by Stephen Lendman

Waging it isn't new. Enemies are needed. When none exist they're invented.

Reagan denounced the "evil scourge of terrorism." Specifically state-sponsored international terrorism. The "plague of the modern age," he said.

His Secretary of State George Schultz called it "modern barbarism. (A) form of political violence. (A) threat to Western civilization. (A) menace to Western moral values."

GW Bush declared war on terrorism. To "rid the world of evildoers. (N)ot let evil stand."

Orwell said political rhetoric defends the indefensible. So-called wars on terrorism are wars of terrorism. State-sponsored. Against designated individuals, groups or nations.

The late Howard Zinn asked "(h)ow can you make war on terrorism if war is terrorism." Governments are the greatest terrorist threats.

US Code defines terrorism as activities involving:

(A) "violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;"

(B) are intended to -

(i) "intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States...."

The US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984) calls it "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear."

Political terrorism is worst of all. State-sponsored. Including premeditated wars of aggression. Direct and proxy.

Compromised civil liberties. Gross human rights abuses. Committing violent or other extrajudicial acts to advance a political agenda.

Claiming national security concerns. Promoting democracy. America's most dangerous export.

Calling aggressive wars self-defense. Good v. evil. America arrogates to itself the right to be the world's sheriff, judge and hangman.

Its sole decider. Publicly supporting right over wrong. Spurning fundamental rule of law principles. Its rules alone apply. Justifying the unjustifiable.

In his book titled "America's War on Terrorism," Michel Chossudovsky calls it a complete fabrication.

"(B)ased on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted" America's entire intelligence establishment.

Waging war on terrorism is a pretext for permanent New World Order wars of conquest. Carving up whole continents for profit and dominance.

Serving monied interests. At the expense of popular ones. Using America's resources for unchallenged US hegemony. No matter the human cost.

Fictitious enemies are created. Wars on terrorism follow. At home and abroad. Especially post-9/11.

What Project for a New American Century (PNAC) neocons called a "catastrophic and catalyzing event…like a new Pearl Harbor" was needed to advance US hegemonic aims.

Changing rules of engagement. From rule of law observance to anything goes. America declared war on Islam.

Muslims are targets of choice. Terrorism is what they do. Not us. Nazis claimed they were protecting populations from terrorists directed from abroad.

Imperial Japan targeted "Chinese bandits." Claiming an agenda to create an "earthly paradise."

Reagan ignored the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) June 1986 condemnation of "unlawful (US) use of force." As well as Security Council resolutions calling on nations to observe international law.

Vetoed by Washington. General Assembly ones affirming the same principles ignored.

Congress significantly increased funding for US-backed Central American death squads. Engaged in "the unlawful use of force."

At the time, State Department legal advisor Abraham Sofaer explained why America is entitled to disregard World Court rulings.

Saying when most states oppose Washington's agenda, we "reserve to ourselves the power to determine" how we'll act.

Policies pursued fall "within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States, as determined (solely) by the United States."

Washington's war on terror creates what it claims to oppose. At home and abroad. On an unprecedented scale.

Supported by rogue Western partners. Israel. Other extremist states. Allied against freedom. Making the world safe for monied interests.

At the expense of millions of lost lives. Unspeakable human misery. Unlimited wealth, power and privilege. Genocide is a small price to pay.

America's human rights record is far and away the world's worst. Truman administration diplomat George Kennan was Wshington's leading Cold War architect.

He advised on "dispen(sing) with all sentimentality and daydreaming…"

Urged focusing solely on "national objectives…(D)ispensing with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of high-minded international altruism."

"We should (stop talking about) unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization."

"The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts."

"The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans (ideas and practices), the better."

Ravaging one nation after another followed. Multiple direct and proxy wars. Homeland ones against freedom.

Militarized madness and then some. Heading things perhaps for armageddon. America, other Western states and Israel are more battlegrounds than homelands.

Anyone can be arrested, charged, prosecuted and imprisoned. On spurious terrorism charges.

Others or none at all. Held indefinitely. Designated state enemies have no rights. Police states operate this way.

