War On Democracy

While the "war on terror" is advertised as a fight to "spread freedom and democracy" around the world, it is in fact a war against democracy, at home and abroad. This is a short post remembering America's latest war on terrorism.

I say America's latest war on terrorism, because America's history is rife with violent action against "terrorism", and it started with its founding. New England settlers, for example, waged a war of counterinsurgency against indigenous peoples here who resisted colonization. Maybe the word "terrorist" wasn't invented yet back then, but indigenous peoples, Indians, were depicted as such. Even in 20th century media the "redskins" are the wild uncivilized barbarians who are after the scalps of righteous, hard working cowboys and their innocent wives and children.

In the early 20th century American soldiers employed "the water cure" in the Philippines, a torture technique comparable to the "waterboarding" used in the modern war on terrorism. This fight against Filipino revolutionaries was a fight against freedom, killing thousands of them and hundreds of thousands of civilians; the loss of lifes is now labeled "collateral damage", and accepted as a necessary price to pay for a "greater good". In these wars of empire whole populations are designated as the enemy, and to create support for their murder they must be dehumanized and demonized in the eyes of the American people.

Labeling certain actions as "terrorism" is just a way of rationalizing the use of force against a dehumanized enemy. The Filipino's were freedom fighters. Palestinians fight for their independence and their own country. Anti-apartheid fighters in South Africa fought against apartheid. Yet all these fighters were and are labelled "terrorists". Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of 11 September 2001, none of the 19 identified hijackers were from Afghanistan, 15 of them were from Saudi Arabia, yet Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded and Saudi Arabia remains America's friend.

In the article that inspired this post, one sentence triggered me more than the rest: "I would argue that the U.S. has never been a democracy, and that a key reason is its basically permanent state of war, which began with its founding." Have you ever noticed how, throughout history, the so called "war presidents" almost always are re-elected? I would argue that is because in war-time the people are united against a common enemy. Ronald Reagan once fantasized, during the peak of the Cold War, about how the world would unite when faced with a common extra-terrestrial enemy. And America's latest war on terrorism, after the 9/11 attacks, showed this dynamic so well.

In "normal" times, America is divided among the Democrats and Republicans, its two major political parties. They both have their own mainstream media co-conspirators; Fox News for the Republicans, and MSNBC for the Democrats. Nothing shows better how united the country became than the fact that both media-factions cried "War!" in unison, how they both repeated the lies that started the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. How Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC because they feared he would tell some inconvenient truth. How they both showed that truth is indeed the first casualty of war. And without truth, there's no democracy.

A Times magazine poll, conducted in Europe during the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, showed that Europeans see America as the greatest threat to peace in the world; America still holds this questionable honor, worldwide: read People Worldwide Name US as a Major Threat to World Peace. Here’s Why., and The Greatest Threat to World Peace. I'll leave it here; it's Sunday and I have to go live my offline life ;-) Watch the below linked video; it's an episode from Oliver Stone's brilliant series "Untold History of United States", zooming in on the latest war on terrorism, and its role in American Imperialism. The video is age-restricted, so you'll have to click on "Watch on YouTube".

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