Following the recent horrific and
brutal San Bernardino slaying, President Obama took to the Oval Office and reminded Americans, “our nation has been at war with terrorists since al Qaeda
killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11.”
He also reminded us “we have no evidence that the killers were directed
by a terrorist organization overseas, or that they were part of a
broader conspiracy here at home.” Nevertheless, his thesis held, we have
no choice but to increase war efforts, even though the United States
“cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is
motivated by ISIL or some other
hateful ideology.”
We cannot do anything to totally prevent the problem of terror,
therefore, we “will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any
country where it is necessary,”
whether a country agrees to it or not, according to recent and historic US foreign policy.
But
what motivates the United States to take such seemingly irrational and
“uncivilized” courses of violence? Profits it seems. Stoking the flames
of war abroad will not only benefit terrorist efforts universally, that
is, for all sides using terror, but it will also benefit the
wealthy-corporate class. Executive Vice President of Boeing, for
instance, Bruce Tanner, raves that “ ‘conflicts would lead to
increased sales for their company.’
“ Indeed, “with the ISIS threat growing, there are more countries
interested in buying Oshkosh-made M-ATV armored vehicles.” Accordingly,
business is booming for Western-war profiteers. Which was further
illustrated when the war “contractors also celebrated the fact that the
defense sector was recently granted a $607 billion budget by the
government.” Thus, there remains a distinct correlation between
“terrorism” and Western profits; “Glenn Greenwald pointed out
stock prices for weapons manufacturers sharply increased just after the terrorist attacks in Paris last month.”
The
propaganda campaign that’s been wrought through political rhetoric and
mass-corporatized media, which is the US’ political machine for the most
wealthy amongst us, has done great work to keep the public in a
constant state of fear and paranoia. Indeed, “more voters than ever
think terrorists have the advantage
over the United States and its allies.” Indeed, a striking “forty-six
percent of 1,000 likely voters…thought terrorists were winning, while
only 26% believed the United States and its allies” have “the upper
hand.” Thus, whatever Washington’s doing, it’s clearly working, the
public’ absolutely terrorized by the prospects of terror. Yet for some
of the greatest hand wringers, those most “civilized people,” for them,
Americas centuries old “terrorist” question remains a pesky and “
sour subject.”
How to deal with the “confident savages,” continues to perplex even the
most hawkish of our leaders. Moreover, the threat of global
anti-imperialism seems to be growing within as well as without the US.
For example, “
a disturbing number of young Americans”
are “joining ISIS.” It seems, that Americans cannot escape even our own
“savagery.” Whether it’s violence from a white-supremacist terrorist,
like
Dylan Roof or
Timothy McVeigh, or one of the “
confident savages” the world over, it’s clear, that the West, without question, is in the business of producing terror and terrorism, evidently.
Lets look at a portion of the record.
Still
early in Obama’s first term, more than one commentator remarked that
Obama hadn’t “changed much of substance from the late
Bush practices.” And it gets worse for the Democrats who guard their reputation as liberals so well. Follow this condemnation: “
Republicans are right
about the fact that while it was Bush officials who led the way in
implementing these radical and lawless policies, most of the country’s
institutions — particularly the Democratic Party leadership and the
media — acquiesced to it, endorsed it, and enabled it.
And they still do.”
(My emphasis) Further, “ ‘much of the other half of the country, the
one that once opposed those policies – Democrats, Obama supporters — are
now reciting the same lines, adopting the same mentality, because doing
so is necessary to justify what Obama is doing,” namely
spreading terror.
But
how do our US maintainers of civilization ensure that “the masses of
people” do not become inquisitive, or perhaps, dangerously, informed?
Well one way is to continue the policies of secrecy and “public
security,” which Bush II’s “thugs” did so well, as has been well
documented by many intellectuals and scholars, Glenn Greenwald not an
exception. Thus, he relay’s, that Obama’s programs were “inherited from
Mr. Bush” II, “ they were “
literally just Bush [II] redux.”
In fact, “Mr. Obama’s Justice Department...’told an appeals court that
the Bush administration was right to invoke “state secrets’ to shut down
a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees who say a Boeing subsidiary helped
fly them to places where they were tortured.’ ” It seems that secrecy
would serve Obama’s Washington no less than it did his predecessors.
