Jan 16 2015 The Endless
Further
Some 13 years ago, shortly after President
George W. Bush declared a war on terror, Monty Python’s Terry Jones
asked: “How do you wage war on an abstract noun?” War on terror is
an oxymoron. This
war on terror was supposed to be a
response to a barbaric act, but the first action taken was to
invade a country that had nothing to do with it. The war began
falsely and has been a fallacy ever since.
On Tuesday, France’s prime
minister declared war against terrorism. The French people took to
the streets in solidaires and bought up the new issue
of Charlie Hebdo to exercise their right of free speech, and now
they are poised to lose many of their other rights as the country
transitions into another surveillance state.
What irony – the more we
defend our rights, the more rights we lose. It might not be so bad
if the people who make these declarations and defend our freedom
just gave us some truth. But that gets lost in the shuffle,
too.
Pope Francis says you should
not “kill in the name of one’s own religion.” Well, that is
precisely what folks have been doing ever since we invented God.
But in this case, the war is only partly about religion. Maybe
that’s always the case.
In the U.S., we are
constantly going on about the troops, praising, thanking and
honoring them for their service – but it’s not service, not really.
I mean not like when people were drafted into the military. The
truth is, it’s a job. Military employees are paid to do this work,
which often puts them in harm’s way.
I don’t mean to suggest that
our troops are not deserving of our praise and thanks. I just
believe we need to see things as they truly are and have truthful
discussions about it.
From day one we’ve been sold
this war, and eager consumers that we are, we’ve bought it lock,
stock and barrel. The patriotism the war on terror comes wrapped in
is just a sales technique. So is the fear.
The war on terror is a
business run by the terrorism industry and they are not above using
fear tactics, which is just a form of terrorism, to keep it going
by inflating national security threats, hinting that 9/11 type
attacks are imminent. We have seen small attacks on this continent,
such as the recent Canadian incident a few months back (that led to
surveillance-expanding legislation and anti-terror laws), but what
about 9/11 scale attacks? If the terrorists are “so demonically
competent, why have they not done it?” asks John Mueller* in
Foreign
Affairs. He
suggests that
“One
reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the
United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike
from abroad. But this explanation is rarely offered.”
“Almost no terrorists” means
few terrorists, mostly lone terrorists, and though their plots can
be small, they can still be deadly. But we’re talking about big
9/11 scale plots, the kind the Bush Administration and the CIA lied
about to justify torture.
The worst thing about truth
is that it is so damn inconvenient at times, and
complex.
In our public sphere
discussions, we need to talk about this as a culture war. A revolt
against modernity. Or, we need to talk about it more. Like climate
change, too many people are in denial about the causes. I condemn
terrorism, but I try to resist the temptation to paint terrorists
simply as black clad evildoers with no reverence for human life.
That may be true, but it is also true that most terrorists are
disenfranchised young men, for whom Jihadist training in Iran or
Syria somehow fills the emptiness in their lives and give them a
sense of purpose no matter how warped. It’s something that needs to
be addressed.
I’ve rambled. Probably have
not articulated my thoughts very well. I wanted to make a point
about how we have lost rights while defending them. I guess we
didn’t notice we lost them. We were too busy with our eyes glued to
our smartphones.
My biggest disappointment
with Obama is he didn’t try to repeal the Patriot Act.
I am not saying we shouldn’t
try to stop terrorists . . .
Just saying, to borrow from
John Lennon, gimme some
truth.
And gimme some rights
back.
Speaking of rights . . .
when will Israel give Palestinians the right to free movement? When
will the Muslim world finally acknowledge Israel’s right to
exist?
I feel that I should have
written something positive, uplifting, possibly inspiring. I just
don’t feel it today. I am pessimistic about the current state of
affairs. I don’t have a good feeling for the future
either.
We live in a cellphone
world, and a surveillance state. Huxley and Orwell predicted this
outcome.
– Aldous Huxley,
Brave New World
If you want a
picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human
face—forever.