Many of you have read my statement on the terrorist attack of 9/11. In it, I had voiced my concern that often times of crisis are a pretext to large expansions of government power, and that many people might be too willing to hand over their freedom for promises of safety.

    This has been the precedent throughout history, but I was encouraged by immediate statements from President Bush that "Freedom will be defended". On television, politicians, pundits, and reporters made repeated references about making the world safe for freedom and that if we give up our liberties, then the terrorists will have won.

    I was willing to suspend my disbelief, but as things have come into focus it seems that we can indeed learn from history. In recent days, vast anti-terrorism legislation has been proposed, both within the USA and in the nations of the EU. In the US the 25 page Anti-Terrorist Act would greatly expand wiretapping powers of phones and email, including internet surveillance without a court order and expansive use of the carnivore system. Powers of warrant, search and seizure would be expanded, in violation of the 4th amendment. These new laws endanger the freedom of speech and assembly. At the same time, hundreds of people have been detained by the US government on dubious or non-existent charges, often in clear violations of the 6th amendment (1). And as always, the 10th amendment is completely ignored, especially as the President issues a flurry of unconstitutional executive orders. (2)
In the EU, there are attempts underway to centralize power in Brussels and away from individual states through devices such as the European Arrest Warrant and "harmonization" of individual national criminal codes. New European definitions of terrorism could be used to target many forms of peaceful protest. And all this is only a portion of the expansion of government power underway.

    Perhaps many will believe increased government power is justified, being necessary to ensure our security in new times. However, a domestic war on terrorism will be unable to completely prevent attacks in the future. The sheer logistics make it impossible. Some 270 million people occupy the US. Several thousand domestic and international flights operate in the US every day. Hundreds of ships come into port, carrying thousands of tons of cargo. As seen with immigration, it is impossible to control the thousands of miles of US borders and coasts. With numerous cheap and easy ways to perpetrate terrorism, sometimes requiring only small groups or even sole determined individuals with the most basic of materials, detecting and preventing future plots is worse than a needle in a haystack. Recently, even in this era of ultra-heightened security, one reporter was able to smuggle numerous weapons onto a passenger aircraft (3).
    In a war without borders and clearly defined enemies, where the culprits lurk in the shadows, everyone becomes a suspect. Every citizen must be subject to police-state practices and erosions of their rights. Just as everyone is monitored and frisked by metal detectors and x-rays at airports, a domestic "war on terrorism" must carry this same approach out into the rest of society. But just as this security failed within the airports, so too will it fail in the outside world. Take a look at the "war on terrorism's" closest parallel, the "war on drugs". Here decades of enforcement, expansions of policing power, and the enormous personnel and monetary resources of the government have been unable to win the war, let alone turn the tide. True, some men are stopped, but for every one, many more succeed.
    No use of government power, no matter how great, can prevent future terrorist attacks. Even if the US Office of Homeland Security were modeled after the Soviet Office of State Security, and even if a policeman or soldier was placed on every plane, on every streetcorner, it would still fail. Americans can trade in their freedom for safety, but in the end they will have neither.

For all these reasons, the war against terrorism, domestically, is
unwinnable.

    Which brings us to the other half of the war, eliminating terrorism abroad. If this were a standard war, this would be possible. In a standard war, the combatants are two nation-states who square off against each other on the field of battle, one army meeting another. Victory is won by the destruction of your opponent’s military/industrial assets. This is what the US military is designed for, and already some $300B USD annually is spent on these armed forces. In the wake of the attack, billions more were appropriated. However, as this is an atypical conflict, using a typical military makes victory extremely difficult. Groups of terrorists are loose networks operating in cells amongst numerous different countries. Trying to defeat them with military force is akin to killing a mosquito with a rifle. The only way to go after terrorists specifically would be by using intelligence agents operating covertly. But the ability of these forces to defeat and prevent terrorism this way faces the same problems as those of law enforcement on the domestic front, made even more difficult by operating in a foreign land under an uncooperative government. At best, such an operation might be able to find Osama Bin Laden and a few of his associates, but their ability to win the war and prevent terrorist attacks in this way seems unlikely.
    Therefore, the US is left with only a few other options to win this war abroad. The military can attempt to use precision munitions against terrorist "camps", but the odds of eliminating terrorism this way are perhaps the worst of any military option. Some have advocated extended bombing campaigns of suspected terrorist areas or cities, although this is sure to result in numerous deaths of innocent civilians as in Kosovo and the World Trade Center. A few extreme individuals have advocated the use of the nuclear bomb, but this is obvious wholesale slaughter. Some believe that these civilian deaths are acceptable, as these civilians are evil and tacitly support the government/organisation responsible. But I caution against this reasoning, as this was the exact same excuse used by the terrorists to justify their civilian targets.
    Another possibility is to get Arab nations to cooperate with us by having them hunt down terrorists and close all terrorist facilities. I suppose compliance would be ascertained by US or UN inspection teams, but given the track record of such arrangements in Iraq, this isn't viable. The final option, therefore, is to remove the Arab governments in question via military invasion, and then operate these lands as US protectorates. But such a plan would require ground troops fighting on the ground and occupying territory. Doing so against guerilla forces in mountainous terrain would prove extremely difficult, and perhaps, as shown by the soviets, ultimately unwinnable. And even if this option were to succeed, it would, like most of these military options, result in turning a small fanatical minority into a much larger group willing to carry out terrorist acts.

