EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- One American Who Isn't For Sale
- Transcript: Today's Live Q&A With NSA Leaker, Edward Snowden
- Remembering Satyajit Ray’s Hirok Rajar Deshe: On Edward Snowden, Resistance and Inverted Totalitarianism
- Obama Cans Regulator Who Crossed Wall Street
- Pentagon Bracing for Public Dissent Over Climate and Energy Shocks
Popular content
Today's Top News
Cause and Effect in the 'Terror War'
"In all their alleged allegedness, this Administration has an allergy to the concept of war, and thus to the tools of war, including strategy and war aims" -- Supreme Tough Guy Warrior Mark Steyn, National Review, yesterday.
"The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.'s drone program in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president's decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan" -- New York Times, December 4, 2009.
"In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen" -- New York Times, yesterday.
_______
Actually, if you count our occupation of Iraq, our twice-escalated war in Afghanistan, our rapidly escalating bombing campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen, and various forms of covert war involvement in Somalia, one could reasonably say that we're fighting five different wars in Muslim countries -- or, to use the NYT's jargon, "five fronts" in the "Terror War" (Obama yesterday specifically mentioned Somalia and Yemen as places where, euphemistically, "we will continue to use every element of our national power"). Add to those five fronts the "crippling" sanctions on Iran many Democratic Party luminaries are now advocating, combined with the chest-besting threats from our Middle East client state that the next wars they fight against Muslims will be even "harsher" than the prior ones, and it's almost easier to count the Muslim countries we're not attacking or threatning than to count the ones we are. Yet this still isn't enough for America's right-wing super-warriors, who accuse the five-front-war-President of "an allergy to the concept of war."
In the wake of the latest failed terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines, one can smell the excitement in the air -- that all-too-familiar, giddy, bipartisan climate that emerges in American media discourse whenever there's a new country we get to learn about so that we can explain why we're morally and strategically justified in bombing it some more. "Yemen" is suddenly on every Serious Person's lips. We spent the last month centrally involved to some secret degree in waging air attacks on that country -- including some that resulted in numerous civilian deaths -- but everyone now knows that this isn't enough and it's time to Get Really Serious and Do More.
For all the endless, exciting talk about the latest Terrorist attack, one issue is, as usual, conspicuously absent: motive. Why would a young Nigerian from a wealthy, well-connected family want to blow himself on one of our airplanes along with 300 innocent people, and why would Saudi and Yemeni extremists want to enable him to do so? When it comes to Terrorism, discussions of motive have been declared more or less taboo from the start because of the dishonest equation of motive discussions with justification -- as though understanding the reasons why X happens is to posit that X is legitimate and justifiable. Causation simply is; it has nothing to do with issues of morality, blame, or justification. Yet all that is generally permitted to be said in such situations is that Terrorists try to harm us because they're Evil, and we (of course) are not, and that's generally the end of the discussion.
Despite that taboo, evidence always ends up emerging on this question. As numerous reports have indicated, the Al Qaeda group in the Arabian Peninsula has said that this attempted attack is in "retaliation" for the multiple, recent missile attacks on Yemen in which numerous innocent Muslim civilians were killed, as well as for the U.S.'s multi-faceted support for the not-exactly-democratic Yemeni government. That is similar to reports that Nidal Hasan was motivated to attack Fort Hood because "he was upset at the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan." And one finds this quote from an anonymous Yemeni official tacked on to the end of this week's NYT article announcing the "widening terror war" in Yemen -- as though it's just an afterthought:
"The problem is that the involvement of the United States creates sympathy for Al Qaeda. The cooperation is necessary -- but there is no doubt that it has an effect for the common man. He sympathizes with Al Qaeda."
