Boomerang!: How Our Covert Wars Have Created Enemies Across the Middle East and Bring Terror to America

by Mark Zepezauer

From Afghanistan to Turkey, from the Caspian Sea to the Sudan, the U.S. has ripped through one country after another in the Middle East and elsewhere, manipulating and marauding for its own benefit. This is a history with which Arabs and Muslims are painfully familiar, but which Americans can no longer afford to ignore.

Genres: Politics, War

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Mark Zepezauer is an author and cartoonist based in Tucson, Arizona. He is the author of Take the Rich Off Welfare and The CIA's Greatest Hits as well as the cartoon panel US History Backwards. On his shoulder he carries a Siamese cat.

Reviews

[Public Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another entry from the "why do they hate us?" file written after 9-11. I found Zepezauer's book more detailed and substantive than others I've read by literary giants like Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.

It was President George W. Bush's facile explanation that terrorists hate the US because of "our freedom." In actuality our freedom has little to do with it. When asked about US unpopularity people across the Middle East are much more likely to point to "our foreign policy."

In this book Zepezauer takes us on a tour of the Middle East and central Asia giving us brief histories of the US relationship with each individual nation: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, on through smaller nations like Jordan and Lebanon to Central Asian biggies like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It's easy to get bogged down in the details but the author does a nice job highlighting key moments and painting the broader picture.

With repetition a pattern begins to emerge where American intervention ends up doing more harm than good. Communist fears during the Cold War meant that the CIA helped right wing governments crack down on leftist and centrist movements - leaving few avenues for dissent outside of conservative Islamic organizations. Neoliberal economic philosophy meant defunding public schools - leaving religious schools the only place for a kid to get an education. For the last six decades the US has been supporting despotic rulers with one hand and radicalizing disaffected populations with the other.

"Persistent meddling in the affairs of other countries creates enemies for us," Zepezauer says in his conclusion. You said it brother.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a country-by-country chronicle of how American covert wars throughout the Middle East have come back to haunt us, creating many enemies.

Saddam Hussein’s rise to power was helped by a CIA decision to assassinate one of his predecessors, General Abdel Karim Qassim. In Syria, the CIA sponsored a 1949 military takeover, the first of over a dozen coups in the next 20 years. American oil companies felt that an independent Syria was not in their interests. Sudan has been involved, off and on, in a bloody civil war for almost 50 years. Oil just happens to be a factor in this ongoing slaughter.

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak has ruled with an iron fist ever since the 1982 assassination of Anwar Sadat, his predecessor. Mubarak uses billions of dollars in US military aid to beat and torture opposition politicians and journalists, many of whom have died in custody. Press restrictions are widespread. Egypt is viewed as a well-bribed client state of the US. The military in Turkey, a US ally and fellow member of NATO, has been one of the biggest human rights abusers of the 1990s.

America has always looked for a surrogate policeman in the Persian Gulf, to keep an eye on the huge oil reserves. First we armed the Shah of Iran, ignoring his repression, until he was overthrown. The we armed Iraq, ignoring Saddam Hussein’s repression, until he became too powerful, and a major war was needed to destroy his arsenal. Now America is arming Saudi Arabia, ignoring their repression, creating a generation of militants determined to overthrow the puppet regime propped up with American money.

Part of the blame for all this can be laid at the feet of Great Britain. They were the dominant power for much of the first half of the 20th century, and they had a tendency to ignore the ethnic makeup of an area while drawing boundaries.

Arab hatred of America has less to do with our freedoms and diversity than with our illegal involvement in other country’s internal affairs. This book easily reaches the level of Must Read. It’s interesting and easy to read and it’s full of information that won’t be mentioned in the mainstream media.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

No scholarly pretenses here, though even as a strictly polemic work it is lacking. That, and I found a case of plagiarism - though not nearly as bad as Alan Dershowitz.