracies around the world have been overthrown in favor of brutal, more predictable tyrants. Ironically, an inordinate fear of Communism caused western leaders to squash liberty in the countries whose liberty they feared would be destroyed by Communism.

Those chickens have now come home to roost, to a great extent in the form of radical Islam.

To be sure, there exists no excuse for the killing of innocents in the name of Muslim extremism. On the other hand, the deep-seated resentment of the United States (and other Western countries) because of our exploitation of the world--particularly the Middle East--is justifiable. Liberty and democracy are natural yearnings

In one of the greatest of ironies, an inordinate fear of Communism caused western leaders to squash liberty in the countries whose liberty they feared would be destroyed by Communism.

of peoples around the globe. Many Middle Easterners wonder, therefore, why if it's good enough for America, France, Britain, Spain, etc., is liberty not good enough for for Middle Easterners? When one studies the underhanded way in which Western imperialist powers have lorded over so many Middle Eastern countries, one is compelled to wonder if leaders of Western democracies feel that democracy and liberty are simply irritating obstacles to their establishment of world dominion.

Here are just a few of the examples of Western imperialist destruction of democracy around the Middle East.

Iran. The most ironic of Imperialistic blowback involves the currently greatest avowed enemy of the United States--Iran. Few Americans know either that Iran was once upon a time a democracy, or that the CIA was instrumental in destroying the liberty that Iranians had just begun to enjoy--in favor of a brutal dictator whose politics could be more predictably controlled by the United States and Britain. Iran has been more or less controlled by the West since 1891, when Britain took over the Iranian tobacco industry. Shortly thereafter, Britain weaseled its way into control of the Iranian natural gas and petroleum industries. Operation Ajax, carried out in large part by the CIA, keelhauled a legitimate fledging democracy in Iran and paved the way for the Shah's brutal new security agency, SAVAK, which killed and tortured thousands of Iranians. The 1979 Iranian revolution, led by Ayatollah Rulhollah Khomeini, likely would never have happened had it not been for the duplicity of the United States, propelled by their illegitimate fear of the Soviet menace.

Egypt. In 1866, the vestiges of democracy began to appear in Egypt. Britain, whose economic interests in Egypt were large, quashed the voice of the people, installing their puppet, King Farouk, on the throne. At about the time of World War I, the Wafd party was very popular among the Egpytian people. Each time Wafd won elections, the British declared the elections invalid. The British and French schemed Egypt into great debt, the means of escaping from which became the selling of the Suez Canal to them for a pittance. The Suez was critical in Britain's self-ordained interest in controlling India. Hosni Mubarak, the current dictator of Egypt, rules with the blessing of the West. Elections are seldom fair under the Mubarak regime. Freedom of the press is nearly non-existent. Because of Mubarak's Western-sanctioned crackdown on democracy in Egypt, religious and political extremism has surged, along with hatred of the West.

Iraq. Britain "won" Iraq following World War II. It immediately and stupidly established King Faisal as its puppet ruler, a foreign Sunni in a predominantly Shiite country. What was perceived in 2003 as a new schism of death between Sunni and Shia had actually been acted out on the Iraqi stage several times before. Their hatred of the British overlords at a crescendo, Iraqis exulted when the Baath party took over the government in 1968. When Saddam Hussein took over dictatorial duties in 1979, Iraq's first modern attempt at democracy was officially over. Stung by the Iranian hostage crisis, the United States supplied mountains of materiel to Hussein in his bid to destroy Iran during the 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war. Because America lost sight once again of its founding principles, it created another monster, whose effects linger to this day and will be nearly impossible to erase.

. . .

How might history have been different if Western imperialists had left various countries to the governance of their own peoples? We'll never really know. But we can hazard a pretty educated guess. All the while that we fought to contain Communism--America and the West forgot about the principles of liberty and democracy that made us great. Because we fought in so many cases against liberty, the world is now far worse off.

Had America stuck to its founding principles, instead of there now being a radical Islamic Monster, we might instead be contending against a radical Islamic Pest. One thing's nearly for sure: we wouldn't being having a nuclear staredown with Iran. And another: we most assuredly wouldn't have gotten mired in Iraq.