THE UNENDING WAR COMES HOME TO AMERICA
So it begins. We now have a choice between two options. We can escalate the current low intensity war that the United States is waging against nations of the world from Columbia to Iraq. Or, we can pause and re-examine our current imperial adventures around the world and recognize that terrorism against the United States is the natural consequence of trying to tell the rest of the world how to live.
Already, the war chant has gone up from the neo-conservative establishment regarding the need to escalate American intelligence efforts and American hegemony in our world. Former Senator Warren Rudman has already called for a new "war against terrorism" and even had the temerity to use this event as an opportunity to condemn American isolationism. Rudman (undoubtedly towing the establishment conservative line) has compared the modern United States to an isolationist America in the 1930’s. Such a statement exhibits either incredible ignorance of current American foreign policy or just rank opportunism.
I fear that the latter may be true for many American pundits will dare to claim that it is too little American military intervention that has caused this catastrophe. What they are essentially claiming is that the United States which regularly bombs and starves Iraqi civilians, sends airstrikes against Serbian civilians, defoliates Columbian farms, and supports the butchering of Palestinian children is somehow an isolationist nation and must escalate its involvement in pushing around foreign nations.
How much longer must American civilians die to support the pork projects of the defense industry and the fantastic hallucinations of the war-hawks in Washington who are unceasingly searching for a new source of "evil" since the end of the Cold War.
Does anyone seriously think that "retaliation" to this attack will do anything to really stop terrorism? It reminds one of 18th century British soldiers lining up in formation to be mowed down by Indian guerilla fighters. We fail to understand what is going on and how to deal with it. When will the paybacks end? Terrorists bomb American embassies in Africa, so Clinton responds by bombing a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan. The terrorists respond by killing thousands of Americans in New York City. It is naïve in the extreme to think that one more strike against terrorists will finally end it all.
What is needed now is a long hard look at the way that the United States conducts its affairs abroad. Senator Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has uttered some of the few intelligible words in this aftermath by encouraging a pause to think about the need for a reasonable response and to refuse to surrender American liberty to calls for an all-out war against terrorism.
Naturally, the fact that the United States has perpetrated many crimes against foreign nations does not mean that innocent American civilians deserved to die, nor does it diminish the barbarity of these terrorist acts. What should be remembered, however, is that these acts are in response to equally barbarous acts perpetrated by the United States against innocent civilians abroad, and if we are serious about avoiding escalating terrorist war, we must refuse to cow to whatever the defense industry and the Congress demand to keep their war-happy interest groups content.
Much has been made of this attack as being a "second Pearl Harbor" and the governor of Colorado even used the tired old line about awakening a sleeping giant. The problem is that the giant has not been sleeping at all, but has been fully exercising its power, and it now finally beginning to feel the effects of wielding that power.
