Sixteen years ago today in American history, one of two things happened:

A. Some Al-Quaeda terrorists, acting under the direction of Osama bin Laden, hijacked four commercial passenger planes and flew them into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center, as well as the Pentagon, and some field in Pennsylvania. The coordinated attacks resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and spurred the U.S. into a "war against terror" that wages on to this day.

B. A bunch of ruling elites used trained operatives to conduct a controlled demolition of the North and South towers of the World Trade Center; to drop some exploding debris onto the Pentagon; and to somehow create a smoldering hole in a field somewhere in Pennsylvania. It was more or less a sacrificial barbecue in which 3,000 lives were prematurely ended for the purpose of instigating an international crisis, blaming it on the Muslims, and not letting it go to waste. The elites behind the attacks are still profiting from them to this day.

Now, each year at the appointed time, we are instructed to "Never forget!" as if the media mouthpieces would ever allow us to.

The point of this post is not to ferret out evidence for either the official or "conspiracy theory" versions of these events. I personally remain agnostic on the question. And with over a decade and a half under the bridge since they occurred, it's pretty clear that any ongoing investigations, whether official or unofficial, are unlikely to give us a satisfactory answer in our lifetimes. The point of this post is to draw your attention to the monstrous effects of the never-ending War on Terror.

Regardless of which version of events you believe to be more plausible, what we really need to remember on this 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DUPED.

3,000 people died in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Since then, the U.S.-led War on Terror has claimed the lives of at least 2,000,000 people.

It's almost like the real terrorist here--the undefeated champion of terrorists--is the United States government. I mean, what's really the difference between a guy strapping explosives to his chest and blowing up a marketplace in the name of Allah, and a guy piloting a drone from a secure location and blowing up a mosque in the name of 'Murica? Both are committing acts of atrocious violence against targets that almost certainly don't deserve it. Both are under the influence of a dogmatic belief system. As far as I can tell, the only appreciable difference is that the drone pilot will live to strike again.

Yes, it's true that terrorist attacks are still happening, and that sucks. But the vast majority of casualties in the War on Terror have been civilian victims of American military activities.

If our goal was revenge, we achieved it about 15.5 years ago.

If our goal was to reduce incidences of terrorism, we've failed spectacularly.

If, on the other hand, our goal was to inspire feelings of terror around the world, to cause a constant state of upheaval in the Middle East that would eventually spread into Europe and other regions, we have achieved what we set out to accomplish and might as well pack up our troops and our drones and go home.

But that's not going to happen. And here's why:

The War on Terror is designed to be fought perpetually.

Terrorism has been around for as long as civilization. Newsflash: it's not going anywhere. A war on terror is a war that simply cannot be won, and the political leaders--those who got us embroiled in this "war" in the first place and those who are currently at the helm of the U.S. war efforts--are fully aware of that fact.

The War on Terror is designed to be fought on and on for generations, without resolution. This is because terror, and the impotent war against it, benefit the ruling class in several ways:

• Remember, it's called "terrorism" because it scares the shit out of people. By keeping the citizenry afraid, the politicians ensure their continued support. "I will kill the terrorists and keep you safe from terrorism" has proved to be a very effective campaign promise. It does not seem to matter so much whether the politician fulfills his promise--it's more important that he makes the promise in the first place. In order for that promise to gain sufficient votes to keep him in office, terrorism needs to be a high-ranking concern for voters. Logically, it is in the ruling class' best interest to keep terrorism going strong.
• Defense contractors (and their shareholders) make huge profits in the war on terrorism. It's probably just coincidence that so many of these shareholders are also politicians and lobbyists, right?
• With so many terrorists out there and no bulletproof method for detecting their presence, keeping people "safe from terrorists" means restricting their freedoms and making them foot the bill. Internet spying, restrictions on travel, TSA pat-downs, civil forfeiture--these are all ways the government people propose to keep us safe from the scary terrorists. If these measures have the simultaneous effect of strengthening the power of the state, it's just the price we pay for the privilege of living in such a safe country with such benevolent overlords.
• Every time a drone kills an Afghan shepherd or blows a Yemeni wedding party to small bits, a few more people decide to join the terrorist movements that promise to rid their countries of the American aggressors. This is a win for the ruling class, because it assures them more targets for their war on terror, and thereby, more votes, more power, and more tax dollars.
• Furthermore, the fact that these terrorist attacks are happening worldwide, at a seemingly ever-increasing rate, is very helpful to those in the ruling class whose goal is to consolidate world power through globalization. Once this goal is achieved, they probably envision a weird, Orwellian future in which one government controls all geographies, but pits major regions against each other in daily death matches, where the opponents must be allies on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and mortal enemies all the other days.

