War on Terror

"War on Terror"
"War on Terror" link; (Strategy of Tension, perpetual war, counter-terrorism, terrorisation, social control, structural deep event, Terrorism/Preparation) Sourcewatch
	File:Nofear.jpg
Type	front
Start	1979
Founder(s)	Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, Deep State
	The campaign, launched by the USA under the Presidency of George W. Bush with the support of the UK, and most NATO members (at least formally) and other Western-aligned countries. Nominally a response to the events of 11 September 2001, its stated objective is the elimination of so called 'terrorist organisations', it was in fact conceived long before by a group of terrorist experts, including his father and the groundwork laid at a 1979 conference in Jerusalem as a propaganda term used to legitimise wars of aggression and a scare tactic.

Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, Deep State

This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient. (President George W. Bush, 17 September 2001)^[1]

Nafeez Ahmed wrote in December 2015 that data from the US State Department reveals that since 2001, the number of "terrorist" attacks has increased by around 6500%.^[2] This is not to say that the "War on Terror" is a failure: worldwide it has facilitated the transfer of trillions of dollars from governments to the wealthy elite.^[3] Mere venality however is of course a veneer on the deeper purposes of those who established the project - control of their fellow man. All readers are encouraged to be cautious of narratives that feature "terrorism", which is itself a suspect term.^[4] Expression error: Unexpected > operator.

Good Riddance

Watch on YouTube

"Good Riddance to the War on Terror"

In August 2021, Lowkey produced an 11-minute YouTube video with Double Down News titled "Good Riddance to the War on Terror" which begins with the question:

“It’s great that the world is concerned for human rights in Afghanistan, but where have you been for the last 20 years?”

And concludes:

"Our future cannot be defined by warfare and enemies - we have to find a way in which humanity can come together to survive the major de-stabilisation which climate change will bring."^[5]

Official Narrative

File:War-on-terror-i-say.jpg

In response to increasingly violent and "radicalised" opposition by a small but determined number of "extremists" who are ruthlessly using technology, national governments, especially those under the hegemony of the US/UK/NATO need ruthless counter measures to protect the welfare of the majority of their citizens. The official opposition narrative, as with the "war on drugs" is that this policy is misguided - never that it is as well though out as it is cynical and hypocritical. This page suggests that both narratives were consciously created to obscure a multitude of less palatable deep political purposes, or which mere profiteering is one of the least important.

Problems

The word "terrorism" is rarely defined, only alluded to alongside stereotypical images of "Islamic extremists". Earlier terrorism (such as IRA, for example) were treated differently and not exploited to promote fear amongst the population. Although the risk of death or injury from terrorism is a fraction of 1% of the risk of, for example traffic accidents^[6] the commercially-controlled media and governments continuously play it up.

"War" is the systematic use of violence against a designated enemy, a prime source of "terror". It is blatantly counterproductive to use terrorist methods such as assassination, torture and indefinite detention to do so. So the "War on Terror" is absurd on its face... and yet people are expected to tolerate ever greater proportions of their tax revenues being diverted to this end. In the post-WWII West the Bogeyman was "Communism"; in earlier times it was "Anarchism", earlier still, "Witchcraft". Stoking fear of "Terrorism" fulfills a similar function.^[7].

File:War on terror makes terrorists.jpg

Alternative view

Karel von Wolferen termed the "War on Terror" "the biggest lie of the 21^st century".^[8] The Military-industrial-intelligence-congressional complex uses it as a pretext for their continued existence (and expansion) after the obvious (and to a certain extent real) dangers of the cold war have subsided. A lot of evidence suggests that the majority of high profile "terrorist attacks" are in fact designed to promote the "war on terror" and keep profits up for the MICC.

After the 7-7 London bombings MP Robin Cook stated a month before his sudden and premature death that "The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means".

