war on terror

A visual comparison of deaths at the World Trade Center and deaths from the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus and its variants.

Unlike today’s students being preyed upon by military recruiters counting on manufactured patriotism — patriotism on steroids since the unfortunate events of 9/11 — I was there. No, not in NYC, or Washington DC, or even in Maine where one of the alleged masterminds of the alleged takedown of the twin towers in lower Manhattan boarded his first plane.

I was in California, on my way to work, with a preteen child in the car — one whose sense of security was demolished on Sep. 11, 2001.

A few years later I was back in Maine trying to count the flags that had sprung up everywhere (too many to count in a car traveling 45 mph).

Some things are best understood in retrospect.

That nearly 3,000 “Americans” (27 were actually foreign nationals) died in the World Trade Center was a fact repeated as often as the videos of both towers collapsing. Oh, and WTC Building 7 which collapsed 8 hours later. This magnitude of death was the pretext for going to war on Afghanistan which allegedly harbored the Saudi masterminds of the terrorist attack. Except it was Pakistan doing the harboring. But they have nuclear weapons, don’t they?

The main things that 9/11 provided were an enormous spectacle to justify the endlessly profitable wars of imperial expansion for the U.S., sometimes doing business as NATO. (If you wonder what NATO is doing in Australia since that’s about as far from North Atlantic as you can get, maybe read blogger Caitlin Johnstone.)

The other signficant thing that 9/11 provided cover for was the 300 page so-called Patriot Act which gutted constitutional rights of citizens and terrorists alike. Swiftly gutted them, and created the Department of Homeland Security and created ICE — both of which we had gotten along without prior to 9/11.

A lot of torture happened after 9/11. No, not the torture of being an Afghan or Pakistani child trying to sleep while surveillance robots droned overhead 24/7 waiting to unleash their Hellfire missiles on your home. Torture in secret prisons and in the gulag known as Guantánamo which is on Cuba’s territory without their consent.

Torture that resulted in persecution of torture whistleblowers.

Torture of Chelsea Manning for refusing to reveal how she shared evidence of U.S. war crimes.

Torture of Julian Assange for sharing evidence of U.S. and allied forces’ war crimes and dirty financial dealings.

Almost torture of Edward Snowden for revealing the spying that digital technology and security state overreach have made ubiquitous. He lives in exile in Moscow now, with his young family, still trying to warn us about how to protect ourselves from the “security” state.

9/11 was used to justify war on Iraq via lies that Saddam Hussein had something to do with it.

Source: Brown University, Watson Institute, Costs of War Project

9/11 was used to drive fossil fuel consumption and thus climate crisis.

9/11 was used to justify war on people in Syria. And Yemen. And Somalia.

9/11 was used to consolidate U.S. government support of Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes against Palestinians.

Source: The Daily Times “Eagleton fifth-graders study 9/11” Sep. 10, 2016

9/11 was used to produce a lot of canned curriculum that teachers are told they must use to inform kids that are not upset about 9/11.

Becuase they were not even born when it happened.

And really, how much should they care about 9/11? Their young lives have been upended by a public health disaster of far greater proportions, still rampaging out of control. This time the heroes they’re encouraged to worship aren’t in firefighter or military uniforms, they’re in scrubs and PPE.

What will this much larger disaster be used for?

That the U.S. corporate press lies for a living — right out in the open — makes no difference to you in your grief.

It mostly makes a difference to the taxpayers and voters of the country thousands of miles away where citizen are sold horseshit like, “We’ve got to fight terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.”

The lies that sell wars and buy elected officials use bogus concepts and slogans like “The war on terror” to incite fear and make compliance much easier than opposition.

A few people will go on social media platforms that are heavily censored in favor of corporate rule to express the truth laced with dark humor.

Well I think we can probably call it now and say that Terror has won the War on Terror.
— Louise Jones (@LouJoSays) August 29, 2021

The U.S. has bombed little children to death under alternating Democratic and Republican administrations my entire life.

It began bombing Afghan children following the unfortunate events of 9/11 in 2001 after a speech by then President George W. Bush proclaimed that “their harbors” would no longer be safe. (Note: Afghanistan is a land-locked country with no harbors.)

The current Democratic administration has announced that it will continue using flying killer robots to bomb Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. (It’s also drone bombing Somalia, and plenty of other places, at will.)

“Enough is enough,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement. “For more than ten years, our government’s drone strikes have killed thousands of innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Muslim world—destroying family homes, wedding parties, and even funeral processions. The civilian casualties in Kabul are simply the latest victims of this misused technology.”

Besides the warped views about war sold constantly over corporate airwaves, why is there a steady supply of men and women willing to remotely bomb children in Afghanistan?

Because after young people turned against the military draft for the war on Vietnam, U.S. corporate interests have made damn sure that the poverty draft continues blowing a steady gale force.

With no money for college and no money for dental care and no money for rent, food, and car expenses many young people in the U.S. feel they have no choice but to enlist. The poorer the state — like my home, Maine — the harder the poverty draft blows.

went2thebridge.org

Organizing and actions to resist the moral and financial bankrupting of the U.S. through wars against the poor, at home and abroad.

9/11 Is But One Piece Of The Puzzle

Some things are best understood in retrospect.

Torture that resulted in persecution of torture whistleblowers.

9/11 was used to drive fossil fuel consumption and thus climate crisis.

Like this:

We’re Still Bombing Afghans = The War Is Not Over

That the U.S. corporate press lies for a living — right out in the open — makes no difference to you in your grief.

The U.S. has bombed little children to death under alternating Democratic and Republican administrations my entire life.

Besides the warped views about war sold constantly over corporate airwaves, why is there a steady supply of men and women willing to remotely bomb children in Afghanistan?

But some folks prospered during the 20 year war that’s still not over.

Like this:

Some things are best understood in retrospect.

Torture that resulted in persecution of torture whistleblowers.

9/11 was used to drive fossil fuel consumption and thus climate crisis.

Share this:

Like this:

That the U.S. corporate press lies for a living — right out in the open — makes no difference to you in your grief.

The U.S. has bombed little children to death under alternating Democratic and Republican administrations my entire life.

Besides the warped views about war sold constantly over corporate airwaves, why is there a steady supply of men and women willing to remotely bomb children in Afghanistan?

But some folks prospered during the 20 year war that’s still not over.

Share this:

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