Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Terrorizzati dalla "War on terror" by Z.Brzezinski

I#_Un mantra da demolire.
Giano
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301613.html
Terrorized by "War on Terror"
     By Zbigniew Brzezinski
     The Washington Post
     Sunday 25 March 2007
     How a three-word mantra has undermined America.
     The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The 
Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national 
mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on 
American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the 
world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to 
effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may 
use terrorism against us.
     The damage these three words have done - a classic self-inflicted 
wound - is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the 
fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting 
against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It 
defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism 
is not an enemy but a technique of warfare - political intimidation 
through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
     But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase 
was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant 
reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It 
stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, 
intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to 
mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The 
war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support 
it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and 
the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support 
for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by 
the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief 
in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger 
was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the 
mobilizing appeal of being "at war."
     To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately 
crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a 
self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier 
U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the 
fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military 
powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the 
administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war 
would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, 
Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.
     The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its 
bottle. It acquires a life of its own - and can become demoralizing. 
America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that 
responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its 
leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing 
we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged 
the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real 
war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 
100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, 
uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of 
another terrorist act in the United States itself.
     That is the result of five years of almost continuous national 
brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted 
reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, 
Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist 
acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush 
even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda 
cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.
     Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the mass 
media and the entertainment industry, generates its own momentum. The 
terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are 
necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence 
their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That 
puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of 
ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints 
for their implementation.
     That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly 
debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 
sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. 
With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown 
to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The 
national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, 
including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork 
Festival.
     Just last week, here in Washington, on my way to visit a 
journalistic office, I had to pass through one of the absurd "security 
checks" that have proliferated in almost all the privately owned office 
buildings in this capital - and in New York City. A uniformed guard 
required me to fill out a form, show an I.D. and in this case explain in 
writing the purpose of my visit. Would a visiting terrorist indicate in 
writing that the purpose is "to blow up the building"? Would the guard 
be able to arrest such a self-confessing, would-be suicide bomber? To 
make matters more absurd, large department stores, with their crowds of 
shoppers, do not have any comparable procedures. Nor do concert halls or 
movie theaters. Yet such "security" procedures have become routine, 
wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and further contributing to a 
siege mentality.
     Government at every level has stimulated the paranoia. Consider, 
for example, the electronic billboards over interstate highways urging 
motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity" (drivers in turbans?). Some 
mass media have made their own contribution. The cable channels and some 
print media have found that horror scenarios attract audiences, while 
terror "experts" as "consultants" provide authenticity for the 
apocalyptic visions fed to the American public. Hence the proliferation 
of programs with bearded "terrorists" as the central villains. Their 
general effect is to reinforce the sense of the unknown but lurking 
danger that is said to increasingly threaten the lives of all Americans.
     The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the 
TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab 
features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit 
public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, 
particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a 
manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, 
even some college student organizations have become involved in such 
propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the 
stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the 
unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.
     The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged 
legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal 
Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point 
is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations 
(CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American 
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently 
described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be 
allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.
     Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has 
also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the 
United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned 
with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a 
leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious 
relations has suffered egregiously.
     The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil 
rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of 
foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine 
fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been 
diluted if not undone, with some - even U.S. citizens - incarcerated for 
lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due 
process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented 
significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists 
of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as 
ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances 
in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.
     In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the United 
States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity between the rough 
treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military and of the 
Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a widespread sense of 
hostility toward the United States in general. It's not the "war on 
terror" that angers Muslims watching the news on television, it's the 
victimization of Arab civilians. And the resentment is not limited to 
Muslims. A recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought 
respondents' assessments of the role of states in international affairs 
resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being rated (in that 
order) as the states with "the most negative influence on the world." 
Alas, for some that is the new axis of evil!
     The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly global solidarity 
against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of moderates, 
including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate campaign both to 
extirpate the specific terrorist networks and to terminate the political 
conflicts that spawn terrorism would have been more productive than a 
demagogically proclaimed and largely solitary U.S. "war on terror" 
against "Islamo-fascism." Only a confidently determined and reasonable 
America can promote genuine international security which then leaves no 
political space for terrorism.
     Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria, 
stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the 
likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be 
true to our traditions.
     -----------

      By Zbigniew Brzezinski
state a sentire il fottuto polacco, è uno che se ne intende...lui i
tagliagole li usava contro il nemico, non li combatteva

giovanni ha scritto:

#_Chiamalo fesso!!
Giano