Willful blindness to blowback.
In McCarthy's world, Arab militants apparently come out of a vacuum, or out of some passage from the Koran. What he and his admirers are willfully blind to is the brutality of U.S. foreign policy. Osama mentioned part of a long list of injustices - sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children Iraq Under Siege, Updated Edition: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, U.S. support of Israel's aggression against Palestine Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project). There is barely a word of any of this, and so much more, in the countless books like McCarthy's that seek to demonize our victims. Keep in mind, these allegedly evil people are the same people we were arming, training and applauding when they were killing Russians Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. Authoritarian Islamic fundamentalists are the same people that the U.S. is happy to work with in countries like Saudi Arabia The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, or in Indonesia The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965-1989.
The sort of denial that McCarthy perpetuates is not only dishonest, it is dangerous. Most people are more civilized than us, and they don't seek vengence for all the suffering we heap upon them (i.e. - Vietnamese, Guatemalans, Haitians, El Salvadorans, Iranians, etc.), but we may someday receive another attack of blowback and it may be worse than the horror of 9/11. By the way, there is another 9/11 that we are willfully blind to; that is the September 11th that the corporate jihadists Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger inflicted upon Chile Chile: The Other September 11: An Anthology of Reflections on the 1973 Coup (Radical History).
For those who choose to see inconvenient truths about U.S. militarism:
Our Own Private Bin Laden
Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians
Why We Fight
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Willful Blindness: A Must Read
Willful Blindness by former prosecutor, Andrew McCarthy, is a must read for those who wish to inform their decision-making process. Although McCarthy's writing style is obtuse at times, he brings to the table a high level of credibility and this book should be read by all Americans and, especially by those who honestly believe that peace can be achieved through diplomacy or that "western style" democracy is achievable in the middle east. The talkers are necessary, but without our second-to-none military and our industrial capabilities, they have no power to pursuade. Let's all take the blinders off and see the world for the truly dangeous place it has become.
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