As always, the most confounding aspect of the reaction to the latest attempted terrorist episode is the professed confusion and self-righteous innocence that is universally expressed. Whether justified or not, we are constantly delivering death to the Muslim world. We do not see it very much, but they certainly do. Again, independent of justification, what do we think is going to happen if we continuously invade, occupy and bomb Muslim countries and arm and enable others to do so? Isn't it obvious that our five-front actions are going to cause at least some Muslims -- subjected to constant images of American troops in their world and dead Muslim civilians at our hands, even if unintended -- to want to return the violence? Just look at the bloodthirsty sentiments unleashed among Americans even from a failed Terrorist attempt. What sentiments do we think we're unleashing from a decade-long (and counting and increasing) multi-front "war" in the Muslim war?
There very well may be some small number of individuals who are so blinded by religious extremism that they will be devoted to random violence against civilians no matter what we do, but we are constantly maximizing the pool of recruits and sympathy among the population on which they depend. In other words, what we do constantly bolsters their efforts, and when we do, we always seem to move more in the direction of helping them even further. Ultimately, we should ask ourselves: if we drop more bombs on more Muslim countries, will there be fewer or more Muslims who want to blow up our airplanes and are willing to end their lives to do so? That question really answers itself.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
121 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Greenwald hits the nail exactly on the head. Rarely if ever does the American corporate media ever care to examine the reasons why so many Muslims in the Middle East despise and hate the United States and that would be because of the ubiquitous presence of U.S. military forces in that region. However, it is surprising that Mr. Greenwald did not also include the fact that so many Muslims also loathe the U.S. because of its favorable policy toward Israel and the way Israel has harshly treated both the citizens of Gaza and Lebanon.
Why should corporate media examine the true reasons for our wars on Muslims? Corporate media is tied to the weapons industry in so many ways that they would be cutting into their own financial base if they did. That's also why anti-war protests are seldom reported or shown on corporate media. They are all part of the hyper-militarized U.S. National Security State, as is Congress and much of academia.
Glen Greenwald is right on target when he discusses the issue of motive and the dishonest attempts to discourage inquiry into why terrorist actions or attempts occur. I remember after 9/11, anyone who attempted to connect American policies in the Middle East to the attack were quickly shouted down with the dishonest umbrage of "moral equivalence."
As a result, no serious investigation into the motives of terrorists has ever been conducted, yet every "terrorist" movement, from the IRA to the ANC has never been resolved without either discrediting these motives, resolving the issues that promote them, or some combination of both. Since we don't understand our adversaries and what drives them,, we keep flailing, bombing, and shooting in the dark, somehow believing that our military, our "toughness," and our willingness to use violence will see us through. It is completely moronic.
I also believe that the system is so stuck that it will not self correct from these futile, destructive activities. Our military, economic, political structures that support these efforts will have to break down before this lunacy ends.
Hang on. We are in for one hell of a rough ride.
"Since we don't understand our adversaries and what drives them"
The key to real awareness for the u.s. is understanding the motives of the government. All this violence is profitable, highly profitable. The profiteers want more and prolonged instability in other lands. It is the key to their success.
I know I do
I don't know that I "believe" the "crap," but I SERIOUSLY believe that we are utter fools if we don't investigate the strong probability of its being true based on an unprejudiced view of the facts of the case as they can be dug out from layers of official propaganda that are already being laid on the incident. See my 10:39 post.
To control an organization all you need to control is the few at the top not what everyone else thinks or believes.
The further you get away from the top the less you know the true aims of the organization you work for.
And I most certainly don't believe that "they hate us because of our freedom" they hate us because we kill them including their children.
"let them see a need "
We all know this "war on terror" has been based on lies.
It's a ruse, just like the war on drugs.
Am I referring to any employee working for arms manufacturers? No. They collect a paycheck and go home. The profiteers collect millions/billions and go to Dubia.
Have you ever considered that "they" created the need?
Sorry, but this phony war on terror is nothing but lies. It is the point of this article. I guess you wouldn't mind another country setting up military bases/forts in your country, assassinating the leaders and installing puppet governments. The forts would exist, but wouldn't be a "valid" reason to fight back.
Tracking down criminals is exactly what is called for, but not exterminated. As to blame, if the shoe fits.
How can someone be as gullible and naive to believe these lies, when there has been so much evidence of the very same lies in past years? This poster (jm...) is either a provocateur, or intellectually lazy as to believe what he/she sees on TV.
