Shades of Mumbai

When I was 19 I stood on a street corner in Manhattan and watched the twin towers fall. Through out the course of the day I could not get away from the sense that something bigger was brewing...and not in al Qaeda's cauldron. The launch of America's newest war (after our War on Poverty, our War on Drugs, our War on Violence, etc) harkens to another War on Terror-one launched by a little man remembered as Adolf Hitler.

With the attacks carried out in Mumbai over the weekend, I have a sickening sense that this is just propelling us faster into the ultimate police state. Of course it is no coincidence that Mumbai is financial capital of the Indian sub-continent. Nor that the attack was carried in such way that foreigners (among them Brits and Yanks) were killed. What is coincidental is that Pakistanis are being linked to the attacks in a time when we are looking for reason to spread our Empire into Pakistan, Iran and the greater Middle East.

In the same way that the "training" of al Qaeda alleged hijackers in Afghanistan has allowed us to bomb the fuck out of the Afghanis, there is (conveniently enough) cause to extend that fight now Pakistan. Oh, yes. The Pakistanis were our brothers in the Axis of the Willing-and sure we backed their dictator, Musharaf-but they need to feel the awesome power of freedom now too! The al Qaeda members hiding out in Pakistan need to be rooted out. We will accept no threat to our security.

Now, let's take a minute, shall we. When Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds of Northern Iraq, he did so with US support. When the dictators of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan (more allies of freedom) detain, render and torture people with American support, it is an act of defense. When the dictatorships of South America rendered, tortured and killed people, again with loud US support, they were defending freedom. When "insurgents" in Iraq attack military bases (with piddling mortars) or Palestinians throw rocks at Israeli driven US tanks, it is terrorism. If a Palestinian were to detain and torture an Israeli, it is a violation of convention-when Israel detains and tortures a Palestinian, it is policy.

Throughout the War on Terror, American and Allied forces have reported large amounts of missing money and materials. How do large amounts of materials, kept responsibly by the American military and Private Mercenaries just disappear? And what about the British and American citizens arrested after joy riding around, gunning down Iraqis, while dressed in robes and fake beards? What of our financial support and CIA training of agents like Osama bin Laden? Is it possible that the current Bush, like his grandfather Prescott, is funding both sides of this war? Is it possible that perhaps there is no real enemy, and that investors like Cheney and Prince Osama bin Laden are merely waging a "war" for the purpose of their own dividend checks?

The chief way to end terrorism is to stop endorsing it as Policy. The amount of military aid given by the American tax payer to dictatorships around the world is the largest amount of state sponsored terrorist money circling the globe. We do not need to fear "rogue regimes" like Iran. We need to fear our own rogue regime-the Military Industrial Complex, the Federal Reserve and the State Department. The leader of terrorism around the globe, hands down, is American foreign policy.

As the Obama emperorship is transitioning, we will see all of the hype of the coming "test" by terrorists. All of our domestic wiretapping, all of our preemptive invasion, and infiltration will surely not hit the mark and we will be subjected to more violence.

These "tests" don't pass the smell test. Why have the last eight years passed without investigation? Why have the last sixty years of Imperial American policy passed without oversight? Why are the Republocrats so convinced (almost gloating) that an attack is coming? Perhaps like other terrorist states we are witnessing state endorsed attacks. Perhaps by turning a blind eye (refer to the Downing Street Memo) we are forced to go along with assaults on the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions.

It is a frightening era in which we live. One in which the reigning superpower, like the British Empire before it, will rage around the globe unchecked, leaving behind a devastated planet, a raped and tortured populace and a legacy of shame to last the ages.