French president Hollande has declared war – war on terror, George W. Bush style. Like September 11, 2001 wasn’t a war, Paris November 13 wasn’t a war. It was a criminal act.
The war on terror has been an exceptionally stupid war.
In the years before 9/11 about 400 people died worldwide by terrorist attack. The Global Terror Index informs us that 32.600 died in 2014 – 80 times more!
And, still, the only answer everywhere is: More war on terror.
The only – intelligent – exception is Italy whose PM has announced that Italy is going to counter terrorism by investing billions of Euros in culture, art and creativity – showing the world what civilisation is.
Politicians and the mainstream media seemingly try to make us believe – as if we were uneducated – that we in the West are the main victims and innocent victims at that. We are neither.
If knowledge may still play a little role in an era of propaganda and self-deception, no less than 78% of all dead from terrorism died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria. Not in Europe. Not in the U.S.
And if we are innocent it’s because we have no sense of history, of colonialism, imperialism, interventions, mass-slaughtering of ‘the primitives’, of things like the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France in 1916 on how to divide the Middle East, of the Balfour Declaration (and thereby the Palestine-Israel tragedy), of the fact that the West/NATO/EU/US killed around a million innocent people in Iraq in 13 years of sanctions and during the occupation – no idea about regime changes, secret operations, coup d’etats, arms trade and propping up of dictatorships, Saudi Arabia to mention just one.
It’s called state terrorism.
Well, of course, it was all for freedom, democracy, human rights and the liberation of women. “Cause we are good people” – at least much better than “they” are. It’s just that it went wrong every time.
One of the most important historical facts of our time is that big and militarily strong countries lose wars in small and militarily weaker countries.
India’s nonviolent resistance spelled the end of the British Empire; all the colonies freed themselves eventually; and think Vietnam, Algeria, the Soviets (and everybody else) in Afghanistan, the Great Game on Iran, think of Iraq, Libya, Syria today, etc.
The only thing the vast majority of politicians, media people and opinion leaders seem unable to learn is that war just doesn’t work. And causes so many other problems beyond itself – behind every refugee stands a war-maker…
So four predictions:
1) The war on terror will increasing blow back on Europe and the U.S. Every time a Western leader says that we must bomb more, it means more terrorist attacks on his/her own citizens.
2) The other response is clamping down on every aspect of freedom and democracy, moving towards a police state.
3) The West will lose to ISIS and there will be a caliphate – a natural response to history, however disgusting its methods (no worse though than planning the death of hundreds of millions in nuclear war).
4) The war on terror will be a major factor in the fall of the U.S. Empire and the weakening of the West. The non-West is just sitting and waiting for it to happen.
Time to adopt TAMA – There Are Many Alternatives – take a break from the self-defeating militarist knee-jerk reaction that spells doom for us all. And begin to think.
Here a few recent articles by TFF Associates that may help to build awareness about these problems and point in more constructive directions:
Richard Falk
The failure of U.S.policy in the Middle East
Jonathan Power
Bombing ISIS is not the solution
Johan Galtung
Violence in – and by – Paris: Any ways out?
Gareth Porter
The real reason for the Turkish shoot-down of the Russian jet
Gareth Porter
The sham Syrian peace conference
Stephen Zunes
Obama’s escalation in Syria
Gareth Porter
How terror in Paris calls for revising U.S. Syria policy
Jonathan Power
Why interventions don’t work and what the answer to ISIS should be (podcast)
