{"id":43038,"date":"2023-07-04T06:19:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T14:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=43038"},"modified":"2023-07-04T06:19:53","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T14:19:53","slug":"the-global-war-on-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/04\/the-global-war-on-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Global War on Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

There’s an important point about America\u2019s Global War on Terrorism<\/a> (GWOT) that people often miss.<\/p>\n

When the Bush\/Cheney administration announced the GWOT after 9\/11, I think nearly all Americans assumed that "global" meant everywhere but the "good" countries. That global meant the axis of evil<\/a> (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) and similar so-called bad actors, but that it didn’t mean countries like Canada – and certainly not the U.S. homeland.<\/p>\n

But global really did mean everywhere on earth as we’ve watched the war on terror escalate domestically. The US government\/security state has built the foundation and superstructure for a permanent war on terror, and it simply isn’t going to go away. The Iraq and Afghan wars are essentially over (both lost), and fears of North Korea have subsided as the military-industrial-congressional complex focuses on Ukraine, Russia, and China, but the GWOT continues. It’s now turned inwards, within and along our own borders, and those techniques that were practiced (if not perfected) in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are now being used and inflicted upon ordinary Americans who are attempting to resist state-corporate authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The GWOT has come home – but perhaps it’s always been here. What\u2019s changed is how state-corporate entities can define almost any form of determined protest – even civil and nonviolent ones – as "terror." Labeling someone a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d gives state-corporate actors a whole host of powerful ways to punish activists, notes by Michael Gould-Wartofsky at TomDispatch.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the same time, America has witnessed the \u201crise of the warrior-cop,\u201d as Radley Balko noted in his book<\/a> by that title. <\/p>\n

Three years ago, I wrote about the militarization of police forces at TomDispatch<\/a>. This is what I wrote then:<\/p>\n

America\u2019s violent overseas wars, thriving for almost two decades despite their emptiness, their lack of meaning, have finally and truly come home. An <\/i>impoverished empire<\/a><\/strong>, in which violence<\/a><\/strong> and disease are endemic, is collapsing before our eyes. \u201cWhen the looting starts, the shooting starts,\u201d America\u2019s self-styled wartime president [Donald Trump] promised<\/a><\/strong>, channeling a racist Miami police chief from 1967. It was a declaration meant to turn any American who happened to be near a protest into a potential victim <\/i><\/p>\n

As such demonstrations proliferate, Americans now face a grim prospect: the chance to be wounded or killed, then dismissed as \u201ccollateral damage.\u201d In these years, that tried-and-false military euphemism<\/a><\/strong> has been applied so thoughtlessly to innumerable innocents who have suffered grievously from our unending foreign wars and now it\u2019s coming home.<\/i><\/p>\n

A few days ago, The Onion<\/a>, a satirical news site, compared America\u2019s obedience and passivity to power to the current situation in France. Here\u2019s how they put it:<\/p>\n

In an ongoing struggle against ruling-class oppression, the people of France again protested in a way that Americans are welcome to at any time, sources confirmed Thursday. According to reports, French citizens across the country were spotted hitting the streets en masse as a unified front against the institutional bondage that seeks to subjugate them while never failing to apply forceful pressure every time injustice strikes, which Americans can and should feel free to do whenever they so choose.<\/i><\/p>\n

Yes, but are Americans truly \u201cwelcome\u201d to protest \u201cwhenever they so choose\u201d? We\u2019d like to think so, especially as July 4th approaches (America! Land of the Free!), but who wants to be detained and thrown in jail for domestic terrorism? Anyone in America hankering to be labeled as a terrorist by the state, whether on the right or left of the political spectrum, even if the charge is eventually dismissed?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Searing photo of state violence at Kent State in 1970. The dead student\u2019s name was Jeffrey Miller. The young woman crouched in shock and horror was Mary Ann Vecchio. Richard Nixon called the protesters \u201cbums.\u201d What would the state call them today \u2013 domestic terrorists?<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

Remember those innocent days of the 1960s when for some the police were \u201cpigs\u201d and the protesters were \u201cbums\u201d (Richard Nixon\u2019s word for the students killed at Kent State)? Now those protesters could be charged with domestic terrorism even as various heavily armed enforcers of the law would likely be celebrated (consider all those \u201cblue lives matter\u201d flags, for example).<\/p>\n

Remember when \u201cdefund the police\u201d was briefly a thing? By which people meant less funding for militarized police forces and more for mental health services and the like. President Joe Biden and the Democrats realized any serious effort to restrain police power would leave them open to charges of being soft on crime, so Biden and the party simply declared: Fund the police<\/a>. (Republicans concur, of course, even as they still accuse Biden and the Dems of being soft on crime.)<\/p>\n

And there you have it. Fund the police at all levels, local, state, and federal, and grant them the kind of powers given to America\u2019s \u201cwarriors\u201d in the GWOT. Set them loose on all of America\u2019s domestic \u201cterrorists.\u201d After all, the GWOT went so well in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere. Surely it will go equally well in the Homeland. Right?<\/p>\n

Addendum<\/strong>: In writing this, I came across a superb article by Patricia McCormick at the Washington Post<\/em> on Mary Ann Vecchio, \u201cthe girl in the Kent State photo<\/a>.\u201d She was just 14 when the above photo was taken. She paid a high price, as the article recounts. Letters to her family accused her of being a \u201cdrug addict,\u201d a \u201ctramp,\u201d or a \u201ccommunist.\u201d The then-governor of Florida suggested she was a \u201cprofessional agitator\u201d and therefore responsible for the students\u2019 deaths. A Gallup poll back then, cited by McCormick, said that 58% of Americans blamed the students at Kent State and only 11% blamed the National Guardsmen who opened fire and killed the four students.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfessional agitator\u201d sounds much like today\u2019s domestic terrorist. And let\u2019s reflect on those 58% of Americans who believed the students at Kent State were responsible for their own deaths. How dare they block the free flight of \u201cMade in USA\u201d bullets with their young bodies? The \u201cbums\u201d! (\u201cDomestic terrorists.\u201d)<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. There’s an important point about America\u2019s Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) that people often miss. When the Bush\/Cheney administration announced the GWOT after 9\/11, I think nearly all Americans assumed that "global" meant everywhere but the "good" countries. That global meant the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-43038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"\"Global\" includes the \"homeland\" here in America"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43038"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43044,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43038\/revisions\/43044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43038"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=43038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}