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U.S.
government commits terrorist acts, uses violence Since the Great Depression, that point when the people of America stopped believing in capitalism, the government started spending billions of our dollars on a war machine, which must be used to recoup any value. I believe it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned about the growth of the military industrial complex, and its eventual domination. Now we see that what he warned about in the last half of the 20th century as we now spend over a third of a trillion dollars a year on “death machines.” These arms companies depend on our tax money to survive (that’s some free-market capitalism under which we pretend to live). Despite not one attack from a state on our mainland in that time, our Department of Defense, the CIA and the FBI have launched attacks against Korea, Iran, South and North Vietnam, Guatemala, Cuba, Laos, Panama, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Lakota Sioux, the Black Panthers and Chile. Then starting at the time of Ronald Reagan they attacked Angola, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Grenada, Bolivia, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Sudan and Afghanistan. In the 1980s, under the threat of international communism, our policy towards Central America essentially centered on mass murder. “The Great Communicator,” Reagan banged his fists for TV and the first George Bush, with the help of Dick Cheney, Oliver North, Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte and Manuel Noriega, created a mercenary army with no ideology, the Contras. The only goal was the overthrow of the democratically elected regime, while resorting to whole scale destruction and the targeting of civilians. These crazy Sandinistas, the elected government of Nicaragua, kept spending money on education, health clinics for the poor and citizen participation in elections. Why did our government fear the Sandinistas? The Sandinistas provided a reasonable method by which a poor Third World country could develop and it was by using the resources of that country to benefit the people of that country. Surprise, now every one of these people except Reagan and Noriega are back in the current administration, except this time Dubya is a feeble communicator and Cheney runs the show. Elliot Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress, and now gets the chance to do it again as a director with the National Security Council. Why is it necessary to enter a war whenever there’s a Republican administration and economic trouble on the home front? Dubya comes across as an idiot speaking about education (“Is our kids learning?”), environmental policy, welfare or economics. But give this man permission to speak of nebulous enemies, infidels, threats to civilization and evil doers, and all of a sudden he doesn’t sound stupid, just crazy. He calls America a land of freedom, yet we produce over three quarters of the world’s weapons. I know I never feel so free as when I can point a gun at some brown-skinned Third World refugee, just hoping to find food to live another day. I wonder if those people at the other end of the barrel feel as free as we do? George W. Bush has learned from his father and is not limiting his war to one country or act. We aren’t at war with Afghanistan or Iraq but both of them because they help al Qaeda. Al Qaeda though is just one of the international terrorist groups with a global reach, one standard set by Bush for his war on terrorism. The problem though is that our government is completely incapable of expressing the fact we commit acts of terror. When our government creates mercenary armies to effect politics in other countries, our government is a terrorist. When the CIA and FBI infiltrate and attempt to destroy minority empowerment groups they are being terrorists. When we bomb countries killing innocent civilians, no matter how noble our goals, our government acts as a terrorist. Whether a bomb is dropped from a plane or carried under a jacket, the act is designed to inspire terror, making those responsible “terrorists.” We must realize our government is a terrorist, the biggest bully on the block, and they are no more capable of using violence to solve their problems than we can in our own lives. Chris
Dobson is a senior history major from Arlington. |
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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