Reddit reviews Devil's Game (American Empire Project)
We found 11 Reddit comments about Devil's Game (American Empire Project). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Used Book in Good Condition
I don't read books bro.
Just kidding!
The Devil's Game by Robert Dreyfuss
This book is a comprehensive guide to the middle east and western politics
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372
Edit: (I can't believe I forgot this one)
The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk
The great game was played by Russia and The British, this has everything to do with today's afghanistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game_(Peter_Hopkirk_book)
Taliban by Ahmed Rashid
This is mostly about Afghanistan through the eyes of a well informed and respected journalist
http://www.amazon.com/Taliban-Militant-Islam-Fundamentalism-Central/dp/0300089023
Most of the people who, by all accounts I've seen, carried out the attacks on the WTC and killed those people were from Saudi Arabia...
So why did we attack Iraq?
The spread of fundamentalist Islam was promoted by US agencies to help fight the spread of communism. Please see "Devil's Game" for source material. (http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372)
This is something that I have been looking into for the past month or so. Here are some good books that I've either read or am currently reading, and seem to have gotten positive reception from academics and experts and etc. Not all of these are specifically about all three subjects you mention, but taken as whole they will probably give you a pretty good understanding of what you want to know about.
You might also be interested in this journal paper about "McJihad", which goes over the relationship between political Islam and US hegemony, and was converted into a chapter of Carbon Democracy.
My apologies. I forgot the part where anecdotal (and unsubstantiated) evidence thrumps scolars and historical research.
The Wahhabi movement (which is the root of the Islamic fundie movements) started in the 19th century but was a marginalized group (even more than the Westborogh idiots) until the Cold War when the US/UK started to fund them. This is the root of the problem.
Add to this the issue of Israel, the colonial/postcolonial fuckups, the support of dictators, and you'll get a brew of anti-Western sentiment that is only able to express itself through Islamic fundamentalism as all the secular alternatives failed.
There are plenty of examples of this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-islamic-fundamentalism-the-roots-of-the-us-wahhabi-alliance/5303558
Want some more? Get to read.
You tell me. Did the text of the Quran change in that time? If not, then it isn't because of something inherent to Islam, now is it?
In all seriousness, there are lots of explanations that start with Cold War and economic intervention by Western countries in Middle Eastern political affairs, including the support of Wahhabist elements in order to subvert nationalist and socialist governments - along with outright overthrowing of democratically elected governments (Iran 1956) and support of tyrannical rulers that led to populist revolutions based in fundamentalist Islam and led by religious figures.
If you're truly interested in the answer to that question: read this book
Book Recommendation
If the web is not your thing, try this book: Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (American Empire Project)
https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502391542&sr=1-1&keywords=devil%27s+game
>While there may be a small number of violent Buddhists that inhabit a small corner of the earth, that is obviously an edge case. The issue is that the most populous, fastest growing religion has a conqueror prophet as a founder and a blatant unwillingness to reform into modern times (at least in any meaningful way as far as I can tell). I'm not saying its the only toxic ideology, I'm just saying its the biggest one. And just to be clear, I'm using anything that could be interpreted to justify horrifying practices as a toxic ideology. Which brings me back to my original comment- I'm not promoting pro lifers at all, I just think its weird the left would be marching buddies with someone who probably shares 0 of their values in Sarsour.
I don't think we are going to come to a consensus on reddit.
The point is that you do not know Sarsour's values. I know plenty of Muslims in the US that have no aspirations to conquer anything but their morning cup of Joe.
My point remains... You are demoralizing an entire group based on your preconceived ideas about their religion. You are not a religous scholar so you probably have only a very brief time period you are pulling those ideas from. I do not mean that in an insulting way. I only am stating that you are making a very common error. You are taking an idea that has been used for some ugliness and amplifying it. For example, you hear conquering profit and you think that means that is the defining tenant of Islam. For Christianity, you can take Mathew 10:34 and make a similar argument: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Does this mean that Christians are here to slaughter, to divide, or to force conversion? You would probably say that it doesn't because of the context of the verse etc... However, in the past, this, and other ugly verses have been interpreted that way. My distant relatives were forced to convert, or die, because of it. Further, the Muslims who were in the same region of the world were fairly cooperative with other religions (at the time) so long as that religion was not polytheistic. Moreover, in the developing world, those with different beliefs are still being killed by Christians, with verses like this as justification. My point is that you will find radical Islamists who believe that they need to kill infidels. However, it is an enormous leap to place Muslims in the developed world into the same bucket as those radical Islamists. It would be equally wrong to place Christians into the same bucket as those that are committing atrocities in Africa or even those who were historically violent in Europe.