Terrorism is certainly real, perpetrated by small cabals as well as states such as the U.S. But a "war" on terror only serves the interests of the weapons makers and their lackeys in Congress and the White House who needed something to fill the fear gap once the USSR collapsed and the Cold War ended the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex's racket (Major-General Smedley Butler's term) dating back to World War II.
Can terrorists kill numbers of Americans? Sure. Are they an existential threat to the existence of the U.S., as Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the USSR were? Of course not.
Every year, seven times as many Americans die due to our primitive, profits-first health insurance system and lack of access to health care than died on 9/11/01. Our own corporations' greed and lust for power are a more real threat to us as a nation than all the terrorists combined, especially as our fossil fuel corporations bribe our members of Congress to downplay the very real existential threat of global climate chaos, for which even the Pentagon is preparing.
How did Germany, and thus the good Germans, become Nazi(s)?
Aposite question.
The US does not have a monopoly on propaganda and evil.
"How did Germany, and thus the good Germans, become Nazi(s)?"
Easy: by following orders. You just need a few pschos at the top (which there nearly always are).
"How did Germany, and thus the good Germans, become Nazi(s)?"
Easy: by following orders. You just need a few pschos at the top (which there nearly always are).
petrkrop, excellent. thanks.
"but they also have family, and friends, and pets, and many of them love their country very much."
So? The Good Germans loved their country, family, friends and pets, too. So do the Israelis. Yet that didn't stop the Nazis' Holocaust against the Jews, or Israel's slow-motion Holocaust against the Palestinians. And it hasn't stopped the U.S.'s ongoing human rights abuses all over the world, either.
There is nothing praiseworthy in loving your own circle; that is the normal state of everyone, even murderers and torturers. Even people who spend their lives building and selling weapons to destroy other people. What all the major religions urge us to do is to extend that love and compassion to the people outside our circle, to the people who are not like us, to the people we mistrust, even to our enemies!
Although this is the only true way to peace and reconciliation, it is permanently "off the table" in the U.S. Kind of like single-payer.
Your third paragraph reminded me of that great quote from Albert Einstein:
“A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest ~ a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . . . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.”
Wonderful.
Einstein had the soundest logic of any person I've read.
He saw much in his time and offered solid reason.
"In My Later Years"
How can you not?
It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck--I say it's probably a duck!
But then, I have stopped believing the corporate-controlled propaganda that surrounds us.
I, for one, certainly agree with Buck. This is all being driven by American hegemony.
I seriously believe that the only reason we are fighting in the middle east is because of money and oil.
Some may be fighting for other reasons (religious, false sense of patriotism), but if you didn't have the oil and money, the United States wouldn't be fighting there. Period.
And I'll say it again, if there wasn't oil in the middle east, we wouldn't be fighting there.
Take a look at the history of dictators that we have supported, the popular people uprisings that we helped squash. The last thing our government / corporate elite worry about is liberty in other countries, much less ours.
Someone may be joining the military because of 9/11 or the need for a job, the the war was created for MONEY and OIL.
"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful."
~Leo Tolstoy
"It is completely moronic."
Not if it keeps the game going!
The US has been doing this in the Balkans and Middle East since the USSR collapsed (thus its deterrence eliminated). It has been doing this in the Western Hemisphere since the 19th century and in the continental US since the beginning of the European project in North America (recall Jefferson's "merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions").
The media has developed in this context and understands its patriotic obligation to support national policy either with silence as when the leaders or their allies sell poison gas precursors to Saddam or when Reagan certifies that Pakistan is not pursuing nuclear weapons or with acclaim as when the crusade against Iraq or Pakistan begins in earnest.
How many citizens understand the actual role of the US in the world. The media is not going to tell them. The media lives by selling audiences to corporations. The US as "blood-soaked, mafia-style enterprise" will not compete as a story with a GI giving a bag of M&Ms to an Afghan waif in terms of audience building.
How is this to change? "Rough ride" or worse seems about right.
