{"id":97046,"date":"2017-08-14T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=97046"},"modified":"2017-08-13T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T14:08:14","slug":"terrorism-for-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/08\/terrorism-for-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrorism for Profit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>9 Aug 2017 – <\/em>Donald Trump stands cluelessly at the edge of history, exemplifying everything wrong with the past, oh, 10,000 years or so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The necessity for fundamental change in humanity\u2019s global organization is not only profound, but urgent.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s latest outburst about North Korea\u2019s nukes \u2014 threatening that country \u201cwith fire, fury<\/a>, and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before\u201d \u2014 creates a comic book Armageddon scenario in the media, except, of course, his power to launch a nuclear war on impulse is real.<\/p>\n

What this makes clear to me is that no one should have the authority \u2014 the power \u2014 to declare any war whatsoever. The fact that this is still possible, so many decades into human awareness of war\u2019s utter insanity, reveals the paradox that civilization remains economically tied to its own destruction.<\/p>\n

Another icon of this paradox is Erik Prince<\/a>, immensely wealthy mercenary, notorious founder of the terror organization Blackwater, who had cozy ties to the Bush administration back when the 21st century\u2019s endless wars were just getting underway and now, with another unelected Republican in the White House, has recently made a grab at the business opportunity still represented by these wars:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s privatize the quagmire!<\/p>\n

Sixteen years on, the war in Afghanistan is the longest in American history, and presently in a state of \u201cstalemate,\u201d according to the mainstream consensus that unquestioningly justifies this country\u2019s ongoing militarism. For instance: \u201cThe U.S. can\u2019t win but can\u2019t afford to lose,\u201d USA Today<\/a> opined in a recent editorial about Afghanistan, inanely demanding that Trump \u201cat least should decide what to do next\u201d and setting the stage for Prince\u2019s business plan, which is to restructure and privatize the war.<\/p>\n

In an op-ed a few days ago in that same publication, Prince wrote<\/a>: \u201cThe option to simply abandon Afghanistan is enticing but in the long run would be a foreign policy disaster. The Kabul government would collapse. Afghanistan would be a rallying cry for global jihadists.\u201d<\/p>\n

And suddenly there it was, the American paradox in full splendor: Oh yeah, we\u2019re fighting terrorists. We have to keep killing people, keep pouring trillions of dollars into our wars, because bad people are out there threatening us because they hate our freedoms. And the guy reminding us of this is the founder of Blackwater, private contractor in Iraq, whose mercenaries were responsible for one of the most shocking acts of lethal aggression \u2014 a.k.a., terrorism \u2014 of the early years of that war.<\/p>\n

Blackwater contractors were accused of \u201cfiring wildly into cars stalled in midafternoon traffic at Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007, pouring machine-gun bullets and grenades into crowds, including women clutching only purses and children holding their hands in the air,\u201d as the Washington Post<\/a> reminded us recently.<\/p>\n

This act of carnage, in which 17 Iraqis were killed and 20 more injured, typifies what you might call American terrorism. It may, at some quasi-conscious level be religiously motivated. Indeed, Jeremy Scahill<\/a>, reporting in 2009 for The Nation on the lawsuit filed on behalf of Iraqis harmed in the Nisour Square massacre, wrote that, according to a former Blackwater employee who testified in U.S. federal court during the trial:<\/p>\n

\u201cPrince \u2018views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,\u2019 and . . . Prince\u2019s companies \u2018encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.\u2019 . . .<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Scahill wrote, \u201cMr. Prince\u2019s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to \u2018lay hajiis out on cardboard.\u2019 Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince\u2019s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as \u2018ragheads\u2019 or \u2018hajiis.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This all fits quite horrifically into the definition of jihadism, or terrorism, but because it\u2019s American, it brings something extra to the table as well. This is terrorism for profit. And it\u2019s been going on for a long time, in a realm far bigger than that occupied by Erik Prince\u2019s business interests. You could call it colonialism, or the domination complex. The world is ours. This is the \u201cgreatness\u201d Trump sold to enough Americans to squeeze into the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Not only does he have no patience with a military stalemate in Afghanistan \u2014 \u201cwe aren\u2019t winning, we\u2019re losing\u201d \u2014 but he can\u2019t stand the fact that the shattered country\u2019s mineral wealth isn\u2019t in our hands.<\/p>\n

At a recent, well-publicized meeting with his generals, Trump \u201clamented that China is making money off of Afghanistan\u2019s estimated $1 trillion in rare minerals while American troops are fighting the war,\u201d according to NBC News<\/a>. \u201cTrump expressed frustration that his advisers tasked with figuring out how the U.S. can help American businesses get rights to those minerals were moving too slowly, one official said. . . .<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus on the minerals was reminiscent of Trump\u2019s comments early into his presidency when he lamented that the U.S. didn\u2019t take Iraq\u2019s oil when the majority of forces departed the country in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump leads a political system that\u2019s still grounded in the colonial era. His reckless arrogance is its global face. He stares at the audacity of nuclear-armed North Korea and threatens to blow it to kingdom come, imagining that there will be profit to reap in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him <\/em>at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Aug 2017 – And suddenly there it was, the American paradox in full splendor: Oh yeah, we\u2019re fighting terrorists. We have to keep killing people, keep pouring trillions of dollars into our wars, because bad people are out there threatening us because they hate our freedoms. And the guy reminding us of this is the founder of Blackwater, private contractor in Iraq, whose mercenaries were responsible for one of the most shocking acts of lethal aggression \u2014 a.k.a., terrorism \u2014 of the early years of that war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}