-The practice of blaming ’the other’ in our societies is not a recent one. It has been engraved deeply in our minds for centuries, for various reasons. A person usually denies his own mistakes in front of his peers, and attempts to blame them on ’the other’. Who is this ’other’?. Sometimes it could be embodied, sometimes it could be invisible. This is the basis of all conspiracy theories, to acquit ones self from all responsibilities for its mistakes. We all remember as young schoolboys how we used to attribute our poor grades to the ’bad teacher’.

Everytime Saddam Hussein was asked about the reasons he waged war on Iran and Kuwait, he would answer coldly: It is always ’the other’ who conspires against the great achievements of Al-Thawra (the revolution).

When we condemned Bin Laden and Hussein for all their atrocities against humanity, the conspiracy theorists would rush to us and correct us that ’the US are the ones to blame. After all they were who made Bin Laden and Saddam, weren’t they?’. As if Saddam was just an innocent child or a pure angel before he established contact with the US. Or as if the US was the only power in the world who provided him any support or assistance. Also these people incorrectly assume that Islamic extremism was born today, or that it was the US that caused it to exist. Some even go far to try to convince us that these terrorist acts are the direct response to American policies in the region.

Just like they are trying to convince us today that the horrendous actions against Iraqi civilians today by militants/resistance/mujahedeen/terrorists are due to the American presence or occupation in Iraq. They forget that this sickened ideal would readily target other secularists/infidels/kafirs/reformists or any other creed that is different to theirs in the absence of an enemy such as the US in their way.