I wonder if any newspaper would publish this as an editorial, or if any fair and balanced network would address this essay, in the name of freedom of speech about human rights.
it's amazing that after all the years of american warmaking ...even I never entertained the idea that countries could actually out of desperation at US interference and dictating begin to join what the USA calls "rogue nations" to attack the usa on all fronts in any manner they can -- after being so sick and tired of the USA meddling and invading and bombing and dictating....that in their own separate ways - with or without collusion with each other -
eventually ended up acting in some simultaneous way -- or in a way that somehow their actions begin to overlap - so that
the USA is literally attacked from
"different fronts" and in different ways.
I never really considered that the USA could EVER be defeated militarily on a "one on one" scenario...so long as it can keep countries from focusing their separate efforts or resources - whatever they may be and whatever the extent and capacity - to intentionally "respond" to US attacks on their lands by attacking US interests worldwide or in the USA itself..and so long as the USA can continue to COERCE other countries, specifically european ones and other "intimidated" Ones from enabling or tolerating the actions of countries that would want to retaliate against the USA.
but the USA seems to want to invite this kind of scenario ...almost like a "death wish".
next thing you know - the USA has opened more and more actual wars until dozens of countries are being bombed and invaded by the USA with no end in sight...
and if that goes on - that's when I think that countries will really develop into a coalescing "force" from all fronts - against which the USA and its interests abroad might not survive.
i mean the USA has over 700 installations in over 100 countries ....
many of these are fully armed, presumably, but many are also likely less so and undermanned if in the event of countries turning against the USA from being coerced "hosts" to "onlookers" as us personnel are surrounded by foreign citizens in their countries to kick americans out
OR hold them hostages...and it could happen simultaneously or in close succession ....
much like the USA having its hair pulled from all dircetions.
and when all its hands and feet and eyes are pre-occupied trying to control its "priority holdings" such as the big oil and energy countries and projects -- what then?
somehow some al qaeda people manage to slip in and actually destroy entire towns and cities in the USA...what then? the National Guard comes to the rescue? for how many hundreds of cities or towns? what to do with weaponry grabbed by foreign countries in their soil as the USA tries to hurry up "securing" its positions?.......
weird country -- this usa.
i believe it was dylan who said, "they won the war after losing every battle"
Does anyone else smell a rat here?
How does someone get explosives aboard a plane these days
Given how easy it is to get on a no fly/terrorist watch list how does someone known to authorities get on a plane
And he just happens to be associated with Yemen the latest nation to be branded by the ruling elite and their propaganda arm the msm as a terrorist state.
And of course this happens just as their terror campaign against the people of Yemen has begun to be exposed. And not only does this staged attack give them justification for their attacks on Yemen but also gives them the excuse to escalate
what this is is quite simple; it is so obvious:
it is like the 9/11.
the USA ALLOWED the person to get on board - so as to be able to have an "incident" that would be fearsome - irrelevant as to whether he succeeded or not...the important thing being to have a NEW excuse to escalate the USA's War against the WORLD - this time in YEMEN. that's all there is to it.
it's so easy to see as to why the warnings by the father , if that is the case, were not acted upon "nobody helped them" (the family showing concern) according to a report.
the man was given boarding ..was in the plane...
that's like 9/11 - planes already boarded, 3 already on the air....NORTHCOM was grounded....
and voila -- you have a National tragedy a la pearl harbor and the "gloves are off".
it's been done by governments - i know this because that is EXACTLY what the marcos dictatorship did .. staging a "coup attempt" or "assassination" attempt ..and then declaring martial law.
so what does the USA do? incrementally tigthening its FASCISM as a response at home - and then enlarging its fascistic , corporatocratic
CLASS,CULTURE and RACE War everywhere.
".with our Big Money, Big Banks, Big Corporations, Big Army ALL in Service of our of our BIG BOSS: our Supernationalistic Capitalism.." --------- GENERAL SMEDLEY BULTER,US MARINES. 1933
see...the USA's MONEY AND WAR RACKET is what it is.
and any excuse - even better if it makes people "afraid" - to become WILLING or COERCED participants in their own FASCISTIC control -- is fine.
