For many decades, the U.S. government, including the CIA, has had a close tie to right-wing Islamic governments and movements.

And at the same time, during these same decades, the U.S. government has helped fan the flames of hatred and bigotry towards Muslim people. What explains this apparent contradiction?

We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded

impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable but an imperative necessity. The Welcome to this week's episode of the Socialist Program.

I'm your host, Brian Becker.

Today we'll be talking to Dr. Nazia Kazi.

She is a scholar, an educator, a professor of anthropology

at Stockton University. She's the author of the book Islamophobia, race and global politics,

which has been recently re-released with a new edition from Roman and Littlefield. Dr. Kazi,

welcome back.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Well, thank you so much. You were one of our first guests on the Socialist Program more than two years ago.

We'll have you sooner than the next two years. We're very, very honored you're able to join with us.

Your research is so important about the phenomena

of Islamophobia, its roots, its real roots, how it's been mischaracterized and misinterpreted

by people all across the political spectrum. But I want to start with the upcoming anniversary

of the U.S. invasion, the shock and awe invasion of Iraq,

an invasion that took the lives of perhaps a million Iraqis, a million Iraqis who would not

have died had it not been for this war. This was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's Neocon War,

but not theirs alone. And that war, of course, came just,

you know, two years after the September 11th terrorist attacks that took down the World Trade

Center towers and a plane flew into the Pentagon. One of the remarkable things about your

...