September 3, 2003- The War's Results

As we move into September, we move into the second anniversary of the American-led War On Terror. Looking at what this war has wrought is not a pretty picture. For it was a war that promised to be like no other war, and that it has. It is a war that has had a global reach and worldwide consequences. The thing is, that this war has had more of an impact on people due to the methods being used to wage it then by its results. For instead of stopping terror, this war and the tactics used in it have stifled freedoms throughput the world more than anything. Of course America has been at the forefront of this, with shit like the Patriot Act and secret military tribunals and increased powers for the Pigs and the like. Countries all around the world have seen the land that calls itself the bastion of freedom and liberty crushing the very freedoms that it brags about so much and they have taken notice. They have seen from America's example that terrorism can be used as an excuse to do whatever they feel necessary to those that oppose them. The broad definition of terrorism that America has introduced has been co-opted into covering anyone that opposes any government at all. Other countries have seen that all that they have to do is to call any opposition that they have "terrorists" and that makes it fair for them to use all means possible to crush that opposition..This is something that governments all over the world have taken to heart and are implementing in ever-increasing numbers. In Israel,. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is using these tactics to deal with the Palestinian problem, razing homes and uprooting olive trees and arresting people en masse and all. In Spain, Prime Minister Aznar has used terrorism as an excuse to crack down on a whole political movement, the Basques, just because one splinter group of them that is not recognized by the Basques has taken to using terrorist tactics, so the Spanish government uses that to crack down on the entire opposition political party. In Georgia, the President there has said that he feels that human rights have to take a back seat to fighting the terrorists. In Indonesia, the President there has used the same excuse of terrorism to call off talks with opposition parties and invade their turf and arrest them wholesale instead. In The Philippines the government there has used terrorism as an excuse to wage a civil war against their opposition. In Colombia, the government uses the same excuse to arrest all that oppose their policies, even farmers. China is doing much the same. And all of this is being done under the same fuckin' banner, the War On Terrorism. When America started this war two years ago and said basically that there were no rules in it,they started a chain reaction worldwide. What America forgot was that in many other countries, politics is a game that is played by much different rules than in America. In America, most of your political feuds are settled on Election Day, that is the way that the system is set up. When opposing political parties clash, it is supposed to be settled at the ballot box and polling place. In other countries, this is not necessarily the case. Since many of these countries have no elections at all or have sham ones, that is not how they settle things. Politics becomes a war of sorts, with guerrilla tactics used by all sides. With America declaring a global war two years ago, that was all that many of these other countries needed to hear, because it meant that the free-for-all was on. Now all a government had to do was to brand their opposition as terrorists, and that meant that any means could be used against them. The only requisite was that the government had to make like they were friendly towards America and on America's side in the War On Terror and they were in. All the countries that I named earlier have that in common. When a country is not perceived as being on America's side, they are not allowed to do any of this. Iraq is the perfect example of this. All that we heard was how evil Saddam was and how he ruthlessly stomped out any and all opposition to him and his regime. Yes, he was evil and yes, he did stomp out opposition ruthlessly. But all the other countries that I mentioned before are doing the same things to opposition in their country, and we do not hear any talk of America invading Indonesia or Israel or Spain or China like they invaded Iraq. These countries receive de facto approval from America for their tactics, and some, like Colombia, ever get American Taxpayer's money to help them do what they are doing to the opposition there. One would think that virtually all of the countries that are doing this would want a piece of that American money to help them out. In places like Indonesia and the Philippines and Georgia where they have actual warfare with the opposition going on, they will need American money to keep fighting, as these are not rich countries. So they say that all that they are doing is helping America fight the War On Terrorism by stopping the terrorists that they have in their countries before they can do harm to America, and they stand an excellent chance of getting some of that American money. It seems too hard to believe that America does not know that these countries are not really fighting terrorism, but playing politics and stifling all opposition. So you would have to wonder if what America is really rewarding is the fact that their cronies in these other countries are keeping those that would upset their little international oligarchy out of the picture so that the partners can all make lots of money for themselves. When you look at it, that is what it seems like this is all about in the first place. For in addition to playing politics, these actions that these other countries take always seem to enrich those that initiate the actions. In all these countries that I mentioned, the fact that the government oppresses these opposition groups enriches the government in some way, either through gaining control of a valuable resource like oil, or else by keeping them entrenched in power and the perks and advantages that power brings with it. But the reason that they all give for doing this shit is not enriching themselves, but fighting terrorism. Have these tactics they have employed been of any use in that at all?

