Maribeth Nix

December 11
Rhetoric II
Liebing

actual thesis : We see in the repeated motifs that American-Middle Eastern interaction is usually

a good thing for both sides because of the ideals of freedom etc

American Arrogance and Patriotic Pride

EXORDIUM
Duty. Honor. Justice. Freedom. Many think that these are the ideals that we convey in our

negotiations, missions, and invasions overseas, especially in the Middle East. Most people would

be shocked at how they have been overwhelmingly misinformed. As the daughter of an

American soldier, I am very shocked at all of this information I have uncovered during my

extensive research. I have grown up having learned and believed that the United States goes to

war only when necessary to defend ourselves, or the cause of global liberty and freedom. In fact,

our attitude and objectives in the majority of interactions between our ‘great’ nation and the

Middle East can be summed up in one word : pride. Our great and self serving patriotic pride is

seen in a variety of episodes in our lengthy history with Middle East.

NARRATIO

Barely after the Stars and Stripes had been flown over our newly freed soil, the first war

in the Middle East begun. After the British navy naturally rescinded its support and protection of

our cargo vessels, pirates and privateers from all over the Orient attacked them, taking their

goods and often selling the crew into slavery. While the general American populace was terrified

of these attacks and demanded that they cease, the majority of politicians did nothing. After a

few years of near constant attacks, the politicians took notice, and wanted to settle this in what

1
they considered to be easiest way possible: by bribing the foreign dignitaries. This did nothing,

but we did settle a deal to stop the attacks by paying tributes. And the attacks did stop, but

eventually, the Americans got fed up with what they viewed as bowing to backwards, benighted

pagans. So we delayed sending our tribute, and on January 3, 1801, Tripoli, one of the Barbary

States declared war on the US. 1 Congress sent the first marines to the Bay of Tripoli to blockade

it, and also make frequent raids on the coast. We did not officially declare war, but we did so in

essence by pursuing a more aggressive protection of our ships. After years of infrequent naval

battles and frequent raids, we left a permanent force of our nation stationed in North Africa.2

After decades of conflict, the Barbary war that never officially was, was over.

A few years later in the eighteen twenties, the Greek islands began a relatively long

rebellion against their dominion, the Ottoman Empire. Most Americans were very supportive of

this Grecian rebellion and its promotion of the ideals of freedom and democracy; it even became

common to throw a fundraiser ball to support the Grecian rebellion.3 While the American people

overwhelmingly encouraged it, American politicians, especially the President, John Quincy

Adams, were much less supportive. This was because we were pursuing an alliance with the the

Ottoman Empire, and did not want to ruin their benevolence towards us by supporting an

uprising. After we acquired the treaty under President Andrew Jackson4, we began to sell an

abundant number of arms and warships to the Ottomans and throughout the Middle East.

1
​Wheelan, Joseph. Jefferson’s War : America’s First War on Terror 1801 - 1805. New York, New York:
Carrol and Graf Publishers, 2003.
2
​Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present ​. New
York City, NY : Norton , 2011.(page 78)
3
Michael B. Oren. ​Faith, Power, Fantasy ( 109)
4
Ibid. , 115
2
 Then the American Civil War happened, and foreign relations naturally fell onto the

back burner as brother fought brother on the American East Coast. This Confederate Union

discord made its way into the Middle East, in the form of theft and disrespect in Morocco. In

February of 1862, the Confederate cruiser the ​Sumter ​breezed into the port of Gibraltar in

Morocco.5 While there, the crew seized 18 US federal ships before the US consul, Unionist

James De Long, took notice of them, arrested them, and detained them in the US consulate.

France, upset by this in support of the Confederates, claimed that the prisoners had sailed to

Morocco under the French flag, and that De Long was abusing the Moroccan Emperor’s political

ignorance. Facing France’s wrath, Morocco closed the port. De Long demanded the port be

reopened as 300 Frenchmen surrounded the consulate. Just in the nick of time, the ​USS Ino

landed with 30 Marines, who pressed through the crowd to protect the Consul and his prisoners.6

De Long then demanded Morocco reopen the port so he could extradite the captives, or the US

would close its consulate. The Emperor sided with America, reopening the port as soon as

possible.

