Terrorism is the direct and inevitable result of decades of an American foreign policy founded on military, political and economic interventionism, support for corrupt dictators, and meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. The only way to insure our national security is to return to a foreign policy of non-intervention, to end all foreign aid and military assistance, to stop intervening in the internal affairs of other nations, and bring our troops home now.
Rather than being a “well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all,” America has become a “nosy neighbor,” an international busybody immersed in the interests and intrigues, avarices, envies and ambitions of other nations. A nation that was born in rebellion against an empire has become the very empire many peoples today are rebelling against.
The tragedy of terrorism is not the terrorist act itself, no matter how terrible or despicable it may be. The true tragedy is that it invokes fear that can be so easily and casually manipulated by rulers. Even in a nation that prides itself on openness and tolerance it is saddening and sickening to see how easily fear can be manipulated and played, to see how easily Americans, swept up in the emotional tidal wave of patriotism, can be persuaded to endorse and advocate the use of the mightiest military force on the face of the earth against people who have never done them any harm.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” – James Madison
The horrendous terrorist action in New York City on September 11, 2001 has become perhaps the most notorious example of the manipulation of fear by government to transform a peace-loving nation of individuals into a block of automatons marching lockstep behind their “Commander-in-chief” in war … first Afghanistan, than Iraq, then Pakistan and Yemen, then Libya, then … where will it end? How many atrocities throughout history have been wrought in exactly the same fashion?
Then came our own elected representatives riding a Trojan horse called the Patriot Act, a gift to the frightened American people. The gift of Security was presented to them, purchased with the liberty of those that sought its refuge. Congress decided to make us safer by restricting our freedom more than ever before, and by removing some of our precious rights altogether.
The greatest tragedy that we now face as a nation is the State’s manipulation of the effects of fear. Fear that causes people to act and think in ways they never would in its absence. Fear that turns brother against brother and allows politicians to rob citizens of their riches and freedom. Fear that causes citizens to willingly sacrifice their liberty before the great god Security, promised them by a government that seeks to enslave them. A government that uses fear as a deflection in the hopes that citizens will not notice the real terror that is produced by the parties that control its Houses.
The war on terrorism is simply the latest and perhaps the most insidious and potentially dangerous phony war Democratic and Republican politicians have conjured up to enhance and expand their power. We have waged war on Poverty since the sixties, and people are still poor. We have engaged the evil enemy Ignorance since the seventies, and still our children cannot read. We have gallantly fought the demon Drugs for decades, and all we have done is fund terrorist organizations in other countries.
Everywhere we turn, we see more restrictions on our liberty and more intrusions into our lives. The Bush and Obama administrations have eroded our privacy and civil liberties on an unprecedented scale. Warrantless searches, no-knock-raids, phone taps and secret databases are the tools of a police state, and a free society should not and must not tolerate them.
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