The
Ongoing Obscenity of Our War on Terrorism
by
Rev. Paul J. Bern
The
war in Afghanistan lasted more than 11 years as of this year. The
original reason for the US military invasion was to hunt down and
capture or kill Osama Bin Laden as the chief perpetrator of the 9/11
attacks. The reason it took the US military more than a decade to
find him was because they were looking in the wrong country. Oops,
sorry Mr. or Mrs. taxpayer, we got the right guy but we had the wrong
address. Oh well. At the height of its military operations, the
United States was spending $60 billion per month on the twin wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. That is not counting all the other bases the US
military now has in well over 100 countries around the world, such as
Germany, Japan, Okinawa, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, to name a few
of the major ones.
This
leads to a fundamental question; why are our military forces still
there after fighting the longest war the US military ever fought?
Osama Bin Laden is long gone and we are still there, seemingly
chasing our own tails. But that was before the truth came out about
two things. First, Afghanistan is a country with vast untapped
natural resources, including enormous copper deposits. Second, all
the fuss about Afghanistan's poppy seed crop being a target of the
'drug war' here in the US is just a bunch of bull. Upon closer
examination of what has been happening there out of sight of the
American public, it becomes apparent that it is none other than the
CIA running the show. So when you see teenage gang members selling
heroin on any given street corner in America, you can thank the CIA.
This is a stark contrast to what I have been teaching about being a
people of peace. It brings the US “war on terror” into sharp
focus and sheds light on the hypocrisy of the American Empire's
military machine and its illegal incursions into third world
countries where it does not belong. The truth of the matter is that
the U.S. position with respect to the dictators in the Arab world has
been one of pure hypocrisy. We have supported these tyrants in the
name of "stability" and the "war on terrorism",
but it has been a policy that has contributed mightily to the
oppression of the people in those countries (which is a betrayal of
our own revolutionary past, not to mention our fight against tyranny,
as well as exacerbating the Islamic terrorism being used against us).
It
has been amazing that the people who are in revolt against the
dictators and their regimes haven't linked the U.S. with the tyranny
they have been forced to live under. Contrary to what is being
reported in the Lame Stream Media, their rebellions have been non
sectarian, grass roots and non ideological in every country they have
occurred and completely unrelated to Islamic fundamentalist or
'jihadist' terrorism. That last fact would seem to expose and make
America's policy in the "war on terrorism" while initiating
wars in the Muslim world obsolete and absurd. The irony is there has
been little if any mention in the media of our wars and the war on
terrorism possibly because they have had nothing to do with these
Arab rebellions. Yet it is a topic of urgent need. The closest form
of mentioning anything in this regard came from “W's”
administration Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who said during Bush
43's second term in office, "Any new secretary of defense who
advises a president to engage in land wars with vast armies in
foreign lands needs to have his head examined".
The
fact is our entire policy of pre-emptive war and occupation and the
whole "war on terrorism" is a ruse, an unnecessary and a
cruel invention concocted by neo-conservatives and cold war warriors
who were itching to replace the defunct Soviet Union with an enemy we
must oppose in a fight to the death (as we now see in our endless
"war on terrorism"). Not only is the war on terror a reason
for the American Empire to exist, it has become the only reason for
its existence. It was and is a fantasy perpetrated by them and
foisted on the American people. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 became
their cause for that endless war and is the real, but unfortunate,
legacy of that fateful day. But in light of the unfolding democratic
"awakening" in much of the Arab world can there not be
serious discussions deep in the bowels of the White House of the
absurdity of our continuing to fight wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Yemen as well as Iraq (not to mention the proxy war the CIA has been
fighting against the Assad regime in Syria)? Gates' comments allude
to the insanity of fighting these wars (even if he put it in the
context of new misadventures). From here it seems the U.S. resembles
(in its ability to end its wars) a giant ship at sea that takes an
excruciatingly long time to reverse course. Like the Viet Nam
quagmire we seem stuck, committed to the un-winnable yet unwilling
and unable to face reality. War is an ongoing obscenity.
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