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War on Terror Part of US Strategy Comment by Larry Ross, January 3, 2007
Professor Lustick's article below, illustrates the amazing growth in the 'War on Terror' industry throughout various sectors of American society. From Congressional estimates of 160 potential terrorist targets in 2003 to 300,000 potential fund-generating targets in 2006. From zero dollars to 650 billion dollars for anti-terrorist expenditures. It's now a huge 'pork barrel' with "thousands of interest groups crowding toward the anti-terrorism trough" according to Lustick. It's like the Tulip craze in the Netherlands in the 1600s. Anti-terrorism has now become a huge industry of vested interests depending on the continuing phoney wars on terror created by the Bush regime and its neoconservatives to justify real invasions, wars and generally enlarging real wars. As with the intended US-planned nuclear war on Iran, proof of any accusations is not required. The accusation is enough backed up by an eager mass media repeating and embellishing every lie. It is one of the biggest frauds, staged events and misinterpretation of events that has ever occurred in human history. Even Bush's neocons must be dumbfounded by their success in marketing the terror scare in the US . No wonder they have decided to continue to escalate the Iraq war and proceed with their plan to make nuclear war on Iran . It's a matter of combining the continuous American gullibility and appetite for the most outrageous lies, with possible frightening events that might occur, backed by a full spectrum war propaganda campaign by a thoroughly corrupt gang of thieves who cheated their way into power in 2000 and 2004. Most criticism and dissent is suppressed by an ever-obedient US mass media, that headlines as 'truth' each new lie. As there has been many false terror alerts that have not happened, it is very likely that the Bushcons will stage a real lie and arrange a real "False Flag' terrorist attack on the US and blame Iran That would lend credibility to their many warnings, lend credibility to their war on terror as well as supply what looks like a 'real' justification for making nuclear war on Iran. If this sounds like what the Bushcons would have you believe is "a crazy conspiracy theory", try Google searching "False Flag" or "Operation Northwoods" or "US Nuclear War on Iran ". Only public education about probable Bush 'False Flags" may prevent this. I don't know if there is sufficient time left for enough Americans to become informed and motivated to help educate fellow citizens and prevent such a horror. Will Americans stop the madmen in time? Let me know what you think at nuclearfreenz@lynx.co.nz
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An all-consuming 'war on terror' By Ian S. Lustick,
Baltimore Sun, December 31, 2006 The official mantra is that we fight in Iraq because it is the "central front in the War on Terror." The exact opposite is the case. We are trapped in fighting an unwinnable - even nonsensical - "war on terror" because its invention was required in order to fight in Iraq. After years of slaughter in Iraq, the neoconservative fantasy of a series of cheap, fast, neo-imperial victories is dead. But the war on terror lives on, stronger than ever. How did the war on terror take on a life of its own and trap the entire political class, and most Americans, into public beliefs about the need to fight a global war on terror as our first priority, even when there's little or no evidence of an enemy present in the United States? What accounts for $650 billion worth of expenditures, along with baseless cycles of "sleeper cell" hysteria and McCarthyist policies of surveillance and "pre-emptive prosecution" not seen in this country since the early 1950s? Consider how Congress responded to the war on terror. In summer 2003, a list of 160 potential targets for terrorists was drawn up, triggering intense efforts by members of Congress and their constituents to find funding-generating targets in their districts. The result? Widening definitions of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the number of assets deemed worthy of protection: up to 1,849 in late 2003; 28,364 in 2004; 77,069 in 2005; and an estimated 300,000 in 2006 (including the Sears Tower in Chicago but also the Indiana Apple and Pork Festival). Across the country, virtually every lobby and interest group recast its traditional objectives and funding proposals as more important than ever given the imperatives of the war on terror. The National Rifle Association declared that it means that more Americans should own and carry firearms to defend the country and themselves against terrorists. On the other hand, according to the gun control lobby, fighting the war on terror means passing strict gun-control laws to keep assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Schools of veterinary medicine called for quadrupling their funding. Who else would train veterinarians to defend the country against terrorists using hoof and mouth disease to decimate our cattle herds? Pediatricians declared that more funding was required to train pediatricians as first responders to terrorist attacks, because treating children as victims is not the same as treating adults. Pharmacists advocated the creation of pharmaceutical SWAT teams to respond quickly with appropriate drugs to the victims of terrorist attacks. Aside from swarms of consulting firms and huge corporate investments in counter-terrorism activities, universities across the country created graduate programs in homeland security, institutes on terrorism and counter-terrorism, all raising huge catcher's mitts into the air for the billions of dollars of grants and contracts just blowing in the wind. |
