by
Michael S. Rozeff

Recently
by Michael S. Rozeff: AIPAC:
Anti-Iran, Interventionist, Warmongering

The first thing
to understand about terrorism against America is that it is negligible.
Horrible as it was, the destruction of the Trade Towers was
an outlier, that is, an event that lies way, way outside the main
body of terrorist activity. It is no comfort to the dead, the injured
and to their loved ones to point this out, but it is something that
must be understood because failure to understand the realities of
terrorism has led Americans to support aggressive war policies that
are highly destructive of innocent lives and societies overseas
and do not diminish the threat of terrorism. These immoral and unjust
policies have increased the numbers of terrorists dedicated
to destroying American life. As a negative bonus, they have undermined
the economy and freedoms of America, thereby causing an untold increase
in hardship among Americans now and in the future.

The war on
terror has been a terrible mistake. Terrorism against America was
never so big that it required a war against it, much less a world
wide war that made hash out of the Bill of Rights, militarized police
and turned the country sharply in the direction of a police state.

The concept
of a “war on terror” drastically alters America’s role
in the world by inserting the U.S. into numerous complex and long-running
international conflicts in other countries. There are many terrorist
groups that operate in foreign countries that have agendas associated
with political and religious issues. The war on terror thrusts the
U.S. into these conflicts with several notable results. America
gets involved in endless political strife and warfare overseas.
Government fails to address America’s own problems with consequent
undermining of America’s advancement. The costs of government rise
exponentially with consequent undermining of America’s economy.
The U.S. government enhances its domestic policies of repression
and abridgement of rights and freedoms.

Terrorism in
America is not the kind of problem that is ameliorated by war. Police
work, while open to sharp criticism, has been the mainstay of foiling
terrorist plots. Erik
J. Dahl has constructed the largest known sample of thwarted
terrorist plots in his article “The Plots That Failed”.
He has found 176 failed and thwarted terrorist plots against American
targets between 1987 and 2010 or 24 years. He broke this down as
follows.

1. 73 overseas
   and 103 domestic,
2. 42 right-wing
   and extremist plots and 126 jihadist plots,
3. 29 plots
   that targeted diplomatic facilities abroad and 35 that targeted
   American military bases, personnel and facilities both here and
   abroad.

There were
57 plots in 24 years that were domestic and jihadist.

What stops
terror attacks from succeeding? Of 176 cases, 9 were called off
by the terrorists themselves and another 15 were attempted and failed.
This includes instances in which the FBI prolonged the attempt and
brought it to near fruition with fake bombs and such, but most of
these failures were overseas. There are 24 cases in which the causes
of the failure can’t be determined from available information; most
were overseas.

This leaves
128 cases, of which 89 were domestic and 39 overseas. Of the 89
domestic plots, 66 were foiled as a result of undercover agents,
informants and tips received from members of the public. Dahl says
that this “appears to be the most effective counterterrorism
tool for breaking up domestic plots.” In many cases, tips lead
to the use of informants being placed among the plotters. In the
Fort Dix case, for example, the plotters took a training tape to
a Circuit City store to have a dvd burned and an employee became
suspicious when he viewed the content. Smaller numbers of plots
are uncovered by routine police stops for traffic violations, chance
encounters with officials who notice suspicious behavior, other
behavior such as robbery that draws attention, public threats made
by terrorists, information from overseas, interrogation and, finally,
“signals intelligence”. Dahl finds that signals intelligence
(wiretapping, internet monitoring) is not of major importance in
the failed plots that have been detected.

The takeaway
from Dahl’s work is that standard spying and analytical intelligence
operations to connect the dots and piece together information are
not the keys to effective counterterrorism. Past successes have
relied heavily on ordinary people noticing activities or behavior
that might be oriented toward terrorism. In this sense, it is like
any crime detection. Dahl calls it “prosaic” and he quotes
a former head of MI5 who says that spies do not develop much counterterrorism
intelligence and “My own experience is that effective counter-terrorism
frequently

begins closer
to home and may appear a lot more mundane”.

It is now common
for political candidates to be asked about their views on terrorism
and the war on terror. Reporters ask nonsensical questions about
“winning” the war on terror and how a candidate plans
to do this. In 2007, at the National Press Club, Newt
Gingrich was asked “what we would have to do to win it
[the war on terror] eventually.” Gingrich put on the most serious
of faces that he could muster and replied:

“I am
really deeply worried. We have two grandchildren who are six and
eight, and I believe they are in greater danger of dying from
enemy activities than we were in the Cold War.”

