This is historically false; and worse, it is typical paternalistic thinking, as if those poor brown folks are your children.

The fact is that we were in partnership with Osama and his gang for a short time when we had a common enemy (Russia) in the 1980s. But we never created him. That is a pure lie.

Osama was the (extreme) product of the Wahabbi culture of his homeland, Saudi Arabia. His ethic, like that of a large majority of Saudis (and frankly majorities in most countries in that region), is based on two false notions: one, that their backward condition is not their fault, but the fault of Britain or the U.S. or France or the Jews or some other institution beyond their control.

As such, these countries produce their own radical maniacs who spend their lives attacking those groups (Jews and the West in bin Laden’s case) which they wrongly believe are the source of their weakness. In socioligical terms, this sort of backlash ideology is an extreme manifestation of “holding down the Joneses.” By contrast, Americanism (and to some extent Westernism and since WW2 East Asianism) manifests itself as either “keeping up with the Joneses” or “getting ahead of the Joneses.” Our culture is thus superior: we move forward; they try to hold back.

The second false notion of bin Ladenism is its idealism: that at one mythical time in the past there was a utopia on Earth. Bin Laden and his ilk of evildoers ultimately have the goal of recreating this fantastic “reality” that existed at the time Mohammed lived. But of course, that epoch in world history, when looked at by modern, liberal standards, was a time of pure evil, corruption, poverty, ubiquitous war and intolerant religion. That is what bin Laden hoped to bring the world back to. (Hitler, it should be said, also was this sort of idealist. He fantasized about a time gone by when “Germany was for the Germans.”)

For the record, you are being equally paternalist and you are equally factually wrong about what created Saddam Hussein and what created Manuel Noriega. It is just pure idiocy to think–we partnered with these evil guys at one point in time when we had a common interest–and therefore they never would have existed but for us. This kind of nonsense is common thinking among the anti-American left*. It shows a profound misunderstanding of the human condition; and a profound ignorance of the conditions within other countries which form other characters.

*It’s historically worth pointing out that the far-left in the U.S. first tried to use this crazy paternalistic formulation following WW2 in order to bind us to Soviet Russia. They argued, we were allies with Joe Stalin during the war, so we should be friends with Russia now and forever. But that ignores the nature of our “friendship” with the Soviet maniac: we partnered with them only because we had a common enemy in Hitler. We did not create Stalin. And there was no way we could be friends with that evil $*&#$*@ once we killed Hitler. The only real shame is that we never killed Stalin in the 1920s, before he had a chance to murder tens of millions of people.

Thanks for the response- I totally agree, that it is very important to point out that many ‘terrorists’ are created by the United States at certain political moments for our own needs. However the point of my editorial, is that then in ‘cleaning up the mess’ that we created, we tend to perpetuate state sponsored terrorism against civilians.

The CIA created those monsters in the name of protecting American interests, and then had to go out and clean up the messes that were made as a result.

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.” – Nietzsche

Thanks for the response, you are right, I do have flaws in my data. Please do not publish in the print paper until I can correct and submit a new letter.

Additionally, more thoughts on the rest of your response will come soon.

Thanks,

Benny

In El Salvador, they say roughly 75,000 died, many of whom were not “civilians.” About half the dead were FMLN fighters. Many others killed were government paramilitary and military.

“The U.S. sent a billion dollars in weapons, training and economic support, knowingly bolstering a military regime involved in widespread killings of innocent people.”

I don’t know how much we spent. However, it was nowhere near $1 billion, even in today’s dollars. (By contrast, the Obama war in Afghanistan is costing us $2 billion–every week!)

Another important consideration as to the regime Reagan was bolstering. This war started more than a year before Reagan took office. He did not put in place the military government. However, Reagan did help institute free and fair democratic elections. El Salvador has been a democracy ever since 1984. That democratization only took place because of Reagan’s unambiguous policy in favor of the democrats.

“Reagan claimed the U.S. was supporting a mission against ‘Marxists,’ aiming to ensure that ‘democracy’ and ‘Westernization’ prevailed in El Salvador. ”

This is correct. The enemies of the Salvadoran government, even after it successfully transitioned to democracy were hard-core, Russian-backed Marxists. The communist FMLN only gave up their war of terror against the people of El Salvador after the Soviet Union stopped supplying them.

“U.S. officials justified sponsoring torture, kidnappings and systematic slaughter of innocent Salvadorans by the greater political considerations of the Cold War.”

There is no truth to this at all. There were widespread kidnappings in El Salvador beginning in the mid-1970s. The kidnappers were the communists fighting to impose a Soviet client state in El Salvador. They even kidnapped the daughter of President Duarte.

It is true that paramilitary thugs engaged in torture and other heinous acts. Almost all of these predated Reagan becoming president. And while they did not end as soon as Reagan was sworn into office in 1981, they subsided greatly until the government was fully democratic.

“Reagan supported terror against a civilian population at a scale 30 times that of bin Laden’s killing of U.S. civilians.”

This is false in every respect.

“The scale of U.S.-sanctioned ‘terrorism’ against civilian populations makes bin Laden look like a petty pocket thief. When will U.S. terrorists be held accountable?”

If you just make up accusations out of thin air, no one will ever take your case seriously. I travelled all over El Salvador during the war (in 1985). You don’t seem to understand that the people of that country hated the FMLN. They were to the people ‘terrorists.’

The hatred of the Russians, the Cubans and the FMLN by most Salvadorans was apparent as the communists eventually tried to win elections–and never got any popular support until they ultimately renounced terrorism and Marxism.