Anyway, I'll add some links at the bottom if you are interested in why there is such a powder keg of radical islamists now (compared to historically). If you are not interested, then I would suggest taking the time to honestly get to know some Muslims in the US. I think you would be surprised with how many things we have in common.
Jihadism
http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/520117.html
https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486080932&sr=8-1&keywords=devils+game
America played a larger role in aiding radical islam. There were two major political movements in the middle east after WW2, secular arab nationalism and islamism. Arab nationalism, which was anti zionist, secularist, and socialist, was the ideology of gaddafi, nasser, saddam, the PLO, and the ba'athists. Waahabism was banned in every islamic country except saudi arabia. The arab nationalists were allies of the Soviet Union, as seen by soviet arms sales to saddam, gaddafi, and nasser. In order to counter rising arab nationalism, the United States funded the muslim brotherhood and other islamist waahabi groups in tandem with Saudi Arabia. The MB was funded in Egypt by the CIA in order to undermine nasser. Massadeq, a secularist, socialist arab nationalist, was overthrown by the CIA. Hamas' founders were veterans the CIA backed muhajideen and was initially funded by Israel to act as a counterweight to the PLO. Bhutto, the arab nationalist leader of Pakistan, was removed in a CIA backed coup and replaced with the islamist zia al haq. The republican party's foreign policy heavyweights, like James Baker, Oliver north, and Bill Casey, held low opinions of Israel and disregarded israel's interests because they cared more about fighting communism. Unfortunately, neocons changed this. From the 50's to the 80's, the United States funded wahabism and radical islam, and the Soviet Union supported Ba'athist Arab nationalism. The radical islamist movement the American government created turned on us after the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, the conflict can be seen in the fight between the Russian backed Al Assad government and hezbollah and the US backed sunni extremists like Al Qaueda.
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372
http://buchanan.org/blog/how-bill-kristol-purged-the-arabists-5085
This article explains how the foreign policy of the Republicans (Nixo, Reagan) used to be dominated by pro Saudis who saw radical islam as an ally against communism, who were removed by neocon zionists who wanted to spread secular democracy across the middle east.
"Political Islam" is a philosophy that grew in the 2nd half of the 20th century on Western money and influence so western big business could prevent that part of the world from becoming socialist and tap their economies, and it is quite separate from the religion. I highly recommend reading this book to educate yourself on the issue
https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372
It's not trash, these people were our allies when we fought the soviets what proof do you need. It can easily be googled. Who's tax dollars do you think built all those camps in afghanistan? Who trained them to use stinger missiles? Who helped them train in bombmaking? Every enemy we've had since the Korean war is some despotic regime that we allied with then got fucked . Noreiga, Hussein, Bin Laden, the Taliban and the zetas in mexico
http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jan/17/yemen.islam
http://www.legitgov.org/graphics/reagan_taliban_1985.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan#Foreign_involvement_and_aid_to_the_mujahideen -
The supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants was one of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations.[118] The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone. At least 3 billion in U.S. dollars were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons. Together with similar programs by Saudi Arabia, Britain's MI6 and SAS, Egypt, Iran, and the People's Republic of China,[7] the arms included FIM-43 Redeye, shoulder-fired, antiaircraft weapons that they used against Soviet helicopters. Pakistan's secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was used as an intermediary for most of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance.
No Americans trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen.[119] The skittish CIA had fewer than 10 operatives in the region because it "feared it would be blamed, like in Guatemala."[120] Civilian personnel from the U.S. Department of State and the CIA frequently visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area during this time.
Here's a great book on the subject
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Game-Unleash-Fundamentalist-American/dp/0805081372
In an effort to thwart the spread of communism, the U.S. has supported--even organized and funded--Islamic fundamentalist groups, a policy that has come back to haunt post-cold war geopolitics. Drawing on archival sources and interviews with policymakers and foreign-service officials, Dreyfuss traces this ultimately misguided approach from support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950s, the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, the ultraorthodox Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, and Hamas and Hezbollah to jihads in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. Fearful of the appeal of communism, the U.S. saw the rise of a religious Right as a counterbalance. Despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the declared U.S. war on terrorism in Iraq, Dreyfuss notes continued U.S. support for Iraq's Islamic Right. He cites parallels between the cultural forces that have promoted the religious Right in the U.S and the Middle East and notes that support from wealthy donors, the emergence of powerful figures, and politically convenient alliances have contributed to Middle Eastern hostilities toward the U.S. A well-researched and insightful book.