In an astonishing bit of unexpected news, a senior State Department official has announced, “The war on terror is over.” This stems from the idea, reports the National Journal, that, “it is no longer the case, in other words, that every Islamist is seen as a potential accessory to terrorists.”
The same official continues, “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”
This is great news, isn’t it? If the “War on Terror” is over, then we can repeal and reverse all the ridiculous police state laws that were put in place to protect us from terrorism… right?
I mean, can we now fire the TSA? They were only put in place after the “terror” attacks on 9/11. If the war on terror is over, the TSA is no longer needed (even if you assume they were effective at all, which they weren’t).
Can we now repeal the Patriot Act which was passed out of an urgency to defend America from terrorists?
Will Obama nullify the NDAA that he recently signed, which uses the excuse of the “war on terror” to legalize secret arrests and the stripping of due process from all Americans?
Can we now deconstruct the DHS and fire Janet Napolitano who has become the (nauseating) face of “fear your neighbor” campaigns?
The police state is not about stopping terror, it’s about promoting it
And why? Because all these things mentioned abovewere never designed to stop terrorists. They were designed to imprison the American people and turn America into a police state dictatorship drowning ina culture of fearpromoted by the state.
“War is the health of the state,” said Randolph Bourne, a writer and intellectual who lived a century ago.
That’s why these police state laws will never be revoked. In fact, they will likely be expanded with yet more legislation, more nullification of the Bill of Rights, more secret arrests and more secret prisons endorsed by Obama (yeah, the guy who once ran on the platform of shutting down secret military prisons but turned out to be a total liar… is anyone surprised?).
That’s why all this surveillance and police state power that was enacted in response to the 9/11 attacks will be kept in place indefinitely! Because it’s really about waging a war on the American people, not a war with some fictitious, unseen enemy.
The best writer on this subject, by the way, is Paul Craig Roberts. His website is a must-read information source for all those who wish to understand why America is being steadily and deliberately transformed into a police state dictatorship.
