Jason Errett on Terror and Our Response To It

From Peoplesforum.com

Jason Errett- - 12:54pm Oct 25, 2003 PST

(# 2924 of 2936)

Damn, Maggie. I'm not surprised by the testimony, but I am surprised by the lack of coverage. I've not heard a thing about it on the mainstream news.

As for the open-ended eternal war on terriers, why are people so goddamn stupid as to not realize this is a setup?

Open-ended wars against vaguely defined enemies who hate us for our culture/freedom/"insert vague but noble characterization here" are the bread and butter of nascent totalitarian regimes. This is a textbook example.

I was at a party a few months back. Everyone was sitting around a bonfire, drinking beer and talking about what's going on in the world. One woman seriously thought that "the terrorists" hated us because of "our freedom".

She was very sincere about it. She also proved to have no awareness that Osama bin Laden had worked for us in Afghanistan against the Soviets, or that he had declared a holy war because we had, in his nutjob opinion, defiled their holy land with the presence of our military during the first Gulf War, or that we'd played both sides against each other repeatedly in the Iran/Iraq war, or that we'd propped up the Shah for decades even though his excesses gave rise to the fundamentalist revolution that would sweep the country in the late 70s. Her basic view was that they were Bad, capital letter and all, we were Good, and there was no reasons for their attack against us other than their inherent evil.

This is thinking about the world at a 4 year old level.

"Daddy? Why do they want to hurt us?"

"Because they're Bad men, dear."

"Oh."

And the questioning stops there.

Terrorism continues to be used because it's devastatingly effective. No other method of warfare gives such a huge return, in terms of manipulating the psyche of the enemy, on such a small investment. Since it's highly effective, fringe groups will continue to use it. The only way to stop terrorism is to look at the reasons people support these fringe groups and get involved with them, and eliminate these reasons.

Every time I suggest this strategy to people, I get accused of proposing that we give in to the terrorists, but notice that I'm proposing that we eliminate the reasons people support terrorists, not that we give the terrorists everything they want.

Once people get sufficiently angry and desperate a certain percentage will throw themselves in with a group that might call for the total elimination of the US, or Israel, or whoever it is that's pissing them off. However, this is not the reason they join these groups in the first place. The reasons are a day-in and day-out perception of manipulation and control of their lives by the hated group.

Just as American revolutionaries went ape-shit when they felt they were being taxed without representation by the British, people who feel that their lives are being pushed around by other forces which they have no control over, or input to, they will get angry and desperate, become more extremist in their thinking, and eventually become attracted to groups which propose the total destruction of whoever is behind these outside forces. This is a normal human response.

It's the same response that is successfully manipulated by the totalitarians, too. Germans in the 30s felt they were being crushed by outside forces. Hitler successfully exploited this and convinced enough people that they were a long suffering and noble race, easy to do since everyone likes to believe positive assessments of themselves, who were being systematically abused and held back by a gigantic conspiracy of Jews, also easy to do since the Jewish people of Europe were relatively easy to identify as a group, and many were involved in traditional, for their ethnic group, businesses as merchants, jewelers, and scholars. These lines of work are all easy targets for the hatred of unemployed and poorly educated rabble. It's easy extension to go from thinking someone is more literate and smarter than you to thinking they know something you don't to thinking that they're in on some sort of conspiracy. Just as the right wing today routinely likes to blast "ivory tower liberals", Hitler found it easy to convince average Germans that scholarly people didn't share the same dreams and desires, and by extension, the foreign seeming ethnic group that a disproportionate number of scholars and professionals belonged to was all in cahoots against them.

What's going on today, on both sides of the "War on Terror" is the same sort of manipulation. Many people in Arabic countries, especially the poor and downtrodden, don't know jack about America or Americans, other than our country has incredible power and a long reach. It's not hard to convince them that, given the obvious power we wield and how miserable their lives are, that we're the ones keeping them down. Likewise, given how little your average American knows about Arabic peoples and countries, it's easy to convince mainstream America that all these swarthy foriegners are in it together, and seek nothing but our complete destruction purely because their alien and cryptic ways are inherently contrary to all that is right and good.

It's the same old game that humans have played against each other for millenia.

The question then becomes "why?"

The reason for that is surprisingly simple.

Leaders favor war because war favors leaders.

Only when there is a perceived threat do people willingly look to the powerful for safety. If someone with a position of power can create the perception of a threat among the masses, that person will find their power grows and grows and grows.

Some want power for the wealth it provides, complete with palaces, vast tracts of land, and all the rewards of being a hero. Some want power for more mystical reasons, believing that they have discovered the purpose of life, they want all to be aligned to that purpose. For most it's probably a combination.

Whatever the case, one thing that all leaders have in common is a desire for power. Power comes from the willing acquiescence of a sufficiently large portion of the population that the remaining portion can be ignored, destroyed, misinformed, overruled, or otherwise controlled.

This is much easier to do against the background of a percieved threat, when all are panicked about their safety, than when there is no threat. When there is no perceived threat, people look to leaders as managers of the common good, which is a difficult and often thankless job. Those who desire to be leaders rather than managers are well served by inventing a war, ideally one with no limits, no end, and a goal which can never be achieved.