RSN Fundraising Banner
FB Share
Email This Page
add comment

writing for godot

Terrorists Plotting Psychological Warfare Against the U.S.

Print
Written by michael payne   
Thursday, 08 August 2013 11:14
That U.S. foreign embassies would, at some point, become increasingly prime targets for terrorists was not difficult to predict. The closing of at least 25 U.S. embassies and consulates in the Middle East and North Africa recently, in response to terrorist threats, is a disturbing development that signals great danger for those who function on the front lines of American foreign policy.

Question: when in the world will this U.S. government finally accept the fact and admit that that the War on Terror and the thousands of enemies it has created were of its own making, having developed over the course of many decades when it used its military power in unnecessary and unjustifiable wars and conflicts involving numerous countries?

Many respected journalists and analysts firmly believe that the War on Terror was created by the neocon war hawks in Washington in order to keep Americans in a state of fear and apprehension so that the defense industry could continue to profit from an agenda of endless war. Many also believe that this military hubris will, undoubtedly, bring about more and more blowback or payback, i.e., revenge and retaliation, to this country.

How has this situation evolved? Well think about what happens when someone smashes a hornets’ nest with a massive club? Those enraged hornets will swiftly retaliate and come after the person who wielded the club with a great vengeance. What is that massive club to which I refer? It’s that military hubris that this government has engaged in to rule the seas and control the skies across the world; and pity the poor nation that dares to stand in its way.

That overly aggressive policy by the government has continued during this 21st Century after the War on Terror was initiated by the G.W. Bush administration and then further progressed by that of President Obama; although those in the White House today no longer refer to is as such.

This massive club was used in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan with disastrous consequences in which millions of innocent people either lost their lives, their homes or were forced into exile; and we lost many thousands of troops. Now, after the U.S. military was unable to conquer those nations who strongly resisted it by using guerilla-style warfare, the weapons of choice for the U.S. in invading other nations and going after suspected terrorists are remote-controlled drones that strike without warning.

What we are seeing is that these “terrorists”, call them Al-Qaeda or whatever, may be beginning to use a form of psychological warfare against the U.S. government. They, no doubt, learned a lot from watching the color-coded threat alert system once used by the Homeland Security Dept. to warn Americans of impending terrorist threats.

Most Americans probably remember the five levels of warnings -- green was for low, blue for guarded, yellow for an elevated condition, orange for high, and red for very severe. By now Americans have awakened to the fact that this warning system was used by the government to make sure Americans were “afraid, very afraid” of imminent terrorist attacks. It worked for some years and, when it was proven to be no more than a scare tactic, it was discontinued in 2011.

It appears that those terrorists out there who seek revenge for past military actions against them may have taken a page out of the Homeland Security playbook. Matching the firepower of the U.S. military would be impossible so they may have discovered that, in order to retaliate, all they need do is to make the leaders of America think that attacks are imminent.

That kind of psychological tactic or technique is certainly nothing new and it has been used in a wide array of situations in impending military conflicts for some time. Israel, for example, uses this kind of psychological tactic to make Iran think that an attack on their nuclear facilities is ready to happen at any given time. It’s used in business in certain cut-throat competitions between corporations. It’s used in professional sports to try to intimidate opponents or make them bite on a trick play.

Whether the “chatter” that is being picked up by intelligence agencies constitutes a real threat against these embassies or whether it’s some kind of a bluff by Al-Qaeda we don’t know, not yet. Many in the news media believe that it is just one more fabricated situation by the government, kind of a wag-the-dog scenario, that is designed to quiet down the furor that is swirling around the NSA spying program and, in fact, may be a blatant attempt to try to prove that this program’s method of gathering data about terrorist threats is working to perfection.

Regardless of what may actually be going on in this scenario, it didn’t take long for the White House to initiate a swift response; there was no hesitation and, just like a bunch of bulls ravaging a china shop, they launched deadly drone strikes against Yemen. Here they go again; once again using that massive club on that hornet’s nest and stirring up more and more hornets instead of using rational, intelligent thinking to try to mitigate this inflammatory situation.

If we had a time machine at our disposal to allow us to turn back the clock to the period following World War II, and we had the gift of extra sensory perception to see into the future, the task at hand would be to convince the government leaders of that time to make absolutely certain that they stayed completely out of the internal affairs of all nations; that it would be foolhardy and extremely dangerous to engage in misguided wars, invasions and occupations.

Well, we have no time machine but I’d venture to say that the majority of Americans now wish that our leaders back then had somehow possessed the foresight and vision to understand that unrestrained military hubris would accomplish nothing but disastrous results. Or at least that the leaders of today would somehow learn the lessons of history and stop this madness.

If we had had such visionary leaders there never would have been a War on Terror, quite probably 9/11 would never have happened and right now we probably wouldn’t even be talking about terrorist threats and closing embassies. But leaders of that rare kind were not to be found and so military force was used in dealing with serious differences with other nations as a pathetic substitute for cooperation, negotiations and diplomacy.

The way things are rapidly going downhill in American foreign policy and relations with other nations, this government may need to rename these embassies and call them armed fortresses. We can bet that going into the future many of them will be closed permanently because, in many now very unfriendly nations, protecting our diplomats will become impossible.

But as bad as this situation may seem I really believe that this War on Terror or whatever the current administration wants to call it can be ended over a period of time. All this government need do is to just stop using that massive club on suspected hornets’ nests across the world. Or as I’ve suggested previously: speak softly, carry a big stick and think very deeply before you use it. And, lastly, eliminate once and for all that idiotic doctrine of the G.W. Bush administration that says “you’re either with us or against us”.

In this regard, here is a very excellent observation by Medea Benjamin, in fact the best I have ever read about how the U.S. can stop terrorists threats. This is the kind of logical, rational thinking that is so sorely needed by our leaders; if they would only heed these words of wisdom and common sense. If jobs in higher government in Washington were assigned to the best and brightest Americans, she would hold a top level position.

There are important lessons to be learned from the events that have led to this increasingly dangerous situation. First this government must finally understand that spending hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars on its machinery of war and domination cannot be sustained. This policy has never worked and never will; it’s an exercise in futility. Secondly, the use of that massive club when dealing with other nations of the world, that doctrine of military hubris, must be replaced by using intelligence to achieve key objectives.

Michael Payne
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page

 

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.

RSNRSN