February
19, 2017 "Information
Clearing House" -
Since 2001, when then US President George Bush
announced his “War on Terror,” presidents and
politicians both in the United States and among
America’s allies, have repeated this phrase and
have done their utmost to convince the public
that indeed, the West was fighting a “War on
Terror.”
Yet there
is something disturbingly ambiguous about what
exactly the “War on Terror” consists of, who
it’s being waged against and how it could ever
possibly be brought to a successful conclusion.
It is also
often referred to as the “Long War,” and for
good reason. America’s ongoing occupation of
Afghanistan is the longest armed conflict in US
history. Additionally, US troops still find
themselves in Iraq, some 14 years after the
initial invasion and occupation of the state in
2003.
Because of
the ambiguous nature of the “War on Terror,”
politicians have been given much room to
maneuver their rhetoric, explaining why more
wars must be waged, more liberties curtailed at
home and more wealth and power channeled into
fewer and fewer hands.
What’s
Really Behind Terrorism?
The
fanatics, weapons, supplies, vehicles and
finances that grease the wheels of global terror
do not merely spring forth from the pages of the
Qu’ran, as bigots across the West insist.
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Just like
any national army, the army raised and wielded
in the name of terrorism has several basic
components. Examining these components reveals a
very uncomfortable but somewhat poorly hidden
truth.
In
reality, fanatics must be indoctrinated. And
they are, in Saudi-funded madras and mosque
networks wrapping around the globe. In the
United States and across Europe, these madrases
and mosques often serve as both indoctrination
centers and recruiting stations. They operate as
such with the explicit knowledge, even
cooperation of US and European security and
intelligence agencies.
One such
center can be found in Denmark at Grimhøjvej
Mosque in Aarhus which openly serves as a
recruiting station for militants meant to fight
abroad in US-European backed wars in Libya,
Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The government of Denmark
openly collaborates with the mosque to integrate
these individuals back into Danish society when
they return.
The mosque
in Aarhus is hardly an isolated example. Such
mosques backed and protected by
US-European-Saudi money and political influence
dot the globe, feeding recruits into a global
mercenary army carrying out proxy war and
staging terrorist attacks whenever and wherever
politically convenient.
Both
Wikileaks and even the US’ own Defense
Intelligence Agency has released documents
exposing the role both the West and Gulf states
such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have played in
the arming and funding of actual militants once
they reach the battlefield.
Additionally,
militants that have been indoctrinated, trained,
armed, funded and battle-hardened by Western and
Gulf sponsorship, return back to their
respective nations where they are then
cultivated for domestic operations. Terror
attacks like those in Paris and Brussels, Berlin and
elsewhere are carried out almost exclusively by
militants US-European security and intelligence
agencies have known about and even arrested but
inexplicably released, allowing them to carry
out their attacks.
What a
Real War on Terrorism Requires
It is
often said that states like Russia, Syria and
Iran exist as natural allies to the United
States and Europe in the fight against
terrorism. And that would be true if not for the
fact that said terrorism is actually a
deliberate product of US-European foreign
policy. Were the West to truly wage a war on
terrorism, it would already be deeply
cooperating with these nations on the front
line against groups like Al Qaeda and the
self-proclaimed Islamic State.
However,
terrorism is waged as a means of fighting the
West’s proxy wars abroad, and to create
divisive, paralyzing hatred, fear and hysteria
at home.
Travel
bans are created to intentionally stoke
controversy and distract the public from the
aforementioned reality driving terrorism. As is
evident in virtually all terror attacks carried
out across the West, suspects are already know
to security and intelligence agencies
beforehand. These agencies simply need to stop
them. Instead, they allow the attacks to take
place, granting their respective governments
political capital to channel more power into
centralized hands.
While the
US and Europe use terrorism as a function of
foreign policy, they could not do it without
their intermediaries in the Persian Gulf.
Without the Saudis and Qataris serving as
“handlers” for the West’s terrorist legions, it
is unlikely such legions could be raised to
begin with.
Targeting,
rather than embracing, even protecting these
state sponsors of all aspects of terrorism, from
indoctrination and recruitment, to training,
arming and financing terrorism on the
battlefield, would be another essential step in
a real “War on Terror.”
Yet from
President Bush to President Obama and now during
the administration of US President Donald Trump,
the US and its European allies continue to
coddle the regimes in Riyadh and Doha, rather
than taking any measures whatsoever to disrupt
this terror pipeline.
While the
US remains in Afghanistan allegedly to “fight
terrorism,” it refuses to take even the most
basic steps to dismantle the ideological,
political and financial structures in the
Persian Gulf fueling that terrorism.
A final
means of combating and defeating “terrorism”
would be to educate the public of just how small
a minority is actually involved in it, isolating
those groups exploiting and perverting
ideologies from the vast majority who practice
these ideologies constructively.
Instead,
US and European demagogues work ceaselessly to
lump all of Islam into the “terror” basket,
creating tension and hostility on both sides of
an essentially manufactured strategy of tension.
Instead of draining emotional and political
resources from those seeking to recruit
disillusioned individuals, the West is ensuring
them an endless supply.
A real
“War on Terror” is clearly not being waged.
Nothing presented by President Trump before or
after his campaign victory in 2016 indicates a
real war is about to be waged. In fact, much of
what has been done thus far, has simply been the
placing of additional bricks on a very
predictable path toward the infinite horizon of
this “Long War.”
Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical
analyst and writer especially for the online
magazine “New
Eastern Outlook”.
