25 Feb 2020 – Since George W. Bush – a friend of the bin Laden family – declared the global “War On Terror” in October 2001, it has cost the American taxpayers approximately 6.6 trillion dollars and thousands of fallen sons and daughters…
And it has involved virtually all Western – NATO/EU – countries, sent millions of refugees and terrorists in all directions and created a surveillance state everywhere.
It has come to threaten and undermine privacy, trust, freedom and democracy – in short, undermined everything the West/Occident believed it stood for.
It has destroyed the idea of the good society and a future in peace.
And has it succeeded in reducing or abolishing terrorism?
No, on the contrary.
In the years up to 9/11 2001 about 400 people were killed in political terrorist acts throughout the world, mostly in South America (US State Dept statistics).
Today, The Global Terrorism Index 2019 informs us that close to 16 000 people were killed in 2018.
That means that the Global War on Terror has made the problem it was supposed to solve 40 times bigger – not 40 per cent but 40 times bigger.
Has there ever been a more evil war?
And it goes on.
The US and others have actively supported terrorism, not the least the last 9 years in Syria. And every country that has nuclear weapons adheres to the philosophy of terrorism: killing innocents to achieve a political goal.
Will somebody stop this madness and begin to think?
Not likely!
Because – like we have a Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) or, rather, a Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC), the last 20 years have permitted the development of the Terrorism-Industrial Complex (TIC) – that is, intimately connected, wealthy elites who have a common interest in thriving and profiting in various ways from the Global War On Terror with a complete contempt for the rest of us, for democracy and security – and don’t mention peace, they don’t know that word.
In other words, Cancer # 2 on humanity. Totally out of common sense, decency and democratic control.
Just tell people that there is a terrorist waiting around the corner and they will give up their freedoms and accept Big Brother’s ‘protection’ – and likely deny that it causes the fundamental decline of the Western world and its values as we have known them.
Think of Reagan and Bush and all the rest also in your own country next time you go through an airport security check or use Google, use your credit card or – no matter what you do.
And why did that catastrophe happen? How did it turn into a perpetuum mobile?
Because no one in power asked the question: Why terrorism?
They only thought of how to chase and kill some terrorists. If you never address the causes of a problem, how can you solve it?
They had more than one reason to never ask that question after 9/11 in that particular way.
How much better the world would have been if causes had been addressed. But that was too much of an intellectual challenge for those who wanted that TIC to become a reality.
And how much better the world would be today with a benign, thriving and peaceful America – one that had decided in time to rid itself of its world- destructive Empire and accompanying MIC and TIC.
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TFF Director Prof. Jan Oberg is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.