Chris Hedges: The Terror We Give Is the Terror We Get

[marmar]

from truthdig:



by Chris Hedges


We fire missiles from the sky that incinerate families huddled in their houses. They incinerate a pilot cowering in a cage. We torture hostages in our black sites and choke them to death by stuffing rags down their throats. They torture hostages in squalid hovels and behead them. We organize Shiite death squads to kill Sunnis. They organize Sunni death squads to kill Shiites. We produce high-budget films such as “American Sniper” to glorify our war crimes. They produce inspirational videos to glorify their twisted version of jihad.

The barbarism we condemn is the barbarism we commit. The line that separates us from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is technological, not moral. We are those we fight.

“From violence, only violence is born,” Primo Levi wrote, “following a pendular action that, as time goes by, rather than dying down, becomes more frenzied.”

The burning of the pilot, Jordanian Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, by ISIS militants after his F-16 crashed near Raqqa, Syria, was as gruesome as anything devised for the Roman amphitheater. And it was meant to be. Death is the primary spectacle of war. If ISIS had fighter jets, missiles, drones and heavy artillery to bomb American cities there would be no need to light a captured pilot on fire; ISIS would be able to burn human beings, as we do, from several thousand feet up. But since ISIS is limited in its capacity for war it must broadcast to the world a miniature version of what we do to people in the Middle East. The ISIS process is cruder. The result is the same.

.......(snip).......

Terror serves the interests of the war mongers on both sides of the divide. This is what happened during the 444-day Iran hostage crisis that took place from 1979 to 1981. And this is why Jordan—unlike Japan, which saw two of its nationals executed but is not involved militarily against ISIS—has reacted with sanctimonious fury and carried out retaliation. It is why Foley’s murder strengthened the call by the war lobby in Washington to launch a bombing campaign against ISIS. Terror—the terror we commit and the terror done to us—feeds the lusts for war. It is a recruiting tool for war’s crusade. If ISIS were not brutal it would have to be made to seem brutal. It is the luck of the fanatics we oppose, and the fanatics in our midst, that everyone’s propaganda needs are amply met. The tragedy is that so many innocents suffer. ..................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_terror_we_give_is_the_terror_we_get_20150208

[blkmusclmachine]

1. ,

,

[peacebird]

2. Kick & Rec for the truth he speaks

[daleanime]

3. Simple fact that many want to ignore.....

[xchrom]

4. du rec.

[DeSwiss]

5. K&R

[randome]

6. Funny how neither ISIS nor Boko Haram claim that.

Funny.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[RadiationTherapy]

7. Hedges is desperate to separate religion from this barbarism,

but your point is telling.

[CJCRANE]

10. They do. They even use the same orange jumpsuits for their detainees.

ISIS claim to be a direct reaction to the perceived crimes of the neocons.

(FWIW I think the truth is even worse than that).

[randome]

20. So that's why they behead Japanese citizens and butcher Islamic schoolgirls. Right. Okay.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[CJCRANE]

28. Yes, it's part of it. They tell their followers to look at the atrocities committed in the name of

"spreading democracy" in Iraq and elsewhere.

Just like Cheney went to the "dark side" they feel they are justified in going to the "dark side" in response.

(In fact they're two sides of the same coin, bankrolled by the same people).

[randome]

37. "We hate America! Let's kill our own people!"

Sorry, that doesn't wash. Even Cheney had an understandable goal: the acquisition of global power. What ISIS is doing helps no one. If they truly had someone who understood the situation, they would know that they are doomed to failure. Therefore, ascribing intelligent motives to a group of people behaving unintelligently is not the correct way to view their behavior.

And Hedges has shown, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, that his chief fear is that religion will be blamed for what ISIS is doing. That's not objectivity by a long shot.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[CJCRANE]

44. I'm not ascribing motives to them. This is what they say on their social media sites.

I found a pro-Caliphate group on Facebook about two years ago and read it for several months. Their opinions and motives are very much out in the open. They live their lives on social media.

FWIW I don't necessarily agree with everything Hedges says. I have a different take on it.

