every yank who took part in afghanistan will say they “served in the middle east” despite the country… yknow, not being in the middle east. if you’re going to invade a country on behalf of your empire i feel like you should at least know what part of the world it’s in
After 9/11 the Bush admin coined “Greater Middle East” which was literally just every majority Muslim country more or less contiguous to the Middle East. Anything from Mauritania to Somalia to Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan. The former-most having a latitude west of Europe and the latter-most having a latitude going into India and China, being lumped with a geographic region that just means “near the east”
Depends on who you’re talking to, some consider it as part due to cultural similarities. The ambiguity of what is ‘the middle east’ is part of the racism towards the area according to some of the middle east history classes I’ve had
yeah and it’s pretty culturally distinct, they just want to lump muslim countries together. it’s as “middle eastern” as pakistan, turkmenistan, or uzbekistan. it’s like saying austria is a balkan country
most yanks seem to think afghans and iranians are arab, too
