A quick google image search for the word "terrorist" pulls up every stereotype of Arab men with guns and beards that you can think of. Alarmingly, those are also the only images that show up. As a history teacher, I know that many American leaders have far more innocent blood on their hands than members of ISIS or even Osama bin Laden, but when most Americans think of a terrorist, the stereotypical images that google highlights pop into their mind. The news and Hollywood push these stereotypes hard. Arabs and Muslims have become our new enemy number one, replacing Russians, Nazis, and the Japanese. I've never considered the role our search engines play in perpetuating stereotypes, but this weekend I was made aware of it by a professor from Highline College named Oussama Alkhalili. He spoke in depth about the current fears of the Muslim community in the wake of our Presidential elections. Below is a quick breakdown of the two men highlighted in this post. In drawing attention to them, I hope to begin to populate search engines with more balanced results.
Dick Cheney was the Vice President of the United States under George W. Bush. He was the most vocal in that administration in linking Iraq to 9/11 and advocating for a US invasion of that country. He pushed the intelligence community to find any link between Iraq and 9/11 they could. The evidence was weak, but Cheney led the administration in the push toward war. We invaded Iraq in 2003. To date, there have been over 150,000 civilian casualties. All the evidence that Cheney and his administration presented as they advocated for the invasion has proven to be false. The terrorist organization ISIS was formed in response to this unjust war. ISIS did not exist in any organized form before we invaded Iraq. Halliburton, the company that Cheney served as the CEO of for many years and was still receiving payment from as Vice President, was awarded millions of dollars in contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq after the invasion.
Kermit Roosevelt Jr. is the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. He worked as a CIA operative for much of his career. In 1953 he led "Operation AJAX" in Iran. This operation was designed to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minster of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh was a well liked politician who angered Great Britain when he nationalized Iran's oil. The US got involved out of a misguided fear that Mosaddegh would lead the country toward communism and alignment with the Russians. Roosevelt worked in Iran spreading propaganda against Mosaddegh. By some reports, the CIA controlled 4/5 of the news organizations in Iran. Roosevelt and key members of the US leadership wanted to overthrow Mosaddegh and replace him with someone more controllable and friendly to US interests. The coup worked, and Mosaddegh was arrested and removed from power. Several hundreds died in the riots that the CIA orchestrated. Iran's fragile democracy was gradually replaced by an authoritarian monarch, led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled from 1941 until his overthrow by the people of Iran in 1979. By most accounts, the Shah led his people deep into economic despair while securing billions of dollars in personal wealth. All of this was made possible by Kermit Roosevelt.
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