Given that the Manchester
terrorist was a product of the interventions in
Libya and Syria, it’s time to have an adult discussion about what it will take to stop
terrorism.
10 Ways to Reduce Terrorism
There are
10 basic principles that serious, mature people need to discuss if we want to
stop terrorism …
I. Stop Overthrowing the Moderates and Arming Crazies
If we want to stop
terrorism we should – (wait for it) – stop supporting terrorists.
Specifically, we’re arming the most violent radicals in the Middle East, as
part of a really stupid geopolitical
strategy to overthrow leaders we don’t like (more details below). And see this, this, this, this and this.
We’re directly arming and supporting folks
who are committing summary execution, torture, kidnapping, and imposing Sharia
law at the point of the gun.
But – strangely –
we’re overthrowing the moderate Arabs who
stabilized the region and denied jihadis
a foothold.
If we want to stop
terrorism, we need to stop supporting the terrorists.
II. Stop Supporting the Dictators Who Fund Terrorists
Saudi
Arabia is the world’s largest sponsor of
radical Islamic terrorists. The Saudis have backed ISIS and
many other brutal terrorist groups. And the most pro-ISIS tweets
allegedly come
from Saudi Arabia.
According to sworn
declarations from a 9/11 Commissioner and the Co-Chair of the Congressional
Inquiry Into 9/11, the Saudi government backed the 9/11 hijackers (see
section VII for details). And declassified documents only amplify those connections.
And the new Saudi king has ties to Al Qaeda, Bin Laden
and Islamic terrorism.
Saudi Arabia is the hotbed
of the most radical Muslim terrorists in the world: the Salafis (both ISIS
and Al Qaeda are Salafis).
And the Saudis
– with U.S. support – back the radical “madrassas” in which
Islamic radicalism was spread.
And yet the U.S. has been
supporting the Saudis militarily, with NSA intelligence and
in every other way possible for 70 years. And selling them massive amounts of arms (Trump
just agreed to sell them $110 billion worth
of arms.) And kept them off of the list
of restricted countries for immigration.
In addition, top American
terrorism experts say that U.S. support for brutal and tyrannical countries in
the Middle east – like Saudi Arabia – is one
of the top motivators for Arab terrorists.
U.S. and NATO-supported
Turkey is also massively supporting ISIS, provided chemical weapons used
in the massacre of civilians, and has been bombing ISIS’ main on-the-ground enemy
– Kurdish soldiers – using its air force.
The U.S.-backed
dictatorships in Qatar and Bahrain also massively fund ISIS.
And the U.S. and Saudis are
apparently committing
repeated war crimes in Yemen … which will only fan the flames
of terrorism.
So if we stop supporting the tyrannies in
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Bahrain, we’ll get a two-fold reduction in
terror:
(1) We’ll undermine the main terrorism supporters
And …
(2) We’ll take away one of the main motivations driving terrorists: our
support for the most repressive, brutal Arab dictatorships
III. Stop Bombing and Invading When a Negotiated Settlement Is
Offered
The U.S. rejected offers by Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to surrender …
and instead proceeded to wage war against those countries.
Security experts –
including both conservatives and liberals – agree that waging war in the Middle
East weakens national security and increases terrorism.
See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
For example, James K.
Feldman – former professor of decision analysis and economics at the Air Force
Institute of Technology and the School of Advanced Airpower Studies – and other
experts say that foreign occupation is the main cause of
terrorism. University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape – who specializes in
international security affairs – agrees.
Indeed, the leaders of
America and the UK were warned that the Iraq war would increase
terrorism … before they pulled the trigger.
Negotiating
peaceful deals whenever possible will drain the swamp of terrorists created by
war and invasion.
IV. Prioritize Stopping Terrorists Over Stopping the “Shia
Crescent”
As the actions towards
Syria by America and its allies clearly demonstrate, our
politicians are focused on curbing Russian and Iranian geopolitical influence
much more than actually stopping ISIS and other terrorists.
The U.S. has inserted
itself smack dab in the middle of
a religious war … choosing violent Sunni Muslims to
counter the influence of Iran and the influence of
Iran.
Amazingly, the U.S.
military described terror attacks on the U.S. as a “small
price to pay for being a superpower“:
A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State
Department counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a
“small price to pay for being a superpower”.
If we want
to stop terrorism, we have to make it a priority.
V. Stop Imperial Conquests for Arab Oil
The U.S. has undertaken
regime change against Arab leaders we don’t like for six decades. We overthrew
the leader of Syria in 1949, Iran in 1953, Iraq twice,
Afghanistan twice, Turkey, Libya … and other
oil-rich countries.
Neoconservatives planned
regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa yet again in 1991.
Top American politicians
admit that the Iraq war was about oil, not stopping terrorism (documents
from Britain show
the same thing). Much of the war on terror is really a fight for natural gas (Or
perhaps to force the last few hold-outs into dollars and private
central banking. For example, see this email to
then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)
We’ve fought the longest and most expensive wars in American history …
but we’re less secure than before, and there are more terror attacks than ever (update).
Remember, Al
Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq until
the U.S. invaded that country. And the West’s Iraq war directly
led to the creation of ISIS.
If we want
to stop terrorism, we have to stop overthrowing Arab leaders and invading Arab
countries to grab their oil.
