Friday, January 23, 2015

"they shall call his name Emmanuel" - Historical Backgrounds to the Islamic Terror




The Tokyo Station at Dusk



Historical Backgrounds to the Islamic Terror


It happened with the occupation of Vietnam by the Imperial Japanese Military in WWII.  France left Vietnam, while losing war against Nazi Germany in Europe, but afterward returned to Vietnam to continue its colonial rule, when WWII finally ended with the surrender of Tokyo after the US atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However Vietnamese fought its independence war to finally drive French troops out of the nation in the Indochina Peninsula.  Nonetheless, Vietnam was divided into the communist north and the capitalist or Buddhist south.

Then the Vietnam War erupted as the north tried to absorb the south while South Vietnam Government tied up with the US.  Though corruption of Saigon was so grave, the US sent totally half a million troops to support them till early 1970s.  The Soviet Union and China backed up North Vietnam, supplying a huge amount of weapons and other various aid.  Surprisingly, the US lost the bloody War and totally left Indochina.

The sense of loss of America was so deep that the American Government tried to revenge the defeat, targeting the Soviet Union that strongly supported Hanoi as part of its global strategy in the Cold War.  The then US administration took notice of situations in Afghanistan controlled by Moscow at the time.  America helped Islamic insurgents against the Soviet Union.  CIA even cooperated with Osama bin Laden who joined the Afghan Civil War, coming from Saudi Arabia.

Eventually the Soviet Union gave up Afghanistan and withdrew its troops.  Islamic fighters and the Taliban, supported by part of the Pakistan Government, started to rule Afghanistan.  And, America lost interest in the region and stopped involvement in politics in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolution occurred and the pro-US Iranian king was ousted.  Islamic revolutionary militias invaded the US Embassy in Tehran.  The Islamic Republic of Iran became an enemy of the US.

As retaliation, the US encouraged Iraq to launch a war against Iran.  Iraqi President Saddam Hussein continued the Iraq-Iran War from 1980 to 1988.  It was a futile war; both the countries wan nothing.  But, Saddam Hussein looked like having a conviction that the US recognized Iraq's strong presence in the Persian Gulf region as he was supported by the US Government in the War.

In 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and tried to invade Saudi Arabia while the Soviet Union was getting disintegrated.  For the US Government, Saudi Arabia was more important than Iraq.  So, the US entered a war, called the Gulf War, against Iraq with other Western and Islamic countries.  The Iraqi military was severely destroyed, but US President George Bush did not allow US troops to advance to Baghdad.  Saddam Hussein survived, but the US and the UK continued their air campaigns on some part of Iraq.

However, during this War, though it substantially continued only for a month, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers came to the Persian Gulf region.  And, America built military bases even in Saudi Arabia.  This huge influx of Americans into Saudi Arabia provoked some extreme Muslims, including Osama bin Laden who came to be at strife with pro-US Saudi Government and moved to Afghanistan to tie up with the Taliban. .

In 2001, terrorists led by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda launched a large-scale attack on Washington DC and New York, being driven by hatred toward the US that was shared with some extreme Muslims.  US President George W. Bush declared the War on Terror.  The US sent hundreds of thousands of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, though Iraq had almost no linkage with Al Qaeda.  The Taliban regime in Afghanistan toppled down and Saddam Hussein was captured and executed.

In 2011, the US completed withdrawal of its troops from Iraq while Osama bin Laden was executed by US special commandos in the year; at the end of 2014, the US military and NATO troops officially finished its military operation in Afghanistan.

And now, acts of terror are so rampant from Pakistan to Afghanistan and from Iraq to Syria.  The worst of terror groups is ISIS that recently attacked a magazine company in Paris and took two Japanese hostage in Syria.

Indeed, this sub-era began with acts of colonialist France and the Empire of Japan in Vietnam.  Truly, without the War on Terror, the Gulf War, the Iraq-Iran War, the Afghan Civil War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and WWII, today there must not be ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other Islamic terrorists from Africa to Indonesia.

We have to learn history to understand the world today.            







*** *** *** ***


Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Mat 1:24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
Mat 1:25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.