A University of Arizona Professor is under fire after suggesting the the U.S. military poses a bigger threat than ISIS.
In an article Musa al-Gharbi who is an instructor in the university’s Department of Government and Public Service program says, ‘it would not be a stretch to say that the United States is actually a greater threat to peace and stability in the region than ISIS.’
The piece, entitled How Much Moral High Ground Does the US Have Over ISIS?the instructor portrays American soldiers as anti-Muslim rapists who commit crimes on par with - or even worse than ISIS itself.
Al-Gharbi’s comments, published in the online publication TruthOut and several other places, attracted outrage from experts who said that taxpayer funds should not be supplementing a university that encourages such dialogue about current events.
‘U.S. policies in Iraq, Libya, and Syria have largely paved the way for ISIS’s emergence as a major regional actor,’ al-Gharbi wrote.
Al-Gharbi argues that the isolated instances of U.S. soldiers committing atrocities including rape, for which they face court-martial and imprisonment if found guilty, are on a level with the widespread and systematic brutality of Islamic State radicals
‘Many of the same behaviors condemned by the Obama administration and used to justify its most recent campaign into Iraq and Syria are commonly perpetrated by U.S. troops and are ubiquitous in the broader American society,’ al-Gharbi said.
‘The initial driver of U.S. involvement was the outrage over ISIS’ capture of thousands of Yazidi women and the sexual violence subsequently exercised against them—horrors which provided moral credence to the war against ISIS in much the same way that the 2001 U.S. war against the Taliban was justified in part by highlighting the plight of Afghan women living under their rule,’ he wrote.
‘However, over the course of that war, and the subsequent 2003 war in Iraq, U.S. soldiers and contractors repeatedly used rape as a weapon of war, both against prisoners and the local civilian population,’ al-Gharbi writes. ‘But perhaps more disturbing than the crimes committed by U.S. personnel against Iraqis and Afghans were the atrocities committed by servicemen against their fellow soldiers.’
‘U.S. soldiers and contractors have and continue to torture their enemies, often taking obscene photos to brag about and reminisce upon their acts,’ al-Gharbi writes.
He then goes on to claim that the U.S. military has been ‘heavily infiltrated by white-supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups.’
Critics of the piece are calling for the University of Arizona to condemn his views.
The University of Arizona has issued at statement regarding the article:
Musa al-Gharbi, the author of the opinion piece, was not writing for any part of his employment at the University of Arizona.
He is a limited term adjunct instructor who teaches one class this semester and is a member of a volunteer research collective that receives no state or university funding. He wrote the editorial as a private citizen.
The op-ed is his personal opinion and labeled as such. The ideas expressed in Mr. al-Ghabri’s opinion piece have offended and distressed many in the University of Arizona community and beyond.
We also acknowledge his First Amendment right that allows him to publish his thoughts as a private citizen.
