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Fact Check: After The U.S. Intervenes In A Country, It Becomes Run Down Like Baltimore, Chicago And Detroit

Fact Check: After The U.S. Intervenes In A Country, It Becomes Run Down Like Baltimore, Chicago And Detroit

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After The U.S. Intervenes In A Country, It Becomes Run Down Like Baltimore, Chicago And Detroit Photo: In this Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, anti-government protesters set fire while security forces close Rasheed Street during clashes in Baghdad, Iraq. As the Middle East ushers in 2020, a new kind of uprising is unfolding in the Arab world. While the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that took place in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria were directed at long-ruling autocrats, the current economically driven uprisings are directed at corrupt political elites who have failed at providing their people with basic services. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed, File)

Does the U.S. leave a foreign country in ruins after it intervenes? Some blame the U.S. for turning other countries into run-down areas like one might find in strugglingU.S. cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit.

The evidence can be seen in the aftermath of U.S interventions in Libya, Syria, and Iraq.

On March 19, 2003, the U.S., along with coalition forces primarily from the U.K., initiated war on Iraq. While the invasion resulted in the ultimate takedown of Iraqui dictator Saddam Hussein, the country didn’t fare well afterward.

Raed Jarrar, who was born and raised in Baghdad and lived there on and off under Hussein’s rule, said he experienced the U.S. “Shock and Awe” campaign from the receiving end — and it wasn’t pretty.

“The U.S. intervention in Iraq officially started in 1991. And in some ways it has not stopped yet,” Jarrar said in a 2014 interview with journalist Joshua Holland for Bill Moyers.com.

“This included a couple of wars, 13 years of really harsh economic sanctions, and as we all know, eight years of military occupation followed by a continuous intervention in Iraq’s domestic politics. Contrary to what many people here think, while the U.S ended its military occupation at the end of 2011, it never stopped interfering in Iraq’s business.”

Jarrar founded a non-governmental organization that did reconstruction work in Iraq. Life in Baghdad became so unbearable that he immigrated to the U.S. and became a writer and peace activist. 

“The U.S. destroyed that Iraqi national identity and replaced it with sectarian and ethnic identities after 2003,” he added. “Then the larger picture is that there were entire cities that were completely cleansed of one ethnicity or the other.”

Former President Barack Obama, in retrospect, has claimed he regrets the decisions he made in the invasion of Libya, during which Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was killed.

The U.S. intervention resulted in the country crumbling before the eyes of the world –and no one seemed to help. On March 19, 2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya, and “three years after U.S. and NATO forces helped liberate Libya from the dictatorship of Moammar Gadhafi, the country is beginning to look a lot like another nation where an abrupt U.S. disengagement following a civil war led to chaos: Afghanistan in the 1990s,” read a 2014 oped by the editorial board of the Washington Post.

Despite leaving the country in shambles, the Obama administration did “its best to ignore Libya’s collapse…Administration officials continue to peddle the empty line that ‘Libya’s challenges can really only be solved by the Libyans themselves,’” noted the Washington Post.

The same attitude seems to apply in Syria. On Sept. 22, 2014, U.S.-led intervention began in the Syrian civil war. Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates joined the U.S. When the U.S. decided to remove its troops in October 2019, Syria erupted in violence. 

“More than half of Syria’s prewar population of 22 million has been displaced by the violence, with more than 6 million displaced internally and another 6 million fleeing abroad,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations

Tamorah Shareef Muhammad @ModestyQueen1 tweeted, “Whenever the U.S. lends s helping hand…” along with a photo showing Libya under Gadhafi as a thriving peaceful place and another photo of Libya after “American Democracy” depicting bombed-out buildings.

https://twitter.com/ModestyQueen1/status/1415019996204392453?s=20

Benny X @EshanMuhammad1 tweeted the Biblical verse Revelation 6:8. “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat upon him was Death and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death and with the beasts of the earth.”

“Rape,plunder and pillage that is the amerikkkan way of democracy!” Black Power @Blackpo67273674 tweeted.

Black Intelligence @TheBlack_Intel noted that Gadhafi assisted other African leaders to overthrow countries — with devastating results. “This post is 100 True. But on the Flip side Gaddafi also supported civil wars all across the continent with African leaders he aligned with; ultimately resulting in mass civilian genocide.”

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