As President Bush beats the drums of war, leading Tom Daschle and his other obedient senators along by the flag, we must ask: What could war possibly accomplish?
Violence always seems to be the answer for world leaders. What has the war on terrorism solved?
We didn’t catch Osama.
We didn’t destroy Al Qaeda.
We didn’t even democratize Afghanistan (former oil officials installed as puppet rulers don’t make a democracy).
What we did gain is the hatred of millions of Muslims around the world, as well as the thousands of Afghanis who lost loved ones when we bombed their wedding/caravan/Red Cross warehouse.
Terrorism is very much alive, despite our grand crusade.
The bombing in Bali and the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan shows the staying power of hatred.
And so, we will respond with more violence, giving the Indonesian military support for an extensive counter-terrorist operation that will likely be used to suppress political dissidence as much as ferret out terrorists.
What has war ever solved?
World War One led to Two, which gave birth to the Cold War and its host of hot wars fought by proxy.
The end of the Cold War has left us with a chaotic world full of violence and uncertainty.
Every war we fight just leads to more violence.
Making war on nations to destroy terrorism is senseless.
Terrorists hold no loyalty to any country, they simply slip out in the night as the bombs begin to fall.
Terrorism can only be stopped by cutting off the fanatics’ sources of funding, and by using intelligence to thwart their plots.
Every time we kill someone in Iraq, Afghanistan or in any country we are “liberating”, we create a family of enemies who will always yearn for the blood of Americans.
The fact is, this isn’t a war on terror; the war on Iraq will not be one of liberation.
These are wars of conquest.
In the past decade, it has often been said that the United States is the only superpower.
These wars are being fought to establish U.S. hegemony in a world in which there is no force capable of resisting, as long as we confine our aggression to the Third World.
This is fine, since there is no need to invade France or Russia in order to get them to go along with our goals.
True, France and Russia may oppose some U.S. policy, but in the end, industrial nations want to see capitalism sustained and grow into developing nations, where there is great potential to increase profits.
With the excuse of terrorism and the moral authority of God (or so Bush claims), America has begun the process of consolidating its hold on the globe.
The more puppets we have, the better the show will look.
Imagine a world where every country toes the line while fleecing the populace of all that it has the right to.
Violence serves one purpose: to grease the gears of capitalism with the blood of the human race.
Brian White can be reached at zapata@temple.edu
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