Ivor Roberts, former UK ambassador to Italy, noted in 2004 that George W Bush was "al-Qaeda's best recruiting sergeant". In 2007, he gave a valedictory telegram which was "curtly dismissive"^[9] of the "war on terror". The response from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was to ignore the substance of his telegram but ban the century-old practice of valedictory telegrams from British envoys.

Senior French spook Alain Chouet stated that {{#subobject: |Has superobject=War on Terror |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Alain Chouet|+sep=, |Has text=“Western governments and the financial sponsors of jihad... [W]e remain allies with those who have sponsored this terrorism for the last 30 years.” |Is about=War on Terror,War on Terror, Terrorism/Funding, jihad|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=https://popularresistance.org/terror-climate-chaos-financial-crisis-are-the-costs-of-doing-business/ }}“Western governments and the financial sponsors of jihad... [W]e remain allies with those who have sponsored this terrorism for the last 30 years.” ^[10]

"War OF Terror"

Watch on YouTube

For "War on Terror", read "War OF Terror"

Concluding an interview for the Media Workers Against the War Conference "The First Casualty? War, Truth & the Media Today", at the London School of Economics on 17 November 2007, John Pilger said:

Yes, a lot of journalists put "Terrorism" and "War on Terror" in inverted commas but after a while they weary of that. It's as if there really is a "War on Terror". And there isn't a "War on Terror". There is a "War OF Terror".^[11]

Death toll

Following the 9/11 attacks, the US and its allies invaded and occupied Afghanistan, and Washington also started intermittent drone strikes inside neighbouring Pakistan. In early 2003, the US invaded Iraq under the pretext that the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons, however, were ever found in Iraq.

According to a study by Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, published on 8 November 2018, the "War on Terror" has killed about 507,000 people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past seventeen years. Commentators claimed the study's death toll was a serious underestimate, that the overwhelming majority were civilian casualties, many of whom women and children, and that those killed in Gaza, Libya, Syria and Yemen were not included.^[12]

Purposes

Full article: War on Terror/Purposes

Like the "war on drugs", the "war on terror" serves many deeper purposes. Possibly the most important of these is to increase fear among populations exposed to the concept (i.e. primarily the populations of US, UK, other 'developed' nations). This is well understood as a modern version of the "strategy of tension" applied in Italy in the 1970s and 80s by Operation Gladio. Damaging social cohesion and rendering people mentally (and in the longer term, also physically) weaker in this way is an effort to strengthen the relative position of those who behind the operation. As well as providing numerous avenues for profiteering, the "war on terror" appears to be an effort to hamper those who are actively resisting the roll out of a totalitarian police state and who are investigating crimes such as those of the cabal. This includes practices such as mass surveillance, internet censorship, rolling back Civil liberties, secret trials, kidnapping, indefinite detention, torture and murder of "suspected terrorists".

Origins

Although officially launched on 7 October 2001, as a response to the events of September 11th, the global war on terror has roots which go back to the 1970s. Historically, false Flag attacks were something of a rarity, used at time of greatest need such as when a casus belli was sought. However, the Gladio networks set up at the end of WW2 allowed them to be carried out with ruthless efficiency, and deep state control of national governments and commercially-controlled media minimised the chances of effective exposure. As a result, they became more common after WWII, most notably in Italy. After the end of the Cold War they were invoked by the MICC and other aspects of the apparatus of "national security" to try to fabricate a raisin-d'etre. Few commentators were perspicacious enough to see what was underway, but Mae Brussell opined already in the 1970s that the chance to use fear to control people would prove irresistible to deep politicians.

We are going to see a great number of articles in the future from so-called experts and public officials. They will warn about more violence, more kidnappings, and more terrorists. Mass media, the armed forces, and intelligence agencies will saturate our lives with fascist scare tactics and "predictions" that have already been planned to come true.

