On State and Non-State
Violence in the United States and the Middle
East
There is a crisis of violence
in the Middle East, but much of it is the
creation of the United States government and
those individuals and businesses that profit
from it.
By Zachary Markwith
February 20, 2015 "ICH"
- When witnessing the brutal images of
ISIS in western media it is helpful to keep
in mind the symbiotic relationships between
the violence of the United States
government, its client states like Saudi
Arabia and Israel, and non-state groups.
Recently, Hillary Clinton reminded the world
that the U.S. backed the Taliban in the
1980’s against the Soviet Union. Joe Biden
also publically acknowledged that some of
our allies in the Gulf States have funded
ISIS. Some commentators are of the opinion
that groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS and others
are western constructs used to justify U.S.
military presence in the region. Whether
this is true or not, they gain support among
some as reactions to western invasions,
wars, and occupations. Recent documents
obtained under the freedom of information
act indicate that the so-called Caliph of
ISIS, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, was captured during
the U.S. assault on Fallujah and detained in
2004 at Camp Bucca. If these reports are to
be believed, they exemplify how U.S.
conflict in the region, the destruction of a
nation and its people, and the mistreatment
of detainees can create someone like
Baghdadi. Whoever this man is, we should
also be asking ourselves how radicals like
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney came to
power.
Be that as it may, it is truly a wonder that
our government and media are so concerned
with civilian deaths at the hands of ISIS.
There was little concern for civilian deaths
during the two U.S. wars in Iraq, as well as
during the intermittent period when
draconian sanctions were imposed. It is
estimated that over 3 million Iraqi men,
women, and children were killed as a direct
result of these wars and sanctions. There
was and is little concern for civilian
deaths when the U.S. employs mercenaries to
fight proxy wars in Libya and Syria, the
fighters of which are sometimes responsible
for the same crimes ISIS commits. Moreover,
there is growing evidence that some of these
factions have broken off to join ISIS with
American arms in hand. There was also of
course little concern in the U.S. media for
the lives of Muslims and Christians in
Palestine this past summer when our ally
Israel killed 2000 people. There is also
barely a comment when the Saudi government
persecutes minority religious groups, women,
and others, including with public
beheadings. There is little concern, even
among western liberals, for the civilian
deaths in countless Muslim majority nations
through Barack Obama's ever-expanding drone
wars. The cruel violence of ISIS pales in
comparison to the violence of the U.S.
government and its allies in the Middle
East. The violence of ISIS is easily
captured in graphic images and videos
repackaged for western consumption, but U.S.
violence in the region is so pervasive and
commonplace that we barely notice when it is
kept out of public view. With that said,
both are sustained and garner support in
relation to one another.
There should be a response to protect all
individuals and groups in Iraq and Syria
ISIS is targeting, including Christians,
Jews, Yazidis, Shi’a, Sunnis, Sufis, and
others. In our estimation, those most
capable of defending these peoples are the
Iraqi and Syrian governments, as well as
Iran. How can any intelligent person expect
the United States government and its allies
to promote peace in the region when they
have been responsible for the deaths of
millions in the past generation alone and
continue to kill more everyday? There should
also be a response to protect all
individuals and groups from U.S. military
violence and the violence of our allies. In
the West, violence in religious garb scares
us, but secular violence—even on a much
larger scale—is somehow tolerable.
The western corporate media now largely
identifies Muslims with the violence and
images of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their ilk.
This is necessary to justify our military
presence in the region, the cost of our wars
to taxpayers, and control of land and
resources. These almost exclusively negative
portrayals impact the peoples of Palestine,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya,
and Yemen the most, but western Muslims are
beginning to suffer consequences as well.
The recent killing of three Muslims in North
Carolina, as well as a Somali Muslim teen
and others, illustrate that the violence
this Islamophobia generates has come home
with tragic consequences. If the negative
depictions and generalizations of Muslims
abroad are not challenged it will only get
worse for Muslims living in the West. The
mainstream media is most culpable, including
FOX, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS, which are
closely linked with other businesses that
profit from war, as well as U.S.
intelligence agencies. To this one must add
certain powerful segments of Hollywood that
create and celebrate films like American
Sniper, The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark
Thirty. There is also the Islamophobia
industry that consists of institutes, think
tanks, Christian and Jewish Zionists, and
pseudo-experts like Daniel Pipes, David
Horowitz, Robert Spencer, and Pamela Geller.
There are also major ideologues in academia
that promote the clash of civilizations
thesis, such as Bernard Lewis and the late
Samuel Huntington.
Many of us are easily swayed through our
positive sentiments and sympathies for those
who are suffering. Those who profit from war
pit liberals against conservatives. The U.S.
government and media use the suffering of
women, children, LGBT people, religious
minorities, and others to bomb those very
people we want to help. Even if we could
counter the violence of ISIS with violence,
where is the sympathy for those people who
have suffered in the U.S. wars in Iraq,
Israel’s occupation and wars against
Palestinians, or the Saudi government’s
repression of its own population? The
oppressed everywhere do need our support,
but this almost never comes through modern
wars, wherein the vast majority of
casualties are inevitably civilians.
Moreover, despite collaborating at the
highest levels, the U.S., Saudi, and Israel
have successfully polarized and pitted so
many secularists, Christians, Jews, and
Muslims against each other. Wherever we
stand on the religious and political
spectrum we must not allow those in power to
deny the humanity and rights of anyone.
There is a crisis of violence in the Middle
East, but much of it is the creation of the
United States government and those
individuals and businesses that profit from
it. Those of us who live in the United
States who are concerned about violence in
the Middle East must begin by questioning
the violence of our own government and the
support we extend to it through the two
party system and its chief representatives,
as well as our tax dollars that go to the
Pentagon and foreign military aid. If this
country is really of the people, by the
people, and for the people, as Abraham
Lincoln claimed, then we the people have the
right and duty to take it back from the
corporations. Those in power use our own
good intentions against us and other human
beings just like us in the Middle East. It
is time to no longer allow them to define
Muslim nations and their peoples as
terrorists and to no longer define the
United States and its people as a terrorist
state. Peace to one and all.
"The greatest purveyor of violence in the
world today [is] my own government. For the
sake of those boys, for the sake of this
government, for the sake of hundreds of
thousands tremblings under our violence, I
cannot be silent." -Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.
Zachary Markwith is a doctoral student and
instructor in Islamic Studies at the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,
California. He earned an M.A. (cum laude) in
Religion at the George Washington University
and a B.A. in Islamic and Near Eastern
Studies and Sociology at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. Zachary has given
talks and contributed to publications on
Islamophobia, nonviolence, and interfaith
relations and is the author of One God, Many
Prophets: the Universal Wisdom of Islam
(Sophia Perennis, 2013).
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