For all these reasons, the war against terrorism, abroad, is unwinnable.

    So, what should the USA do about it? Find Osama Bin Laden and a few of his close associates, then carry out justice. After that, pull out all US government involvement in the Middle East. Withdraw the military from Arab countries, shut down the embassies, stop paying billions to Israel, millions to Palestine, and stop propping up Arab governments with US backing.

But surely the US can't do that! "What about the our strategic interests?" This is where it gets interesting.

    The strategic interest of the USA in the middle east has always been singular: ensuring the steady supply of crude oil. Every action by the USA in the Middle East eventually boils down to this. Why does the US pay billions annually to Israel? To have a counter-balancing force in the Middle East, to keep the peace, so that oil will flow. Why did the US support Iraq in the 1980's? For the same reason. Why did the CIA fund and train Afgan "freedom-fighters" like Osama Bin Laden? For the same reason.

    Why do these Islamic fundamentalists hate the USA? Is it because they hate our prosperity, our freedom, our democracy? This is the official view, but incredibly naive. Is it because the US is not Islamic? This isn't about religion.

    They hate the USA because for years they have been pulling all the strings of Arabia like a puppetmaster. They have supported often-questionable governments in order to impose their will, and many Arabs resent it. The US government supports Israel, where Arabs believe they are severely mistreated. They have imposed sanctions on Iraq, whose only effect has been to cause the starvation and suffering of millions of innocents. Many other innocents have been killed through various attacks, from cruise missiles to "accidental" shootdowns of passenger airliners.  The US government has been playing in Middle Eastern politics, and they got burned.
    With its armed forces operating in over 50 countries, the US government is vying to rule the world imperially, like England before them. The US resented England, and now the Arab world resents the US. This is about politics.

    No matter whether you think the Arab angst is justified, there is one easy way to solve the problem. Unilateral withdrawal, and no entangling alliances with Israel. You don't see terrorists slamming planes into downtown Tokyo or Berlin.

    But I think I hear a voice in the back... "Our strategic interest... what about the oil?" The theory is that if the USA did not keep the peace in the Middle East, then war and fundamentalism could break out and threaten oil flow, and therefore the economy.

    This is indeed true, but only leads up to the main point of this essay, that this whole affair is a classic example of government creating a problem, and then calling for more government as a remedy. As is sometimes said, "Government breaks your leg, hands you a crutch, and says, 'See, without government you wouldn't be able to walk'."(4)

    Why did fundamentalists attack the US? Because they resent the long-time meddling in their affairs. Why has the US been meddling all this time? Because the US believes they must protect oil interests Middle East. Why do they believe this? Because they can't get the oil from home.

    And this is because of government control. Nearly the entire East and West Coasts are closed to offshore exploration. Drilling in the US is incredibly difficult and expensive from regulatory control, if not outright impossible. Vast deposits remain untapped in Alaska, and central Canada may have deposits greater than the entire reserves of Saudi Arabia.
    Government power creates problems, and often a seemingly innocuous government act has major unforeseen consequences (5). Government cripples domestic supplies, so oil must come from the Middle East. The Middle East is unstable, so the US government becomes deeply involved. A Long series of perceived injustices upsets many Arabs, especially fundamentalists, and they blow up the World Trade Center. Many call for increased military presence, bombing or invasion of Middle Eastern countries, even taking over their governments.

    This is where we are, on the verge of a continuing cycle of violence. If the US undertakes gross expansion of force abroad, they will only create the wills of 10 thousand new terrorists, who they will be unable to stop. If they undertake grossly expanded government powers at home, they throw away their liberty for nothing.

I am more infuriated then you may ever know by these terrorist attacks, the thousands of innocents murdered, and the economic havoc wreaked. I want to prevent such horrors from happening again, and to bring the guilty to justice.

But what should be done?
The answer is simple, take government out of the loop.


This tragedy could have been avoided under libertarian governance.


- John I

(1) The existence of thousands upon thousands of laws, including everything from the incomprehensible 6,000 page, 2.8 million word US tax code, to obscure weapons, traffic, and other laws, may seem trivial or rarely enforced. However, their existence does ensure that nearly everyone is a criminal, in that everyone has probably broken some law or another at some point in time. Therefore, the state gains the power to arrest anyone at anytime, at their pleasure.
For a relevant recent article, see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37533-2001Sep27.html

(2) For more on executive orders, see the recent World Net Daily article at: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24686

(3) See: http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/sep/27/armp092701.htm

(4) I believe this quote is attributable to Harry Browne.

(5) As you may know, the collapse of the World Trade Center was not caused by the impacts themselves, but by the inferno that raged in their wake. It was the immense heat of the fires that weakened the structural steel, leading to collapse. During construction of the World Trade Center, Asbestos was used to coat the steel as a fire-retardant measure. However, mid-way through construction the use of asbestos was banned, and asbestos coating stopped. Many structural experts believe that had asbestos been used up through the upper floors of the building, as planned, the buildings may not have collapsed. Of course no one could have foreseen this event, but it does reinforce the point that misinformed government legislation can have unforeseen consequences.

---

As a final note, I would like to say that I believe in peaceful commerce with all nations, but entangling interventions in none. As such, importing oil from the Middle East is perfectly acceptable, but US interventionism is completely unnecessary. Any events disrupting Arab supplies could be easily rectified in a free market, where oil development is unencumbered.