America is now nearly three years into its "War on Terror." I have one question regarding this thing. Exactly who is fooled by this bullshit?
When you go to war, you have an identifiable enemy, and you have an easily recognizable set of conditions that will constitute victory. We have neither of these vital things. Yet, the whole nation seems to be buying this whole "we're at war" business without question. The Patriot Act was passed through Congress without anyone even reading the paragraph titles, much less the fine print. So the FBI now has all the tools they need to get around civil liberties if they bloody well feel like it. The Pentagon has unlimited political support for whatever budget they want... I fully expect them to have enough money shortly to change their building into a Hexagon.
It seems to me that the attacks on September 11 ended up providing the closet fascists in our nation with the cover they needed to come out and take control. Everyone cheered when we invaded Afghanistan, never mind the fact that the invasion force was far too small to quickly secure the country and hunt down Bin Laden or Omar or pretty much anyone of any real consequence. At this point, it certainly appears that Americans are going to be occupying that country for the foreseeable future, and running the show there for as long as they want. Hmmm... it seems to me that about 20 years ago, another country had planned to do the very same thing out there. Interesting.
But now, we also have a grip on Iraq. Has anyone bothered to look at a map? Given enough time and unlimited military support, how long will it be until we decide that we've had enough of Iran calling us "the Great Satan"? How long until Our Glorious Plutarchs figure out how to dig up some "evidence" of terror support and justify yet another invasion?
Another question that we need to ask ourselves... how long will we be able to invade and gain control of countries half-way around the world until people in various countries around the world start saying "Uh.. I think you've got enough, bucko!"? You want a scenario for World War III? How's the Muslim World against America and its unquestioning ally England for you?
But even if we pull back from the Bush Doctrine of "get 'em before they can even get weapons," we'll still be in danger. The next president will be in the middle of this idiotic "war on terror." There are too many unanswerable questions here. "How can you identify and kill all the people that want to harm America?" "When will you know you're finished?" "How will you keep new people from deciding they want to blow American shit up?" These are practical, vital questions that no one seems interested in asking, let alone answering.
Are we looking at the Mother of all Cold Wars? The Cold War was a boon for military suppliers. A nearly 50-year ride of nearly limitless gluttony. But we had an identifiable enemy, and when the enemy fell apart, the war ended. Now, we can't identify an enemy. And going after this shadowy enemy will only result in many more enemies popping up to replace the enemies we do manage to remove from action. This ride of gluttony will make the Cold War look like peanuts by comparison.
The civil liberties of privacy and freedom of speech are in grave danger. The power that has now been given to the executive branch is a set of tools that can be used to silence anyone deemed as an appropriate target. And the people of this country are so frightened of the terrorists that they feel happy in setting down their liberties, in order to (they hope) help catch the shadows. They'll get back their rights (again, they hope!) later, when the war is over, and the "Terror Alert Level" is set down to Green. Don't hold your breath.
I, for one, am not fooled by this "war on terror" crap. I can see where this is headed, and it isn't any place a truly freedom-loving people ought to want to go. Study your history. Particularly take a look at Europe during the period of 1933 to 1940. If we can't learn the lessons available to us in plain sight, we won't last very long.