A Report from the Front of the War on Terror
Aug 10th, 2006 by Sean
I’ve just passed through the Chunnel. Two other trains recently passed going the other direction on the neighbor track at such relative speed that I could only make out streaks of speed and sound. I’m writing this on the Eurostar train on my way from London to Brussels. My laptop is being fed by electricity from the business class power outlet (UK-style) next to my seat, and is connected to the web via a BlackBerry EDGE/GPRS (2.5G) wireless connection. I know the weather in Austin, have sent a couple of emails, and my favorite tunes are massaging my ears via my 5th-gen video iPod. I am awash in high-tech travel, entertainment, and communication. And I’m fleeing terrorists.
I was in London for a business meeting with British Telecom, supporting the sales of the software product I was hired to create. My flight to London was delayed. As I was boarding that flight, one of the attendants was saying that the inbound flight had been delayed by some concerns and heightened security in London. Over the course of the following day and a half, the story unfolded. Scotland Yard had thwarted a group of people intent on destroying several airplanes traveling from the UK to the US. The airlines and airport security were thrown into chaos. Flights into and out of the UK were cancelled or delayed by 8 to 10 hours or more. My mobile phone and email inbox lit up as friends and family awoke to the news, and were worried because they knew I was in the middle of the mess. Amy was nearly frantic knowing that I was to travel the next morning on a flight on American Airlines from London. And now at a time when such flights were marked with the US government’s “red” threat level, or the highest level possible.
I set about finding a new way home. A safer and more reliable way home. My boss had emailed me and the travel agent giving permission to spend what I needed to get out of London in the safest way possible. I arranged to leave the UK by bullet-train, and take a flight from Brussels to Munich on a non-US/UK airline, Lufthansa. From Munich I’ll go to Chicago, and from there back home to Austin.
As I sit on this train hurtling through the dark, I think about myself and my fellow travelers — a Spaniard across from me, and a French family and English businesswoman across the aisle — and I think about the differences between us and the people that are trying to kill us. The Bush regime calls them terrorists, but I believe that’s just a political word used by those in power to frighten Americans into handing over more power. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not excusing those who the Bush regime would call terrorists. I’m fully aware that there were people determined to kill me on my flight tomorrow. Believe me I’m no dove; I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them before they killed me or someone else. But I refuse to allow the Bush regime to claim to be protecting me from these enemies, while their actions do the opposite. They say that their invasion of Iraq is protecting me from people who would blow up my airplane, but I believe that the invasion is manufacturing those people. Indeed, we are making enemies faster than we can kill them. Instead of focusing our energy on finding and fighting our true enemies (has anyone heard of Osama bin Laden?), we have invaded a third-world country, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people to “protect our vital interests in the Gulf.” Anyone care to guess what those vital interests are? By now, it should be clear why we have so many enemies, and why those enemies are so motivated to kill us.
But there is another part of the motivation. Bush says that the “terrorists” hate our way of life and seek to destroy it. In some very profound ways, I think he’s right. But by that definition I too am part terrorist. I love parts of our way of life — the parts that contain iPods, high-speed undersea trains, and equal rights for women. I hate the parts that contain religious bigotry, that guzzle oil without investing in alternative energy, and that torture other human beings — and I seek to destroy those parts. But destruction of them does not come from the barrel of a gun. The more we try to protect our way of life — especially those parts that do not deserve protection — by killing people and invading their countries, the more those people turn to violent fundamentalism as the only way of fighting back. Martyrdom (aka terrorism) may be the most effective answer when you don’t have enough missiles.
We have seen that a rise of fundamentalism in the Middle East also causes a rise of fundamentalism at home, and the same people we claim to be fighting become our own political and religious leaders. Our leaders call the enemy terrorists and evil, and our leaders — because they are fundamentalists — never stop to reflect upon or question their own evil actions. And the cycle continues.
We must act directly, and sometimes violently, to protect ourselves. But protecting ourselves also must include considering the consequences of our actions, and must include that consideration into a thoughtful and integrated plan for how we continue to build and protect our way of life. Of course, this type of action is anathema to a fundamentalist who depends not on thoughtful consideration but on self-manufactured, self-serving absolute “truths” to simplify and rule his life and others.
The train banks through a turn, gathers speed, and heads toward Brussels. I can only hope the path I’ve laid out will bring me safely home.
5 Responses to “A Report from the Front of the War on Terror”
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Very well written. I’m sure you must have been very anxious during all this. I was worried about you. Mothers do that, you know. I am so glad you are home safe and sound.
Anyway – I’m going to pass this on – others should read what you have written. I surly should give everyone a lot of food for thought.
