We talk about using war to solve the problems that come up between nations, but modern warfare, with its terrible accent upon destroying the supporting population, always gets what would otherwise be ‘innocent civilians’, and every thing they own, destroyed in the process. They say this ‘death and destruction of innocent civilians’ is not one of the definitions of terror. They are basically saying that ‘war as we wage it now’ would be impossible if we could not justify the destruction of those same innocent civilians as not being terrorism because they are supporting their armies.
When these armies are created and/or funded by the greatest arms dealer on the face of the earth, (think USA Military Industrial Complex) that is hell bent on the conquest of the whole planet, against the will of the world’s, and their very own, politically oppressed citizens…how in the hell can we say that some poor country like Iraq’s citizens support their dictators armies when they do not even have a lawful say in what happens? They support the dictators army? It would also seem that many, many, Americans have been very dumbed down about what happens in dictatorships because our elected officials prefer dealing with dictators when ever possible! Were kind of like ‘in the same boat’ here in the good old USA now, are we not? I mean...we cannot stop our governments escalating need for war either, now can we? We always end up electing the rich to office and we get the news that really tells you nothing, also! Same Boat! Same creek without a paddle!
It is with this simple change of definition that war is no longer considered terrorism; and it is a definition that is acquiesced to, and accepted by, the democratic citizen’s of what used to be called ‘The Great Society’s’ of the world. That ‘slippery slope’ always leads downhill from the information your asked to believe in, straight towards the grand catastrophe caused by ignoring the truth. Belief is the suspension of the actions of the investigative human mind’s need for the gathering of correct information in order to survive. Accepting the word of authority without looking is also an appropriate definition of belief. Religion has made belief very popular. It is because the scriptures cannot be proven, and everyone wants to be saved from hell (from being terrorized in hell for eternity) that they accept the authority of the church at its word. This has been part of our training from the start.
Terror is also a definition that can be modified by those who hold the reins of power, changed if you will, and quite easily when it isn’t you that is being terrorized, but someone else far away that you cannot see or hear..or thanks to our horrible media, even know about. When it happens to you therefor, it will not matter either…you will just be another dead body to be disposed of, and probably labeled as a ‘bad’ person (probably a terrorist). It is easier to come up with a reasonable excuse for killing people if you can make them the enemy… of your very existence, or reason for living, or religion,…or….you get what I mean. For the wealthy, and the powerful, and the warmongers amongst us, understanding the needs of others is very difficult indeed: so difficult they say that it must be, as they so loudly proclaim, because ‘We the People’ are so ignorant. The unwashed masses! Our existence isn’t that important now that they have the power to ignore us and our protestations.
You can see how easily everything gets politically and financially ‘way out of control’ when the real democratic processes that keep a country functioning reasonably, and rationally, for its inhabitants, are destroyed from within the human memory or from without by a redefinition of what is most important. Our lives are usually what is most important and so we either do what they command or we will be killed.
So, there are many facets to this discussion of what terrorism is, what it means, who is doing it, and why. Also, as it is our government, and our military, that has registered such a profound reaction to the attacks of 9/11 since…wouldn’t it be fair to say that they were the ones who were really super terrified by the acts of the attackers. The governments most powerful , using the media, have gone way overboard to convince us that this was a terrorist attack, and not an act of war, by redefining any attack on the USA by a non-state entity as terrorism: and then they convinced us that we had to go to war with Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 over what the terrorists did on our soil. It all begins to make sense, now that we can see that it is the wealthy and powerful of our world who were so, so, terrified by what happened on that day. Our government and our military acted this way, by going to war, by torturing, by using white phosphorus, secret renditions, black operations in foreign countries…because they are controlled by, and used for, the protection of those same wealthy and powerful groups and individuals that were afraid of losing their ill gotten, ill used, gains to those same groups that they have been secretly raising ‘holy hell’ with in other countries. War is just war to these Robber Barons; and economic war is how they feel they create their wealth, so physical war is just seen as a tool that can be used to make economic war more profitable. People’s lives do not matter to them unless they can use the havoc created, by war, in those same lives to create more wealth. That is all that matters to them. The power that comes with all of that wealth must be their power to absolutely protect it from anyone…groups included. They also feel that they are not bound by the laws, or morals, of any given group or country. Sure sounds like a bad disease to me!
