UMass Boston Professor Says American Interventionism Causes Terrorism

A professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston told his students that American foreign policy is responsible for acts of terrorism like the September 11 attacks.

William Nardi, a contributor for The College Fix, detailed his brief experience with UMass Boston Professor Paul Atwood, who teaches a course this semester entitled “The U.S. and Intervention in the Middle East.” Nardi alleges that Atwood approached American foreign policy strategy from a “conspiratorial lens” and even implied that America may have had a greater involvement in the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Nardi provided excerpts from the course’s syllabus, in which Atwood lays out his partisan beliefs. “President Obama, Bush before him and now Trump, and the mass media, have told the public incessantly that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary to defeat Islamic terrorists and jihadists, and to protect the security of American citizens,” Atwood’s syllabus reads. “Today the U.S. is intervening in a number of other Muslim nations as well. For many citizens the origin of these wars is simple: The events of 9-11 justify anything. But since those terrible days many facts have surfaced that call into question the ‘official’ rationale for these wars.”

“In fact, since World War II, long before 9-11, the U.S. has been actively intervening throughout the region politically, economically, militarily, and culturally,” the syllabus continues. “Why? The original interventionism had nothing to do with terrorism. Indeed, many analysts argue that today’s American intervention is the primary CAUSE of terrorism.”

“… Most Americans refuse to believe that American policies and actions toward the Middle East have resulted in a great deal of death and suffering to indigenous populations, even well before the current wars,” Atwood adds. “… The U.S. has overthrown governments, assassinated leaders, propped-up brutal dictatorships …”

According to Nardi, Atwood is a former marine, who became an anti-war protester after he returned from Vietnam.