There is no "War on Terror"

Pachacutec at FDL has written an article for Memorial Day making a point that I have made many times before: There is no "War on Terror". In fact, as I have said before, the Terrorist-in-Chief has made it his mission to make the American public afraid, very afraid. His technique: if you scare people, they won't pay attention to the bad stuff you're doing and even better, if you promise to save them, they'll love you for it. It's long past time for people to stop using that phrase. It legitimizes it. Refuse to accept it. We should say: I don't know what you mean... do you mean the illegal invasion of a sovereign state? Do you mean when Bush started a war in Iraq? I still can't get over that fact that people blithely accept the fact that, under Bush, the United States started a war!

Update: Atrios says: ""The war on terror" was always a sham, in the sense that it was a hideously inappropriate metaphor which provided cover for a bunch of hideously inappropriate policies."

I liked Pachacutec's article so much that I'm quoting it in its entirety:

There is no "War on Terror".

There is, however, a "war" on the U. S. Constitution.

After September 11, 2001, we’ve learned that we can take a punch and move on. We’ve faced far worse threats to our national survival in our history - the Civil War, the War of 1812, World War II to name a few - but we never abandoned our Constitution. Until now.

Terror is an emotion. Emotions are part of human nature and cannot be eradicated. A "War on Terror" is therefore a war on humanity. The Bush administration has exploited the fear and shock of a nation in the wake of a surprising and dramatic act of violence to whip national fear and paranoia into a constant boil. Why?

The evidence suggests the whole point has been to seize power and steal money. We are witnessing a creeping coup in the United States, the overthrow of the idea, promulgated by our founders and by writers like Tom Paine, that the "Law is King:"

But where says some is the king of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

The Bush administration has explicitly denied this, claiming unlimited executive power under the president’s war powers against civilians and citizens. The president is not your "Commader in Chief" if you do not serve in the armed forces. On the contrary, he works for you, and he works for your representatives in the Congress.

There is no "War on Terror." There is only a war on the law, a conscious destruction of the U. S. Constitution. This is not the first time right wing interests have attempted to overthrow the U. S. government. An attempt was thwarted during the FDR administration. Then as now, America’s greatest enemies come from among the ranks of America’s ruling master class.

Bushco has enslaved Americans into a psychological reign of "War on Terror" that amounts to a criminal protection racket. We are told we must be afraid. That is, we are told we must live in terror. This is to protect us from. . . terror. Then, because we feel terrified, we must give up our freedom - freedom to write what we believe without fear of reprisal, freedom of due process and habeas corpus protection, freedom from secret intrusion into our private lives by government.

Today is Memorial Day. Today we remember countless patriots who died and fought for those freedoms our president tells us we must abandon. . . in the name of "freedom."

If there were really a "War on Terror," an emotion, Wes Craven would be hiring a lawyer: he scares people. The "War on Terror" is a sham. You know what changed after September 11th? We, the people of the United States, forgot how strong we are. We gave in to fear, when the only thing we should have feared was fear itself. Osama bin Laden wants you to be afraid. So does George Bush.

I know I’m not alone when I say, I’m an American and I’m not afraid. I know I’m going to die. I accept that I’m going to die, no problem. What I do not accept and will not accept is the notion that I must live as a slave to fear for the purposes of craven, cowardly men who, in their time, pissed the bed rather than fight an actual war, later to become powerful and use that power to line their pockets with my tax dollars. Give me liberty or give me death. Take your "terror" and shove it.

We went after the criminals who attacked us when we invaded Afghanistan, then quickly abandoned any pretense of being concerned with actual terrorists by fighting a ginned-up war of aggression against a tin-pot dictator for whom our chickenshit president and his buddies have always had a hard-on. If the U. S. were serious about thwarting terrorism or about minimizing our exposure to acts of violence designed to make us afraid, we would have rigorous port security and massive international goodwill and cooperation in the lawful identification of anarchic, violent networks. But we don’t have that. We have our sons and daughters fighting to maintain bases in the sand near oil fields, sacrificing their lives, bodies and minds for a pack of lies.

Ann Coulter and other right wing totalitarian cheerleaders like to talk about traitors to America. George Bush and the Republicans have betrayed America, the actual laws of America and the very idea of America. On Memorial Day, as we remember our sons and daughters who have sacrficed their lives in the blistering sands of Iraq, it does their memory due honor to point this out. Noble men and women fallen, their blood cries out for lawful justice.

In each of our minds lies the beginning of our return to freedom, so please, say it after me: "There is no ‘War on Terror.’"

It’s high time for America and Americans to remember our strength. We need not be afraid. When we surrender to fear, we lose our country, we lose our faith in each other, we lose our future and we lose our freedom. The best way to honor the sacrfices of our nation’s men and women killed in battle is to embrace, once again, that precious liberty.

It’s time to be America again.