ISIS is funded by U.S Tax Dollars

Since I've been in Istanbul, I've picked up a job working as an English teacher for a local university. In my upper-intermediate class, we had a literature unit, and we took a trip as a class to the university library to choose a book. All the students gravitated towards the book 1984 by George Orwell. This is one of those books that is typically on a U.S high school reading list, but because of my atypical high school experience, I never read it. They highly encouraged me to, so I picked it up and finished it within a day. It was just the type of political conspiracy book I liked.

After I read the book, I began to observe the political atmosphere of the world as it stands today. I've always been a very skeptical person when it came to governments (thanks dad) and many people could call me a conspiracy theorist. I like to call it investigative. The most impactful piece of politics that affects me personally is of course the so-called “War on Terror”. Since 9/11 Arabs and Muslims alike have been demonized and used to fuel the fear propaganda media. After that attack, the U.S was able to march into the Iraq war with the screaming support of the U.S citizens. If you do any research at all, you know now that Iraq in fact had no connection to 9/11, and didn't even have any weapons of mass destruction. What was the actual reason, I wonder? What seems to be the only reason the U.S goes to war? You guessed it, fossil fuels.

From that point, I connected the dots. Who is the biggest provider of fossil fuels? Saudi Arabia. Our entire alliance is founded around the stuff. The Bin Laden family is from Saudi Arabia. On the day of the attack, the entire Bin Laden family was rounded up by the government and sent peacefully back to their country while all other aircraft were grounded. When I try to stress this point in my numerous debates on this topic, I strike this question: Let's say a notorious Mexican drug lord who had relatives living in the U.S committed a horrific attack on U.S soil, and then fled back to Mexico. Could you, in your wildest dreams, imagine the government finding his relatives and sending them back on their merry way to Mexico? No, its unfathomable. They would be held for questioning to find out where he was hiding.

Clearly there was something strange happening. Fast forward to today, and the Islamophobia-fueled fear propaganda machine is alive and healthier than ever. Back in the day we had Al-Qaeda, and now we have it's replacement, ISIS. Where did this group come from? I can tell you without a doubt that had the U.S not gone into Iraq, ISIS would have had a very slim chance of developing. This happened for two reasons:

1. By entering Iraq unjustly and killing over one million innocents, the U.S created an entire generation of angry people. These people had lost their families, their homes, and their country was left in shambles. There was one obvious culprit: the United States. How could they not be filled with rage and anguish enough to become terrorist fighters? They were left with nothing to lose. And as they say, a man with nothing to lose is the most dangerous kind.
2. Yes, we agree that Saddam Hussein was a ruthless leader. He committed many crimes against his own people. But, you cannot deny that he kept his country together and disciplined. After he was assassinated by the U.S, the entire region fell into chaos. Just the kind of chaos necessary for terrorist organizations to thrive and gain power.

So, Iraq is now a breeding ground for terrorist organizations. Here comes the Saudi role again. In Saudi Arabia there is a form of fundamentalist Islam that is becoming more and more widespread. It is called Wahhabism, and it preaches the Quran in a very literal sense and takes a very extreme interpretation. The Saudi government actually highly encourages it's top clerics (or Imams) to preach this specific form. It is this extreme Wahhabi sect of Islam that gives birth to a huge number of the terrorists we see today. In fact, an overwhelming majority of ISIS fighters are from Saudi Arabia, all joining to fight for the sake of Jihad, or holy war, while being encouraged by their religious leaders.

How does this involve the U.S? As many people know they are the largest exporter of arms in the world. And, Saudi Arabia is their biggest and most loyal customer. So, Saudi Arabia causes systematic religious brainwashing of thousands of young men, those young men buy guns from the United States, and then go on to spread terror across the globe in the name of Islam. And, in the process, the pair continue their profitable fossil fuels alliance. Oh, and of course that's not all the U.S gets out of this partnership. The government now has an abundant source for fear propaganda.

The most powerful thing to own is not money, not oil, not even guns, but an idea or emotion. Fear consumes the mind and can make people paranoid. With paranoia comes hatred of the thing causing it Society becomes split. The government remains in control. The alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States is nothing more than a business arrangement, and world dominance is the prize.