[randome]

49. But you believe them? Do you believe they kill Islamic children to get back at the U.S.?

They use social media as another propaganda tool. And pro-Caliphate is not ISIS. Hedges is talking about ISIS, which is an organization that needs to be wiped from the face of the planet.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[CJCRANE]

60. This was before it was called ISIS in the western MSM.

Yes, there are peaceful pro-Caliphate people but Al Qaeda and ISIS are the violent end of the spectrum and this was a site dedicated to that extreme. They wanted to implement their version of the "Khilafa".

They believe that democracy is a sham and use the examples of the various foreign interventions and their aftermath to illustrate that and get their followers riled up. So it very much is a reaction to that.

However, I believe that this new generation of jihadis are literally brainwashed/hypnotized/programmed, so they are not people who you can talk to in a rational manner. So yes I understand people who want to "do something" about them.

The best thing we can do is to cut the purse strings of whoever is funding them.

If we send western troops in to fight them, then that will inspire more nutters to join them and, without cutting their funding, will just lead to another huge clusterf**k.

[Fumesucker]

11. Do you also disagree that terror serves those who profit both financially and emotionally from war?

And do you disagree that the actions of the US sometimes provoke terror?

[randome]

15. Every action provokes a reaction.

The U.S. is not infallible. Trying to stop murderers and terrorists is in everyone's best interests. Invading Iraq? Not so much. (To say the least.)
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Fumesucker]

17. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

It's not like terror as a political tool is anything new, it works often enough to convince people to keep using it, some of them even become Prime Minister of a well known country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

[rhett o rick]

25. Good posts. Terror is a tool to supress the masses. Currently we are talking about the terror

that the Oligarchs are using against someone else and ignoring the fact that this same terror can be used against us.

[ND-Dem]

57. +100. and do well enough in life to send their kids to the white house.

This is from the Jerusalem Post’s account of an interview Benjamin gave after news of his son’s appointment to the Obama administration was announced:

In an interview with Ma’ariv, Emanuel’s father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son’s appointment would be good for Israel. “Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel,” he was quoted as saying. “Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”

http://swampland.time.com/2008/11/13/rahm-emanuels-father-problem/

[KingCharlemagne]

40. Claim what? Your unclear pronoun antecedent ("that") interferes with whatever

point you think you think you are making here.

[LanternWaste]

68. Almost as funny as the half-wits who pretend to know what they have or have not claimed...

Almost as funny as the half-wits who pretend to know what they have or have not claimed...

[ann---]

8. Exactly

The "war on terror" will NEVER be won by more terror and violence. America has lost her moral compass. Sadly, Obama did not help find it.

[CJCRANE]

9. They are two sides of the same coin. nt

[treestar]

12. I'm not sure, because if we stopped everything we are doing

Is he so sure that they would stop what they are doing?

We weren't at war over there until 911. They did do that.

[CJCRANE]

14. Who did it exactly?

The jury is still out on that one.

[chervilant]

18. Under Clinton,

Iraq was bombed relentlessly. I think it's safe to say our "war" began well before 9/11.

[Art_from_Ark]

73. And one of the first things bu$h did after his inauguration

was bomb Iraq.

[chervilant]

74. True, Bush continued the prevailing policy

of fly-over bombing. I have read as much as I can find (and afford) about the horrific 9/11 fiasco. Iraq's oil (and destabilization of the region) remains the likely impetus for the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.

[90-percent]

19. "We weren't at war over there until 911. They did do that."

"They" in this case being the Saudi Arabian royal family, who seem to have been financial supporters of the 9-11 attacks, yes?

http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/02/187990/saudi-funding-911-attacks-still-cloaked-secrecy

Why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia after 9-11, to "get those bastards that did this to us"?

Isn't the invasion of Iraq simply incompetence to the point beyond treason, at the very least? And consider the possibility that the invasion was not mere incompetence, but a deliberate concerted effort by the GW Bush White House to deliberately lead us to invade Iraq on the basis of lies and manufactured erroneous intelligence?

-90% Jimmy

[ReRe]

29. The reason we didn't invade Saudi Arabia...

... will be revealed when they free those "28 pages," (which probably won't happen in what's left of my lifetime.

