Terrorism, cause or effect?

With the attack on the airport and subway system of Brussels, Europe has once again, in a short span of time, become the target of terrorism. By all means, this is a egregious act and not acceptable in any way or form. However, I find that there is a surprising lack of awareness in the general public, and in the media coverage, regarding the REASON for these attacks.

It seems to be a weakness in the human intellect. When we are faced with trauma and difficulties, our tendency is to look at the symptom. When we get sick, we look at and attempt to suppress the immediate effect. When there is a fight or conflict, we look at the drama – and this single dimension – the consequence that is here right now – becomes the entirety of our focus. However, as with all aspects of life, there is always, ALWAYS, an underlying cause. When it comes to human beings, that cause can never be simplified to the idea that some people are ‘just evil’ – or that they ‘just belong to the wrong religion’ – or that ‘they are immigrants’. Human beings are without a doubt more complex creatures than this – and hence – to understand terrorism – we must understand the human mind.

Terrorism, as explained by Chris Hedges, is born on the outskirts of the system. It is born in places where our western media seldom go, and even more rarely, report from. The reality of terrorism is that it is a social construct, in-fact, it is a part of our current system – it is a inescapable consequence of the inequality on which all of our collective designs are built. Terrorism is a SYMPTOM – not a cause – and seen in the eyes of forgiveness and clarity – it is an obvious call for help from the undeveloped and forgotten parts of this world.

In the western world, we tend to become arrogant and look at terrorism with an air of elitism. We condemn the attacks, yet we make no effort to understand them. We look down on the extremists and their religious doctrines, yet we make no effort to prevent such people from ever becoming extremists to begin with. We believe ourselves to be better than, though fact is that we, the western civilization, is as corrupted, as violent, as brutal and indifferent as the suicide bombers of ISIS. However, we are able to hide our real nature behind a facade of prestige, intellect, money and skillful rhetoric’s – though in being honest with ourselves – we cannot deny – we are just the same.

We call our terror attacks humanitarian interventions or peace keeping missions. We say that we fight for peace and democracy when we bomb cities of foreign countries. We lie that our intentions are benevolent, while fact is that there are always ulterior motives; geopolitics, profit, desire and greed. It is impossible to create peace or stability in a country through armed intervention, and it is easy to see that the warmongers are also those that benefit from building and selling the war machines. There has never, and will never be such a thing as a war fought for good reasons. War is in its very nature despicable – a crime against all of humanity.

Hence, when we look at terrorism, we must make the effort to understand it – and the only way to understand terrorism is through letting go of our elitist mindset and instead asking ourselves; what is it that can drive someone to commit suicide with a bomb, with the intention of killing and harming as many people as possible? What must someone go through, experience, think, see, to be able to make that decision? It is such an extreme act of violence, that the precursory events that creates a suicide bomber, must in themselves be violent, destructive and harmful. How are we collectively responsible for creating suicide bombers? Would anyone take their own life if they had everything to life for?

What we must understand is that, in this world, the majority of people are suffering. The majority of people are compromised, diminished, and placed into a state of lack where they do not have access to the very basic necessities of life. They are unable to create a life for themselves, and hence have NOTHING to lose – and THAT is the conditions that proceeds a terrorist attack – conditions of deprivation and pauperism – this creates people with no hope, no fear, and no morals. We in the western world are responsible for creating such situations of scarcity – as we in various ways impact the world negatively with our continuous drive for profit and expansion.

Terrorism will not go away until we decide to take responsibility for this world, and understand, that violence begets violence, and that the only way to come to a REAL solution, is through giving all a life of dignity.

Investigate the Living Income Guaranteed – and stand up for a world where all have enough.

Who Benefits From a War In Syria?

The Syrian war is a perfect example of how the western countries utilize media to sway and manipulate the public into a false understanding of reality. The story being repeated is how the Arabic spring during 2011 spread to Syria – and where the Syrian demonstrators desired to have democracy. However, Bashar al-Assad and his regime instead responded with violence, which lead to the current civil war. This is simplification and a biased view on what have occurred in Syria. Even though Bashar al-Assad have potentially taken actions that should be condemned, there are other indirect parties in this war that bare a great responsibility for what has happened.

