The concept of blowback is one which is by now well-established in the study of foreign policy. Blowback is the unintended negative result of a policy that has been undertaken. One of the most prominent examples of blowback in foreign policy is Osama bin Laden and the creation of Al Qaeda.
The formation of Al Qaeda was the direct result of the United States government’s policy towards the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Not content to let the Soviets get themselves bogged down as previous invaders of Afghanistan had, US leaders decided to fund mujaheddin fighters and supply them with training and arms in order to combat the Soviets.
Those Islamist fighters acted as US proxies in Afghanistan and went on to form Al Qaeda. The results of that funding of the mujaheddin became apparent on September 11, 2001. But American leaders never learn the lessons of their failures, continuing to arm and fund militant groups throughout the Middle East. That will eventually come back to bite us as well.
Eventually foreign policy blowback influences domestic policy too, as it has in empires throughout history. We’re seeing that in the recent election of three radical socialists to Congress: Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Omar was born in Somalia and fled the country with her family in the wake of Somalia’s political turbulence, which was exacerbated by US attempts to play kingmaker. Tlaib was born in Michigan to Palestinian parents who came to the US due to the turmoil in their homeland, in which US support of Israel played and continues to play a significant role. Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York to Puerto Rican parents. Puerto Rico, one of the first US imperial colonies seized from Spain after the Spanish-American War, remains a US territory.
Each of these three women is here in the United States because of some previous US foreign policy intervention. In fact, if you look at US interventions abroad you’ll notice that every time the US decides to intervene in an area of the world, immigration from that area results. The government bombs an area to smithereens and the people there see no choice but to leave, and they come to the US. From German immigration in the 1950s to Vietnamese immigration in the 1970s and 1980s, to Somali, Bosnian, Afghani, and Iraqi immigration since then, US intervention is always followed by a wave of immigration.
Those immigrants may or may not integrate into American society, but whether or not they do, they nonetheless change the face of this country. While many of them become productive members of society, many others become like Omar, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez, having no understanding of or appreciation for the freedoms that Americans enjoy, and desiring to turn this country into a socialist hellhole. The more the US continues to intervene in the affairs of foreign nations, the more Omars, Tlaibs, and Ocasio-Cortezes will be elected to Congress. Is that what conservatives who push for foreign interventions really want?
