US imperial operations generate the very blowback they then label terrorism

Evidence

ISIS is partly of the United States’ own making. Many of its leaders are former officers in Saddam Hussein’s army and former members of his political party (Breslow, 2014). ISIS faced the Americans anew, not as insurgents fighting the occupier of yesteryear, but as an invited obstacle on the road toward creating its caliphate. Many cynical Sunnis remarked on the irony that the present military campaign was directed against “an organization that evolved from jihadist groups fighting American occupation” (Barnard & Kirkpatrick, 2014). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2483 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But why should we feel threatened by such a change? The overwhelming evidence is that the majority of our terrorist enemies come from purportedly friendly countries, and their main grievance against us is that, in their eyes, we are responsible for maintaining the tyrannical regimes that rule over them—an accusation that has, to say the very least, some plausibility. Apart from Turkey and Israel, the two countries in the region where the governments are elected and can be dismissed by the people, most of the countries of the Middle East can be divided into two groups: those with what we are pleased to call friendly governments, and therefore increasingly hostile people who hold us responsible for the oppression and depredations of those governments, and, on the other hand, those with bitterly hostile governments, whose people consequently look to us for help and liberation. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1797 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: US-trained Afghan militants produced blowback against America as imperial power; CIA-trained Afghan militants constituted direct blowback against US empire; US actions in Iraq helped create the very adversary ISIS later became. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2483 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• US actions in Iraq helped create the very adversary ISIS later became. #corroborates (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2483
• US-trained Afghan militants produced blowback against America as imperial power #corroborates (0.92)
• US-supported Middle East rulers breed the terror directed against America #corroborates (0.82) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1797
• CIA-trained Afghan militants constituted direct blowback against US empire #qualifies (0.80)
• U.S. covert support in Central America produced blowback against the United States. #corroborates (0.75)