August 31, 2004
Kamloops Daily News



"Where is the homeland of terror? (author Gore Vidal)"

Three years later, the U.S. has still not recovered.  On
September 11, 2001, nineteen men with boxcutters and
kamikaze zeal cut deep into the American psyche.

Horror followed disbelief after the twin towers fell in New
York. Then anger and retaliation but still no healing.  The
muddled military response has not soothed the grief and
fear.

The U.S. bombed Afghanistan even though most of the
highjackers were from Saudi Arabia.  Then they invaded Iraq
for reasons that are at best confusing.  Here are some
possible explanations.  Take your pick:

>The president of the U.S. loved the Iraqi people so much
that he was willing sacrifice the lives of hundreds of
American sons and daughters so that Iraq could be free of an
evil tyrant.  

>Iraq was about to launch weapons of mass destruction
against the free world within 15 minutes notice because
Muslims hate democracy.

>Saddam Hussein helped train the terrorists of September 11
and was a friend of Osama bin Laden, leader of al Qaeda.

>Iraq sits on one of the largest oil reserves in the world
and its location in Asia is of strategic importance.

Every great nation needs a great enemy but the ad hoc group
calling themselves al Qaeda was not that group.  Neither was
the Taliban, that shadow of government in a shell of
country, Afghanistan.  Nor was Iraq and its evil dictator.

Fuzzy thinking has boxed an armed and dangerous U.S.
military into a corner.

It's difficult to have a war on terror when terrorism has no
homeland.  In the war on terrorism, the empire laces up its
boxing gloves to battle a swarm of flies.  Eventually, it
will exhaust itself fighting everybody and nobody.

No nation has a constitution based on terror.  Terrorists
exist in all countries and the U.S. is not immune. 
Right-wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal
building in Oklahoma city in 1995, killing 168, and blew a
hole in the notion that terrorism was external - - imported
from Canada, for example.

One definition of terrorism is "the use of extreme violence
against disarmed populations outside any context of declared
war."  Terrorism is a tactic of opportunity, a mode of
operation, which includes everything and its opposite.

"This adverb mistaken for a noun promises a hundred years'
war," says Regis Debray in his article in Harper's magazine. 
The war will be  "interminable because neither armistice or
capitulation is possible."  

The U.S. administration is dishonest when they say they are
fighting for democracy in Iraq.  They use democracy in the
contemporary sense of the old imperialist "civilization." 
It's an excuse for colonizing territory.  It's the given
reason for invading Iraq - - to bring the enlightenment of
the beacon of light from the leader of the free world.

If the true motive of the U.S. invasion of Iraq were "one
person, one vote," the U.S. would have packed its bags the
day after the handover of Iraq to the provisional government
on June 28, 2004.

For political reasons, the U.S. president wants to get
soldiers out of Iraq but leave behind thousands of private
U.S. contractors to continue the occupation.  The U.S.
whimsically thinks their hand-picked Iraqi government will
endure.  Think again.

In a free vote, Iraqis would choose an Islamic democracy - -
the majority in Iraq are Shia fundamentalists.  As in Iran,
a democratically elected Iraqi government would have little
sympathy with the invading infidels.

Lastly, why isn't there a war on fear?   Fear plays an
unusually large part of the lives of Americans.  Michael
Moore, maker of the film "Bowling for Columbine" says that
his countrymen live in fear that is blown out of proportion
with reality.   "We lost our fear compass," he says,  "We
don't know what the real threats are. We can't distinguish
anymore between the real threats and the unreal threats."

If firearms were an antidote to fear, the U.S. would be the
most serene country in the world.  There are enough firearms
for every man, woman and child.  The U.S. is the greatest
military might in the world but fear has only increased
since September 11.

U.S. currency reads In God We Trust.  I'm not particularly
religious but I would feel more comfortable if our neighbour
adopted that motto rather than the current one, In Guns We
Trust.

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