>On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>Why would they want to do this? How are US and/or Israeli interests
>>served by civil war in Iraq?
>
>I think the question is rather Why do Iraqis (and Iranians, and
>other neighbors) leap to blame them? And the answer is because they
>want to damp down civil war. Blaming an external enemy is the
>perfect solution.
>
>And as for why they immediately jump to choose this one, it's
>because it's the default framework in the middle east (kind of like
>Republicans always blame everything on liberals). They used to
>believe the British and the French were responsible for every
>sparrow that fell. Now they think it it's the US and Israel. It's
>a conspiracist mindset that grew out of historical experience. It
>wasn't that long ago that every political action in the Middle East
>was determined by an offstage imperial conspiracy. And as far as
>their concerned, the entire creation of Israel was the result of a
>plan by outsiders.
That all makes sense, but why should western "leftists" parrot this unfortunate tendency?
Doug