Thursday, December 23, 2010

More "blowback" in the works?

According to the website TPM:

"This Wednesday, a group of prominent Bush-era Republicans, including former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani [sic], former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former White House adviser Frances Townsend and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, flew to Paris to speak in support of an Iranian exile group there -- one that's been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. "

(Here is the article.)

This group, Mujaheddin-e Khalq or MEK, is an Islamic, militant, quasi-Marxist and strongly anti-Ahmadinejad organization, which has been on the U.S. terrorist list for a number of years. It is certainly ironic that Giuliani, Ridge and Mukasey, long identified with the regime of George Bush, would advocate for this group, and ask that it be removed from the terrorist list. However, the history of the U.S. in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. is one of supporting nearly any and all groups that oppose regimes it doesn't like. This has resulted in support for the Shah against the democratically elected Mohammed Mosaddegh in Iran, support for the Taliban and (indirectly) Al-Qaeda when they opposed the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan, and alternating support for Ayatollah Khomeini and Sadam Hussein when Iran and Iraq fought each other. (This in addition to the monsters America backed in Central and South America, solely on the basis of their "anti-communism".)

Who knows where this will lead? The law of unintended consequences has not been kind to this sort of foreign policy, and we may yet reap more unanticipated blowback. (See the late Chalmers Johnson's excellent trilogy on this subject, whose first volume is entitled Blowback. If you don't have time to read the whole trilogy, I recommend the last volume, Nemesis, which pretty much encapsulates his arguments and examples.)

1 comment:

  1. I think you have a misspell: The Talibans fought the USSR army in Afganistan, not Iraq.

    Cheers

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