Very interesting, this seems to have happened in most arab countries as well which indicates that the rise of Islamism (or the real, true Islam as some of our friends call it) is directly attributable to political decisions influenced by the cold war and not (as our esteemed friends think) to someone reading this or that hadith.
Yes, it's all an evil American conspiracy, isn't it? Mohammad was definitely not a pedophile warlord, was he now?
Was Islam created by the West? Was there Islamic persecutions and genocides before the Cold War, or not? And finally, even if we are to accept Western collaboration, how would the rise of true Islam be possible without intellectual vacuums like Necmettin Erbakan, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and their bloodthirsty minions? If the Quran never called for violence against the House of War, would such a global, oppressive movement ever arise?
After all, all the Islamists had to do was to return to the primitive teachings of a genocidal pedophile bandit.
Woo, sorry, that was not at all what I implying.
For one, I dont buy into conspiracy stuff. I spent several years in us army special operations command....Trust me, conspiracy theories are stupid.
For one, we suck at keeping secrets and for two we are not actually that smart about that stuff. The incident I refered to was when several CIA operatives got caught red handed delivering weapons to anti communist militias in Sumatra.
That and giving lip service support to Suharto, is about the extent of any involvement.
All I meant was that during the cold war the US did a really lousy job of supporting progressive elements in these societies, and in some cases under minded them, during a time (end of ww1 to end of cold war) when they had an oppertunity to make major influences to the cultures.
I really think this was a major mistake in hindsight. (In fact, I still have an old Soldier of Fortune magazines from the 80s, with adds in the back saying "Support the Mujahadeen freedom fighters"). Did people do this in some twisted conspiracy to give power to islamist movements, No, not at all. Did it help contribute to it? A bit, probably.
However, the largest contributions came from themselves. Obviously, without the religion and its influence, things would have turned out much different.
The religious fanatics, the people they brainwash, and their fellow travelers, would of course hold the real accountability.
Topic: Pakistan - Taliban - Shariah Deal