the timboucher experience

Yesterday, I did a post which featured an excellent quote which essentially said that the best way disarm the terrorists is not by killing them, but by realizing that they are real people with grievances which need to be addressed.

The post spawned an interesting and worthwhile debate in the comments which I would like to save as its own post. The kickoff to the whole thing came from a fellow by the name of Pietro who runs a blog called The SmarterCop:

Humanity? Let me know, please, where the humanity lies in the beheading of fellow human beings and rejoicing over the newly severed ‘trophy’. If you don’t think that’s subhuman, it’s time to perform a self-check.

My initial response was:

tell me then, is there humanity in bombing a country into submission so that you can exploit its resources?

humanity implies strengths as well as flaws - the whole package. im not saying that people who commit violence are great or that violence is the appropriate response. im saying that its easier to foment hatred against people who have become nameless and faceless enemies instead of real full-fledged human beings who have turned to desperate measures, because they have no other options

Pietro’s response to this:

Your last comment makes a lot of assumptions. It assumes:

1) Our nation goes to war with a country to exploit its resources.
So what resources exactly does Afghanistan have which we have exploited? And where is all that cheap oil we were supposed to be getting out of Iraq? We don’t see the effects of the mistaken assumption that we’re exploiting a country, but we do see the newly created ability of the Iraqis (and Afghans) to self-govern and to vote freely for the first time.

2. The second assumption is that terrorists have no other options.
So how did we force them into a corner before September 11? Read some of their incendiary literature and the speeches of the imams at their mosques and you’ll see that these excuses, if you will, are just a way of infusing ‘legitimacy’ into their hatred of the West and desire to install theocracies worldwide. They’re nameless and faceless because they choose to remain so to inspire fear and dread. If that’s how they wish to be remembered, that’s how they will be treated… as an enemy.

Before I had a chance to do so myself, my friend John jumped into the fray with his sword swinging:

pietro… you make some assumptions yourself, my friend.

1) America DOES want to exploit other countries resources. That is not an assumption, but a fact. It is more than America, though. Transnational corporations control government policies all around the world and they also profit from getting government contracts. These governments are chock-full of “public” servants who have blatantly public ties to the private sector.

I refer you to the Project For a New American Century (PNAC) chartered by, among others, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney. Clearly and publicly laid out in the founding letter (available on its website) are the imperial objectives that began being carried out after 9-11, which clearly focus on energy and global hegemony. As far as Afghanistan, any candid conversation about the CIA acknowledges that it finances operations with drug sales. Afghanistan’s opium/poppy production skyrocketed after we “liberated” them.

the reason that we see such animosity from those people (besides having been tinkering around in their country since about 1979 when the Soviets invaded) is due in part to how we encouraged their fundamentalism. USAID and the US government actually helped school Afhan children and focused on a violent Muslim mindset. The text books they used until 2002 used tanks, missiles etc to teach children how to do mathematics.

to really expect cheap oil, you would have to assume that it is the U.S government selling this oil… It is the U.S government procuring it, but not drilling for or selling it. That is the transational corporations with blatantly public ties to the “public servants.” Mainstream media has finally begun to admit that we are at or past the peak of remaining oil on the planet. There is no guarantee that oil will ever get any cheaper. Anyway, its not like these companies want to give it away; they will sell it for as much as they can because they do not operate on behalf of the American people. Even though the American people work on behalf of oil.
If you want links and resources let me know. Good luck to you.

John is in the process of creating a blog of his own, so expect more of the same from it. I’m quite looking forward to it myself. That said, here is my response:

Pietro, in addition to the comments made by “John” I would also like to add the following:

1) We would not go to war were it not going to profit us. War is a enormous business in this country. The purpose of business is to make money. Therefore the purpose of war is to make money.

2) Militarily, you can make money by exploiting resources. Another way you can protect your money is by strategic placement of troops and bases, in order to intimidate others, protect resources, and create bases for projected future conflicts.

3) The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were designed years before any of this occurred. As mentioned by John, just check out the Project for a New American Century. PNAC tried to convince Clinton to invade Iraq in 1998. They used the 9/11 event to create favorable public opinion to enact plans which had already been on the table for years.

4) When you are a tiny country which does not have a standing army to speak of, and which could not possibly win in a fair fight against a much larger enemy, you seek out “creative” options on how to make your small numbers more effective. This is how “assymetric warfare” works. The term itself means that the sides are not equal. They could never beat us in open combat to defend their land and way of life, so they resort to other measures.

5) I do not believe you can have “free elections” when there are tanks, jets and men with machine guns patrolling your country. Call me crazy, but there is enormous potential for coercion.

This has certainly turned into a lively discussion, and I’d be thrilled to see more of it from both sides.

• Disposable Terrorists
• [Movie Script Concept] Terrorists Who Fix Global Warming
• Protecting Our Freedoms
• September 11, Four Years Later
• Satan, Terrorist of the Demiurge