Another War on Terror
Twenty years before Bush II declared a “
War on Terror,”
says Chomsky, “the Reagan administration came into office announcing
that a primary concern of US foreign policy would be a ‘war on terror.’ ”
Apparently, back then, the threat to Washington policy was little
different. Reagan administration moderate, George Shultz, said that the
“terrorists” are “ ‘
depraved opponents of civilization
itself,’ “ who wish for “ ‘a return to barbarism in the modern age.’ ”
But, as currently, the domestic problem had to be addressed as well, we
had to exercise “the ‘cancer,’ “ which was “ ‘right here in our land
mass.’ ” Obama thus echoes Reagan era ideology in his most recent
address to the world when he said, we’re “confronted by a cancer that
has no immediate cure.”
Others reacting to US war with terror,
however, is not a new phenomenon. In fact, Woodrow Wilson was echoed by
Reaganites when they proclaimed a war against the “barbarians” of the
day in the Philippines saying that, in ‘our interest,” the USA “must
march forward’ ” and n provocations are to be tolerated. Decades later,
“the Reagan–Shultz doctrine held that the UN Charter entitles the US to
resort to force in ‘self-defense against future attack.’ ” Bush I
followed similar doctrine. His Washington argued its right to
pre-emptive violence and terror as it “justified the invasion of
Panama,” for instance, because the US must, through its own powers, must
have the right to “
defend our interests and our people.”
(my emphasis) However, this approach to terror is nothing new for the
USA, “the doctrine of preemptive strike has much earlier origins.”
Looking back to another example, president Bill Clinton’s administration
followed its duty to the imperialist hegemon. His “Strategic Command
also advocated ‘
preemptive response,’
with nuclear weapons if deemed appropriate.” Moreover, looking back
forty years prior, “President Eisenhower and his staff discussed what he
called the ‘campaign of hatred against us’ in the Arab world, ‘not by
the governments but by the people.’ ” Chomsky reminds us, however
soberly, that “they do not ‘hate us,’ but rather policies of the US
government, something quite different,” indeed. By the time we reach
BUSH II era policy on barbarism, Colin Powell’s State Department had
declared Cuba a “
terrorist state.”
Looking back again to the “terror” policies into the 60’s, President John F. Kennedy, “ordered his staff to
subject Cubans to the ‘terrors of the earth.’
” Obviously, he was addressing the “barbarians” of the day, the
“terrorists” off the coast of Florida, who were, by virtue of existing
in “successful defiance of the US,” being “a negation of our whole
hemispheric policy of almost a century and a half,” who must therefor be
subjected to the “terrors of the earth.” Thus, it was John F. Kennedy
who, quite astutely, however unwittingly, named the real terrorists, us.
We were ordered to deliver the terrors, not “them.”
Like much of
the world today, evidently, the “uncivilized,” had refused to adhere to
the “principle of subordination to US will.” Under JFK’s Washington,
Cuba refused to affirm a subordinate place, and when “a US-backed South
African invasion was coming close to conquering newly independent
Angola, Cuba sent troops on its own initiative, scarcely even notifying
Russia, and beat back the invaders” who’re being funded by US tax
payers. Thus, what would follow for years was, as Chomsky notes, “some
of the worst terrorist attacks against Cuba, with
no slight US role.”
Reagan’s Terror
Another
staggering example of US’ monopoly on terrorizing the world over was
illustrated in a 1987 UN resolution, which condemned “terrorism in the
strongest terms,” and which called “on all nations to combat the
plague,” which “passed 153–2,” the US and Israel, accordingly, the loan
wolves, or hawks rather, voted against it. For how could the US, which
funded and “recruited radical Islamists from many countries and
organized them into a military and terrorist force that Reagan anointed
‘the moral equivalent of the founding fathers,’ ” vote against our own
policy? We don’t and we didn’t. In fact, we’ve “ ‘supported every
possible anti-democratic government in the Arab–Islamic world.’ ”
However, long after Reagan’s rule, the war came home, and thus,
Americans “were subjected, on home soil, to atrocities of the kind that
are all
too familiar elsewhere.”
What
was it, then, that the US-Israel partnership took issue with? They
simply couldn’t allow their subject states, or any “other” state, for
that matter, “the right to self-determination, freedom, and
independence, as derived from the Charter of the United
Nations…particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and
foreign occupation,” which for US-Israel, cannot be true, not for those
who’s interests “must march forward,” for “the self-anointed
‘enlightened states’ will serve as global enforcers.”
