SDDONAVAN

Bill Maher Challenged By Glenn Greenwald Over U.S. Intervention In Muslim Countries Bill maher: it’s not our fault what came out. we didn’t go into egypt. we ended up with the muslim brotherhood. Glenn greenwald: we were supporting and propping up mubarak for 30 years, even as we were cheering for all the tahrir square demonstrators as though we were on their side. it was our government that kept mubarak in power. we’ve done the same thing across the entire muslim world. it’s amazing for you to say, “look at all these muslims. the minute you give them a little bit of freedom, they go wild and start being violent.” how can you be a citizen of the united states, a country that has generated more violence and militarism in the world over the last five or six decades, and then say, “look at those people over there. they’re incredibly violent”? we play a significant role in what has been happening in the middle east because we’ve been interfering in and dominating that region to maintain access. bill maher: i wasn’t talking about violence. i was talking about theocracy. that doesn’t happen here. glenn greenwald: okay, that doesn’t happen here. but at the same time, iran isn’t invading lots of other countries and occupying them for a decade. nor are fundamentalist muslim countries doing what the united states has done. these things are interconnected because we’re continuously interfering in that part of the world. bill maher: so it’s all our fault? glenn greenwald: it’s not all our fault. but when you send your military into other countries for six straight decades to bomb them, kill their children, women and innocent men, and prop up dictators, you have to take responsibility for your actions. bill maher: that region goes back a thousand years before our revolution, so i don’t think we can take all the blame. glenn greenwald: i don’t think we should take all the blame. i think we should take a lot of it. and there have been plenty of bodies and corpses piled up in the name of christianity and judaism as well. bill maher: not recently. glenn greenwald: have you heard of the occupation of the west bank and gaza for the last 50 years, motivated in part by extremist views of judaism? or the wars in europe? or the fact that there were generals in the united states saying we had to invade and destroy iraq, a country of 26 million people, because our god is bigger? lots of religions, not just islam, have produced violence. bill maher: that’s a silly liberal view that all religions are alike because it makes you feel good. glenn greenwald: no, it makes you feel good to say our side is better. bill maher: to put a crown on your head and say, “i’m a good person. how do i prove that?” glenn greenwald: you get to ignore the responsibility your own government has for violence and instability in the world by saying, “look, it’s that primitive religion over there that’s to blame.”