After the Civil War, the newly reunited Union went right back into sticking its nose right

into the Middle East’s business. The Egyptian leader, the Khedive Isma’il Pasha, wanted to

modernize, Europeanize, and liberate his country from the Ottoman Empire. Realizing he could

do none of those things without a fully furnished, equipped, and trained modern army, and that

for this task, only one nation could help him: the Americans.7 He hired many prominent generals

and great military minds from both sides of the Civil War, and used them to train and prepare his

5
Ibid. , 184
6
​ ren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present ​. New
O
York City, NY : Norton , 2011.(page 185)
7
​ ren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy ( 191)
O
3
army for the upcoming rebellion. The way the Americans set about modernizing the army was

twofold: physically training the men, and mentally indoctrinating them. They armed the

Egyptians, while at the same time setting up American schools for the soldiers and their sons, to

teach them a love of America and independence, and to unite and ‘civilize’ the Egyptians.8

Eventually, when the Khedive’s campaign ran out of money, he instructed the generals to

conquer the other people groups for their tribute, which the American generals had no problem

doing.9 I hope the hypocrisy in conquering and subduing other peoples to fund your own

revolution to democracy is very blatant.

Nearly a century later, on November 4th, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the US

Embassy and held 52 American citizens hostage for a little over a year. 10 They did this mainly

because Iran wanted us out of their country, demanding that we remove our troops from their

soil before they release the hostages. They also wanted us to release their former Shah

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlah (their ruthless and hated leader who we supported), from our

country where he was being treated for cancer.11 We responded, not by threatening to send a

rescue mission or actually sending a task force, or complying with their demands, but by not

buying their oil. We claimed that they could press charges on the Shah through our legal system,

and that we couldn’t remove our troops because of the human rights atrocities being committed

in Tehran.12 On April 24th, 1980, we launched a raid to rescue the hostages. This mission failed

8
​Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present ​. New
York City, NY : Norton , 2011. (197-198)
9
​Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy (200)
10
​ ditors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Iran Hostage Crisis”.
E
Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017. ​https://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-hostage-crisis
(accessed December 5th, 2017)
11
​Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy (545)
12
​Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Iran Hostage Crisis”.
4
horribly as helicopters broke down and caught on fire, leading to us leaving behind seven

helicopters, and the bodies of eight American soldiers. 13 President Jimmy Carter finally paid a

ransom in the form of unfreezing their bank accounts, and the hostages were released on January

20, 1981. 14

All this to say, we have a very long, complex and storied history with this region of the

world that could not be crammed into a mere eight pages. Literal centuries of conflict and

compromise have arisen, in dozens of regions and countries and states. In this paper, I will not be

specifically addressing the conflict between the religion of Islam and Christianity for reason of

time and ease. When I say ‘Middle East’ , I am referencing the the area relatively unified by its

culture, religion, and worldview, that is commonly known to the be the area containing these

countries but not limited to : Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Syria,

and most of Northern Africa.

DIVISIO

Now that you have a better understanding of our vast history, I intend to start by taking

you through examples of our pride, and then moving to examples of our self serving interests.

PROPOSITIO

American involvement in the Middle East is a bad thing for the Middle East because we

are prideful and arrogant in almost all of our dealings with them, and we only get involved when

beneficial for us.

CONFIRMATIO

13
​Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy (547)
14
​Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Iran Hostage Crisis”.
5
 American arrogance is as pervasive in our dealings with the Middle East as McDonalds

are here in the States. One consistently recurring motif is our condescension towards the Middle

East, and how we consider their culture, religion, and style of government backwards and weird.

In his dealings in the Barbary War, “ (President Thomas) Jefferson was typical of the Americans

who later viewed the region as the repository of despotism and backwardness, a kind of inverse

mirror of their own democracy and enlightenment.” 15 In the Civil War, this disdain and

disrespect manifested itself in the form of Consul De Long’s forcing of a foreign nation to

comply to his demands, even though he had captured the crew with neither the knowledge nor

the approval of the Moroccan government. Later, when our generals were aiding and abetting an

Egyptian rebellion , we set up school to indoctrinate their youth to be more like American youth,

loving the Christian God, America, and the American notion of independence.

This is also seen in how we are constantly trying to remake the Middle East in our image.

