Part Two: Fear and Indifference
Fear has been bin Laden's secret weapon, fear and the debilitating paranoia it creates has won the war for bin Laden. Yes, in case you missed it, the U.S. has lost the war on terror, it is painfully apparent now, but it was inevitable when the U.S. tried to occupy Afghanistan. The home team always wins an insurgence, just ask George Washington, Uncle Ho, Russia, and the former British Empire. For the record, we also lost the war on drugs and the war on poverty - when will we learn we can only go to war with other nation states, not ideas, addictions, or social conditions.
Fear of the bogeyman bin Laden, inept extremists, and cultures we don't understand is America's debilitating psychosis. This psychosis drove the invasion of Afghanistan and the suspension of all reason when assessing the actual threat from bin Laden. Paranoia is the new gold standard of political and civil patriotism, and votes for both parties. Each side trying to out do each other by amping up the fear. When a politician attempts to voice reason and restraint, he or she is branded a traitor or accused of not supporting the troops. It has become a strange dichotomy of fear and latent Vietnam era guilt manifesting in a dangerously blind, unquestionable faith in government, intelligence agencies, and the military. The CIA now helps define our moral behavior - the CIA...really, that's what we want?
When the Afghan invasion high didn't provide the continuing fear rush we craved as a nation or the political swagger to keep politicians in office, the alphabet agencies invented WMD in Iraq. In 2003, bin Laden hiding in a cave just wasn't frightening enough so we had to imagine mushroom clouds coming from Baghdad and that did it - tanks and stealth bombers were on the move once more, and America was mainlining shock and awe with a syringe filled with fear.
Prior to the invasion, I was part of a discussion with the 3rd Infantry Division Commander (a Major General and the invasion's main effort), his deputy (a Brig. General) and a senior CIA station chief for Iraq. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke – “a spook, a general, and Rambo invade Iraq...," but there was nothing funny about the conversation, however, there was plenty bad about it. We all acknowledged that for the first time in U.S. history our Army was invading a sovereign country that had not attacked or threatened the U.S. in any way. We were going to fire the first terrible shot, take the first life that would lead to the loss of thousands of innocent lives. Driven mad by the apparition of fear created by bin Laden, we were about to do the unmentionable for an American Army - unleash hell on an innocent unsuspecting population. We would quench our nation’s fear swelled blood lust to the anthem of country music stars singing about kicking ass, “The American Way,” and crowds calling us heroes. The rest of the civilized world was not so enthusiastic about unprovoked murder.
From the outset, bin Laden’s goal was to fight American soldiers, something he couldn't do with our soldiers safely in the U.S. Our fear led to the out right invasion of two countries, and military operations (think killing people) in 70 other sovereign nations. The U.S. is chasing its tail around the globe at bin Laden's direction, he only has to rebrand any non-state actors or criminal gang, as al-Qaide and the mere reference to the organization on an Islamic Facebook page will send the alphabet agencies whirling.
There will be no credible threat to the U.S. and only a minimal, mostly criminal, threat to the host nation. Thanks to American psychosis, the name "al-Qaide'' has become one of the most successful franchises of all time, and our fear will waste trillions of dollars and amass a sickening body count feeding the franchise - remember how well that calculus of success worked in Vietnam? The U.S. government recently sent financial and military aid to Yemen to fight the reported spread of al-Qaide to that country.
The amount of aid equaled over one million dollars for each member of the Yemeni al-Qaide cell - or put numerically...$1,000,000 = 1.
Bin Laden now has the focus and targets he longed for - thousands of U.S. soldiers in Muslim lands where our presence will ensure nationalists and extremists will want, and have the opportunity, to kill them. He knows our culture, knows the endemic prejudice and arrogant contempt that perpetuates the indifference with which we view the humanity of the rest of the world. He does not have to wait long for a scared American soldier to fire point blank into a minivan full of kids, or for a board jet jockey to bomb a wedding party - fear and indifference, it is the American way, and he is counting on it. Some might argue that this war we created is an insurgent war in which we don't know who the enemy is so we are justified to fire first at civilians - that is fear inspired bunk. As soldiers we put on the uniform voluntarily knowing it makes us a target and we must be willing to absorb the first round if necessary to make sure we are not killing innocents they did not put on a uniform, nor did they ask us to come to their country and kill their children. Our indifference back home seems to make it no big deal...but it is.
These traits have spawned a new 21st century American global Manifest Destiny. The cultures we fear and don't understand, which are most, we attack with indiscriminate, overwhelming violence - they are not like us so it most be ok to destroy them with extreme prejudice, our drones act as compassionless children stepping on ants as they frantically run for safety. When we have killed enough, we try to assimilate and subjugate the population to make them look like us through "nation building" and ''democratization.''
Unlike our European counter parts, America has not evolved from our exploiting fearful violent frontier mentality - and how did that work out for the indigenous population? I mentioned earlier that the home team always wins an insurgency, this is true except where genocide is the strategy of choice - right Cochise, fear and indifference.
Bin Laden has used our debilitating fear and cultural indifference to move us around the international chess board at will, and create opportunities for us to make enemies in the lands we occupy/advise (think - "We are better, smarter, richer, and more powerful than you and your backwards culture, so you better do what we say...or else") While we chase ghosts, he fights American soldiers in his own back yard as we carpet the desert sands with dollars and blood.
Meanwhile, back home, we learn to fear more things...like
shoes, underwear and big shampoo bottles. Do you think the Americans that stormed the beaches of Normandy were afraid of BVDS? I doubt it, but we are not those Americans, and he knows us.
Next week we will look at how bin Laden has destroyed America's moral authority in the world and changed the culture of law and civil liberties in our own nation. With the way things are going, bin Laden, not the founding fathers, could be the most influential force in shaping our legal practices and freedom.
Related Articles
- ''U.N. report urges end to CIA attacks by drones” (Peter Finn, The Washington Post)
- ''U.S. loses $1 trillion fight in war on drug's” (Martha Mendoza, The Associated Press)
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