At this moment in history, having just suffered yet another horrific terrorist attack, it is vital that we be wise and smart - and think for ourselves.
It's neither practical nor moral to destroy entire cultures because they are backward or unpleasing. You can influence them in any number of ways but you can’t just wipe them out.
People don't take up arms for no good reason. Terrorism doesn't happen in a vacuum. There are underlying reasons that should be addressed. People who rise up in violent insurrection have grievances. Often those grievances are valid, and they are always valid to the people in question.
Ahmed is not a 'terrorist' because he doesn't have anything better to do. He's a terrorist because his village was bombed, or his country occupied, or his grandmother raped, his uncle tortured or his brother's wedding party wiped out by a drone.
There is a vicious cycle of injustice, violence and revenge, and we must find sufficient courage, wisdom and humanity within ourselves to break it.
We need to take responsibility for creating terrorism and address the underlying problems, not just explode in a frenzy of mindless violence and military horror in a knee-jerk response to attacks – however horrible they may be.
In reality, US and western policy in the conflagration that is now the Middle East is in the classic mould of imperial divide-and-rule. American forces bomb one set of rebels while backing another in Syria, and mount what are effectively joint military operations with Iran against Isis in Iraq while supporting Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. However confused US policy may often be, a weak, partitioned Iraq and Syria fit such an approach perfectly.What’s clear is that Isis and its monstrosities won’t be defeated by the same powers that brought it to Iraq and Syria in the first place, or whose open and covert war-making has fostered it in the years since. Endless western military interventions in the Middle East have brought only destruction and division. It’s the people of the region who can cure this disease – not those who incubated the virus.
Now the truth emerges: Here’s how the US fueled the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq
We created Al Qeada, we created ISIS, we have created hundreds if not thousands of similar uprisings by allowing oppression, repression and grave injustices to stand.
People who take up arms do horrible things. That's as true of us as it is of them.
Is beheading any worse than the ‘double-tap’ where you kill a bunch of people and then wait for the first responders to gather to render aid then blow them all up? Have you seen the Chelsea Manning video where they do just that?
x YouTube Video
Is the savage behavior of their guys more savage than that of our guys? The answer is no, not really, atrocities are just as evil when committed by us - and yes, we do commit them. What’s worse, a beheading or the instantaneous vaporizing of an entire village full of innocent men, women and children? We've done that thousands of times in more places than I can count. What’s worse, beheading people or torturing them to death? We've tortured people all across the planet and tortured them to death no telling how many times. Recent history is overflowing with the many horrible things we’ve done all over the world — torture, assassination, murder, overthrowing democratically elected governments, organizing and running death squads. Just ask them in South America or Southeast Asia or Africa.
The bottom line is war is hideous and evil and must be stopped.
We have to stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated by the MIC/1%-controlled media who want to scare us with how evil they are and lie to us about how righteous we are. We need to quit letting them make us believe that the horrors we visit on the rest of the world are in any way justified. The fact is, war is evil and must be stopped — not stepped up because of how bad the other guys are.
Most important, at this moment in history, we must not allow ourselves to be manipulated into an overreaction that only feeds the inferno. We need to stop pouring gasoline on the fire. We need to get serious about waging peace – lest we lose our way.
After the attacks in Paris, the world is again challenged by fear. With every bombing, beheading and mass shooting, the dread spreads, along with the urgency of defeating this nihilism.But no less a challenge for the civilized world is the danger of self-inflicted injury. In the reaction and overreaction to terrorism comes the risk that society will lose its way.
History is replete with examples of the power of fear and ignorance, to which even the great can fall prey. Franklin Roosevelt calmed a nation in bleakest days of the Depression, but he also signed the executive order imprisoning tens of thousands of American citizens for the crime of Japanese ancestry.
In our time, disastrous things have been done in the name of safety: the invasion of Iraq, spawned by delusion and lies; the creation of an offshore fortress, sequestered from the Constitution, to lock up those perceived as threats, no matter the cost and injustice; an ever-expanding surveillance apparatus, to spy on the people, no matter the futility.
Al Qaeda and the Islamic State did not compel us to shackle ourselves to a security state, or to disgrace our values by vilifying and fearing refugees and immigrants.
New York Times - The Price of Fear