[treestar]

30. I don't see that I supported the invation of Iraq at all

My point is, can we really sit home and do nothing and that means they'll stop? I sort of doubt that the terrorists are going to quit. They aren't even organized enough to demand what they would want in order to quit.

[ND-Dem]

58. depends on who 'they' and 'their' funders are, doesn't it?

[grahamhgreen]

22. 16 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, funded by Saudi's. We went to war wit the wrong people, IMHO.

[rhett o rick]

26. I doubt that Mr. Hedges will tell you that if one bully stops bullying the others will also.

But if you are using the rational that your side is bullying for god or goodness, you are just fooling yourself.

[treestar]

31. So we absord terrorist attacks that happen

without trying to do anything?

Or what could we do that is not "bullying?" Isn't terrorism "bullying?"

[rhett o rick]

35. No one suggested we not do anything. But for example

what we did after 9/11 was exactly what bin Laden wanted. If we lower ourselves to the level of the terrorists, it fuels their cause. Terrorism is certainly bullying and we are the world's biggest bully by far. At one time we prided ourselves as the protectors of freedom. Now how does the world view us?

[treestar]

36. Then what could we have done after 911

in response to it, that would have met with your approval?

[rhett o rick]

41. I will not respond to your questioning until you provide your point of view.

It's easy to continually ask questions and make insinuations.

[treestar]

43. So there is nothing.

You would not have approved of anything that we did.

[rhett o rick]

56. LOL. Just because you leave off the question mark doesn't make it a statement. nm

[treestar]

66. What would have been a valid response to 911?

That is the question.

[Fairgo]

71. Context free sophistry

You are right. Its a fools game to try and run the constant stream of rhetorical questions to ground. Its an endless game of whack a mole. The debate needs to be anchored to the dead weight of poverty, in a miasma of fear that never dissipates, where wicked death soils all human relationships...over decades until it becomes the culture. Then tell me who traded in this directly, and who benefitted in their comfortable suburbs at a smug distance. Then we can talk about how evil begets evil and how social systems and chaos theory assure us that one day the soft headed guy in the suburb is going to watch some evil shit visited upon his people...and he will not grasp how he is not the victim, but the root cause of the worlds misery. They aren't real sophists, they actually believe they are arguing in good faith.

[CJCRANE]

61. Find out the truth first.

Then respond to that.

[rhett o rick]

75. Haven't you learned anything here? We can't handle the truth. Some old actor tried to

tell young Mr. Cruise but like youth, we didn't listen.

In truth, your response was too concise. Doesn't have that intellectual ring to it. Add a few words and get back to us.

I hope my tags aren't considered insulting. I personally often miss sarcasm, in part because of the large chip on my shoulder and the other part I don't want to talk about.

Good post (sans sarcasm)

[sabrina 1]

32. You mean when we went to destroy a country that had nothing to do with 9/11?

That is true. 9/11 was cynically and criminally used to get the country into a war that has been devastating for millions of innocent people, not to mention what it has done to this country.

And as anyone who can think at all predicted, and as verified by Feinstein and Rogers, we are far less safe today than we were then.

They of course were pushing for more war, not realizing that all they were doing was giving us a reason to STOP doing what 'made us far less safe' in the first place.

[treestar]

34. Al Qaeda sent 4 airplanes and killed everyone on them and

destroyed two building and damaged another, killing people there, and who knows where the 4th one was going.

You would have approved an attack on Saudi Arabia?

Or honestly expected that we do nothing?

Even if not at war with Iraq or Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, then what? What could we legitimately do about it?

[rhett o rick]

38. Before taking on your questions which you seem to use to advance your argument

why dont you tell us how you feel? What do you suggest should have been done after 9/11?

I don't think anyone has suggested attacking Saudi Arabia or doing nothing.

[treestar]

45. Why do I have to answer first?

I'm not the one saying everything we do brings terrorism upon us.

Mr. Hedges said that, and it brings up the question of did he expect us to do zip? Or what would have been approvable?

I recall objecting the the wars at the time, and saying we should handle it as criminal matters, but I don't expect the US in general to go along. They would have wanted some response, lest another attack occur. And I'm not so sure that Al Qaeda, had we done nothing and admitted we deserved it, would have said OK, we're going to stop now too.

