Fruits of the 'war-on-terror'

Until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the US-Saudi strategy of creating the Mujahidin as their proxy to confront the Soviet Union, history of terrorism was different. The Indian National Army, Maoist, and the Naxalite, Spain's ETA, Germany's Red Brigade, Britain's IRA, Algeria's National Liberation Front, and Bangladesh's Mukti Bahini movements focused on change within their countries. But today, Jihadists - be they in al Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS or Daesh, are a global threat. In August 2012, a Pentagon paper - declassified under pressure of the NGO Judicial Watch - described how ISIS was created as an al Qaeda affiliate, and trained, armed, and funded by the Pentagon. In December 2014, the Jerusalem Post quoted a UN observers' report sighting Israeli military within the ranks of ISIS.
Also, that Syria became the major target of ISIS because, according to Yuval Bartov, chief geologist of Genie Energy's Israeli subsidiary Afek Oil & Gas, in the southern Golan Heights there is a 350 meters thick oil stratum - many times thicker than the global average of 20 to 30 meters. Courtesy the Syrian civil war, Israel now occupies bulk of the Golan Heights.
That a conflict-ridden world is imperative for selling arms became the philosophy of America's military- industrial complex after WW II - mindset about whose build-up General Eisenhower had warned. But since the Korean War to the current conflict in Syria, this mindset has prevailed though it hurt America's image globally. Proof: addressing an election rally on January 6, Donald Trump said "There is hatred against us that's unbelievable."
While ISIS or Daesh are yet to gain ground in Pakistan, Taliban - US-Saudi creation - have made Pakistan the third most insecure country in the world, though both US and Saudi Arabia deny their role in it, and how in exchange for his regime's being legitimised by them, General Zia-ul-Haq became their partner in crystallising this long-lasting tragedy.
On April 25, 2009 while testifying before a Congressional Committee, Hillary Clinton, the then US Secretary of State, admitted that the US was partly responsible for Pakistan's security situation because it abandoned Pakistan after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, but didn't admit that America's shift of focus on dismembering the Soviet Union prompted this 'abandonment'.
She then went on to add, "It wasn't a bad investment to end the Soviet Union, but let's be careful because what we sow, we will harvest.... We said [to the Pakistanis], okay, fine, you deal with the Stingers [missiles] that we've left all over your country. You deal with the mines that are [buried] along the border. And by the way, we don't want to have anything to do with you."
She also accepted a harsh (but denied) reality, saying "Let's remember here the people we are fighting today we funded 20 years ago. We did it because we were locked in this struggle with the Soviet Union. They invaded Afghanistan, and we didn't want to see them control Central Asia, so we went to work" and in partnership with President Reagan the Congress led by Democrats agreed that "it sounds a pretty good idea."
"We said let's deal with the ISI and the Pakistani military, and let's recruit the mujahidin. And great, let's get some to come from Saudi Arabia and other places, importing their Wahabi brand of Islam, so that we can beat the Soviet Union. And guess what? They [the Soviets] retreated. They lost billions of dollars, and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union."
A day before the ninth anniversary of 9/11, the "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth" forum claimed that the Twin Towers suffered total destruction within 10-14 seconds in free-fall acceleration which could be caused only by pre-set demolition explosives. "There is no other way for the building to come down straight [and] symmetrically," said Steven Dusterwald.
Pointing to the fact that molten metal was found by the 9/11 inquiry, this group of 600 architects asserted that "Jet fuel and office fires cannot melt iron or steel... it can't get half as hot as that ... some very energetic material was placed throughout the buildings," and called on the US Attorney General to conduct a grand jury investigation into the cover-up of the "largest crime of the century."
Supporting this demand, former US Senator Mike Gravel had said "If there is a responsible party, it ends [at the top] with George W. Bush and comes down to Dick Cheney and then down to the military and various bureaucracies". But the likes of Gravel form a miniscule minority in the US parliament.
In her 2009 testimony, Hillary Clinton too didn't mention that due to this blunder, courtesy its Republican-Democratic backing, the make-believe 9/11 tragedy, which provided the excuse for invading Afghanistan, and telling blatant lies about Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that justified the invasion of Iraq, continue to shatter world peace.
The reason: America's military-industrial complex insists that selling arms is the most nation-enriching business. The neo-cons pushing this line have had close ties to successive Israeli regimes, and the think tanks they have created keep churning out new arguments for more world conflict and thus weapon-buying by the ever-more conflict-ridden countries.
On September 24, 2015 while addressing members of the US Congress (including many who benefit from arms trade and push for appropriating more funding for the armament industry) Pope Francis asked them "Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering?" The Pope deserves credit for posing this vital though unanswered question.
According to Ray McGovern, an ex-Army officer and CIA analyst for decades, the answer is, "simply for money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood." No wonder the Bush and the Obama administrations have kept hidden 28 pages of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry on 9/11 that exposed how this tragedy turned Saudi Arabia into the biggest buyer of US weaponry.
Using these weapons has only tarnished Saudi Arabia's image. Proof: according to the UN high commissioner for human rights, during their visit to Haradh district in north-west Yemen the UNHRC staff found remnants of 29 cluster bombs, and thereafter UN General Secretary warned that use of cluster bombs could render Saudi Arabia guilty of war crimes.
Today, armed forces everywhere appear hard-pressed in confronting terrorism thereby exposing the limits to the advantage mass destruction arms provide. According to an AFP report, French counter-terrorism officials fear that the EU is heading for a "European 9/11" that could result in simultaneous attacks in several countries in several locations.
Rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen will require trillions of dollars and a massive global effort, which makes you wonder whether the "war-on-terror" was to curb terrorism or globalise it as a ploy for promoting special interests at the cost of humanity, though changing a capitalistic mindset that widened global economic inequalities and escalated poverty which triggered an animalistic [ie Jihadist] retaliation, was the remedy.