“Both the Syrian government and the opposition have received support, militarily and diplomatically, from foreign countries leading the conflict to often be described as a proxy war. The major parties supporting the Syrian Government are Iran and Hezbollah. Both of these are involved in the war politically and logistically by providing military equipment, training and battle troops. The Syrian government has also received arms from Russia and SIGINT support directly from GRU, in addition to significant political support from Russia.

The main Syrian opposition body – the Syrian coalition – receives political, logistic and military support from the United States, Britain and France. Some Syrian rebels get training from the CIA at bases in Qatar, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Syrian coalition also receives logistic and political support from Sunni states, most notably Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia; all the three major supporting states however have not contributed any troops for direct involvement in the war, though Turkey was involved in border incidents with the Syrian Army. The Financial Times and The Independent reported that Qatar had funded the Syrian rebellion by as much as $3 billion. It reported that Qatar was offering refugee packages of about $50,000 a year to defectors and family. Saudi Arabia has emerged as the main group to finance and arm the rebels.”

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War) (2015-09-23)

Thus we have western super powers engaging indirectly in a military conflict far from their own borders, through supply funding, weapons and training. We, the inhabitants of these western countries, should ask ourselves what is really going on? How is it that we accept and allow our leaders to use our tax money, to support wars far away with abstract, and bogus goals such as creating ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ for the people in these countries?

It is ridiculous when you look at the situation, how we accept and allow our political representatives to abuse, and misuse their power, and utilize their public trust to support actions of war – and then some of us have the stomach to blame the Syrian immigrants arriving in Europe. Without the financial support of the western countries, there would not be a Syrian Civil War, and there would not be a refugee crisis in Europe. We have ourselves placed us into this position. We can not blame Bashar al-Assad, because without the weapons, the money, and the training, this conflict would have been long over.

It is evident that we cannot solve conflicts and disagreements through wars and weaponry. Still, this is the option that our governments gravitate towards when given the chance. Here we should ask ourselves, who really benefits from these ongoing wars? Who benefits from weapons being exported to lowly educated, and poverty stricken people in Syria, and Iraq? Who benefits from the world existing in a constant state of war?

”The most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan offer an ominous example about what can happen when the rush to war is met with sharp spending increases coupled with little to no oversight or fiscal restraint. The Commission on Wartime Contracting — a bipartisan congressional body — estimates that there was $30 to $60 billion in waste, fraud and abuse associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — a total of $12 million per day. Even worse, at least $6 billion is completely missing, never accounted for, gone forever. That is a stunning amount of taxpayer dollars — yours and mine — to simply disappear into the wind.”

[…]

” The direct costs of the wars in Iraq and Syria may only be a small part of the new business that will flow to Lockheed Martin and its cohorts in the next few years. The new wars will almost certainly extend the life of the Pentagon’s war budget, known more formally as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account. For the past few years, OCO has served as a slush fund to pay for Pentagon projects that have nothing to do with fighting any war. In its most recent effort to raid the OCO account, the Pentagon has proposed using it to fund eight costly F-35 combat aircraft that haven’t even been certified for combat yet. There will be a strong temptation on the part of the Pentagon to continue padding this slush fund to levels far beyond anything being spent in Iraq or Syria.

Last, but not least, the arms industry will join with the Pentagon and hawks on Capitol Hill to use the current Middle East crisis as leverage to lift the caps on the Pentagon’s base budget that exist under current law. If they are successful, it could mean tens or even hundreds of billions of new business for Pentagon contractors over the next decade.”

Stephen Miles and William Hartung, Huffington post, Who Will Profit From the Wars in Iraq and Syria? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-hartung/who-will-profit-from-the_b_5915794.html) (2015-09-23)

It is time that we understand something, which is that behind the sanctimonious exterior of the international superpowers there are greedy and power hungry corporate interests. These interests determine the policy, the direction, and the decisions of our leaders. These interests have invested enormous amounts of money to get into the very heart of the democratic decision making process that we have come to trust. Hence, we cannot anymore say that we are living in democracies; most of the western countries are but corporatocracys. They are ruled by the law of profit and have no squirms about using war as a way of increasing cash flow. This is not acceptable, and as citizens of the western world, it is our responsibility to stand up and say no more. We cannot anymore accept and allow our tax money, and our political machinery to be used as tools of destruction.

I suggest that we implement a new economic system, and a new way of life. We have created the current situation, and we can reverse it. War does not have to exist – and together we can make it a thing of the past.

Investigate the Living Income Guaranteed.

Investigate the Living Income Guaranteed.