THE USA is not just a Fascistic Country - it actually is a Fascistic Empire spreading TERROR throughout the world and then USING it as an excuse to spread more terror. Unfortunate that this happens to a country that has so many good people in it also.
Agreed. Classic false-flag op. I can't even get a 3-oz. tube of toothpaste past security in my pocket.
So don't get in your car and drive you are about 40,000 times more likely to be killed on the road than in an airplane, even including "terrorist" attacks. Irrational fear is used to manipulate public opinion for many centuries and it works like a charm.
Look at the numbers, they are rational. Human emotion is not.
There was more Arab "terrorism" during the 1970s (1972 Munich Olympics, Entebbe, numerous hijackings etc.), yet we did not see this sort of irrational paranoia. Besides if you bomb, kill and displace millions of people, it is no wonder that a few will fight back.
You are about 10,000 times more likely to be murdered by a white christian US citizen than by a "islamic terrorist"
Look at the numbers on the FBI website and crunch them yourself. Meahwhile stop being afraid of the bogeyman.
I think you just made our case for us
thank you much appreciated
A coincidence? Mass incompetence? but....
ICTS is an Israeli owned firm. One would think given the fact that Israeli Airlines are considered the most "secure in the world" from terrorists, these guys would be at the top of their game.
Yet. ICTS was in charge of ALL The Airports at which the alleged terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks boarded. Thats 4 misses in a single day for the same firm. Thats like three steel framed towers collapsing on the same day.
ICTS was also in charge of the Airport security where this Nigerian national boarded without a passport.
Odd that they can find a link between some obscure Mullah in Yemen and the Ft Hood shooter and use it as justification to bombing Yemen yet there this link betwwen ICTS , the Christmas day Bomber and all of the 9/11 terroists and it raises no eyebrows.
Thats not all.
Paul Reid the "Shoe Bomber" also boarded a flight where security run by ICTS.
Not only did the US GOvernment not investigate these multiple failures in security, but included in the Patriot act was a clause making THAT same security firm immune from lawsuits.
http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-14-2003/0001871770&EDATE=
>>ICTS International N.V. (Nasdaq: ICTS) announced today that it has formed a
partnership arrangement with ICTS Europe Holdings BV, an unaffiliated party,
to provide security services at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in The Netherlands.
The partnership named ICTS Netherlands Airport Services has been awarded two
contracts having an aggregate value of $15,000,000 Euros a year or annually.
The contracts are for three years and relate to two sections of the airport to
provide security, employees, guards and control in the airport, establishing a
central check point and security arrangements for airport employees and other
related services.
PRS NEWSWIRE has been around since 1954. They are contracted by BUSINESSES to provide news the world over. They are hardly run out of a basement.
>>PR Newswire started out in 1954 as a vendor hired by companies and agencies to send out text press releases to the media. Today, PR Newswire is hired by corporations, public relations firms and non-governmental organizations to deliver news and multimedia content. Recipients include the media, consumers and investors who access the content via the Web, RSS, e-mail, satellite, equities terminals (such as Bloomberg and Reuters), and direct feeds into newsroom editorial systems.
You never heard of them thereofre they are run out of a basement?
http://www.google.com/finance?q=OTC:ICTSF
Never heard of Google either I take it?
>>ICTS International, N.V. (ICTS) is specializes in the provision of aviation security services. The Company and its subsidiaries are engaged in providing aviation security and other aviation-related services through service contracts with airlines and airport authorities mainly in Europe and the United States. ICTS through its subsidiary, Huntleigh USA Corporation (Huntleigh), engages primarily in non-security related activities in the United States. ICTS, through I-SEC International Security B.V. (I-SEC), supplies aviation security services at airports in Europe and the Far East. In addition, ICTS develops technological systems and solutions for the aviation and non - aviation security, banking and other markets. During 2008, I-SEC was contracted to provide and extend the security services it provides to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam (Schiphol).
