On the Other Hand...
by Jim Davies
A Second Look at "Why?"
The vitally-important question of WHY the suicidal mass-murderers of 9/11/01 did what they did was never asked on that day, and almost never since - to the permanent shame of the journalists' profession; I asked it of myself repeatedly, and quickly arrived at the key answers. It wasn't hard. The culprit is the existence of a US foreign policy (for whatever the policy - in this case, pro-Zionist - someone will be aggrieved.) And since no government will exist without a foreign policy, the culprit is therefore the existence of a US government.
The solution, the way to prevent any recurrence of 9/11, is then equally obvious: no government, no foreign policy, no victims that any would aggrieve, no retaliation. It's really so simple, you'd imagine that even government people might grasp it; but then, perhaps they have. Perhaps they grasped it faster than I did, and that is why they so successfully prevented the question "Why?" being asked in public.
Almost a year has now passed, since that simple and sufficient analysis was done. Has any amendment proven necessary?
A Subtraction
Yes, I'm amending my answers in two small ways, the second of which is quite interesting. The first, though, is a subtraction.
I wrote, in September 2001, that among the other grievances nursed by the world's Muslim fanatics was that the US government had "starved 500,000 Iraqi children" to death with its decade-long embargo of that country. I later found that that accusation originated in a United Nations report, and the UN is of course a supra-government whose word can be trusted no more than that of any other Pol. Accordingly, I've qualified the line; it may still be true (and it certainly is true in the sense that, factual or not, the fanatics believe that it's true, and so are motivated by it) but I'm now saying it's only "according to a UN report."
The Addition
Meanwhile an interesting extra loop has come into the logic. Yes, the fanatics hate America for supporting the Israeli State, and call the two the greater and the lesser Satan, respectively. But it seems I missed a subtle point of internal Arab politics.
The fanatics are trying hard to build political power, in each Middle Eastern country - rather like Khomeni did in Iran in 1979. Thus their primary targets are those existing Arab governments that stand in their way, like the plutocratic royal families, who while nominally Muslim play little or no part in the urgent task of fighting Jews, preferring rather just to enjoy the fruits of their good fortune in being born atop a sea of oil.
Similarly there are the "secular" states of Egypt and (!) Iraq, whose governments give no quarter to the clerics. These are the immediate obstacles to their dream of grabbing control of oil revenues so as to finance a massive worldwide expansion of Islam, in due course to dominate it... and plunge mankind back into the Middle Ages. So those are where their hate is focussed first.
Now, most of those non-theocratic rulers are amply financed and supported by the US government. It began to fray at the edges in the Summer of 2002, but Saudi Arabia has long been said to have a "special status" in D.C. and Egyptian presidents have long been frequent visitors to Camp David. One of them was later murdered, by fanatics such as flew on 9/11, as a result.
Hence the Muslims whom the fanatics most detest are the very ones most favored in Washington; thus in their eyes, successive US governments have not only favored Israel directly, but also indirectly by supporting Arab governments who tolerate Israel and stand opposed to the political aims of the Muslim zealots.
So does America, in their bigoted eyes, stand twice condemned; its government favors their traditional enemy, and it favors their domestic, political enemies too. No wonder it's their "Great Satan." You might call it a kind of "turbo" effect. Seldom in history can hatred have festered more furiously.
Worse to Come
One highly perceptive article found on the warmly recommended site anarchism.net suggests a reason for GWB's otherwise puzzling determination to start a war with Iraq; his government intends to rectify the injustice by which, in the third quarter of the 20th Century, US and British oil assets were nationalized - stolen - by the governments of the countries where they were located. The intended result is that London and Washington will again corner the global oil market and ensure a steady flow of the stuff, so breaking the world's great engines of prosperity free of the grip of Arabs who did nothing to earn their prosperity.
It's a grand vision, if it works. Bush and his warriors would place puppets to rule Iraq, then Iran, then Saudi Arabia; and civilized posterity (excepting families of those killed) will thank him for ever.
The religious bigots would, in such a scenario, be entirely de-fanged. So to the extent that they can see it coming, you and I can anticipate that their murderous fervor will mutliply in the coming months, not decrease. Today they have (above) two major reasons to hate us; tomorrow, their every aspiration will be exterminated if they don't first exterminate us.
The Freedom Alternative
None of this is necessary - that's the tragedy. If the US government did not exist - if all interpersonal relationships in this country were governed only by voluntary contracts - if we were thus truly free, then not only would there be no "foreign policy" to aggravate one enemy if not another, there would not even be a crisis of oil supply. Why not? - because oil would not be the dominant fuel; and as Middle Eastern potentates played political games with customers, other fuels would have come to replace it, with a more reliable supply. The free market would have produced those fuels, and could yet produce them.
This article in this series explores one way in which it might do so; another, which would have taken place already but for the prohibitions of government, is corn alcohol. Every Midwest farmer could have distilled his own produce so that America, in effect, would have grown and harvested our own clean, renewable fuel while holding no match to the mid-East powderkeg.
Government is a danger we can ill afford, and should do what we can to abolish. One way to start is to click on the banner below.