VI. Stop Drone Assassinations of Innocent Civilians
And yet Trump has increased
drone strikes by 432%.
If we want
to stop creating new terrorists, we have to stop the drone strikes.
VII. Stop Torture
Top U.S. terrorism and
interrogation experts agree that torture creates more terrorists.
Indeed, the leaders of ISIS
were motivated by U.S. torture.
For example, Charlie Hebdo-murdering French terrorist Cherif Kouchi told a court in
2005 that he wasn’t radical until he learned about U.S. torture at
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
And the Secretary of Defense any
many other top military and intelligence experts say that torture doesn’t do
anything to keep us safer.
If we want
to stop creating new terrorists, we have to stop torturing … permanently.
VIII. Stop Mass Surveillance
Top security experts agree
that mass surveillance makes us MORE vulnerable to
terrorists.
Indeed, even the NSA admits
that it’s collecting too MUCH information to
stop terror attacks.
In virtually every recent
terror attack – in Boston, Paris, San Bernadino, Orlando, etc. – the
suspect was already on a terror watch list, known to authorities, previously
interviewed by the FBI, or the like. They were already
known to authorities.
Mass surveillance
simply doesn’t keep us safer.
Indeed, instead of focusing on known bad guys and their associates, the
government is flooded with surveillance data from spying on everybody. So they can’t do their job to stop
terrorists.
Stop it.
IX. Stop Covering Up 9/11
Government officials agree
that 9/11 was state-sponsored terrorism … they just disagree
on which state was responsible.
Because
9/11 was the largest terror attack on the U.S. in history – and all of our
national security strategies are based on 9/11 – we can’t stop terror until we
get to the bottom of what really happened, and which state was behind it.
X. Stop Doing It Ourselves
The director of the
National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom said:
By any measure the US has long
used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against
international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the
US would be in violation.
(audio here).
The Washington Post reported in
2010:
The United States has long been an exporter of terrorism, according to a secret CIA analysis released Wednesday by the Web
site WikiLeaks.
Wikipedia notes:
Chomsky and Herman observed that terror was
concentrated in the U.S. sphere of influence in the Third World, and documented
terror carried out by U.S. client states in Latin America. They observed that
of ten Latin American countries that had death squads, all were U.S. client states.
***
They concluded that the global rise in state terror was a result of U.S. foreign
policy.
***
In 1991, a book edited by Alexander L. George
[the Graham H. Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford
University] also argued that other Western powers sponsored terror in Third
World countries. It concluded that the U.S. and its allies were
the main supporters of terrorism throughout the world.
Indeed, the U.S. has created death squads in Latin America, Iraq and Syria.
Some in the American
military have intentionally tried to “out-terrorize the terrorists”.
As Truthout notes:
Both [specialists Ethan
McCord and Josh Stieber] say they saw their mission as a plan to “out-terrorize
the terrorists,” in order to make the general populace more afraid of the
Americans than they were of insurgent groups. In the interview with [Scott]
Horton, Horton pressed Stieber:
“… a fellow veteran of
yours from the same battalion has said that you guys had a standard operating
procedure, SOP, that said – and I guess this is a reaction to some EFP attacks
on y’all’s Humvees and stuff that killed some guys – that from now on if a
roadside bomb goes off, IED goes off, everyone who survives the attack get out
and fire in all directions at anybody who happens to be nearby … that this was
actually an order from above. Is that correct? Can you, you know, verify that?
Stieber answered:
“Yeah, it was an order that
came from Kauzlarich himself, and it had the philosophy that, you know, as
Finkel does describe in the book, that we were under pretty constant threat,
and what he leaves out is the response to that threat. But the philosophy was
that if each time one of these roadside bombs went off where you don’t know who
set it … the way we were told to respond was to open fire on anyone in the
area, with the philosophy that that would intimidate them, to be proactive in
stopping people from making these bombs …”
Terrorism is defined as:
The use of violence and
threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
So McCord and Stieber are
correct: this constitutes terrorism by American forces in Iraq. And American officials have admitted that
the U.S. has engaged in numerous false flag attacks.
Indeed, many top experts –
including government officials – say that America is the largest
sponsor of terror in the world … largely through the work of
the CIA. And see this.
Stop Throwing Bodies In the River
Defenders of current
government policy say: “we have to do something to
stop terrorists!”
Yes, we do
…
But we must also stop doing
the 10 things above which increase terrorism.
We have to stop
“throwing new bodies in the river.”
But the
powers-that-be don’t want to change course … they gain tremendous power and
influence through our current war on terror strategies.
For example, the
military-complex grows rich through war … so endless war is a feature – not a bug –
of our foreign policy.
Torture was about building
a false justification for war.
Mass surveillance is
about economic
and diplomatic advantage and crushing dissent.
Supporting the most radical
Muslim leaders is about oil and power …
“a small price to pay” to try to dominate the world.
A leading advisor to the
U.S. military – the Rand Corporation – released a study in 2008 called “How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida“.
The report confirms what experts have been saying for years: the war on terror
is actually weakening national security
(see this, this and this).
As a press release about
the study states:
“Terrorists should be perceived and described
as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism.”
We, the People, have to
stand up and demand that our power-hungry leaders stop doing the things which
give them more power … but are guaranteed to increase terrorism against us, the civilian
population.