Nothing to Fear

March 12, 2003

Nothing to Fear

Terror is meant to change policy. Fear is meant to support policy. This is the Old World idea of balance. Guns change votes and that is why democracy is found nowhere. Nor would we want democracy if we had a choice, because we know the majority is more often wrong than right. In fact, the majority loves to be deceived and chooses deceivers to lead them down the road to glory. Europe has had so much of this last Century, it balks at the idea of supporting any potential 21st Century Hitler, on either side of the Atlantic.

Is it because the fearful are so much easier to control and manipulate that fear is the major product of world governments? Everywhere I look surely fear is the preferred tool. It is cheap and very easy to generate.

Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center attacks had a common goal and lesson. If your government cannot protect its own, how can it protect anyone else? Look at what your government does in the world, in your name. Do you approve? If you don't, what will you "free" people do about it? We will pay for it, of course, because we are free to pay for it.

We all would love to believe we are safer now that government is half awake. Instead, we sense the truth that our vulnerability increases every day. As long as we can stay alert to strange activity around us we can survive terror from without. We won't even look at the threats to and in the Capitol. The game is called look over here so you don't see what we are doing over there. We look where they point and fix our attention on their message. Why don't we look elsewhere for some other point of view? See if there is a big picture.

In November, 2001, Commander Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld assisted the escape of some 8000 members of al Qaeda from Afghanistan to Pakistan. As Pakistani transport planes airlifted thousands through an official no fire corridor, those on the ground had enough time to hike to the Pakistani border, about 120 miles away. This was fully reported on the PBS program, Now, with Bill Moyers. It aired 21 February, 2003. You can read an archived transcript @ PBS.Org.

We can imagine that cellular organization and skillful recruiting can double the number of cells in a year or less. 8,000 al Qaeda set free in November 2001, could easily be 20,000 today. We might ask how this can be called homeland security. Al Qaeda is not just bodies, but minds united by a worthy cause. Change U.S. policies.

Another lesson of September 11 is that a very determined enemy has the will to find a way. It took two attempts to destroy their priority target and the first attempt on the new priority target, the U.S. Capitol, is fair warning. If I lived or worked within 50 miles of the Capitol, I would not sleep well without self medicating and I assume most in that area do medicate.

So why would the President want to assist in a future attack on the very place he lives and works? The whole story is not to be found in the Now report, or with me. The advantage the terrorists have over America is a rich, fertile, collective imagination. Americans have little or none. So why don't we start reclaiming some imagination for ourselves? It could save a life or millions. It may be too late and not worth bothering about.

Let's imagine that al Qaeda and Pakistan are friendly allies. As a reward for 9/11, Pakistan presents al Qaeda with three or four nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles, supplied by North Korea. Or imagine three or four portable nukes flown in with the regular drug supply and turned over to American right wing extremists to place, under supervision. They are detonated by telephone when the time is right, or the ballistic missiles are loaded on some innocuous ship like an oil tanker, which cruises into striking distance and launches the entire payload at one or two targets.

For the love of symbolism al Qaeda has demonstrated, the strike comes when the U.S. invades Iraq, where much of our Homeland Security is at the moment. Washington D.C. is vaporized. The administration, with some advance warning, retires to its survival bunkers. When the dust clears, they are all that is left of national government and call the troops home to enforce the martial law demanded by the people. We intensify our war on terror by arresting you and your neighbor for lack of cooperation with the new rules. This is as hard for us to imagine as Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City or 9/11. If we can imagine it, we can start making decisions now about how we will allow such an event to affect us. I was hoping to warn Congress but they are so swamped with protest communications, my message is unlikely to reach them. They could be sacrificed before they fully realize the threat. I heard 9/11 was the result of communication failure. All successful attacks will be for this same reason.

Treason is a Capital crime. Providing aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war is the definition of treason or high treason. So why is the Capitol trusting their lives to the friends of al Qaeda in the White House? Is it possible not one of them knows what I have told you?

We are told that America does not distinguish between terrorists and those who support them. Assisting the escape of 8,000 al Qaeda supports terrorism as surely as money or training, which Congress also provides through Pakistan and other friends of the President. Should the people distinguish between traitors and those who support them? Is the entire military and Congress as guilty as the President and Secretary? How about taxpayers who make it all possible? Who is not guilty and due no punishment? Maybe America is overdue for a good whipping. Who will prevent it?

On the other hand, this is a new age. An age of brotherhood and science. I can see that aiding the escape of al Qaeda is a Christian and loving thing to do, not unlike allowing Saddam to leave Iraq with whatever entourage he chooses, before he is hunted down and eliminated. Who knows how we are loving Iran and North Korea? Though we might not see love as a result of the world's most powerful military's care and attention, who am I to question the men leading us into WWIII, the great love war?


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