Government Security News January 2017 Digital Edition

Resentment and hatred from the Middle East: Why they hate us –
is by Michael Conti, Cal State, Fullerton, photos contributed by GSN.
Resentment and hatred from the Middle East:
Why they hate us
By Michael Conti
12/14/16 – The Middle East in recent
times has been seen as a place of chaos
and civil unrest. To us, they seem
backwards and outright barbaric as we
see beheadings in news feeds, headlines
of suicide bombings, and terrorist
attacks throughout the world.
To the common citizen of the United
States, this aggression is unwarranted
and it seems as though they simply
hate us for existing. While that would
put us in a good light and provide
the moral high ground, this is simply
not the case. As we look through the
past seven decades, we see that the
United States government has had a
paramount role in what we see today.
Modernized countries in Europe look
as the US and see a trusted and amiable
ally. However, those of less developed
countries in the Third World see
us as a tyrannical force that has forced
upon them the will of imperialism. To
put it simply, the US has been a police
force for the world and has done well
through humanitarian efforts, but
they have also committed egregious
acts including meddling in the affairs
of sovereign countries, overthrowing
rulers, and undermining governments
by backing rebel forces in the
Middle East under the pretense of defending
democracy and its values. It
is because of these acts that they hate
us and have caused us harm.
In order to fully understand the
mindset of the US government in the
20th century, we must look at its beginnings
when they achieved sovereignty
as a result of the Revolutionary
War. While this was a victory in itself,
the fleeting US government was weak
and needed to expand its borders in
order to survive and thrive. It was
thought to be their Manifest Destiny,
a term used to describe and justify the
taking of the rest of the modern day
United States from Native Americans
and Spain. While much of the territory
came from the French in the form
of the Louisiana Purchase, the rest of
it was taken through federal acts and
military force. To best explain this,
Odd Arne Westad, a historian who
specializes in the Third World and
author of, The Global Cold War, gives
a simple explanation for how the US
operates when he states, “From its
inception the United States was an
interventionist power that based its
foreign policy on territorial expansion.
Its revolutionary message- free
38
men and free enterprise…” (Westad,
9-10). As we see from this quote, it
not only goes along with the theme
of having to expand to survive, but it
also shows us how this idea evolved
to be a mantra for future events under
the guise of promoting freedom with
a global economy. It is this idea that
later justified intruding in the affairs
of the Middle East. While it seems irrelevant
to study the past, this piece
of information is important as we can
now look into future events with an
understanding of the US’s motives.
Now that we know the US has been
an imperialist power from its inception,
we can take a relatively clear
look at past events and understand
why the US acted the way they did in
the Middle East. An example to look
at comes in the form of a book written
by Douglass Little titled, American
Orientalism, The United States
And The Middle East Since 1945. He
delves into the era of the 1940s-1950s
when the United States emerged as
an economic super power following
World War Two while the rest of
Europe was in ruin. Under the Truman
administration, financial aid was
given to the allied powers to rebuild.
However the source of this aid is re-