Unwicked

“…no indication of any connection to terrorism…”

These seem to be the words we’ll be hearing every time something awful happens now that we live in the age of the global war on terror. Law enforcement, the military, and the press all seem to be in on the same game. There have been many terrible events we’ve been witness to since the the day those planes were hijacked on 11 September 2001, but most of them had no connection to what is referred to loosely as “terrorism.”

Why is the first assumption regarding a bridge collapse or a curious submersible that Terrorism is afoot? Because the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has succeeded wildly at doing just the opposite of what the name proclaims. There’s no war ON terror. The war has been FOR terror.

While we have seen the propagandists using terror and terrorism interchangeably, the clue to their intentions is how often the Terror drum gets pounded when there’s no call for it. My case in point is a story I saw on CNN.com about a “suspicious” submersible discovered bobbing near a cruise ship here in Brooklyn. The Queen Mary II docks at Pier 12 in Red Hook. Three men were discovered trying to operate a replica of the Turtle.

I believe (but I could be wrong about the location) I first learned of the Turtle through a replica on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum; it’s a one-person submersible that dates back to the American Revolutionary War. The Turtle, the invention of David Bushnell, was the first military submersible ever built by the US, and its intended use back in 1776 was to place a bomb on the hull of a British warship. Based on this history, it’s pretty ironic that the hobbyists who took it into the waters off Brooklyn did so near the QMII. (Ironic or stupid–I don’t know what word is more appropriate.)

My favorite quote from the CNN.com story is courtesy of the NYC Chief of Police:

The vessel “is the creative craft of three adventuresome individuals,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement, according to WABC-TV. “We can best summarize today’s incident as marine mischief.”

I am happy to end this piece with a quote from a cop, because the War on Terrorism is not a war. Terrorism attempts to undo the very basis of the cultures that it is aimed at. When a dirtbag blows up a building with a homemade bomb, you call in law enforcement and not the military. Here are some great quotes from Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Britain:

“London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7, 2005 were not victims of war.

“And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ‘soldiers’.

“They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists.

“We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a war on terror. The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.”

I found There is no war on terror in the UK, says DPP by Lucy Bannerman on the Times Online site. It’s a good read.