Thus, for
any thing, it’s clear, whether a state or non-state faction, if it
contests US power and hegemony, which includes capitalist wont’s of
“free trade,” neo-liberal policies and unimpeded access, surveillance,
and control -- whether, it be an individual, a group, or state -- it
shall, invariably, present an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the
national security and foreign policy of the United States,” and
therefor, constitutes terrorism, and thus, it follows, however
illogically, that we must, “eradicate the plague” of anti-imperialist
terror stemming from the “uncivilized” corners of the planet.
Accordingly, we must “eradicate” “ ‘
the evil scourge of terrorism.’ ”
But
what has the propaganda and the non-transparency wrought for
contemporary Washington? Well, for one, it’s brought the politically
left and right of our country together forcing many to face our
country’s internal contradictions. In other words, if relatively
little’s changed in terms of war policy over the centuries, then many
democrats, and republicans alike, have been forced to admit that while
they stand fundamentally opposed on certain issues, the end result of
global hegemony and effective internal population control remains
intact, however deadly and oppressive the means may be. Indeed, “now
that it’s not just an unpopular Republican President but also a highly
charismatic and popular
Democratic President advocating and defending these core Bush/Cheney policies, they do become the political consensus of the United States.”
Nevertheless, Obama reassured us this week that the US is “
cooperating with Muslim-majority countries
-- and with our Muslim communities here at home.” Thus, to ensure the
safety and “security” of Muslims everywhere, he’s “ordered the
Departments of State and Homeland Security to review the visa (waiver)
program,” which is certain to follow with more stringent controls on
Muslims and many others who don’t fit the label “ordinary American.”
Furthermore, Obama “will urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to
make it harder for terrorists to use technology,” what that means I
shutter to think. He goes on, “we should put in place stronger screening
for those who come to America without a visa.” And Congress “should go
ahead and vote to authorize the continued use of military force” against
the “thugs and killers,” who’re “
part of a cult of death.” Nevertheless, he maintains, that “we are on the right side of history,” and may we “never forget what makes us exceptional.”
Thus, accordingly, if it’s US’ policy to fund and depend upon known terror-sponsoring states, such as,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia,
then it follows that the US policy would also be, to counter any
movement or policy designed to limit Washington’s “enemies.” The
inferences, should one be willing to follow them are, that the US,
empirically, and through its own admissions, is perhaps, the greatest
“threat to world peace,” as
the world believes;
however, and perhaps even more sobering, the United States of America
is also the largest supporter of terrorism in the world. There’s little
argument against that fact if one applies universal determinations to
what constitutes “Terrorism.”
Thus, said Chomsky, rather soberly in 2003, “
we basically have two choices.
Either history is bunk, including current history, and we can march
forward with confidence that the global enforcer will drive evil from
the world much as the President’s speech writers declare, plagiarizing
ancient epics and children’s tales. Or we can subject the doctrines of
the proclaimed grand new era to scrutiny, drawing rational conclusions,
perhaps gaining some sense of the emerging reality.”
What is it,
then, that we must ask ourselves if we’re to honestly address the moral
consequences of our actions? Why is it invariably the case that what
others do is “terror,” but what we do is not? I’ll leave you with these
final thoughts from Chomsky. “If an action is right for us, it is right
for others; and if wrong for others, it is wrong for us. Those who
reject that standard can be ignored in any discussion of appropriateness
of action, of right or wrong.” Thus, just as he’d advised in 2003, “we
can approach these questions with the rational standards we apply to
others, or we can dismiss the historical and contemporary record on some
grounds or other.”
It seems Washington’s choosing to continue the
recreation of ancient myths and children’s tails. In response to the
San Bernardino tragedy, Obama said that, “we will succeed in this
mission…we are on the right side of history. We were founded upon a
belief in human dignity…equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes
of the law…let's make sure we never forget what makes us
exceptional…freedom is more powerful than fear…God bless you, and may
God bless the United States of America.” Lastly, as the United States
draws on every aspect of American power,” and as “we march forward,”
especially in repayment for our investors and profiteers,
and to wittingly beholden the “barbarians” of the world, a sour subject
indeed, although terrifying to say the least, we continue to sew the
ancient tails, and they continue thusly, evidently.
By Janet Phelan