As recently as the Twenty First century, in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom, we quite

literally set out to restructure and reset the Iraqi and Afghanistani governments through use of

our military force deposing their leadership and then training the new generation. We played

God throughout their nation, culture, and government. Here again we see the USA meddling in

affairs in which we have little to no reason to be involved.

This brings me to my next and final point, the fact that we do not involve ourselves to

protect and spread liberty, as we so often claim, but merely to serve our own selfish interests. For

example, the only reason we stood up to Tripoli and the Barbary States was because we felt

ashamed to be paying tribute to what we felt was a backwards, ungodly nation.These sentiments

15
​Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present ​. New
York City, NY : Norton , 2011. (55)
6
are summed up in this quote by historian Michael B. Oren, “ The majority of the members of

Congress, irrespective of their feelings toward federalism, could no longer bear the disgrace of

kowtowing to Barbary.” 16 We caused a war because we were ashamed, with no regard to the

lives or money that could be and was lost in the conflict. A few decades later, we stood by and

watched Greece rebel from the Ottoman Empire, and did not support them, and freedom, as we

easily could have, because we wanted to create a better trade treaty with the Ottomans.

Much later, at the close of the Gulf War in 1991, we withdrew our troops from Iraq while

encouraging the Iraqis to continue their rebellion against Saddam Hussein. They eventually

rebelled, and when they did on March 1st, 1991, we did nothing. We stood by and watched

hundreds of insurgents ,who we encouraged get slaughtered en masse.17 This would have been a

perfect time to stand up for our ideals of freedom, and liberty and protecting the weak, but

instead we proved our own selfish forsaking of our founding ideals by doing nothing.

More recently, in the 2011 Syrian Civil War that still continues to this day, we did and

are still doing nothing. Even reports of a brutal government using sarin nerve gas on its own

civilians as an attempt to stop the rebels, and arresting, torturing, and eventually killing children

for painting anti regime graffiti18 cannot prompt us into action. President Barack Obama called

for Syrian President Assad to step down and embargoed some goods, which did not personally

affect the President and led to no changes, and President Obama did not send military assistance

​ ren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present ​. New
16
O
York City, NY : Norton , 2011.​(page 34)
17
Ricks, Thomas E. ​Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (with a new postscript)​. New
York City, New York. Penguin Group: 2007. (5)

18
​Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Syrian Civil War”.
Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017. ​https://www.britannica.com/event/Syrian-Civil-War
(date accessed: December 12)
7
to the struggling rebels or civilians.19 The only change that has occured in Syria is that ISIS has

taken over, and we have done nothing to help the estimated 60,000 killed in this civil war since

2011.20 Once again, we got involved and then disengaged only when profitable for ourselves,

rather than standing up for freedom as we claim to do.

CONCLUSIO

As you have hopefully seen, American affairs in the Middle East have much less to do

with freedom, and much more to do with our own pride. The only solution is to fully remove

ourselves from the Middle East, and not get any further involved. The history speaks for itself.

We are incapable and unwilling to defend any liberty except our own, and we do that only for the

sake of our pride, so we should just detach from the Middle East fully. No more promises to act

and help that fall through, or encouragements to rebel that lead to the deaths of hundreds of

civilians. No more remaking the Middle East in our own flawed image. We need to just get out!

This is not just about politics, it is about right and wrong. Our overly nationalistic patriotic pride

and zeal is unacceptable. It has hurt a countless number of innocent people, and we as

Americans, especially as American Christians, can no longer stand for it!

19
​Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Syrian Civil War”. (page 2)
20
Ibid., (page 4)
8
Bibliography:

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Iran Hostage Crisis”.
Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-hostage-crisis​ (accessed December 5th, 2017)

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica.​Encyclopedia Britannica​, 8th ed. sv. “Syrian Civil War”.
Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Syrian-Civil-War
(date accessed: December 12)

Oren, Michael B. ​Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present ​. New
York City, NY : Norton , 2011.

Ricks, Thomas E. ​Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (with a new postscript)​.
New
York City, New York. Penguin Group: 2007.

Wheelan, Joseph. Jefferson’s War : America’s First War on Terror 1801 - 1805. New York, New
York:
Carrol and Graf Publishers, 2003.