by

John Wright

Internal Security from Terrorism and Crime:

Terrorism and crime must be treated separately, primarily because terrorism has an external source whose avowed purpose is to punish the wealthy and powerful in the USA, and to some extent elsewhere in the world. Crime in general is not even remotely like terrorism, for even the various Mafias and drug cartels are in it for the money, not for enraged political purpose. This simple distinction tells all. Internal Security from one is not like that for the other.

Terrorism has its basis in the undeniable fact that we have exerted large and selfish influence in the Middle East since the end of WWII. We are the country that developed their oil fields and then exploited them in terms of price. We are the country that has supported Israel for over fifty years against the Arab nations. We are the country that continually interferes politically and militarily to guarantee our primary source of oil.

We do not and have not helped the common people of Arab nations, except when we believe our oil supplies have been threatened. Part I of this serial article discussed the essentiality of oil to our existence and the reality that we will continue to interact as we believe necessary to assure our continuing oil supply at acceptable prices. For that reason alone we have invited and encouraged terrorism from dissident groups within Arab nations.

They have attacked airlines abroad (Lockerbie) as well as here. They attacked Israeli athletes during Olympic Games (Munich). They have exploded bombs near our military vessels. They have attacked our embassies (Beirut, etc.). They finally attacked within the USA on 9/11/2001 with the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. They have not attacked within the USA since that time, but various other attacks have occurred within other nations/areas (Ukraine, Malaysia). All in all, terrorists are now a very active and growing force, and they have extended their presence into Indochina and Pakistan.

The religion of Islam is used by the terrorists to form a basis for "common cause" outside the Arab world and within it across nations. The rightness or wrongness of their use of Islam is irrelevant, for their purpose is being met. Thus, terrorism is the domain of people who cannot mount large, modern armies or navies to force a political objective. Terrorism serves a most useful purpose in giving the economically and politically downtrodden people a sense of accomplishment.

I long ago lost count of the number of suicide bombers who have wreaked havoc in Israel. I have wondered why more attacks have not occurred within the USA since 9/11/2001? Then, I began to gain some insight. Note that in the opening paragraph of this topic I clearly stated that a goal of terrorism is to punish the wealthy and powerful people within the USA. That targets like the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were chosen on 9/11/2001 makes obvious that the terrorists have no battle with common USA citizens. Else, millions of us would have been poisoned by now.

Yes, I am saying that terrorist activities within the USA would be occurring if the terrorists decided to operate here against our common people. Our various security measures would not stop them any better than the Israelis have been able to stop the suicide bombings. It is altogether too easy to breach our borders and import and use deadly poisons. Thus, the whole issue of terrorism is not the survival of our common people. It is instead the undermining of our wealthy and powerful people who have, like their predecessors, decided to interfere with the Manifest Destiny of Arab nations, and more recently, Venezuela and Mexico.

The linkage of this reality with the USA need for oil is the basis for terrorism to continue. Our failure to utterly control Iraq after the unjust war is a certain sign that we are headed for big trouble. We are now showing the lack of resolve that the Soviets showed when they failed to subjugate Afghanistan. We are now obviously unwelcome in Iraq in the same manner we were unwelcome in Vietnam. Our only choices are to get out or to escalate rapidly and with total dominance, in large numbers … and then to steal the oil.

If we fail in Iraq we are setting the stage for more failures elsewhere. It is really embarrassing to be on the wrong side of an issue and then, as bully, to fail. But politics aside, the USA demand for oil is the critical reality. That alone will cause us to continue as aggressors, win or fail. At some point I expect the Chinese to exert very strong influence over us, for neither they nor we are to be trusted with anything but individual selfish motives. This is a problem of gigantic proportions that will unfold to our distress during the next five to ten years.

Terrorism will seem mild by comparison. It will be like the bad old days of nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union. But that digression needs to be treated in a different article. This article must focus on the meaning and future of terrorism for USA citizens. There are really only two points to make: 1) The common people in the USA are not directly at risk, and 2) Terrorism is here to stay until we remove ourselves and our influence from the Middle East, which we can gradually do with nuclear power and then alternative energy.

That our government has chosen to hype the citizenry about terrorism within the USA is one more example of the lying and dissembling so present in modern government. Homeland security really means police infrastructure to control future attack scenarios on government and financial facilities. It does not mean protecting little Johnny or Jane.