Mae Brussell, 1974^[13]

Terror management theory

Full article: Terror management theory

File:Terror management theory.jpg

Terror management theory is the psychological theory about how humans deal with fear of death. Systematic research on this in the 1970s began to confirm that even subliminal reminders of mortality can have a huge effect on people, motivating them to become not only more fearful, but xenophobic and submissive to authorities. This explains why, for example, the popularity of George W. Bush leaped after September 11th, in spite of his demonstrably underwhelming performance (reading a story about a pet goat to a class of Florida first graders, even after he is told about the terrorist attacks underway in New York).

Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism

Full article: Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism

File:Jcit-book.jpg

In 1979, the Jonathan Institute held what was a key step in the development of the "Global War on Terror". The Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism attempted to found the study of terrorism as an academic discipline in its own right, separate from established areas such as criminology, politics, international relations etc. With 700 attendees^[14] including several top level deep state bosses such as George H. W. Bush (The Enterprise) and Brian Crozier (Le Cercle, The 61), this appears to have been a seminal event in the global coordination of false flag "terrorism". It was followed up 5 years later the Washington Conference on International Terrorism which helped establish "terrorism" as a new focus of Israeli, U.S., and European foreign policy.

Criticism

The standard official opposition narrative about the "war on terror" is that it is a disproportionate response to a real threat. Prominent voices who went beyond this included Robin Cook with his memorable claim on the day after 7/7 that "The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means".^[15] and Adam Curtis whose Power of Nightmares was the a significant exposure of the West's creation of wahabism.

Perpetrators

File:War on terror US.jpg

The timing of the "war on terror" - just after the end of the cold war would suggest the involvement of the permanent war machine. The rollout seems to be widespread, but is fastest in anglophone countriesTemplate:Cn, perhaps suggesting leadership from UK or US, both of which have been aggressive in the rolling back of civil liberties. Organisation appears to be through the usual deep state channels, such as deep state milieux.

Deep State

The deep state are experienced at carrying out black ops, but other groups such as intelligence agencies and some private military contractors could also carry them out. Control of the state invesigative apparatus and commercially-controlled media reporting is however much harder. Limiting public exposure of the true perpetrators is of course essential to the success of false flag operations which make up the "war on terror". This provides strong circumstantial evidence that the war on terror is (at least) supported by deep state groups such as the cabal.

Intelligence agencies

Full article: Intelligence agencies

Former Italian Prime Minister, Francesco Cossiga, wrote that "all the [intelligence services] of America and Europe... now know well that the disastrous attack [of 9/11] has been planned and realized from the CIA American and the Mossad with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part... in Iraq [and] Afghanistan."^[16]^[17] If this is true, one might wonder why not even one has been courageous enough to expose the deception. One possible answer to that would be that to see them as separate groups (with national affiliations) is a mistake; international milieux have been highly influential since at least the Safari Club and Le Cercle in creating what Peter Dale Scott refers to as a "supranational deep state".^[18] As of 2016, MI6 continues to promote the "war on terror".^[19]

Controlled media

File:An act of war.jpg

Commercially-controlled media was reliably behind the interpretation of events put out by the US government, even when it defied common sense^[20]

{{#subobject: |Has superobject=War on Terror |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=James H. Fetzer|+sep=, |Has text=“Given terrorism's unique dependence on publicity and amplification, the media have a crucial role in either facilitating or obstructing the spread of terrorism against the West... manipulation of public opinion is in fact, central to the terrorist strategy. For this purpose, access to the media, indeed their domination, is indispensable.” |Is about=War on Terror,|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate= |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=http://911scholars.ning.com/profiles/blogs/joshua-blakeney-on-terrorism-how-the-west-can-win-by-benjamin

}}

“Given terrorism's unique dependence on publicity and amplification, the media have a crucial role in either facilitating or obstructing the spread of terrorism against the West... manipulation of public opinion is in fact, central to the terrorist strategy. For this purpose, access to the media, indeed their domination, is indispensable.”
James H. Fetzer ^[21]