We should have seen it coming.

Americans have seen this kind of thing before. When we declare war on an abstraction in order to rid civilization of the abstraction's deleterious effects, it's basically guaranteed to be an exercise in futility. The problem, far from being defeated by the "war", will only grow worse. Unintended consequences will pile up until the "war on x" is actually a war on ordinary people. There will be crooks who use the "war" as an opportunity for profiteering, and those crooks will invariably be people who are in some way behind the supply of whatever object or occurrence the war is purported to be against.

The War on Drugs is the most glaring example of this. Since the early 1970s, this war has been waged through domestic drug prohibition, as well as through military interference in cocaine and opium producing countries, for the stated purpose of reducing illicit drug use and addiction. In that time, drug addiction rates have remained fairly stagnant, while the monetary cost of the drug war has grown to $20 billion per year. And the War on Drugs shows no sign of stopping. Why? Because you can't win against DRUGS. Drugs are a part of civilization. Addiction exists. They are not kill-able on a wide scale. Again, the ruling class knows full well that there is no possible resolution to this war, and they exploit that fact to gain more power and more money from us, their tax cattle.

Similarly, you can't win against TERROR. The War on Terror is only in its infancy. If it continues on its course, and there's no sign that it won't, it will grow into an all-pervasive, perpetual war machine that leaves no citizen untouched, even in the gloriously secure U.S. This war could easily go on for five or ten more generations, and WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING. As soon as the first politician stepped out onto the first platform after 9/11 and uttered the words "war on--", every American citizen should have had a lightbulb go off in their head and should have chased that politician off the podium and out of town. But we didn't. We were gullible. The signs were there, but we ignored them, and now we're paying the price in taxes and innocent lives.

What can be done now?

I wish I could give you a foolproof, guaranteed-to-work answer for how to fix this mess. But there's not one. The beast has grown fat on your adoration and your fear and your taxes, and it is pretty much unstoppable at this point.

Its only weakness is that, in order to go on oppressing, aggressing, and massacre-ing sustainably, it needs your belief and your consent. If that weakness could be fully exploited by the growing number of people who are sick of this shit, it just might lead to an end of the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, and the countless other silly wars that do nothing but increase misery and suffering in the world. In the process, it would probably lead to the end of the State.

An end to this perpetual war is only achievable when enough people, worldwide, figure out that the State is the biggest and worst terrorist organization in existence. When they decide to stop viewing their fellow humans as enemies, just because they're from a different place or practice a different religion or just because the politicians say they are. When they stop allowing this terrorist organization to siphon support for its wars in the form of money, public opinion, and able-bodied young men and women. When they start to exercise their own inherent freedom to live, work, love, and create as they please.

Every single day more and more people are waking up to the ugly truth about government. And that gives me hope. But it's still not enough. Maybe it's too late, and we are all doomed to eternal subjugation and unconscionable violence under the dominion of the "Powers That Be". Or maybe the terrorist State and its perpetual war will receive a million tiny blows from people like you and me withdrawing consent, and just maybe, that will be enough to bring down the beast.

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Hi! I'm Leslie Starr O'Hara, but my friends call me Starr. I live in the mountains of North Carolina and I am a FULL TIME WRITER who doesn't wait for the muse to show up before getting to work! I write humor, essays, and fiction here on Steemit and elsewhere.

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