Seems to me it states celarly SCHIPOL.
To the claim the Nigerian not on a watch list.
>>http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Britain-Alleged-Airline-Bombe-Watch-List-28Dec09--80204847.html
>>The British government has confirmed that the young Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight on Christmas Day was refused entry into Britain earlier this year and his name was added to a so-called watch list.
>>Somehow, somewhere, security officials did not pick up on the information at their disposal that allowed an individual on a security watch list onto a plane bound for the U.S. from Europe with a valid entry visa.
ICTS Europe is NOT ICTS NV.
ICTS NV is the firm that provided the security services to Schipol and the 4 us Airports in Question.
ICTS Europe was hived off NV several years ago. NV is Israeli based.
Many thanks for the info, GwNorth. Funny how some of these posters, like some people I know on the left, expend so much energy questioning every valid point of independent investigation covering areas (probably purposely) neglected in the mainstream media, but refrain from applying the same methods to the official story of any such event. I really do think that many people's minds have been colonized by groupthink propaganda, and it makes them feel better to think they are part of a larger consensus. Meanwhile the US's wars just keep spreading across the Muslim world.
Look at Yemen's geographical position. The US needs to build a few large military bases there, obviously, so it needs a good excuse.
Yes MAD LOON,
I smell a rat and so do many others. Some passengers have now gone public that they saw this Nigerian man helped onto the plane (without a passport!) by a "well-dressed man".
Here is one link to the story, though there are many others by now. Even CNN briefly reported it.
http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-evidence-clearly-indicates-staged-attack-on-detroit-flight/
The Nigerian suspect's father had already blown the whistle on him to U.S. authorities, and he had NO PASSPORT, and yet security let him board the airplane?
We can't even return to the U.S. from Canada in private cars without passports, and yet we're not supposed to smell a rat when a foreign national (a person of color, at that!) without a passport was allowed to board a U.S.-bound flight from Europe?
The U.S. is not inclined to do favors for people of color, and anyone without a passport wouldn't be allowed into the U.S., anyway, so why did they let him on the plane?
I think we know.
Yes, even just looking at the infro in the MSM tells us that something is fishy. But our government would never manipulate the public with security fears, would they?
This "attack" is as phony as they come. Man "goes to Yemen," receives "training" and is "equipped by al-Qaeda." But these great terrorists didn't give him enough explosive to cause any harm???? How is that possible? Dude is on the "terrorism watch list," doesn't have a passport, and yet still gets on the plane with his fireworks? And we're supposed to believe this, even while every element of the story serves to justify more wars the MIC already wanted?
It's so depressing. They do this over and over and over and it keeps working. It's so pathetically obvious that,like nearly all the "terror" attacks we have seen, this is an excuse for attacking other countries and Americans' freedom. Yet most people don't seem to question. It's like we're living among idiots.
I certainly am approving of Greenwald's attempt to focus our attention on the grievances of Muslim people that provide the "motives" for terrorist acts that have occurred, but...
As with bin Laden and the 19 supposed hijacker perpetrators of 9/11, the facts of various terrorist "plots" need to be examined closely to ask: just who is being motivated to do these acts and WHAT are their motives?Clearly it's easy enough to find "radicalized" people like the underwear bomber to carry out terrorist acts, especially when the whole Muslim world, even the quiet-as-mice ones in the U.S., are being radicalized by American military operations. But we need to apply the logic from criminal investigations of "cui bono" (who benefits?) from a given criminal act. Who benefits from a "foiled" terrorist plot (or even an accomplished one, for that matter?)