The commercially-controlled media, especially in the US, has long been complicit in an organised effort to keep people fearful and misinformed. The hypocrisy of the "war on terror" would be easily grasped without a compliant media keen to uncritically echo and amplify the authorities' pronouncements. The language used by corporate media frames people's thinking, so that they can be subtly prepared for particular lies by gradual exposure to particular language and ideas.^[22] The use of the word "risk" in the UK broadsheet press went up by an order of magnitude between 1994 to 2000.^[23] Both the 1995 Oklahoma Bombing and the Amerithrax anthrax attacks were both initially (very quickly) blamed on Islamic terrorists, an official narrative which the corporate media echo unchallenged. Particularly important is the failure of corporate media to investigate certain topics, to leave certain topics unasked.

One exception to the rule of the controlled media's obeisance to the official narrative is the BBC's Adam Curtis, who in 2004 produced a recommended series of films, The Power Of Nightmares, which suggested that Al Qaeda was a name created by the US government.

9/11

Full article: 9-11

File:Osama-towers.jpg

A typical inset image of Bin Laden, as if to strengthen an association in the viewers' minds with the 9-11 attacks.^[24]

The single most important event in promoting the "war on terror" narrative was undoubtedly 9/11. In the wake of this, most people were in state of extended shock (half of US adults are suspected of experiencing symptoms of PTSDTemplate:Cn). As Naomi Klein points out in her Shock Doctrine, this renders people particularly susceptible to 'programming'. This took the form (and indeed, still takes the form) of stock repetition of images and phrases, such as the linking of Al Qaeda to acts and images of "terrorism".

The Telegraph's reporting from October 1, 2001 provide a typical example. It did not question Tony Blair's claim to have seen "absolutely powerful incontrovertible evidence" that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. Instead, it echoed his assertion that "the fight against terrorism needs to be a global one. Only a true coalition of the civilised world offers a real chance of cutting out the cancer of mass terrorism."^[25]

As an exception to the Western corporate media policy on 9/11, Russia Today produced an interesting video about Operation Gladio and 9/11. However, although still available elsewhere, it is interesting that in Summer 2014 that episode of the series was removed, later followed by all the other "Truthseeker" videos.

"Counter-terrorism"

Full article: Counter-terrorism

The "War on Terror" has spawned a burgeoning market for "counter-terrorism" groups, in the private, government and international sectors. The UN/Security Council/Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, for example, have failed to investigate the obvious holes in the some official narratives of recent terrorist attacks (most notably 9/11), again, suggesting a coordinated campaign by a highly influential groups with broad reach:- i.e. deep state control. Commercially-controlled media meanwhile offers contracts for "terror experts", who tend to be from a small clique with questionable expertise. Many "counter terror" groups are set up by deep politicians, such as attendees of Le Cercle and/or the 1979 JCIT.^[26]^[27]

Responses

File:No fear.jpg

Since 9/11 in particular, the knowledge of false flag terror events is becoming public; once one has seriously entertained the possibility that the authorities may in fact be people ready to tolerate such abhorrent strategies, a previously hidden pattern emerges which allows one to make a lot more sense of what is going on. The main aim of the "war on terror" is to promote fear - so the tactic fails if enough people calmly refuse to be taken in by it. As Bruce Schneier stated {{#subobject: |Has superobject=War on Terror |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Bruce Schneier|+sep=, |Has text=“The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized.” |Is about=War on Terror,War on Terror, terrorism, fear|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=August 2006 |Sourced from=Schneier on Security |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=Schneier on Security |Has sourceURL=https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/08/refuse_to_be_terrori.html }}“The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized.” ^[28] Education can yield the insight and fortitude which will help make it obsolete. As the internet is allowing this deception to be effectively unmasked, increasingly desperate attempts are being made to stifle freedom of speech through censorship. Tricks such as the "Fake News" meme appear to be causing blowback - making people ever more aware of the need to check that stories are not war propaganda.^[29]