[rhett o rick]

51. Some times posters will use continual questioning to try to get

someone to stumble in their argument. This is easier than actually presenting an opposing argument.

If you think Mr. Hedges is "saying everything we do brings terrorism upon us. " and you disagree, then why don't you simply provide your counter argument instead of asking question of posters that are not Mr. Hedges?

Here is what I think. The USofA is the biggest terrorist country by far but it's accepted by many Americans because of nationalistic exceptionalism. While one might argue that if we stop, the "bad guys" won't, and I won't disagree, but they sure as hell won't if we continue. Bullying is never the right way to win an argument. I also think that we lose something valuable when we sink to the level of the terrorists and it's hard to get back.

The other issue, is that just because someone doesn't have a better idea, that doesn't mean they can't object to the idea presented.

[ND-Dem]

59. This is easier than actually presenting an opposing argument. = +100

and boy, does the in-crowd at DU use that tactic!

[treestar]

67. Not surprised. Cutting things down is easier than trying to find a solution.

Please the USA is not the "biggest terrorist country." Attempt to have some discretion in the use of words.

There was nothing the US ever did that made 911 deserved. Al Qaeda deserves every bit of push back it gets.

the US did not "deserve" the 93 WTC bombing. Or the embassy attacks.

[rhett o rick]

70. Biggest probably needs to be qualified. Certainly not in all history but since WW II

I would say we have created a lot of terror and should be ranked near the top. Does that mean we deserve what happened on 9/11? I am sure that would be a good debate where American would agree with you that we don't and the rest of the world probably would not agree. Personally I don't like the word deserve because once you start down the slope of I terrorize you so you terrorize me etc. the word "deserve" becomes meaningless. Did the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserve to be incinerated?

Pleaz don't try to claim I am justifying or rationalizing the atrocities of 9/11 or other attacks on us by terrorists, I am not. I wish we would have prevented those attacks. But we may have to debate how is best to prevent terrorist attacks in the future. Using terror as a tool is not likely the way.

[sabrina 1]

42. What did Iraq have to do with that?? Hussein HATED Al Queda and there was no AQ in Iraq.

So, why were we there? Surely you did not believe the lies told by Cheney on Fox News or Condi, or any of the other liars, now unindicted war criminals that everyone who knew anything about that country, knew??

And yes, I would have preferred that we attack the actual guilty party, than to go off on a war for profit that had zero to do with AQ and everything to do with Defense Contractors profiting from forever war.

Most of those hijackers were SAUDIS. Not one of them was an Iraqi!

So what is your point?

[treestar]

46. Why does Saudi Arabia deserve to be attacked

Because of what individual Saudis did? What about the other countries that terrorists came from? They get off the hook because they were a minority?

By your logic, the US deserved to be attacked. Did you say on 911 that we deserved it for our previous actions in the ME?

You may be so confident another attack would not happen. If it did, by your logic you'd be saying well, we brought it on ourselves.

[sabrina 1]

48. Why did Iraq deserve to be attacked?

I did not support attacking ANY country btw, but YOU implied that we had to attack 'because 9/11'! So I suggested that if that is the case, then we should have attacked those responsible if we were to go by YOUR logic.

[treestar]

50. I never supported Iraq at any minute

I didn't even support Afghanistan.

You are dodging saying what you would approve of us doing. I have a feeling it is that we deserve it and deserved to do nothing to respond. We should have apologized and asked Al Qaeda what they wanted us to do for them to stop terror attacks on us. You know how horrible that sounds and thus the dodging, changing the issue and claiming others said things they never did.

[sabrina 1]

54. I have expressed my opinion on how to deal with terrorists for over TEN YEARS NOW. So stop with

the false claims of 'dodging' any of your 'questions' which are nothing more than a distraction from what you DID imply.

NOW you say didn't support attacking Iraq but not until you were asked to explain why that was a good idea.

There should have been NO WAR with anyone, period.

Terrorism is a police action, always has been, in every country because we are not the only country that was ever the target of a terror attack.

The perps should have been brought to justice, as has always been the case in other countries. WE KNEW WHO THEY WERE.

But dealing with terrorism was not the goal of the moronic Neocons and war mongers, and THAT is why there were no trials, no attempt to capture anyone involved.

