Total Pageviews

Sunday, March 17, 2019

My take on terrorism

This is my take on the creation of terrorists; of people capable of the utterly unspeakable events which took place in New Zealand on the 15th of March 2019.  And of what we should do to stop the creation of more terrorists.  Broadly speaking there are three types, two of which are relevant to this conversation.

First there are people who have had their lives disrupted by war and want revenge on the perpetrators.  At least on the face of it, the taking down of the trade centers in New York on 9/11 was such an attack although there remain serious questions about who was actually behind this attack.

The second type are what we characterize as alt-right terrorists.  These are often white supremacists who think that they are justified in going into a mosque and shooting people at prayer.  The atrocity in New Zealand was such an attack.

A third type is a lonely student, bullied by his class mates who shoots up his school. This type is not relevant to this discussion.

 Imagine yourself in a country that has been attacked by a powerful country for no better reason than they want your resources and want to provide business for their arms manufacturing industry. Co religionist countries around you have also been attacked and exploited for their resources. This powerful country assassinates people extra-judicially in your country and in near by countries by flying drones overhead, killing whomever they want to.  Worse still they have no thought about the so called collateral damage (others killed at the same time). They kidnap people and send them to be tortured, often for no better reason that some jealous person said they were a terrorist. They practice a whole series of steps to create regime change in other countries* up to and including sending in their army and then have the utter hypocrisy to  complain when someone even tries to influence their elections.  What would be your attitude to this country.  What would you do.

*Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.  Stone and Kuznic - The Untold History of the United States of America

The second type is the white supremacists, they are greatly encouraged and made to feel justified by the actions of that same powerful country that continually foments unjust wars and kills people, usually brown,  in other countries.  This powerful country also behave toward large parts of their own population as if they are inferior.    This gives the white supremacist  nutters tacit encouragement and approval to commit acts such as occurred in New Zealand.  I hope it is clear to you which country we are talking about.

There is yet another motivation for white supremacists.  Recently we have had huge tranches of people migrating all over the world.  A large proportion of these are from countries that America has stirred up with her never ending wars.  The refugees don't want to be in our countries.  They would much rather stay at home and live  a peaceful existence.  Their home countries have been made uninhabitable and they have been given no choice but to immigrate.

A disproportionate percent of these immigrants are young men.  In Rotherham in Northern England, in  Germany and in Sweden to name a few locations, a rape culture has developed.  Just having a huge influx of single men into a society is already a formula for unrest amongst the indigenous population exacerbated, possibility, by a different "dress culture" which makes these young men think the local women are fair game.  Whatever the reason, having a group of men, easily identified as 'others' raping your women is a power keg waiting to be ignited.  Most of the population does not resort to acts of terror but there is a huge ground swell against immigration in countries that have accepted massive numbers of these displaced people.

Perhaps our anger should be directed to the creators of terrorists, rather than the terrs, themselves.

It sheets back to America causing refugees to leave their own country and seek refuge in the West.

So the question is, what to do about it. Are we going to be reactive or proactive. Clearly the answer is both but I feel that the proactive part has almost been ignored.  Can we do anything to stop the creation of terrorists of both types before it is too late. I believe we can but it is will be  hard and will require speaking speaking truth to power.

We can't go physically against the powerful country and besides even if we could, we would be adding to the same problem of violence we are trying to ameliorate. No, what we have to do is to be a voice against this continual war mongering when we see it building up and before it turns into a hot conflict.  Our main weapon is our news and current affairs capacity, publicized through podcasts and youtube. 

We decry the showing of extreemist content on social media but social media which spreads podcasts and youtube items is just a tool.  Let's use it to our advantage.

Here in New Zealand we punch above our weight and have a considerable reputation for fairness.  In part this was earned by our stand against atomic weapons and atomic powered military ships in our waters.  We took-on the same world power that is warring against the brown people of the world despite the economic hardship that it caused us. We are also known as the first country that gave suffrage to women.

At this time we have gained huge credibility by the actions and words of Jacinda following this abysmal senseless act of terrorism on our soil.

At present (March 2019) we see this powerful country up to the same old same old tricks.  In case you think this is something new under Trump, read this. The USA has done this to almost every Latin American country in Central and South America and is now doing it to Venezuela.  She has also done this in many other countries around the world and I understand that she operates a "school" where she teaches locals from other countries how to overthrow their governments.

At present  she is also  carrying out a ghastly war in Yemen through her surrogate Saudi Arabia, creating  markets for her arms without any risk to her army.

America has put sanctions on Venezuela to stop anyone trading with her and  frozen her monetary assets in American banks.  Venezuela can not buy food and medicine overseas and the Americans are using the suffering that America itself has caused to stir up a population that doesn't realize what the source of their suffering is.

To add insult to injury the USA sent food aid to the border of Venezuela to make the administration either look incompetent (if she accepted the food aid) or evil (if she  refused to allow the aid in). In the past, America has used false flag operations again and again and this is just another variation on the theme.

What we need from our media is in depth articles on the history of such actions by America and how she is operating at present in Venezuela to try to head off yet another terrorist-creating, refugee-creating atrocity. Because of the way international media operates today, articles that are pod cast and are on youtube  are likely to reach the widest audiences through social media.  Shine light on what America is doing.  Their sort of crime withers under light.  A series of articles, building up from the history of such actions to the present day will have the greatest impact. A series like this builds an audience from item to item as it becomes popular.

In the aftermath of the killings in a New Zealand mosque, we are up in arms about the social media not taking down the video of the shooting more quickly.  Fair enough.  But the social media is just a tool.  Let's use it for good rather than evil.

Our National Radio is the tool we should be using.

No comments: