Reflections on "The War on Terrorism."

It doesn't take the resources of an entire nation to plan and execute an event like the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A determined gang operating completely independently could have done it. Contrary to what's been said, a gang that wanted to carry off such an attack would not need a great deal of financial backing: enough money to pay for a few of the gang members to go to flight school to learn what they would need to know about flying an airliner (indeed, you can get flight simulator programs for your computer for anywhere from $15.00 to $60.00, and I understand that that's exactly what some of them did), and enough money for the members of the gang who were going to execute the plot to buy one-way airline tickets. Oh, yes, and drop into Home Depot and buy a handful of box-cutters. It would take considerable coordination and timing, but this wouldn't be much more complex than planning a church picnic. Actaully, train robbery back in the 1800s or the more recent Brinks armored car robbery took about the same level of planning.

The 9/11 attack has never—repeat, never—been established to be an act of a foreign government: not Afghanistan, not Saudi Arabia (even if most of those involved were Saudi citizens), not Syria, not Iran, and not Iraq. And, for that matter, there is no really solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved. He said he approved of it and encouraged more of the same, but his actual involvement is an assumption that everyone seems to accept without question. In short, the CIA, the FBI, and the Bush administration have made allegations about who is responsible, but have offered no substantial proof.

The claim was that there were Islamic terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, so the United States attacked the nation of Afghanistan. Undoubtedly there were such camps, but when the attack began, the terrorists who may have been there scattered like city pigeons in the path of a semi truck. Afghanistan was left in rubble for the second time in two decades. Because of our failure to follow up and despite Hamid Karzai, the warlords are now running most of the country and the Taliban are coming back.

Then Bush and Company attacked Iraq, claiming that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and making further allegations about Saddam's nuclear capacity and stockpile of weapons of mass destruction ready to supply future terrorist attacks, or even possibly be used in a direct attack on the United States, the United Kingdom, or Iraq's neighbors. That one, they picked out of thin air. There was no evidence whatsoever. In fact, there is an inconsistency there: if Osama bin Laden was involved, he wouldn't have gone to Saddam for help and Saddam wouldn't have helped him if he had. They hate each others' guts. And what we find ourselves involved in (foreseen by practically everybody but the Bush administration) looks a lot like Vietnam Redux.

The attack on the World Trade Center was a criminal act. To go to war with the country from which the criminals come is not an appropriate response to a criminal act; if it were, we'd have gone to war with Saudi Arabia. The appropriate act would have been to work in cooperation with Interpol and the various intelligence and police agencies in other countries—not insult and alienate them instead—and track down those who were in on the plot like the criminals they are. Going to war with a country that might possibly knowingly or unknowingly harbor terrorists is like flailing about with a chain-saw when the job calls for a scalpel.

The war on Afghanistan and the war on Iraq have nothing to do with terrorism. They have to do with American geopolitical domination of the Middle East and control of the Middle East's oil and natural gas resources and reserves.

There have always been terrorists and, unfortunately, until humanity achieves a more enlightened state, there will always be terrorists—depending, of course, on how one wishes to apply the epithet. The United States itself has trained terrorists in its School of the Americas; only they, of course, were called "freedom fighters" or "counter-insurgents." To declare "war on terrorism" is to declare a war that will never—ever—end. I believe George Orwell said something about the advantages to a totalitarian government of being in a state of perpetual war. A state of war usually allows a government to assume powers that its citizens would find unacceptable in times of peace, such as those assumed by the Patriot Act and its attendant assault on civil liberties. And, I might add with a chilly feeling of déjà vu, it also gives certain national leaders an opportunity to posture about in uniforms they haven't earned the right to wear (if you think back, you might recall other world leaders in the century just past who were fond of strutting about in uniforms).

When one considers the plans for Empire America that were in the works at least as far back as 1992, plans so eloquently outlined on the Project for the New American Century web site, and which are now in the process of unfolding, one cannot help but note that the 9/11 attacks and the thoroughly understandable and predictable response it elicited in the American people was bizarrely convenient for those who wished for an excuse to launch the actions necessary to bring the plan for Empire American to fruition. Add to this the strange lack of interest in prior reports of a possible terrorist attack on or around the date and location in question, and the strange inaction on the morning of the attacks, is it any wonder that a few people here and there might feel just a bit suspicious?

Don Firth