There isn’t much more to say about terrorism. It has happened for the best of reasons and will continue to happen until we stop our aggression, which we cannot do until we lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

Internal security from crime in general is indeed a difficult subject, unsuitable for the type of superficial treatment I would have to give it in a short article. I refer you back to my book, Destiny, and ask you to review chapters on Human Foibles and Responsibilities of Government. I will, however, try to challenge you with some thoughts about trust.

Did you ever wonder what would happen in our society if the crooks beat the police, the courts and the military, in other words, took over running everything? The crooks, best defined by looking at Mafias, would rapidly establish order. They would gain nothing by bringing the country to its knees economically. They would simply ensure that generated wealth found its way into their pockets and not into the pockets of the workers.

Life would be rather more dismal than it is now, for loss of human rights would lead to a society that certainly would not be the land of the free. Laws established by the crooks would favor only them and their right to be arbitrary as they saw fit. They would, however, project themselves in the media as champions of the people.

At this point you have to be imaginative enough to realize that I am talking about the devolution of our culture and its laws and how they are actually created and enforced, and to what end. When the values of the powerful are allowed to decline, a free nation becomes a slave nation, whose future is determined only by the powerful and not in any way by the common people. Those who have wealth decide who will hold office and what laws will be created and enforced.

When a common citizen can no longer trust the institutions of government, business and religion, what develops is apathy. Voters no longer vote. Church memberships decline. Workers cease to be creative. The society plods along with little joy, no trust and a constant undercurrent of fear. Instead of goal directed thinking about building a future, common citizens seek relief in mindless spectator activities designed to amuse them and convince them that life really is okay. The problem is that the activities are useless and thus so are the thoughts of the people.

Well, this subsection of the article certainly did not discuss the topic of domestic crime in any conventional way. It did lightly cover the single largest ugly reality of our life in the USA … the criminals have taken over, as evidenced by your declining power and lower standard of living. Enough said.

War never has been good. War always kills off large numbers of common people indentured to accomplish the political objectives of the wealthy and powerful. War wastes great quantities of resources that might have been used to improve the lives of all the people. For these reasons countries formed organizations like the League of Nations and the United Nations, to attempt to resolve problems without war. Only irresponsible fools think of war as a valid answer to domestic problems.

Terrorism is a form of war against slavery and theft that is both horrible in results and very efficient in use of resources. It does not result in unilateral change, however. It merely becomes a chronic problem. There is no United Nations analogue to attempt to resolve problems that result in terrorism. Appeasement is essentially impossible because the natural resources of the affected countries are needed and/or coveted by other countries who either must have or simply choose to continue taking the resources, whether they are oil, land or minerals.

USA efforts to promote peace instead of war have been variable over the past 100 years. In virtually all instances, our cooperation on behalf of peace has been based on our perception of risk to our future. That means our commitment to peace has been present only when our leaders have felt seriously threatened (nuclear war with the Soviets) or when we could lead a coalition of countries in a police action (Kosovo) that had little financial impact but served to promote the notion that we are good world leaders.

That we belligerently ignored the United Nations in going to war with Iraq was a perfect example of our situational commitment to peace. They had oil, we had a military machine, and no one was going to counterattack us, so we made war. By our actions, not our words, we have established our earned reputation as being just as opportunistic as any nation was in the past. Idealism has been dealt a deathblow.

What about the future? For now I can’t imagine any country trusting our motives or our likely behaviors. Commitment to peace is not something a nation can flip flop about based on opportunism. We are too obvious and are rightly considered by the rest of the world to be untrustworthy. Dreams about major political change in the USA getting us back on course are simply that … dreams. The reality of our oil dependency will determine our foreign policy until such time as we either extricate ourselves via technology or perish economically or militarily under counterattack by nations like China.

Perhaps it is not obvious to our leaders that we do not own the only license for arbitrary behavior. Fortunes change through time, and the development of nations like China and India will cause us to lose economic initiative and comparative military dominance. Frankly, I can see no reason for any other nation to respect our wants in the future, for the same reason we show no respect now. Selfish nationalism is self-defeating, as we are now seeing through major price increases for oil. This is only the beginning of the likely disaster that awaits our children and grandchildren.

In summary, we have no visible future positive international role on behalf of stopping war or terrorism.

External Influence in Controlling World Population (to be continued)