Friday 19th of April 2024
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er, hello .....

‘In August, even before the official announcement that some two dozen would-be terrorists had been arrested in London, President Bush and his top advisers swung into action. Their goal was not to stop the terrorists, who were already safely behind bars, but to use the threat to justify the president's seemingly endless "War on Terror."

Vice President Dick Cheney, who had known in advance about the pending arrests, hinted darkly about the threat posed by "Al Qaeda types." The president, standing on an airport tarmac in Wisconsin the next morning, warned that the arrests were "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." And that afternoon, Peter Wehner, the director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives, declared that America is engaged in nothing less than a "civilizational struggle" with enemies who seek "to establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia."’

President Bush's Phoney "War on Terror"

meanwhile, more on "fear central" …..

‘Critics of the policies of George W. Bush are often greeted with this response: "Who are you to denounce the president? Don't you think he's privy to more information than you are? Don't you think he has all kinds of experts giving him the full picture, which you will never know?"

OK, fair enough. Let's see what the experts -- those privy to the full picture, to the secret intelligence, those long schooled in policy and analysis -- have to say. For example, what does the man who was George W. Bush's director of homeland defense on the National Security Council on September 11, 2001, think of the "war on terror" launched by George W. Bush after September 11, 2001?

He thinks Bush has exploited the attack to install a police state in America, that's what George W. Bush's director of homeland defense on September 11, 2001, thinks. But let Tom Maertens speak for himself, as he does most directly in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.’

The Experts Say: It's A Police State

the racket .....

‘We are told, on a daily basis, that our lives are under constant threat of attack from terrorists. But if this is so, where are these supposed terrorists? President Bush and his defenders have been bleating that their expanded police and surveillance powers are keeping terrorists out of the country, a proposition that is rendered laughable by the daily influx of immigrants from Central America! If it has been so easy for millions of people to enter this country in spite of determined government efforts to prevent it, what efficacious mechanisms has the Bush administration put in place to keep out terrorists? Nor does the government’s performance in New Orleans suggest to any thoughtful person that it is capable of making an effective response to any alleged danger.

The so-called “war on terror” is just another of the many state-run rackets designed to benefit governmental, media, and various business interests, all of whom profit from state-induced fears of others. Greater power and more tax dollars flow to political systems; the media enjoys an increase in viewers and readers; while untold numbers of government contractors, along with suppliers of goods and services for a market of frightened people, profit from this protection racket. In threatening to expand the war to other countries, the state increases hostilities from its targeted enemies, thus engendering more fears from Americans who demand “protection.”

The Bogeyman Industry

and then, of course, there’s the price & who pays it …..

‘In a wise, informative new book, Being Muslim, Canadian author Haroon Siddiqui describes how 83,000 mostly Muslim "terrorism suspects" were arrested in the U.S. and abroad. Only 40 were convicted of terrorism; 100 died in custody. These blanket arrests and a McCarthyite anti-Muslim witch hunt, observes Siddiqui, have created a sense of "psychological internment" among 7 million American and Canadian Muslims that recalls the odious confinement of innocent Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Afghanistan has turned from an anti-al Qaida operation into a classic 19th century colonial war against unruly Pashtun tribesmen costing $2 billion monthly. Washington has totally failed to impose a viable regime in Afghanistan, which now produces 80% of the world’s heroin.

Taliban and its nationalist allies have put foreign occupation forces on the defensive. Americans are not being told the truth about the growing political, economic and military mess in Afghanistan, nor how they are now running the world’s largest exporter of morphine and heroin.

The Iraq war, undertaken to get revenge for 9/11, grab oil, and help Israel, is clearly lost. So far, the U.S. has spent a staggering $500 billion and lost over 2,600 soldiers with nothing to show but chaos. This huge figure now exceeds the cost of the Vietnam War at its height.’

Five Years Later