Your chances of getting killed in a terrorist attack in the U.S. are about the same as getting struck by lightning, and you are a lot more likely to die from the common flu. More people die each year in this country due to traffic accidents, gun violence, natural disasters, and disease. It goes without saying that every few years, someone in this country will do something nutty or evil. We certainly aren’t going to be able to stamp out extremism or insanity. And more certainly we should not allow our least rational to steer our collective course.
So then why is our government spending so much of our money protecting us from something so much less of a threat than unstable levies? And why do many prominent experts agree that the primary results of the War on Terrorism so far have been the resurgence of the heroin trade out of Afghanistan, the promotion of extreme anti-American sentiment abroad, and the erosion of domestic civil liberties? Why has so much of our money been spent on things apparently making us no safer?
Because the “War on Terror” is merely a promotional campaign, or public facade, meant to create popular support for a vast increase in military spending, while obscuring the true nature of our national security strategy and its budget. What we are really paying for is the technological ascension of the United States to the position of global military supremacy. Consider how safe you will feel in 2024 when US Space Command can vaporize anyone from orbit.
We now recognize no international boundary or treaty as superceding our authority to take “unilateral preemptive action” against any person, organization, or state, foreign or domestic, that does not support “US geo-strategic interests,” or may in the future pose a threat. Those interests include, becoming the dominant military force in the world, owning as much as possible, securing trade routes, maintaining a cheap labor force, and internationally enforcing, and domestically manufacturing popular support for industrial interests. Violating several international proliferation treaties, we now have plans to weaponize space, and develop a new arsenal of nuclear weapons. Violating domestic laws, we now detain people without due process, conduct illegal searches, and prevent assembly. All this in the name of security.
Recently, the “9/11 truth movement” has established that there is probable cause to suspect that members of our goverment were complicit in the attacks. Given the large array of evidence supporting this view and the relative lack of evidence supporting the “official” view, the justification for the “War on Terror” is strongly called into question.
“The war on terror will take many turns, and the enemy must be defeated on many…on every battlefield, from the streets of Western cities to the mountains of Afghanistan, to the tribal regions of Pakistan, to the islands of Southeast Asia and to the Horn of Africa. Yet the terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity, so we must recognize Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.” 1
“The USA PATRIOT Act, enacted on October 26, 2001, has been critical in preventing another terrorist attack on the United States. It brought the federal government’s ability to investigate threats to the national security into the modern era—by modifying our investigative tools to reflect modern technologies, eliminating barriers to effective national security investigations, and giving national security investigators the same sorts of tools as have long been available to investigators who handle non-national security matters.” 2
“[The Patriot Act] expands terrorism laws to include “domestic terrorism” which could subject political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy. It expands the ability of law enforcement to conduct secret searches, gives them wide powers of phone and Internet surveillance, and access to highly personal medical, financial, mental health, and student records with minimal judicial oversight. It allows FBI Agents to investigate American citizens for criminal matters without probable cause of crime if they say it is for “intelligence purposes.” It permits non-citizens to be jailed based on mere suspicion and to be denied re-admission to the US for engaging in free speech. And suspects convicted of no crime may be detained indefinitely in six month increments without meaningful judicial review.” 3
“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. For patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and patriotism, will offer up all of their rights to the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Julius Caesar.”
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” - Hermann Goering