Well, I’ve been hoping this blog would be updated for ages, but I’m sad it’s for this. I preferred the women in lettuce bikinis. Sean, I agree 100% with what you said. The older I get, the more frustrated I am with how people just want easy answers, even if they make absolutely no sense. I’m as lazy as the next guy, but what’s happening to the world just seems too absurd to be true. Thanks for sharing your point of view. It’s rage-inducing for me to see what those in power are doing to the world in our name, and even if it seems there is little we can do about it, it feels good to commisserate.
I drew hope from a recent visit to Paris, which those on the american right would say is enemy country. I didn’t know what kind of receptionTeresa and I would get, and I’m grateful that my basic faith in humankind was proved true – everywhere we went, people were unbelievably friendly, helpful, and just plain kind. Well, almost everywhere, but that’s another story… But what I am getting at is, whatever the manipulative techniques that our government uses to terrorize us into submission, I have to remember that people are people, not kill-bots, and whatever the global situation, we always have to fight for understanding and humane solutions.
Sean, I’m glad you’re back home on one piece. I wish I could have met up with you between flights in Chicago, but that probably would’t be possible thanks to the zealous efforts of the security-industrial complex at the Terminal. ;^)
Sean,
You always were able to write well. The “terror” war. I think about the words often. It’s not a war we can win with guns or bombs. the problem is that america’s leader don’t want to win. This is a wonderful excuse to shape the government in a way to promote an agenda. We can argue which agenda they sant to promote. Religion, Security, Energy, … Here’s the problem I see. The government has no credability left. People don’t know what’s real anymore. The news is lazy. The opposition is uninspiring and also lacks credability. I am usually confused. I can’t beleive that Bush would allow so many people to die to make money for his friends and family. I keep wanting to believe there was a real threat in Iraq. Then I get depressed. America lost it’s way so easily. It was like a Judo move. We were all trying to attack Bin Ladin and Bush was able to shift his weight and there we were on top of Hussain. We mis-underestimated him again.
Glad you got back safely. I agree with most of what you said, although I think you know America could easily kill the “enemies” faster than they can be made. I only hope it never comes to that and we finally figure out that differences in religion does not justify taking away all the hopes and dreams of the people in the countries that choose something other than Christianity or Judaism. It’s very difficult to deal with an “enemy” that doesn’t care if they die. Look what we did to Japan after the kamikazes- lets hope that history doesn’t repeat. People just don’t want to die if they believe they have a future.
I travelled on both 9/11 and landed in Beijing the day the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. Both those days sucked as did Aug 10th – the day my mother in law was to finally leave my home to go back to her home. Needless to say she extended her stay:-
Thanks for the comments and to those of you who have sent email. I’d like to share one of those emails from a good friend, and my response.
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Sent: 8/14/06
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And my response, sent today:
Thanks for your very thoughtful comments. I really do appreciate them.
I don’t blame the Bush administration for creating the concept of fundamentalism and hatred against modernism, the US, and the West in general. You are right that those people who would seek to blame us for everything and destroy us based on their religious hatred have been around a long time; much longer than the revolution in Iran. I believe it goes back to the origins of religion, which is to say the origins of man. I do blame the Bush administration for causing once-moderate people around the world to turn to radical fundamentalism and hatred as a reaction to the Bush government actions. You have brilliantly connected the two fundamental points of my argument in your own response: 1. The bankrupt “flypaper” theory that the US invasion of Iraq is somehow keeping the terrorists “busy” outside of the US, and 2. your Syrian friend turning to fundamentalism as a reaction to that invasion. That is exactly my thesis — that’s what I meant by my statement that we’re manufacturing terrorists faster than we can kill them. All rational evidence points to the fact that the invasion of Iraq is in no way keeping the legitimate terrorists at bay. Do you really think that Osama bin Laden and others like him, the real criminals here, are focusing their next attacks on Iraq? Clearly the UK terror plot disproves that. And by invading Iraq to “protect our vital interests in the Gulf” we set the vast majority of the population of the world radically against us, and that becomes the recruiting video for the crazy fundamentalists (e.g. your honest cleric) who seek to destroy us. [Aside: I strongly encourage you to read the motivation for the invasion directly from the people who planned it at: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm. It isn't conspiracy theory when it's flatly spelled out by the very people in control of the operation.]
Regarding the word terrorist: I believe that there are such things as terrorists. And I believe we should destroy the living shit out of them. But the Bush regime throws the word against anyone or any group that they want the American people to rally against. The religious and political left are terrorists. Environmentalists are terrorists. Is it possible to imagine that the insurgents in Iraq are made up of people that are pissed off that a foreign superpower has invaded their country, and not “terrorists?” What would you or I do if another country invaded America regardless of how we felt about Bush? Using terrorist in the propagandist way that the Bush regime does is dangerous and takes the focus off of the true criminals that we should be wiping off of this planet. Osama bin Laden perhaps?
Again, thanks very much for your reply. All the best to you and yours as well.
Sean