Justin Raimondo’s articles immediately following the attacks on 9/11 are astounding to read in hindsight. He predicted the loss of liberty, the succession of bloody wars instigated by the United States. I imagine a rather thick book is currently being compiled of Justin’s articles spanning the past two decades, because his work stands as the premier history of the War on Terror madness. I’ll post just two of his pieces here, the first written on 9/11/01, and the second the day after.
9/11: TERROR
9/12: Imperial Paralysis:”The sheer fragility of the American Imperium is what is painfully apparent here. Painful most especially to the US government, whose complete inability to defend the country while claiming the mantle of the world’s only superpower is exposed for all to see. It is the weakness of an entity that has grown too big, too overextended, too blinkered by pride (some would call it hubris) to see the pitfalls of the policies it has pursued, not only in the Middle East but around the world, from the Balkans to the Far East. Our foreign policy of global military and political intervention in the internal affairs of other nations, from Bosnia to Belarus, has produced what policy analyst Chalmers Johnson has referred to as “blowback.” In his book of that title, as if in anticipation of the perplexed “Why?” of the average Americans’reaction to this carnage, Johnson wrote:
“Only when we come to see our country as both profiting from and trapped within the structures of an empire of its own making will it be possible for us to explain a great many elements of the world that otherwise perplex us.””
Very few cool heads prevailed among the general public in those days. The greater portion of the US populace transformed into a rabid lynch mob, impatient for the retaliatory bloodshed. These people, virtually all of them, knew nothing of history, or of their own government’s actions in the Middle East that could’ve inflamed such hatred in someone that they would attack us, and they didn’t care. The vast majority delighted in the bliss of their ignorance, and called for mass murder of entire nations as if it were the most reasonable response imaginable. Our government caught wind of this national sentiment and exploited it, launching wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the ignorant masses cheered on the destruction, not only of those nations, but of their own liberties as well. Bush/Cheney supporters positively reveled in the vast powers bestowed upon the Executive, laughing at the defenders of civil liberties as cowards, as people who didn’t have the stomach for such Imperial acts. Well, who’s laughing now? No one, that’s who. The consequences of such a heedless policy has created problems far worse than what we began with. We Americans have blindly supported legislation, war, and debt, the consequences of which utterly dwarf anything that “terrorists” could inflict upon us. Wasn’t that what Osama Bin Laden had said was his goal all along? To scare us so badly that we relinquish our liberty and launch endless war, bankrupting us in the process? The threat of terrorism has increased, yes, but the threat of our own government to our own well-being and liberty has increased by orders of magnitude. Justin saw all of this, and warned us, but few listened.
