“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” The above statement was made by former President George W. Bush, in an address to Congress on September 20, 2001. But what has the United States of America gained from that war? Terrorist attacks increased from 175 incidents in 2003 to 625 in 2004, with the result being that the Bush administration, in 2005, canceled the annual publication of the “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report. The latter would have shown the administration's utter failure, and would not have suited the aspirations of the advocates of an American empire and Israel's minions in and around the administration, who found the pretext to combat terrorism a ready excuse to go to war and kill Arabs and Muslims. Here I shall briefly quote Anthony Gregory's article entitled “Illusions of Security and Danger”, in which he concluded from the scandalous cancellation of the annual report mentioned above that, “In the United States, recent studies show you are far more likely to die in drowning, a fire, or a car accident. You are about 12,000 times as likely to die from cancer and eight times as likely to die from electrocution. As for airplanes, where so much emphasis has been put — despite the fact, as shown in Norway, that it is at least as easy for someone to murder many people anywhere they gather in public as it is on an airplane-, airplane accidents are much likelier than airplane hijackings, the last three attempts of which all ended when passengers and crew subdued the would-be assailant. Your chance of dying in a terrorist attack on an airplane is about one in 25 million. You are 50 times as likely to be struck by lightning.” In other words, the dangers of terrorism are extremely limited compared to other dangers. Meanwhile, the War on Terror has weakened U.S. military capabilities and ended up ruining both the American and World economies. The United States shall not defeat terror, so long as it insists on denying its root cause. Terrorism came into being as a result of the ongoing Israeli occupation, and will end only with the latter's end and the establishment of the Palestinian state. The Palestinians have used all the means of legitimate resistance. This was followed by external terrorism that the Likudniks, the neocons, and the advocates of an American empire in the Bush administration attempted to divert attention away from, by sidestepping the original cause and waging wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and a war on terror. Instead, they failed, and in the process, they created recruitment hubs for terrorists everywhere, terrorists who see the crimes of the Bush administration against civilians in Iraq, where half a million children perished under the criminal embargo in the nineties, and one million Iraqis were killed since the invasion in 2003. Incidentally, the recent deal to reduce the U.S. deficit included spending cuts of 900 billion dollars, including 350 billion dollars in security spending. This prompted the extremist figures who lobbied for the Iraq War to react and defend military spending. For instance, the Likudnik John Bolton claimed that defense spending has taken huge cuts under President Obama, and that further cuts are impracticable. Then for his part, Frank Gaffney said that the Defense Department's budget has been reduced by some 400 billion dollars, and cannot thus bear another cut of 350 billion- despite the fact that the second figure is actually an alternative to the first, and not an addition thereto. But the truth beyond the lies of the Israel gang, which is responsible for the killing of Arabs and Muslims, along with thousands of America's youths, is that the U.S. defense budget had actually increased from 412 billion dollars in 2001 to 699 billion dollars in 2009, or the equivalent of a 70 percent increase. Other figures that are included for security expenditures listed under non-defense items in the budget show that military spending increased by 110 percent up until 2011, while the figures then become surreal when the 118 billion dollars spent on the war in Afghanistan and 800 billion spent in the Iraq War are factored in. In fact, the latter war will be found to have ultimately set the U.S. back by three trillion dollars, when the cost of compensation and disability benefits are factored in over the next twenty to forty years. America has paid a price for the wars of the neocons in the Israel gang, but then we have paid an even bigger price. There will not be a solution until a day comes when an American administration shall admit the root cause of Arab and Muslim anger, and shall seek to address it and put an end to its role in stoking it. [email protected]
