The world, made to order by the US war machine

If the saying that “the rest of the world sneezes when the United States of America catches a cold” is true, which it is, a corollary should be that “the United States scratches itself when any part of the world itches”.

The audacious September 11, 2001 attack on New York and Washington was provocative in the extreme — an action that has since gotten the US into a rage that has still not died down. But that is hardly a justification for its violent interventions across the Middle-East starting with Iraq in 2003.

A sympathetic world backed the US and even joined it, as part of a UN-backed coalition, during its war on Afghanistan to capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. But the subsequent invasion of Iraq proved that the sympathy was misplaced, as it transpired that the US was using the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to further its political agenda in the Middle-East.

Iraq president Saddam Hussein had been in the crosshairs of the US ever since the Gulf war of 1990-91. The US government rustled up a narrative projecting Saddam as a monster, spun a tale linking him with al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, and without much ado, embarked on a military campaign that all but pulverised a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington DC.