Among the prime beneficiaries of recent terrorist attacks have been the oft-maligned military-industrial complex for whom battles and war profits are a profession and a livelihood. There are no "wars of necessity" since they accomplish nothing for the public at large, but they are of the "choice" of those in positions of power to enforce their choices on the rest of us. Opening another "front" in the "war on terror" is enormously profitable to the MIC, something like the discovery of a new continent opened a bonanza of opportunities for European nations in the "age of discovery." It being so valuable to expand this front, how do you create this expansion from a country like the U.S. whose population is already deeply skeptical about the way the AfPak operation is "going" and deeply resentful of the corporate oligarchy which is enriching itself in the current recession while the rest of us are going down the tube. Well how about this: find a pliable "patsy," pay him well or torture him, whatever you have to do. Arrange to have him board a Europe-America plane with some kind of material concealed in his jockey shorts that might actually be no more than some low-grade firecracker material (something that will make smoke without an explosion), have him detonate that material after which "heroic" passengers will rush to subdue him, police will hustle the "bomber" out of the plane for a brief stay in a hospital and then transfer to Milan MI federal prison, kept totally out of communication while "authorities" report the information from him that he got the material and was prepped by al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. A gullible media duly reports all this contrived catastrophe and the President promises in effect to destroy al Qaeda in Yemen and, as soon as they get back from their Christmas break, members of Congress will demand more draconian surveillance methods, key provisions of the Patriot Act will be renewed, and Joe Lieberman as Homeland Security chair will duly announce that we already have special forces operating in Yemen, as indeed we must in the interest of HOMELAND security: you know the drill, bomb them over there so they won't bomb us over here. And of course never mind soft-headed "librals" like Chris Hedges who say (truthfully): the more you bomb them over there, the more you are going to get bombed over here. Hey, we're all going to die sometime but while we're here let's show our cajones as proud Americans who won't "let down" the brave lads and lasses who have died for this country; and if we don't feel like flag-waving we can go to the office and check our computers to see how our stock in a defense industry corporation soars with the opening of yet another front; or, if we're looking for a job, we thank our lucky stars that a defense plant with a contract for the construction of more drones is hiring more people to fill that contract. Everybody wins (as long as we can stay alive, and if we can't, hey we have to die sometime so let's party and sing the patriotic songs and grieve over the fallen heroes and ignore the "collateral damage" of deaths of those A-rab children.)
Hey, Glenn Greenwald, don't get me started!
"Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition."
There is a lot to this post. The convenience of both successful and foiled terrorist acts in justifying already determined policies, and the consistency of their appearance in concert with policy deployment, should give pause. The unexplained security failures which inevitably form a crucial part of each of these stories also should wave a red flag. Unfortunately, lacking hard evidence of connections, such musings can only be informed speculation which, in "serious" public discourse, is the sole province of the warmongers. As such, false flag events work the vast majority of the time. Still, the perceived need to resort to these tactics demonstrates that the warmongers know there is little actual support for their policies, and so are operating - to a degree - from a position of weakness (in democratic dynamics, not F22s). I think Greenwald is best off continuing to poke holes in the logic of the warmongers, without feeling the need to engage in easily attacked speculation.
jeffc: I appreciate your thinking in, as it seems, throwing some cool (if not cold) water on the "informed speculation" that I offered in my post. I totally agree that our standard for accepting any conspiracy theory (or any other theory including those officially promulgated) should be that of "hard evidence of connections" which, by definition in a conspiracy, is hard to come up. But who said the life of thinking persons was supposed to be easy? Not at Chris Hedges' level, but I too have "poked holes" in the warmonger's logic, but I won't stop at the line at which my "informed speculation" might lead to "easily attacked" rebuttal. If the speculation is "easily attacked," it needs perhaps to be more informed, not abandoned because it is opposed. Isn't this why Obama, for example, essentially stands for nothing in domestic or foreign policy, since the right wing noise machine so "easily attacks" anything remotely progressive in any of his progressive-sounding speeches?
Excellent post Jerry.
I wonder how the average U.S. citizen would feel if another country attacked them in the US homeland with drones and murdered their children!!??? Would they and the U.S. government just sit by and accept that the attacking country was concerned about their own security, even if the U.S. was not attacking their country?!! And how would we feel if they were kidnapping thousands of our citizens and bringing them to 'black' sites to be tortured and held in confinement without trial for years!? America is a great disgrace to the human race!!
A disgruntled Canadain
As Canadians we have aided and abetted the US every step of the way and are every bit as culpable as they are