Gingrich and
many others express deep concerns about something that is a risk,
but terrorism is not a serious risk, not something to be deeply
worried about, and not something that even comes close to nuclear
war.

How does terrorism
compare with other risks? In the years 2006 and 2010, there were
70,954
homicides in America. Between 1998 and 2008, 449 people were
killed by lightning in America.

Terrorism isn’t
a minor risk because the government is so good at policing it. It’s
minor because not that many people have the motive, means and opportunity
to do mass killings.

But although
terrorism is not a risk that requires an undue amount of care to
control and live with, the idea of terrorism has seriously
infected political discourse and U.S. policies, domestic and foreign.
Whenever warmongers want to incite sentiment for a new war in a
new foreign land, they wave the red flag of terrorism. The
words “terrorist” and “terrorism” have become
instant propaganda tools for manipulating mass sentiment.

And to counteract
this and adopt constructive anti-terror policies, it is necessary
to place 9/11 in perspective and to say “Stop the war on terror!”
Get off it. Move on. De-emotionalize the issue. Terrorism is nothing
to worry deeply about. Terrorism is overblown. Terrorism is negligible.
Terrorism doesn’t warrant aggressive wars. It does not warrant assassinations.
It doesn’t warrant the use of drones or their proliferation in America.
There are worse evils than terrorism. Control terrorist acts with
good police work in which a mature public alertness (not mass suspicion)
plays a role, but not with a domestic spy apparatus and not with
policies that subject everyone to suspicion, frisking, warrantless
searches, sexual assaults, radiation, and excessive police force.

If another
catastrophic event like 9/11 occurs or if another large-scale mass
murder occurs like the Oklahoma City bombing, will such an occurrence
result in ramping up the police state techniques in the U.S.?
Will it result in giving government further powers to spy, search,
arrest without warrant, indefinitely detain, imprison in hidden
prisons and assassinate Americans? Will it result in intensified
intrusions overseas and even more widespread use of drones that
kill? Will it result in a para-military force that operates outside
of public control within America? Will it result in spying on every
American? Will it result in drones that pepper American skies?

All of these
activities are in place now. All are unnecessary. All are dangerous
to liberty. All are wrong. By increasing injustice and repression,
they stimulate resistance. A certain amount of that resistance takes
the form of violent terrorist acts. The cures that are being employed
make the patient more ill and more sick.

Terrorism can
be handled by reasonable police work and alertness on the part of
the public, since most terror plots are discovered by tips volunteered
by ordinary people.

A particular
worry at this time, far more than terrorism itself, is that politicians
are now invoking terrorism at every turn as justification for their
extreme warmongering policies.

Take for example
the recent accusation of a very strange, farfetched and convoluted
plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. There was
an Iranian national involved. This does not prove anything about
Iran’s participation, especially since false flag events blamed
on Iran are to be expected. The whole scenario was most definitely
not in the Iranian style, but it was laid at the doorstep of Iran
anyway.

This episode
led House Speaker John
Boehner to demand that Obama “hold Iran’s feet to the fire”
for this “significant terrorist act”. The Republican chairman
of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, went even
further. He called the plot “an act of war”.

What an amazing
lack of balance and good sense in their thinking! What an amazing
disconnect between the gravity of the absurd terror plot and the
gravity of the war they want. Here we have major members of Congress
using a “terrorism” incident, which was really some out
of the way happening or tale, in order to justify a new war.

And if it were
not this event, their kind will dig up some other events in the
past in which Iran had a hand. Warmongers who want war will do whatever
it takes to bring war on. They will lie, misrepresent history, distort,
omit material facts, twist facts, misinterpret, appeal to emotion,
appeal to hatreds and fears, and demonize. The very words “terror”,
“terrorist”, “terrorism” and “war on terror”
have become Pavlov’s bell. Ring it and Americans salivate for war.

As a rule of
thumb, do not believe any politician who proposes a war or urges
Americans into war. Do not believe any politician who claims that
a war is necessary, or points to an event like a ship sinking or
a ship being blown up or an airplane being brought down or a terrorist
act as a cause for war. Do not believe any politician who claims
that Americans are threatened and must therefore attack the enemy
before they attack us. Do not believe any politician who wants to
make war when there has been no invasion of America itself by the
armed force of another nation. Do not believe any politician who
wants to make war because of some vague national security appeal,
or because the U.S. must protect the shipment of oil or oil facilities
located overseas. Don’t follow the government into war because it
says it needs to protect American citizens overseas.