And you still haven't answered the question: 'What did Iraq have to do with 9/11'?

[treestar]

64. Iraq had nothing to do with 911

And I have never said it did. You are creating an exercise you require me to go through, hopefully to dissipate energy that could go to your invalid points.

What do you mean by "police action?" Are you claiming we should attempt to extradite every terrorist over there? Do we have treaties with those countries for that purpose?

[CJCRANE]

62. How did attacking Iraq get back at Al Qaeda? nt

[treestar]

65. It did not and I never said it did.

So what should we do about terrorist attacks on the US?

[CJCRANE]

69. Investigate. Find the facts.

Shut down the funding. Try anyone who was complicit in the attacks. Fire and sue anyone who was negligent in doing their job.

[whatchamacallit]

81. We should just do something, whatever, cuz something has to be done

You seem to be trying to defend our failed war on terra, with inane "if not what we did, then what?" circular mumbo jumbo.

[whatchamacallit]

80. Um... Nothing is better than the WRONG thing

Your reasoning is bizarre at best.

[malaise]

13. It is that simple

Every little action brings a reaction

[Enthusiast]

16. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

[Overseas]

21. K&R. Well said.

[Chemisse]

23. This is all too true. Sadly, the US provokes, promotes, and participates in terrorism.

And this is all perpetuated - on all sides - by the outrage, and by the certainty that your side is right and the other side is not just wrong, but evil.

[Scuba]

24. Each bomb we drop is a terror seed.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

77. We're very good at raising large crops

of new 'terrorists' to hate us.

[Scuba]

78. Hey, ya can't have a War on Terror if you don't have terrorists.

[rhett o rick]

27. Once again Mr. Hedges is on the money. Thanks for posting. nm

[JEB]

33. Our country is way past due

for a serious bit of self examination. Hedges points the way.

[rhett o rick]

39. In my opinion to do what you suggest will take extreme action.

IMO Obama wanted to do just that but found out he didn't have the pay-grade. The power that runs this country is deeper than the Presidency and they are headed in the direction they want to go. IMO Obama is either powerless or complicit, and my vote is on powerless.

[JEB]

47. You pretty well sum up my thoughts

and the depressing feeling of being powerless is hard to shake. Acceptable candidates are chosen for the people and the drama of the wrangling over the count is the big distraction. A real con game.

[rhett o rick]

52. I support the effort to get a progressive in the Presidency but not naive enough

to think that will have an effect. I think they would run into the same roadblocks that Obama has. But we must continue to fight.

[JEB]

55. At 63 years, I'm still with you , but

as the old saying goes..."Live in hope, die in despair". We have no choice but to keep the faith. I am very grateful for some of our elected people who do what they can. I despise the conniving, triangulating weasels.

[pa28]

53. How would Americans respond if a foreign power invaded without cause?

What would we do if they bombed us, droned our kids and used our economy as a test bed for their own ideas and left it in ruins?

We would call it retribution and freedom fighting and they would call it terrorism.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

79. Heard the RWers trying to exuse Russian military incursions into Ukraine?

Saying things like 'Well, how would the US respond to a buildup of weaponry and troops on the other side of the US-Mexican border?'

How I sincerely HOPE the US would not 'respond' is by invading Mexico.

[TheKentuckian]

82. A pollyanna hope that is without basis. What do you think would predict and what you would hope are

not the same thing.

What do you think would actually happen and remember this is the same country that funded death squads even further away in the hemisphere and nobody was doing anything like massing weapons and troops at our border.
Same country that to this day maintains a clandestine thumb on the scale in South America and stubbornly insists on maintaining a gulag in occupied territory of a sovereign nation.
You know the same country that has military and clandestine operations going around the world and launched multiple wars out of its sphere of influence in the name of preemption?

The espoused hope is about as likely as my hope that all my shits turn into rose scented gold.

[niyad]

63. k and r for this sad truth.

[NuttyFluffers]

72. ignore the plaints of the peaceful, reap the atrocities of the violent.

if the people shall suffer regardless, then the people shall suffer the monsters to make power tremble.

there is no victory on this path.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

76. Or, more simply if more tritely, violence begets violence. nt