The War on Terror will persist until its flawed logic is challenged. As long as the root of its deception remains unexposed the global situation will continue to deteriorate. The driving force is ideas, not bombs. The Bush Administration has carefully disguised these ideas in the language of deception.

Of the many misleading notions propagated by the Bush Administration the most lethal has been the War on Terror. It is an idea that is every bit as fraudulent as “preemption” (which is the legitimizing of unprovoked aggression) or “the Security Barrier”; the patently dishonest description of the 20 ft. high monolith that snakes through Palestine, savaging all hope of a just solution to the ongoing crisis.

The War on Terror is the truest expression of the calculated dishonesty that passes as policy in the Bush White House. It is grounded on “unproved assumptions” and fear mongering, the weapons of choice for controlling a timorous public.

Terror is an inescapable reality in the modern world; a world where a small fraction of the population will respond violently to grievances and injustice. This is a situation that has been dealt with quite successfully through normal “investigative-police” work. Even Mr. Bush admits this, although only when it suits his purposes.

Consider this; Abu Zubayda, Khalid Sheik Muhammed and Ramsi bin al Shibah (alleged Mastermind of 9-11), have all been captured and imprisoned through conventional detective work. The results of their interrogations have undoubtedly provided a clear understanding of the inner workings of al Qaida.

This is how you measure success. This is how you get to the root of terrorist organizations.

Additionally, according to the Administration’s own admissions, more than two-thirds of the al Qaida leadership has been caught and incarcerated.

Again, success.

These achievements are much more impressive than the poorly conducted Afghanistan war where the principle characters (bin Laden and Mullah Omar) were able to escape.

So, why does the administration conceal its own successes?

And, why do they downplay the methodology that is putting a dent in terror?

The reasons are obvious.

Without the War on Terror, that source of all demagoguery, the real political objectives of the administration would never be realized.

They simply need a credible “Monster” to continue their campaign to secure the world’s dwindling resources and to abridge the rights of American citizens.

The idea that we are combating “terror” suggests that we are dealing with an irrational force that cannot be appeased, only defeated. The Bush Administration has done everything in its power to cultivate this now widespread belief. The terrorist attacks on America has been stripped of all their political significance and translated into the ravings of bloodthirsty Islamic fanatics, whose sole purpose in life is to kill innocent Americans. Even the al Qaida communiqués, (which are offered in the European press) are scrupulously omitted from American media, so that any vestige of “reason” will not attach itself to the terrorists.

They must be demonized in the harshest, “Evildoer” terms.

This is in direct odds with what we already know.

For example, following the Madrid bombings, al Qaida sent this message: “Stop targeting us, release our prisoners and leave our land, we will stop attacking you. The people of US allied countries have to put pressure on their governments to immediately end their alliance with the US in the war on terror (Islam) If you persist we will continue.”

Regardless of what we think of the perpetrators, this is a straightforward political directive that expresses a “reasoned” approach to injustice. We do not agree with the bombings, but we certainly don’t dismiss these claims as the ravings of religious maniacs who “hate our freedoms.” (Bush’s painfully inane assessment of the cause of terrorism)

Instead, their claims match up quite nicely with those of reasonable American’s who entertain the notion that we should simply pay for oil, rather than stealing it; that we should stop occupying Muslim countries, and that we should look for sensible alternatives for negotiation rather than pelting the dessert with Cruise Missiles.

The idea that we are at War works to the advantage of the Bush Administration. We have already seen how the war on terror morphed into the war on Iraq. Mr. Bush never misses an opportunity to conflate the two in his attempts to confuse the public.

But is it a war, or just a shabby public relations ploy to achieve an alternate political objective?

We have already demonstrated how the real progress has been through routine police work. The War motif is invoked for a dual purpose.

First, it suggests that we are responding to aggression.

But, is that the case?

Was 9-11 a flagrant act of unprovoked hostility, or was it retaliatory?

We can see from the communiqué above that the perpetrators considered it “striking back” not “striking out”.

This does not vindicate the action, but at least it points to the fact that there are underlying grievances that motivated the attacks. It wasn’t simply blind rage.

This implies that there may be some type of remedy.

Mr. Bush has no remedy.

He is Armstrong Custer charging into harms way with the full might of the US military machine at his beck and call.

We cannot afford such transparent stupidity.

Our life as American’s is threatened by the idea that we are at war. It vindicates the policy decisions that Bush has made that are reshaping the social contract.

If we accept the language of Mr. Bush’s crusade, we must accept its logic. That means that we must accept the further curtailing of civil liberties;

we must accept the increased and “unchecked” power of the Presidency;

we must accept the idea of permanent war.

This is the devil’s bargain we make when we accept the “language” of the War on Terrorism.

We should be more focused on the language of resistance; a language that points in the direction of reconciliation and away from this terrible abyss.

As for terrorism; the most effective way to fight terrorism is through justice; justice that applies beyond our borders and is not circumscribed by the petty limitations of nationalism.

Next Section: Dying for Grapes or Virgins? Which one is better?