Don’t overreact
to foiled terror plots that were extended and deepened by the FBI
playing the role of a co-conspirator who promises to provide the
bombs and devices that the unsuspecting would-be terrorist wants
or has been talked into wanting.

Hidden in their
hearts, some of America’s warmongers welcome terrorism overseas
because this gives them an opportunity to justify expansion of the
U.S. into new lands. The war on terror provides a cover for U.S.
intervention in places that the U.S. deems to be of interest to
the empire as it seeks to expand and counter the expansion of China.
Hidden in their hearts, America’s control freaks welcome
domestic terror events, real and concocted. This gives them the
opportunity to expand and extend their control over Americans and
build up a police state in the name of order and security. The warmongers
are not about to admit this openly, even to themselves, but that
is the thrust of their positions. Actions speak louder than words:
9/11 was met with war abroad and repression at home.

Even if I am
completely wrong about the deepest motives of warmongers, the policies
that have been enacted are still wrong. Every expansion of the U.S.
empire into another Muslim land or a land that has a substantial
Muslim population causes an increase in terrorism. When this
shows up in America itself or overseas, the U.S. government people
cry crocodile tears. But the government bears no cost for having
generated increased terrorism or the fear thereof domestically.
It gains. The government people are able to justify tightening the
screws of domestic policing.

The war on
terror has created a damaging spiral. Fighting terrorism overseas
with occupations and war and drones produces more terrorism there
and here at home. More terrorism at home then produces more justification
for foreign intrusions and domestic control. These lead in turn
to more terrorism here and further control over civilian life. From
the government’s point of view, the war on terror is a never-ending
banquet or orgy. War is indeed the health of the state.

The only political
figure of presidential caliber who has consistently taken a stand
against foreign interventions and connected them to the production
of terrorists is Ron Paul:

“There
is an amount of serious talk about what we should be doing over
there, in dealing with the al-Qaeda, never addressing the real
important subject of why is there al-Qaeda and why do these radicals
get motivated in order to commit suicide and do these various
things, and they get motivated because we’re there in their country
and then they organize and the longer we’re there the more they
radicalize against us…” (Ron
Paul, 2009.)

Ron Paul has
taken a lot of heat for this theory, but this theory has merit.
It is a theory that’s consistent with the evidence of what kind
of people anti-American jihadists are, what they say about their
goals, where they go to fight, what targets they attack, and why
their numbers have increased in recent years.

The notion
that anti-U.S. jihadists are reacting to U.S. occupations in Muslim
lands has legs, but it does not explain all jihadism everywhere
or the lack of jihadists from certain countries that the U.S. has
interfered with. It is not a theory of all jihadist terrorism everywhere.
No theory of a phenomenon like terrorism is going to be able to
explain everything. But we do not need a full explanation. We do
not have to explain jihadism in Nigeria and Thailand and India.
What we need is guidance for the policies of American government.

Early on, the
West’s leaders attributed what they called terrorism to such causes
as poverty, lack of education, lack of economic opportunity, illiteracy,
hopelessness, and failed governments. Many commentators blamed the
rise of terrorism on the Muslim religion itself and its teachings.
None of these explanations holds up under scrutiny or provides good
policy guidance. For example, Faisal
Shahzad (Times Square car bombing attempt) has a degree in computing
and an MBA. Umar
Farouq Abdulmuttalab (underwear bomber) graduated from University
College London with a degree in mechanical engineering. His father
is one of the richest men in Africa. If the U.S. goes into foreign
countries with the idea of reducing poverty, improving education
and improving the operations of foreign states, it will fail. It
cannot accomplish these goals even within America. It will necessarily
become enmeshed in foreign politics. It will inevitably be seen
as an occupying force. It will induce the terrorist activity it
seeks to diminish.

The Muslim
religion itself cannot be blamed for terrorism because the vast
majority of Muslims are not jihadists and Muslims have been relatively
quiescent for a long time. I say relatively because tensions between
Muslims and Christians or between Muslims and other groups or between
ethnic groups that have different religions persist in many lands
and break out into severe violence in some. The U.S. can’t solve
these kinds of frictions and it shouldn’t introduce American force
or resources in efforts to try.

