I do not think that terrorism would be as prominent today without the US...

[Gravitycollapse]

So when someone offers the ultimatum between government surveillance and a potential terrorist attack, I become terribly confused.

When we look at the history of modern Islamic fundamentalism, or really almost any despotic regime in the 20th or 21st century, US intervention is there the entire time. It is us who funded and armed the Mujahideen. It is us who invested in the Bin Laden family. We are the ones who only ever intervene in Middle Eastern affairs when it is advantageous to American political and economic interest. We support an Israeli regime with a documented history of overt violence against Palestine. How much more should I list?

It is sort of like letting the fox guard the hen house, isn't it?

Maybe we've reached a point where the damage cannot be undone. Maybe the only way to protect us now is through the implementation of a police state. But it's important to consider how we got here. Or, more importantly, how we got them, our once allies (although they continue to be the allies of the wealthy and powerful) and now enemies, here.

We've built up our enemies every step of the way. Then we stomp our feet and rant hysterically about how much we have to lose. I would call it chaos if it weren't so formulaic.

We would not need to give away our privacy if we weren't so destructive towards the rest of the world. And it is exactly through the abandonment of our rights that we empower the very people who are the most destructive. Do you not see how this is circular?

Maybe the answer is not attempting to patch up every vulnerability in our national security. Maybe the answer is taking risk and being vulnerable and stopping this insanity dead in its tracks.

The greatest threat to our national security is American imperialism.

I don't know. I feel like I'm talking to myself.

[yurbud]

1. and even with all you say being true, terrorism is a tiny, tiny "threat" to Americans

You're far more likely to die in a car accident, shot in a domestic dispute, die of a heart attack, and from just about anything else before a terrorist attack.

But we don't spend trillions on those things or listen in on people's phone calls to prevent domestic violence.

Which tells you that the War on Terror is 99.9% pure bullshit.

It is a war on us.

The rich are afraid of us, and want to know exactly when we will turn on them, so they can crank up the violence at exactly that moment, and they want to know exactly when that will no longer work so they can hop on the last private jet to Dubai or Uruguay or wherever they plan to go to sit on their horde of money when the rest of us take back our country and make their scams a lot harder if not impossible to pull off and profit from.

[Live and Learn]

2. There is something to what you just wrote. nt

[newfie11]

3. +1. nt

[AgingAmerican]

4. The "War on terror®" is a money laundering operation

It's a way for corporations to bleed the government for money.

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. +1!

[magellan]

11. A friend of mine described the government itself as a criminal organization

...and said it's been that way at the state and national level for some time. His father worked for Capone so I guess he would know.

[phantom power]

6. I like to ask people...

what if we had spent the last 50 years doing purely humanitarian work in the middle east (or anywhere)? As opposed to all the official and secret wars, the arms trading, the political manipulations, etc?

There's this unspoken narrative about terrorism, that "gosh, we're just minding our own business, busy with our squeaky-clean American Exceptionalism and what-not, and then bam! Some guys who just hate how free and exceptional we are try to bomb us!"

It's just such transparent horse-shit. And yet that's really the narrative that's used to sell every policy we make to "fighting terrorism". We'll do every damned thing under the sun except leave people the fuck alone, or god forbid help them out.

[SomethingFishy]

8. +1

They keep the debate on whether or not what we are doing is "legal" instead of whether or not it's working...

Stop bombing brown people and start feeding them. Good a place as any to start..

[Hydra]

7. I always like to ask who is being asked to sacrifice

Who, in this case, is being asked to give up their freedoms? The Bushes? Wall St? Congress? The White House?

Who was asked for money before this?

Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice to the "greater good" of whom?

[YoungDemCA]

9. The same people and interests who are most gung-ho about the "War on Terror"..

...are the ones who are most responsible for the conditions in the Middle East that led to 19 men deciding to fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Coincidence?

It should be pretty obvious what they were attacking when they chose those targets. As you said, "the greatest threat to our national security is American imperialism."

K&R for this important topic.

[L0oniX]

10. Keep talking/typing ...the NSA likes it. If only we would stay the hell out of Islamic countries.

[sibelian]

12. You're right.

But this kind of observation is uncomfortable for those who place great emphasis on myths of national greatness. There are many whose personal identities and philosophies are moulded by these myths and they find it painful when such things are questioned and even more painful when the basis of their national identity is provably compromised by their nation's actual behaviour.

Their usual response is to reach for some comforting alternative explanation for the consequences of the actions of their nation, one that makes them feel good about themselves, but, unfortunately for them, reality is simply too big and to fast and too complex to permit the perpetual maintenance of these self-deceptions. Sooner or later some chaotic constellation of circumstances reveals the truth inescapably. Nothing can be controlled forever.

It was ridiculous when that politician, I forget who he was, sneeringly referred to his critics as being part of the "reality-based" community. Everyone is part of the reality-based community.

The sentiments you outline are not at all unique, you have no need to believe that you are talking to yourself. The vast majority of ordinary people will understand what you are saying completely.

If you attack someone, they fight back. If you don't, they're unlikely to attack you. That's it. You can't convincingly undo the understanding of this simple biological necessity with spin or complex manipulations of the significance of individual actions or redrawing the "beginning" of the conflict arbitrarily such that it always looks like the other side started it. It's impossible. Eventually people will start wanting to go back to simply being human and not being constantly on edge.

The recession will help. It's a conceptual winter, and winter is the enemy of war.

[Laelth]

13. This isn't about terrorism any more. It's about cyber-warfare.

Or, so this essay suggests: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/

-Laelth

[LuvNewcastle]

14. America's biggest problems are the ones

we've brought on ourselves.