For most of my lifetime I have awaited any compelling explanation of what the American people (remember us?) have ever stood to gain from our ruling regime claiming any 'American interests' in the middle east, at all. I remain unconvinced that any such interests exist.
Taking sides in perennial conflicts with roots preceding known history is a fool's errand, and one in which no degree of American influence or intervention is ever going to magically create some Final Solution to the Middle East Question.
So I take the third, and least popular, view on all things middle east: that those who live there can have it, it is none of my concern no matter who is currently slaughtering whom and seeking all means available to wipe whom from the face of the earth. It's their home, not mine. Let them have their stupid feuds and permanent vendettas: none will be cured because none is seeking any cure other than to cause some other people to cease to exist.
How has such gratuitous hatred and sustained hostility EVER been in any American's interests? It certainly has never been any of mine. The USA regime could divest itself of every last form of involvement in middle east affairs from Morocco to Tajikistan, every aid program, every weapons contract, every energy concession, even close every last embassy permanently, and nothing would change. It never does.
'Get out while we still can' has always been my position on the middle east, and let them destroy each other if they must. There never has been anything any major power can do to stop it, and many have tried, to their extreme cost and the enduring frustration of their misbegotten aims in becoming involved to begin with. As for what the gains have ever been for ordinary people expected to subsidize and endorse all this continual imperialistic adventurism, I remain thoroughly convinced there had never been any.
For most of my lifetime I have awaited any compelling explanation of what the American people (remember us?) have ever stood to gain from our ruling regime claiming any 'American interests' in the middle east, at all. I remain unconvinced that any such interests exist.
Taking sides in perennial conflicts with roots preceding known history is a fool's errand, and one in which no degree of American influence or intervention is ever going to magically create some Final Solution to the Middle East Question.
So I take the third, and least popular, view on all things middle east: that those who live there can have it, it is none of my concern no matter who is currently slaughtering whom and seeking all means available to wipe whom from the face of the earth. It's their home, not mine. Let them have their stupid feuds and permanent vendettas: none will be cured because none is seeking any cure other than to cause some other people to cease to exist.
How has such gratuitous hatred and sustained hostility EVER been in any American's interests? It certainly has never been any of mine. The USA regime could divest itself of every last form of involvement in middle east affairs from Morocco to Tajikistan, every aid program, every weapons contract, every energy concession, even close every last embassy permanently, and nothing would change. It never does.
'Get out while we still can' has always been my position on the middle east, and let them destroy each other if they must. There never has been anything any major power can do to stop it, and many have tried, to their extreme cost and the enduring frustration of their misbegotten aims in becoming involved to begin with. As for what the gains have ever been for ordinary people expected to subsidize and endorse all this continual imperialistic adventurism, I remain thoroughly convinced there had never been any.