The answer to that is a resounding no. These police state, freedom killing tactics employed by America and these other countries have done nothing to stop terrorists or terrorism at all. None of the countries that I named earlier have stopped any sort of terrorism wit these tactics. The bulldozing of houses has not stopped any suicide bombings in Israel any more than the police state tactics employed by China and Indonesia and Georgia have stopped any terrorist acts there. The US State department is constantly issuing travel warnings about all these countries, citing political unrest as a major factor as to why they are doing this. All the while, the terrorists go about their evil business. In fact, there are more of them today than ever before, largely due to the War On Terrorism and the anger and resentment that it has bred in many people. Osama bin Laden is still alive somewhere and still directing a huge terrorist network despite two years of America being on his ass. His organization is behind a lot of the recent terrorist bombings that we have seen. Proving that they have gone nowhere. Even the Pentagon admits that they are fighting a re energized Al-Quada lately. American casualties are on the rise in Afghanistan, with renewed fighting occurring between American and Taliban troops. There has been no news of any sort of a change at the top of Al-Queda, so it is obvious that bin Laden is still running the show. So the Police State tactics employed by America and so many other countries has had no effect on him at all. Another problem is the fact that so many misguided souls in the Muslim world look up to bin Laden and want to emulate him and are starting to do so by starting up their won terrorist organizations and employing the same tactics that bin Laden uses. Nowadays, everyone that has a grievance against the West can make it into a cause and start an organization to do something about it. In the last two years, we have not seen the number of terrorist organization shrink at all, but rather grow and grow until now nobody has any idea of how many of these organizations there are or what they are about. Yet, freedoms all across the world are being cracked down on in the name of fighting terrorism. The more tha6t these type of tactics are being employed, the more that they create the ideal conditions for terrorism to grow and thrive. Iraq is a prefect example of this too. America came sweeping in there and taking over and the people were ecstatic about it at first, welcoming the Americans with open arms. But as time wore on, and the Iraqis saw that they had just exchanged a Police State for a Military State, their mood changed. Now Iraq is fast becoming the terrorist capital of the world, a place where any terrorist can go and try to kill Americans for any reason.The crackdown on one and all that America perpetrated in the name of fighting this war has created so much hatred and resentment that it has bred far more terrorism than it has stopped. That is all that you can expect to get from these freedom and opposition crackdowns that so many governments are doing these days. They will do nothing except to piss the people off so much that the opposition will have little problem recruiting members to their cause. If these opposition people see that no matter what they do, that they will be cracked down on hard, they may very well decide that they should turn to violent means to get their point across, since peaceful ones are getting them nothing except trouble anyway.So they may resort to shit like bombing campaigns and murder and shit like that instead of using things like negotiations and elections to change things. This is not how you fight a war on terrorism, not by creating ideal conditions for it to thrive worldwide. This is how you create Police States and empires, and nothing else. The premise of fighting terrorism is just an excuse here. What America and these other countries really want is total control over their people. They want to stifle their freedoms, especially those that allow them to dissent, so that they can rule more "easily." The problem is, that this will not make it easier for governments to rule at all, it will make it much harder. When people see that they are now living in a society that no longer tolerates any dissent of any kind, they tend to turn off to that society, to not give a fuck about it. That apathy among its citizens is sure to bring a country down fast. No one will want to participate in government because they will have no faith or belief in it.They will not care if the country lives or dies, and that is an ideal condition for terrorists to thrive in too. They will convince the people that the only ways of changing things are through violent terrorist means, and that will perpetuate the cycle of terrorism even more. This is what the War On Terrorism is leading to. The destruction of people's freedoms and the consolidating of government power is not going to win this war by a long shot, it will only perpetuate the conditions that caused it in the first place, and assure that it will be an endless war. Like its counterpart, the War On Drugs, the War On Terror seems to be very, very long on rhetoric and very, very short on results. Also like its counterpart, it is a war that has spread worldwide and done absolutely no good anywhere in the world. Except that this war has the potential to fuck things in the world up far worse that its counterpart ever could. Thus far, that is about all that it has done. If it continues to do nothing but this, the implications to freedom worldwide are frightening. This War On Terror has not at all stopped terror any, but spread it further and made it more virulent than ever before. Those are the results that we have gotten after two years, and they show that it all has been a colossal failure, and that it should be ended before it gets any worse, but those that profit off of it do not think that way, and that is the problem, and that is why we can count on many more years of this war,