“The Smartest Guys in the Room” (not)!
Or “Why do they hate us?” America’s forgotten history abroad

In the immediate wake of the attacks of 9/11, one of the most prevalent and pervasive questions voiced with bitter bewilderment was “Why do they hate us?” The simple asking of this question in and of itself demonstrates the almost complete amnesia and/or ignorance of the American people. Below is a drastically abridged, illustrative exemplar of some of the reasons “why they hate us.”

1. Iran - 1953 The CIA’s first post WWII instance of ‘regime change’. Though popularly elected in ‘free and fair’ elections by the Iranian people, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, due to his insistence that Iran was entitled to a greater share of and interest in his nation’s oil reserves and revenues, it was determined by Allen Welsh Dulles that he should be removed. Though successful in removing Mossadegh and replacing him with the compliant Shah Reza Pahlavi, this external interference in Iran’s internal affairs and the Shah’s high handed tyranny remained a bitter memory in the collective Iranian mind and was a direct result of the 1979 ouster of the Shah and the related taking of American hostages.

2. Guatemala - 1954 Following in the steps of Gen. Smedley Butler (2 time Congressional Medal of Honor winner who, in his book “War is a Racket” wrote:
"I was a muscle man for big business; I was a muscle man for Wall Street; I was a gangster for Brown Brothers Harriman.") the CIA, at the behest of United Fruit Company, labeled Arbenz a Communist (for his proposal to allocate unused UFC lands to landless peasants) and financed, trained and supplied a force tied to the moneyed interests in Guatemala to overthrow Arbenz. This led to military juntas and a vicious civil war with tremendous civilian casualties.

3. Vietnam - 1945-1975 As early as May, 1945, President Truman supported French colonial desires to re-establish their dominion in Indochina. Even before the definitive defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, America was supplying over 75% of the armaments and 90% of the financing for the French Vietnamese misadventure. The US took over when the French withdrew in 1954 and maintained and increased their presence until their ignominious final withdrawal in 1975.

4. Afghanistan - 1979-1989 As stated in an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser in Le Nouvel Observateur, “Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. [snip] Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists? B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems [emphasis added] or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” Brzezinski It was during this period (1979-1989) that the United States decided it would be a good idea to fund and encourage fanatical Muslims to battle the Soviets and, in so doing, ended up aiding one Osama bin Laden to organize what would one day become al-Qaeda.

5. Yugoslavia - 1991-1999 Though the U.S. had begun to intervene in Yugoslavia’s internal affairs as early as the mid 1980’s, the last nail in Yugoslavia’s coffin was nailed in 1991 when the U.S. backed (at Germany’s insistence) the EEC/EU’s unilateral ‘recognition’ of Slovenia and Croatia (in total and complete contravention of the Helsinki Final Act to which the U.S., Yugoslavia and the EU countries were all signatories). Though too complex to detail here, the U.S. obstructed peace negotiations, covertly violated their own arms embargo to arm the Croats and Muslims, provided extensive media disinformation to benefit their chosen clients (Croats and Muslims), turned a blind eye as the Bosnian Muslims imported foreign Muslim warriors (including Afghan veterans, foreign mercenaries and members of al-Qaeda). In 1995 the U.S. approved of, trained, provisioned and provided advanced air support for Croatia’s ‘Operation Storm’. Though hardly mentioned in the West, ‘Operation Storm’ led to the single largest instance of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Europe since WWII. The primary reason this is hardly known of in the West is that those approximately 250,000 cleansed during the operation were the demonized Serbs.

U.S./NATO’s illegitimate and illegal 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia-Montenegro, just as its previous intervention in Bosnia, was based on a torrent of lies, half-truths and disinformation. The intervention was presented as a ‘humanitarian intervention’ on behalf of the ‘abused’ Kosovo Albanians. At the conclusion of its illegal venture it was proved that all the wildly exaggerated claims of ‘genocide’, ‘mass graves’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ were completely and totally baseless.

6. Iraq - 2003-present The original justification for the intervention in Iraq was tripartite: 1) possession of WMD, 2) links to al-Qaeda and 3) links to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Once U.S. troops occupied Iraq and all three of the putative ‘justifications’ were shown to have been totally baseless, the U.S. morphed the Iraq intervention into a ‘humanitarian intervention’ to topple the tyrant Saddam and democratize Iraqi society.

As noted in the title, in our overweening hubris, we have arrogated to ourselves an omniscience believing that we can decide for all and sundry who are the ‘good guys’ and who the ‘bad guys’ and, of course, we always back the ‘good guys’. This explains why we have poisoned (both in Iran and at home) relations with the Iranians. Ditto the Israelis vs. Palestinians. Same with virtually the entirety of South and Central America. By backing our chosen ‘good guys’ in Afghanistan we spawned al-Qaeda who, in gratitude for our support bombed our embassies in Africa and ‘paid us a visit’ on 9/11. Perhaps it would be better for all involved if we were slightly less full of our ‘omniscience’ and refrained from picking ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and simply dealt honestly and above board with others and refrained from believing in our own hubristic superiority.