• chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    There was a moment where even libs seemed to understand that killing thousands directly and many more indirectly with failing infrastructure and services, that was how you “make terrorists”, right? Am I insane for remembering this? One of the biggest mainstreamers of the idea in the US was Ron Paul in 08 and 2012, obviously we’d been hearing the “point” for a decade prior in certain groups. Its imperial framing is admittedly gross but it’s more correct than whatever bullshit our “leaders” are spinning.

    New Atheists were kind of split on it. Obviously it didn’t apply to Iran for many of them, but at least Iraq and Afghanistan were understood this way for a time. Even The Daily Show and Colbert Report had riffs on this concept either by accident in interviews with the odd antiwar guest, hell maybe even Greenwald or someone at that stage, or as a pressure release valve I guess.