How the West Manufactured Extremism — and Then Vilified Ordinary Muslims
For decades, Western powers have spun a self-serving myth: that terrorism is an inevitable byproduct of Islam, that Muslims are a lurking threat to “civilized” societies. Yet a closer, less sanitized reading of history reveals something far more damning: it was the imperial ambitions of the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies that actively sowed the seeds of extremism. And when the bloody harvest came, it was not the imperial architects who were held accountable — it was everyday Muslims, scapegoated and demonized by a complicit media machine.
Western Hands: Bloodied but Hidden
The origins of today’s jihadist extremism are no mystery; they were engineered in full view during the Cold War. During the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), Washington, London, Riyadh, and Islamabad formed an unholy alliance, cynically arming, funding, and training Islamist militants to serve as disposable pawns against Soviet influence. Operation Cyclone — the CIA’s multi-billion-dollar covert program — funneled weapons and money into the hands of the mujahideen, with Britain providing crucial logistical support and Saudi Arabia flooding refugee camps with radical Salafi propaganda.
These imperial powers were not naive about the ideology they were cultivating; they simply didn’t care. Empowering fanatics was a price they were more than willing to pay to bleed Moscow dry. And from this bloody soil, groups like al-Qaeda sprouted. Figures like Osama bin Laden, though not directly bankrolled by the CIA, thrived in an environment meticulously constructed by Western meddling.
The West’s marriage of convenience with extremism didn’t end there. Saudi Arabia’s aggressive exportation of Salafism — a rigid, reactionary interpretation of Islam — was turbocharged by Western support during the Cold War. Despite the obvious dangers, Washington and London continued to indulge the Saudis, valuing oil and strategic alliances over the predictable blowback.
In Britain itself, radical preachers like Omar Bakri Muhammad and Abu Qatada were given sanctuary, their poisonous ideologies tolerated because they aligned — temporarily — with British geopolitical aims. London, smugly indifferent to the consequences, became “Londonistan,” a breeding ground for future terrorists.
And in the twenty-first century, the same playbook continued. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq shattered a nation, unleashing sectarian chaos that birthed ISIS. The NATO assault on Libya turned a country into a warlord’s playground. In Syria, Western support for armed groups — some openly jihadist — destabilized an entire region. Time and again, imperial interventions sowed carnage, and time and again, it was Muslim lives that paid the price.
Media: The Empire’s Loyal Mouthpiece
Having fueled extremism for their own ends, Western powers faced a problem: how to divert blame when the inevitable blowback arrived? The answer was simple — unleash a relentless media campaign to pathologize Islam itself and criminalize Muslim identity.
Mainstream outlets eagerly embraced this narrative. In the wake of attacks like 9/11 and 7/7, coverage focused obsessively on Islam as a supposed incubator of violence, rarely mentioning the decades of Western provocation that radicalized entire regions. The religious motivations of attackers were dissected at length, while the imperial violence that created them was swept under the rug.
Meanwhile, white nationalist terrorism — the domain of the West’s own extremists — was minimized, framed as the work of "lone wolves" or the mentally ill. Studies, such as one by the New America Foundation, reveal the double standard starkly: despite right-wing extremists killing more Americans than jihadists post-9/11, attacks by Muslims receive exponentially more coverage. This was no accident; it was the deliberate manufacture of fear.
The media didn’t just report the news — it engineered a worldview. Pseudo-intellectual frameworks like the “clash of civilizations” lent an air of legitimacy to rampant Islamophobia. Fear-mongering about “Sharia law” invading the West whipped up hysteria, even as actual legislative initiatives to ban Sharia were solutions to non-existent problems. Every Muslim was made suspect; every act of violence, a confirmation of their collective guilt.
Muslims: Perpetual Victims of a Western-Engineered Nightmare
Ordinary Muslims — whether in Baghdad or Birmingham — have borne the brunt of the extremist violence unleashed by imperial powers. ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban: these groups have slaughtered far more Muslims than anyone else, turning mosques, marketplaces, and schools into graveyards. The West’s interventions, couched in the language of "freedom" and "democracy," created hellscapes where civilians suffer daily.
And in the West itself, Muslims live under siege. Vilified by the media, targeted by surveillance, and terrorized by white nationalist killers, they are caught in a pincer movement of violence from jihadists and racists alike. The Christchurch mosque massacre, the Quebec shooting, the Hanau attacks — each one an indictment of the Islamophobia the West refuses to confront.
Despite overwhelming evidence that Muslims overwhelmingly reject violence — a 2016 Pew survey found 93% opposed terrorism — they are still forced to "prove" their loyalty, while their governments continue to stoke the fires of hatred.
A Cycle of Imperial Arrogance and Manufactured Hatred
This is no tragic accident. It is a vicious cycle meticulously maintained: Western powers destabilize regions, extremists flourish, Muslims are blamed, Islamophobia rises, and new generations of radicals find fuel for their grievances. It is a system designed to perpetuate war, profit, and fear — and to shield the true perpetrators from accountability.
ISIS propaganda points to Western atrocities; white nationalists cite jihadist attacks. Both sides, equally monstrous, are the bastard children of imperial arrogance. Ordinary Muslims are left to bury the dead, endure the suspicion, and pick up the pieces — again and again.
Ending the Lies
Breaking this infernal cycle demands more than platitudes about “coexistence.” It requires the media to stop serving as stenographers for imperial narratives and to start exposing the systemic violence that births extremism. It demands that policymakers confront the grotesque consequences of their interventions, not scapegoat the innocent.
And it demands that the public stop swallowing easy, comforting lies about “good wars” and “bad religions” — and start facing the ugly truth: the West is not the victim of extremism. It is its godfather.
Until that reckoning comes, Muslims will continue to suffer — punished, as ever, for crimes they did not commit, under a system designed to obscure the real criminals hiding in plain sight.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRWsJBM1R5Y&t=19s