Comment by ubernostrum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ubernostrum | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not trying to be mean here, but: you never wondered why so many people in Iran hated the US enough to call it the "Great Satan"? I know we've had a generation or so of leaders over here who just prattle on about "they hate us for our freedom", but I'm kind of boggled by the idea that people don't get curious and wonder what really set off the level of virulent hatred of the US (and European powers) that existed and still exists in various parts of the world.

So much of the turmoil and violence around the world today is fallout from meddling by western powers over the last couple centuries. Want to understand the modern middle east? Got to dig into the US overthrow of Iran's government, the background of the British rise to prominence (WWI and the Sykes-Picot agreement), etc. Want to understand trouble in just about any part of Africa? Dig back to what the European colonizers did to the place, and hoo boy wait till you learn the truth about Belgium.

You really cannot even begin to pretend to have a hint of a grasp on modern world politics and conflicts without understanding this stuff.

You can also have a look at Hypernormalization, a documentary by Adam Curtis where he draws the origin of suicidal terrorism to the meddlings of Kissinger in Assad’s (senior) Syria.

Or, more relevantly, why immigrants from Guatemala and Honduras are increasingly coming to the U.S.

Not to nitpick because you are spot on but I think you need to go back to at least the D'Arcy Concession to understand the modern Middle East.

You could really write a couple doctoral theses just doing a review of the stuff necessary to understand contemporary middle-eastern conflicts and politics. I tried to pick a couple things as examples rather than write those theses :)

True. I only mentioned it because of it's significance in relation to the long running war over oil in the Middle East. The ME has however held importance as a trading route since the beginnings of what became the silk road.

I may be betraying ignorance (I always love to learn—thanks!), but before today, I assumed that had to do with the US being Israel’s closest ally, since Iran from the beginning has hated Israel for what I assumed were religious reasons, and the fact that a non-Islamic country has (parts of) Jerusalem after over 1000 years of wars over who gets to have it (many of which were at least partly religiously motivated — or at least that’s how it was spun to gain support).

That and an impression that Iran “wants to do bad things” (like human rights violations and irresponsible ownership of nuclear weapons), and doesn’t like world powers keeping those plans at bay.

There also issues of regime change which a nice way of putting a list of unsavory tactics and how regions of the middle east used to be quite progressive and modern before these tactics over the years had taken their toll on the region.

You can Google around for articles on what places like Iran and Afghanistan used to look like. They're instructive. Then read up on the history of those countries, and how things went wrong.

It's also instructive to pay attention to the names. Some of them are going to jump out at you, and at least a couple times you're going to think "wait, isn't he the bad guy" when, once upon a time, some recognizable name was "on our side" (but really was on his own side all along, and willing to play at doing a major power's bidding in order to get funded/armed/maintained in power/etc.).

And some of the names of the foreign-policy wonks are going to get eerily repetitive, and you'll wonder how these guys managed to stay cozy with administration after administration despite their track record of literally leaving desolation around the world. Worse: you're going to read their bios and find out some of them are still in positions of power and being taken seriously today.

> and hoo boy wait till you learn the truth about Belgium.

Enlighten me.

Read a good article, or even Wikipedia, on Leopold II of Belgium, his "Congo Free State", and the aftermath.

Leopold's Congo was so horrifying that when he gave up personally ruling it and let it be turned into "just" an ordinary colony where the colonizing government and its companies worked hand-in-glove to ruthlessly exploit the place at the expense of the locals... that was actually better than it had been under Leopold's direct rule. Under personal rule by Leopold, estimates of the death toll in the Congo range at least into the millions and possibly over ten million.

You asked. Do not blame me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free...

There is an astounding level of ignorance about Western meddling in foreign countries among Westerners; for instance, I don't think many Americans know of CIA-backed coups in socialist-leaning countries.

Regarding “The Great Satan”, I’d assumed that was just boring old xenophobia. Possibly with a dash of mistranslation, hyperbole, and nut picking.

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