Terrorism is about blow-back
Preventing the next terrorist attack is about cause and effect--not value judgments
Conversations about recent terrorist attacks are all too common because such attacks have become normal and regular: both domestically and abroad. Those conversations usually involve self-congratulatory condemnations of the acts and the perpetrators. We wring our hands and share thoughts and prayers for the victims. Then we move on to the next news calamity. We don’t seem to wonder how that group was able to carry out such an attack. We don’t ask why they committed the act. We don’t follow that group’s funding, history and radicalization arc. There is too much to cover and our lives are too busy. Our attention span does not allow us to see the big picture of geo-politics against a historical backdrop.
We can’t imagine valuing our lives so little or believing so fervently that we’d commit suicide for a cause and/or that we’d take the life of another in pursuit of such a cause. We judge terrorists as sub-human as a result. But this, I argue, is only because we have so much to lose, not because we are more noble or humane. It’s because our property rights are honored. Our bodies are protected by laws and police. When we are wronged, we redress our grievances through legal channels. We Americans are children of civilization. Its systems channel our needs, wants, expecatations smoothly and efficiently. We have safe homes and cars and jobs and food and vacation and sick days. Retirements and savings. We travel. We tailgate at the football game. We go to the gym and jog in the neighborhood. Spirituality is a personal relationship with a God that we visit in Church on Sundays with our friends.
We have it good. Even the poorest among us are comparably free and safe. In nations and regions where this isn’t the case, the calculus is quite different—as is the perception of the US and the West. This is true largely because areas like the Middle East and South America have dealt with the Imperial side of the US, Europe and the West. They have experienced drone strikes, CIA coups, and Iran-Contra.
They do not get a jury of their peers. They do not find their borders or sovereignty honored. Despite the US’ well-intended efforts to prevent Nuclear War, World War 3, and to contain Communism in the Cold War, since the 1950s the United States has destabilized much of the world: especially South America and the Middle East.
Much of the world’s terrorism has sprung up as a result of our election meddling, overthrow of popularly elected leaders and support of freedom fighters as proxies in our effort to control the USSR and other rogue nations. Some of these rogue nations are the direct results of blowback from similar policies. Iran is a great example. How did this iteration of Iran come about? Just google Mossadegh or the Shah. Look at how Iran exports and supports terrorism. They are a blow-back dandelion.
Look at every single terrorist group. Look at the genesis of al Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hamas and others. Where did they begin? Always as freedom fighters fighting off a colonial power. Often a pawn of the West, fighting their battles until they became disposable. Then they morph into Political Islam.
Why is Islam radicalized? US foreign policy over the past 75 years.
Who funded Hamas before it was even called that: Israel, that's who. In their fight against Arafat's Fatah party they enlisted Hamas to...do their dirty work. It's blowback. It's always blowback.
It doesn't mean the US wanted there to be an Islamic State or that Israel wanted Hamas to attack. Not at all. But they shortsightedly created their monsters nonetheless. Because of careless policies carried out by bureaucrats run amok like the Dulles Brothers. Look them up too.
But what we do is look at the terrorists and say, 'they're evil.' And we wash our hands. But that's not how terrorism happened. People don't randomly devalue life. It happens in a sick world where sickness and killing is exported. And it will keep happening. We keep destabilizing the world, region by region and expecting different results.
Terrorism and terrorists are the results of terrible and inhumane policy. A void is filled. A need to counter imperial power is met. Let's stop creating the void to be filled. Let's start enforcing policies that support life across the globe. Let's hold our allies accountable and make our support contingent on them honoring the lives of all humans.
If we do this, we remove the allure of terrorism.
When the economic, ecological, political, and social systems work for the people, we will know peace.
Put that in your stocking