The US government, using its military, and the armies of neighboring countries, has been indiscriminately attacking one country after another for a good part of its existence exactly because it is, and always has been, the province of the wealthy and powerful corporate Baron or Warlord. Those same wealthy and powerful groups and individuals, now that they have bought and paid for our government, are using its military and financial might to wreak every kind of havoc possible ( havoc is terrorism?) upon democracies everywhere across the globe, including ours here in the United States. Most other countries do not know whether the USA is their friend or their foe. For them it is very much like dealing with a super powerful warlord. That’s because it is run by one!
The media has always been used, to a large extent, to control the flow of information that the people have to act on socially and politically. A democracy, any democracy, will always have, as its weakest point, the day to day need for real, honest, information for all of its citizens. This is what defines democracy..and this is where faulty information that we think is true, because we just believe it to be true, is inserted into the decision making processes and democracy goes off course and loses its way. We cannot believe that these people have anything good planned for the American people just by looking at the war road they are driving us down right now!
Human nature, with its greed and avarice, its hate, and its gross stupidity…needs a form of social government that does not allow foreseeable human traits, like the aforementioned, to bring down the whole structure of what we are trying to do here, on this planet…which is to survive in peace and dignity at a minimum! Any form of government is only a tool to accomplish those goals for the people who live there, not for just one group or one person.
Can an act of terror be self inflicted? As human beings, able to use thinking and memory to create false beliefs and true scientific meaning, are we capable of terrorizing our own self(s) using false information that we won’t inspect for validity? It sounds like a pathology to me. Religious belief might be one place to look, and it is very interesting how religion, belief, and war, all hook up in some bibles?
War cannot be intelligently justified and this is why all acts of war must be considered terrorism… regardless of who commits them. War is human agression gone awry. Why can’t war be intelligently justified? If I lose my mind and decide to attack you in your home, or on the street, or in your car, or where ever, is that an act of war against you? Of terror? Should you, therefor, be allowed to get all of your weapons together and take on my family, my neighborhood, my city? Where, and how, do you stop with this war thing when it will not solve the problems that my wigging out on you caused in the first place? As humans who create and use definitions for our elucidation, it would seem beholden to us to not so dumb down our definitions to the point where everything is everything else.
We must use the tools of intelligent, rational, and reasonable, discourse to solve these problems that must come up between individuals, (life isn’t perfect you know) regardless of whether these individuals are citizens, states, or nations; and probably worlds also. We must also see first hand that man’s inhumanity to man is always hidden in a tightly clenched fist, which almost always means some type of war or violent confrontation.
Is the United States an occupied country, and if so, occupied by whom, controlling whom? Is the financial collapse that is bringing down the democratic governments of our world (THINK USA) actually a terrorist act against the citizens wealth, or is it the wealthiest paying for a war against the government’s, and the people’s, power to regulate them, or both, and just who is it that is behind this global wealth syndicate and the rest of us being robbed constantly of everything we worked so hard for?
The cause of terrorism is the human mind’s ability to use language to create meaning. Everything starts there when it comes to terrorism, or anything else for that matter, defined.
We, here in the USA, have declared war on terrorism….so let us become reasonable, and start discussing and rationalizing our way towards some type of a socially accepted definition: an intelligent definition that makes sense to the rest of the inhabited world, of what constitutes terrorism.
We have called the human race, our species, intelligent. Why? Where has our great intelligence shown itself that it has not been wedded at the hip to war? The outcome of any war will always be worse than the conditions which started it.
Let us now negotiate!
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