Ethnicity is
no explanation of terrorism either. One study of 57 American jihadists
(done by Peter Bergen et al and titled “Assessing the Jihadist
Terrorist Threat to America and American Interests”) finds
people of many ethnicities: 12 Caucasians, 10 Arab-Americans, 8
South Asian-Americans, 5 African-Americans, 2 Hispanic-Americans,
1 Caribbean-American, 1 unknown. The other 18 were Somali-Americans.
Their number is over-represented due to the time period and a federal
crackdown at the time.

If we heed
what anti-American terrorists say about their motives, we find a
mixture. Important among them when it comes to America is to end
the occupation of Muslim lands. To anti-American jihadists, ending
occupation has a combined ideological and religious appeal and one
that motivates action. It can reach persons from all walks of life
who may be inclined to combat invaders and occupiers with force
of arms or to contribute resources or instruction to aid those who
want to fight.

American occupation
and interference is very real and significant. It was in the 1940s
that the U.S.
began to inject itself into the Middle East:

“In
1943, President Franklin Roosevelt made Saudi Arabia eligible
for Lend-Lease assistance by declaring the defense of Saudi Arabia
of vital interest to the U.S. In 1945, King Abdel Aziz and President
Roosevelt cemented the tacit oil-for-security relationship when
they met aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal.”

Subsequently,
“When President Harry
S. Truman took office, he made clear that his sympathies were
with the Jews and accepted the Balfour Declaration.”

In 1953, the
CIA engineered
a coup d’etat in Iran. Professor Mark Gasiorowski writes

“Perhaps
the most general conclusion that can be drawn from these documents
is that the CIA extensively stage-managed the entire coup, not
only carrying it out but also preparing the groundwork for it
by subordinating various important Iranian political actors and
using propaganda and other instruments to influence public opinion
against Mossadeq. This is a point that was made in my article
and other published accounts, but it is strongly confirmed in
these documents. In my view, this thoroughly refutes the argument
that is commonly made in Iranian monarchist exile circles that
the coup was a legitimate ‘popular uprising’ on behalf of the
shah.”

U.S. coup
activities in Syria began in 1947 and continued at least to
1956. The U.S. intervened militarily in Lebanon in 1958 and 1982.

This is only
a brief sample of early U.S. interventions. The heavy
involvement in Iraq has now lasted for over 30 years. It is
easy to understand that a few Muslims with violent proclivities
might meld their religion with action aimed against Americans.

Al-Qaeda’s
mujahideen (holy warriors) were significantly trained,
armed and financed by the CIA with the cooperation of Pakistan’s
secret service, the goal being to fight the Russians and get them
out of occupied Afghanistan. Little wonder that Osama bin Laden
would later turn against American occupiers.

The U.S. should
not stop intervening in foreign lands because there happen to be
terrorists in these lands who resist such interventions. Even if
there is no blowback in the form of terrorism against U.S. installations
and Americans, the U.S. should retrench internationally. The U.S.
should stop its foreign interventions because they do more harm
than good in those countries, because they do not succeed at what
they attempt to accomplish and because they harm America and Americans.

U.S. interventionism
goes back to Woodrow Wilson and the idea of making the world safe
for democracy, also known as liberal
internationalism or idealism
in international relations. In practice, this has meant American
involvement in the near-continuous warfare of the 20^th
and now the 21^st century. In practice, this kind of idealism
leads to attempts of one power or one state or one philosophy or
one religion to dominate all others. The most far-reaching statements
of those Muslims who would establish Islam as the dominant way of
life in the world are matched by the similar statements of international
idealists who would everywhere establish a system of democracies
or western democracies or a new world order or some such secular
ideals.

Rejecting
liberal internationalism does not imply accepting realism
in international affairs as a norm because the latter takes
the system of states as the status quo. Realism may be more descriptive
of how states behave and it may be a better guide to policies than
idealism, but only if it leads to keeping the peace and recognizing
the limitations of power. But this view of international affairs
also can result in attempts to institute a superpower or a world
government or a world religion if a powerful state thinks that it
can accomplish this.

Both of these
international views are state-oriented because nations of people
have associated themselves with states, but eventually the human
race may learn that the system of territorially monopolistic states
does not serve its best interests. The system of states will then
lose its hold over people. States will fade away, to be replaced
by a more panarchic world.

March
3, 2012

Michael
S. Rozeff [send him mail]
is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York.
He is the author of the free e-book Essays
on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book
The U.S. Constitution
and Money: Corruption and Decline.

Copyright
© 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

The
Best of Michael S. Rozeff