The whole western world has failed, and nobody is ready to take responsibility. The horrific events of last night show this failure, and president Hollande’s response was chilling. We are now witnessing a build-up of tensions that will not go away. A build up that will only be solved if we step back and review our failures. These failures that I speak of are failures of our foreign policy. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, the Americans funded the rebels who went against their invaders. These rebels became terrorist organizations. The same organisations that we were fighting against a few years ago. al-Qaeda were created by the Americans through funding and weapons, allowing them to grow, allowing them to become what they were a few years ago and what they are now. The west has taken absolute advantage of it, it has used these terrorists as an excuse of causing inexcusable amounts of war, pain and suffering in the middle east to make sure that the countries within this area are not able to consolidate. The failure here is the American’s and their shortsightedness, coupled with their denial of responsibility for their own actions. Actions that have really been driven by America’s interests in oil. In the end, it all seems to come down to that, oil.
More recently, we have seen the rise of ISIS in Syria and the surrounding states. ISIS is the epitome of the failures of the west with their policy of keeping the middle east unstable. Who armed the Syrians fighting the Assad regime? Who funds them and pushes arms into them? The west does. We have been backing the anti-Assad rebels, rebels who many have been incorporated into ISIS but others are still within the ‘moderate’ rebels. None of the rebels in Syria are ‘moderate’, they are extremists. We are funding extremism abroad to help destabilise the middle east so that america can occupy the oil fields. This extremism, when it reaches the west, is then used as a political toy, a lure to get the public behind military intervention on terrorism. This intervention then creates even more public support against this terrorism, but we can never win with terrorism. When we went into Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaeda, we came out with only dead soldiers and the struggle remained. What we are being told now, from the words of the leaders of the west, is that this is an ‘act of war’. I agree, these are horrible disgusting acts, but we can not let the west try to use it as a lure for us to allow them to continue with their agenda of an unstable middle east.
ISIS have come out saying that these attacks were a direct response to France’s involvement in Syrian airstrikes by the French. This should dissuade people from making the same mistakes, it should not be used as a glue to unite us all together under a lie. We have a foreign policy that has failed all of us. The blood of the attacks in Paris is as much on the west’s hands as it is the perpetrators of this crime. We have gone into their homes, destroyed everything they have in wars that could never have been won and then we wonder why they go against us. The west is starting bombing campaigns in Syria that will not only kill a few members of ISIS, but it will also kill many civilians. Their homes, their livelihoods and their entire country will be destroyed. What choice do you then have, when your mother and father have been killed by the west? When your family, friends and fellow citizens have been destroyed by the west. Your home, and your life is gone. What do you do? They join the fight against the west, against the people who have destroyed their homes, or they flee their country, they flee to Europe, where it is safe. The migrant crisis is caused by these interventions, and so is the growth of ISIS. We don’t need to have a foreign policy that creates our enemies, and uses them as a political toy. We don’t need to destroy these people’s homes, children and friends. We need not to intervene militarily. We need not to help build on the cycle that we are creating. The horrific and unspeakable acts that were committed by ISIS are absolutely abhorrent. But we are, and have done the same to the middle east. We need to take responsibility for our actions, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes we have made in the past. Let’s hope that we see the realities of our foreign policy instead of treat it as a glue to stick together a policy that is broken and shattered. My thoughts are with everyone who was killed, innocents who did not deserve this. My thoughts are also with everyone around the world who is being affected by the west’s foreign policy. Let’s not allow a group of terrorists to rule our policymaking. We should be fighting the ISIS ideology, we should be making sure that we oppose them wherever we can, but not at the expense of our citizens and other citizens across the world. War is never the best option, nor is it ever the only one.
Political Evolution 