Democracy is pure fantasy. Existing in name only. Raw power rules. Challengers risk persecution, imprisonment or death.

Thousands of political prisoners languish in America's gulag. The world's largest by far. Israel operates the same way. So do other Western nations.

After retiring from public life, George Kennan softened his views. On the Progressive Radio News Hour, Stop NATO's Rick Rozoff explained.

Citing a line from Goethe. Warning about being destroyed by monsters of our own creation.

In his 1978 Harvard commencement address, Alexander Solzhenitsyn attacked Kennan. For refusing to apply moral values to politics.

Saying "we mix good and evil, right and wrong, and make space for the absolute triumph of absolved evil in the world."

In a post-9/11 world, what would Solzhenitsyn say now? Fascism dominates Western and Israeli policy. Masquerading as democracy.

Terrorists R us. Kennan believed people can't be trusted to do the right thing. Their nature dictates otherwise.

We need to be realists, he said. Because we're not moralists. John Adams once said: "Power always thinks it has a great soul."

US policymakers believe they deserve it. In retirement, Kennan said the "tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable."

He lived to age 101. Remained intellectually alert to the end. Dying in March 2005. Opposed war in Vietnam.

Clinton's Balkan wars. The rape of Yugoslavia. At age 98, he warned of unforeseen consequences of war on Iraq. Saying it bore no relation to fighting terrorism.

What he said about Iraq applies broadly. Warning "(a)nyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before…"

"In other words, war has a momentum of its own, and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it."

"Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end."

Kennan expressed fears about worsening US/Russian relations. Called NATO enlargement a "strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions."

Warned against exporting US policies. Argued against subordinating other states to an international juridical regime.

Advocated for balanced power globally. The best way to protect America's security, he believed.

Historian Wilson Miscamble said "(o)ne can only hope that present and future makers of foreign policy might share something of his integrity and intelligence."

Not in America. Other Western societies. Israel. Hardline extremism rules. Phony war on terrorism persists.

Last week's Paris killings are its latest manifestation. Expect more incidents like it ahead. Wall Street Journal editors warned of "the next Islamic rampage."

A "new offensive by homegrown jihadists carrying European or US passports…(I)nspired by al Qaeda or Islamic State."

Journal editors urged "more aggressive interventions…" Against anyone "show(iing) signs of embracing jihad."

Perhaps they mean all-out war. Ignoring the world's greatest threat. US-state-sponsored terrorism. Possible nuclear war.

In October, FBI director James Comey warned of radicalized Islamists planning attacks on US soil.

Saying they're "looking to do it very, very soon. (W)e know they're serious people bent on destruction."

The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terror
In his book titled "," Trevor Aaronson chronicled so-called terrorist incidents in America over the last decade. Saying one common theme defines them.

"The organization responsible for more terrorist plots over the last decade than any other is the FBI."

"Through elaborate and expensive sting operations, involving informants and undercover agents posing as terrorists, the FBI has arrested and the Justice dept. has prosecuted dozens of men government officials say posed direct - but by no means credible or immediate - threats to the United States."

Terror plots are invented. Innocent patsies used advantageously.

Part of America's fear-mongering campaign. Manipulating public opinion. Supported by scoundrel media misinformation.

Big Lies. Getting people to believe nonexistent terrorists threaten their security. Implementing repressive policies. Eviscerating civil liberties. Waging phony wars on terrorism.

According to Aaronson:

"(G)overnment-described terrorists were able to carry forward their potentially lethal plots only because FBI agents and informants provided them with all the means…"

"(I)n most cases delivering weapons and equipment…(I)n some cases even paying rent and doling out…spending money to keep the suspects on the hook."

"In cities around the country where terrorism stings have taken place, (key is whether) the FBI catch(es) terrorists or create(s) them."

Terrorists R us defines US policy. Expect more false flag "terrorist" plots to follow Paris killings.

In European countries. America. Israel. Elsewhere. Expect Washington to be centrally involved.

Complicit with its rogue partners. At what this writer calls the most perilous time in world history.

US hegemonic plans may destroy planetary life. Lunatics infesting Washington, European capitals and Israel make the unthinkable possible.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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