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Rome’s “Empire Without End” and the “Endless” U.S. War on Terror

Rome’s “Empire Without End” and the “Endless” U.S. War on Terror

Replaying the Roman Civil Wars in Reverse Since 9/11

L’incendie de Rome, Hubert Robert (c. 1785)

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Three days after 9/11, as the Twin Towers continued to burn, a near-unanimous United States Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The lone dissenter, Representative Barbara Lee, warned that the resolution gave a “blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the Sept. 11 events — anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit.”

Representative Lee was right. In the sixteen years since 9/11, these 60 wordshave been used to justify at least 37 military operations in 14 countries under George W. Bush and Barack Obama alone, many targeting groups that played no role in the attacks. The Trump administration, too, continues to pursue covert military actions under the AUMF that only occasionally emerge into the news cycle — as with the mysterious deaths of four US soldiers in Niger this October. Expressing surprise at their presence, Senator Lindsey Graham, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged, “This is an endless war without boundaries, no limitation on time or geography.”

I felt a shock of recognition as I read Graham’s words. Earlier that evening, my graduate seminar on empire in the Roman imagination had discussed Jupiter’s prophecy in the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A thousand 9/11s

A thousand 9/11s

The 9/11 attack was just the beginning of the bloodletting and the wanton abuse of law to extend unaccountable state authority

Fourteen years ago, 2,996 people were murdered when four civilian planes in the United States were hijacked by al-Qaeda extremists, one flown into the Pentagon, and two into the World Trade Centre towers.

But this was just the beginning of the bloodletting.

The 9/11 attacks ushered in a new era of global warfare to root out extremism. Far from defeating al-Qaeda, the “War on Terror” has seen its enemy metastasise into a self-styled “Islamic State” (IS).

Along the way, we have seen the collapse of the rule of law: the illegal invasion of Iraq, the fabrication of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), extra-judicial assassinations, systematic torture (still continuing), organised kidnapping, indefinite detention and global mass surveillance.

We have also seen the wanton abuse of law to extend unaccountable state authority across Western homelands: eroding habeas corpus, policing ordinary citizens, normalising racial profiling and criminalising dissent.

Fighting fire with fire

Conservative figures suggest that since 9/11, the “War on Terror” has killed some 14,000 Afghans, 35,000 Pakistanis, and 120,000 Iraqis – excluding indirect deaths from destruction of power, water, sanitation and medical facilities: 150,000 people overall. That’s fifty 9/11s.

At the higher end, a survey of major epidemiological studies by the Nobel Prize-winning doctors group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, puts the direct and indirect death toll at some 1.3 million people. That’s over four hundred 9/11s. Yet another study based on UN Population Division mortality data suggests the full death toll may be as high as four million: that’s over a thousand 9/11s.

The casualty figures keep wracking up. An August study by the nonprofit journalism project Airwars found conservatively that coalition strikes against IS had killed hundreds of civilians – perhaps over a thousand – in the first year of operations.

– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/thousand-911s-1602359316#sthash.6BwtSTeC.dpuf

 

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

This is a piece I wrote last year for Ron Paul’s Voices of Liberty.  Now although mainstream media has all but put a gag order on 9/11 memorial coverage, I believe this article’s message has never been more relevant and so I’m posting again at what is obviously poignant time.  I find it odd that we have 10 Hollywood blockbusters made each year about the holocaust 75 years on, but only 14 years after the event American media will no longer discuss 9/11, even upon the anniversary.  It is perhaps the most telling phenomenon about the secretiveness and mystery surrounding the horrific tragedy.

It was the sixth week of my first job fresh out of college. I was still eagerly excited for each new day. Having moved stateside from a small town in Canada to finish up university and then on to the big city of Chicago, I was still in awe of America. I was working in the north building of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on the corner of Madison and Wacker. It was early morning and I was on the phone with Paul Salvio from our New York office when

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the phone went dead.

The day was September 11, 2001. Our New York office was on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center Tower 1. None of the employees who had arrived to work that day survived. It is a moment that elicits strong emotions within me to this day and I know I’m not alone.

In the days and weeks that followed, while the world came together to mourn those lost and to condemn those responsible, our policymakers in Washington were working feverishly to find opportunity in this tragedy. Forty-five days after 9/11, President Bush signed into law the U.S. Patriot Act.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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