Are there any peaceful muslim nations?

There are plenty of investigative journalists who disagree with you.

Further, the 'histories' listed are very consistent with US foreign policy actions, economic motivations, and political fears & motivations that the US has engaged in over the last century (if you also read from other sources)

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One of the difficulties in engaging in such discussions is that to be properly informed, you need to be prepared to look into both sides of the histories. This is because:
- politicians have a vested interested in painting themselves and their legacy in the best possible light
- to that end, political sectors to manipulate what news reaches the populace and the slant that news takes (govt's PR departments) is an area that has grown exponentially. In Australia at least, between 1992-2007 they grew 10 times in size.
- multinationals have a similar vested interest, because it reduces oversight and facilitates profit when they are viewed favourably by their main clientele, even if what they do in 3rd world countries is extremely corrupt / undermines those local industry etc
- newspapers self interest is in generating emotion. To do this, they otherwise generate a scandal, or they play on peoples prejudices, preconceptions and fears...writing things from those perspectives. They steer away from stories that make the populace uncomfortable, or that could damage their brand / reputaton. This means distorted reporting, or non reporting of many events.

Now, whether or not you agree with the above tactics or not is beside the point. The point is that such things above lead to very one sided report, and often non reporting of many events.

Basically, you can't get both sides of history from the mainstream western sources (ie TV news, Newspapers). Without properly looking into such, all you are doing is allowing yourself to be brainwashed. Of course, when you look into both sides, the main question for both sides (the for & against) is

- 'does this make sense fit coherently into the bigger picture?'

The follow up question is to test it's veracity:

- does this hold true for historical, and future events

If the answer is 'yes', then you have something you can use as a guide...

Whatever that coup was, Dr. Mosaddeq was, is, and will be a very popular and beloved character in the heart of Iranians. His legacy is nationalization of our oil.

Well, they're wrong. The US had nothing to do with the creation of al-Qa'ida.

We had a program to send aid to Afghan resistance fighters, and because we did not want to be tied too closely to the program, we just gave the money to Pakistan and let them decide who to arm and train.

Pakistan decided to arm and train religious extremists, and thus created the Taliban.

It could be said therefore that our aid created the Taliban, though a truthful account will note that the US was not involved with Pakistan's decision to give the aid to religious extremists.

al-Qa'ida is an entirely different group from the Taliban. They received their aid and funding from wealthy Saudis, not from the aid that the US was funneling through Pakistan.

That can be useful as a way of filtering out untrue claims. But it can't positively confirm that something is true.

For instance, the US has acted in the past to ensure stable oil supplies. The 1991 gulf war for instance.

But there are claims that our actions against Assad are because we want to force some sort of oil pipeline. And the same claim was made regarding our invasion of Afghanistan.

the 2003 Iraq war, which has no clear motivations (I've found a few coherent theories, but nothing with strong evidence)

Sunday September 23, 2001

Press Release
SOURCE: Newsweek

Pentagon Board Wants Hit on Iraq After Afghanistan, But Secretary of State Powell Fears Strike Could Shatter Arab Anti-Terror Coalition

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- At a two-day meeting last week of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, which is chaired by hard-liner Richard Perle, eminent conservatives including Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich reached a consensus that U.S. military forces should strike Iraq shortly after an initial blow against Afghanistan in response to the terror attack on New York and Washington, Newsweek reports in the current issue. ``When the U.S. loses what may be more than 6,000 people, there has to be reaction so that the world clearly knows that things have changed,'' Gingrich tells Newsweek.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell fears a strike on Iraq could shatter his efforts to build a worldwide anti-terror coalition. The aim would be to pool intelligence on terrorists with ``global reach'' and to gain police cooperation which he and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice believe is at least as critical to cracking down on terror as military action, report Foreign Editor Michael Hirsh and Diplomatic Correspondent Roy Gutman in the October 1 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 24).

The strike-Iraq contingent fears American credibility will be damaged if the U.S. gets bogged down in Afghanistan. It also believes Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be used against America next, Newsweek reports. There is ``a recognition that it will be very tough to get bin Laden in the rocky and mountainous terrain of Afghanistan,'' said one participant in the Pentagon meetings. ``There's a feeling we've got to do something that counts -- and bombing some caves is not something that counts.''

On the other hand, Powell and deputies believe a full-blown military strike on Baghdad would only kill many Iraqis, enrage the Arab world and probably not dispose of Saddam, who has slowly won new allies with promises of oil deals since 1991.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010924113109/biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010923/nysu001a_1.html

In terms of Al Qeida, the US played the biggest part, setting up systems to encourage 'holy warriors' from the world over to come and fight in Afghanistan, with funding. After the war ended, countries from which the Jihadi's originated, quickly blocked them from returning. History shows those who returned to their countries were still a problem for their countries up until 20 years later.

In terms of motivation for the Afghan-Russia war, at the time of that war, Oil was necessary to the the balance of power between the superpowers of Russia and the US (and still is).

If Russia had taken Afghanistan, then there were beliefs that they would effectively control / have undue influence over Iran (already possessing significant influence in the country at that time). If they 'controlled' Iran, they could focus on influencing the rest of the ME. If they managed that, they could controlled oil, and so have become the ascendant superpower.

Of lesser but still significant magnitude - a Russian win would also likely have cancelled out US influence in Pakistan, which had been the US' balance to Russian influence in India.

In the face of that, (short of direct confrontation) do you think the US would not have done everything it could, to stop Russia from gaining control?

I've also read credible theories about Iraq having moved to selling Oil in Euro's in 2000,

it could trigger a domino effect that could see US lose Reserve Currency status to the Euro.

There are plenty of economists who believe that if that happens, there's a 50% chance of the US going into recession.

Certainly the lie of WoMD (which phrase I don't recall ever having heard being used politically before that war) wasn't the reason.

The question of staying in Iraq for 16 years and making an industry out of it, is another question.

Quote:

The alleged Prague connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda came through an alleged meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi consulate Ahmad Samir al-Ani in April 2001. This alleged connection is notable because it was a key claim used by the Bush administration to justify the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.[1] Czech counterintelligence service claimed that Mohamed Atta al-Sayed, a September 11 hijacker, met with Ahmad Samir al-Ani, the consul at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague, in a cafe in Prague. This claim, sometimes known as the "Prague connection", is generally considered to be false and has been said to be unsubstantiated by the Senate Intelligence Committee in the United States.[2]