There is a world of difference between an activist and a terrorist. Between Islam and Islamic State and we should all be paying close attention to how these terms are being used by our media and the political establishment to achieve dubious ends.
With social media and the internet now playing such a huge part in our lives, the power and reach of the spoken word has never been so great. But rather than curtail this new power as governments the world over would like to do (as demonstrated by the Charlie Hebdo hypocrisy) I would suggest we should all be paying closer attention to what is being said and by whom, in order to respond wisely.
Looking at what lies behind the lines is essential and reading ‘between them’ never more appropriate. Especially so when the lines are woven into the fabric of speeches and news reports.
Speeches have been made throughout history to great effect and can be moving, inspirational and life changing. But they are often used to justify policy and can be dangerous, misleading and corrosive.
I wrote to my MP expressing my concern over David Cameron’s speech made to an almost empty theatre at the UN during which, I and many others believe, he manipulated the truth to serve a political end:
“As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by preachers who claimed not to encourage violence, but whose world-view can be used as a justification for it. We know this world-view. The peddling of lies that 9/11 was somehow a Jewish plot, or that the 7/7 London attacks were staged.”
My MP’s lengthy Response to my letter was:
“Thanks. Sorry I agree with the PM.”
Not happy with this reply I wrote again. In this second letter I added:
“As I said previously, I abhor violence. I believe in peaceful solutions. I am anti-war anti corruption and pro truth. I support Stop The War and Freedom for Palestine. I have no prejudices. I have never taken part in any kind of violent confrontation. I have been giving to Medicine Sans Frontiers on a monthly basis for years. I have peacefully demonstrated against military action in Iran and Syria, and I have written to you in the past to express my concern about our government’s aggressive involvement in both these countries. I personally do not believe that more conflict produces peace.
Yet you assert that because I think there should be new enquiries into 9/11 and 7/7 I am fuelling terrorism.
Even if there remains the smallest doubt about what really happened on those days, this doubt should be cleared. After all, millions of people have lost their lives and many are still dying and suffering worldwide as a direct consequence of these attacks. We owe it to them and to their families to have the whole truth.
You cannot deny that, for whatever reasons, there has never been a fully transparent inquiry into either event. The mainstream media have consistently been ‘selective’ with the truth and been caught out in the process, which has just added to the doubt and confusion.
There is now hard, watertight evidence consisting of film, witness testimonies, expert affidavits, and inarguable calculations that, when taken into account, would, at the very least change the existing versions of both 9/11 and 7/7 dramatically. But unless all this evidence is heard and all is considered we will never have the truth will we? – Regardless of who assures us we do. All the time that people continue to die around the world in human conflict that truth is growing in value and in urgency.
If the government is so concerned about terrorist elements hiding within our society – and the conspiracy theories that continue to surround 9/11 and 7/7, why does there exist this aggressive resistance to any kind of honest, transparent inquiry into two of the world’s worst terrorist events? Surely, such far-reaching inquiries could only improve our understanding of the terrorist threat?
I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of experts who, if elected by the public to serve on an inquiry, would be happy to give their time for free. Especially so, as they (according to Mr. Cameron – and you say yourself) along with the victims, families and millions of other peace – loving people all over the world, who so desperately want these events re-investigated are now, by doing so, accused of fuelling violence and terrorism.
Why would a victim of terrorism want more terrorism?
Where is the evidence that justifies Mr Cameron making such a sweeping and all-inclusive statement? Where is the logic? Surely, the idea that peace-loving people searching for truth are fuelling violence is an oxymoron?”
My MP declined to respond at all to this second letter above.
Since 9/11 and 7/7 and the subsequent obfuscating and wholly inadequate enquires, the ‘War on terror’ has been in full swing and has successfully managed to make the world a much darker and more fearful place, a place where everyone is now under suspicion.
We have invaded countries, thrown out their leaders and killed innocent women and children. We’ve fractured families, wiped out towns and villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of people leaving behind a trail of rubble where there were once thriving communities. We’ve spent billions on munitions – money that could have been used constructively instead of destructively. These munitions have been finding their way into terrorist hands both by misfortune and by design and are still poisoning populations long after they were spent.
Deaths due to terrorism since 9/11 are now approaching the two million mark – although we will never know the true figure but of those deaths, a staggering 94% have perished due to the west’s ‘war on terror’ – not at the hands of ‘terrorists.’ Stop The War
This from John Rees, writing for Counterfire:
“The lesson of all this is clear: the war on terror produces terror. And the government exaggerates the threat in order to win acceptance of an unpopular policy. In doing so it demonises whole communities and ensures that a minority have additional motivation for committing terrorist attacks. This is the very definition of a counter-productive policy.”
But is it by accident or design?
The lines between freedom fighters, insurgents and terrorist cells like Al Quaeda have now blurred into a single enemy – ISIS. Yet little is ever said about the origins of ISIS. Could it be that the enemy that we have been told we should all fear, that has been cited time and again as the reason for the tightening up of security measures, the curtailment of our personal freedoms, the invasion of our privacy and which has contributed to the rising of a police state was created, in part at least, for that purpose?
This from an article in Zerohedge:
‘A newly declassified DIA document from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS. Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and their regional allies.’
‘The revelation from an internal US intelligence document that the very US-led coalition supposedly fighting ‘Islamic State’ today, knowingly created ISIS in the first place, raises troubling questions about recent government efforts to justify the expansion of state anti-terror powers.
‘In the wake of the rise of ISIS, intrusive new measures to combat extremism including mass surveillance, the Orwellian ‘prevent duty’ and even plans to enable government censorship of broadcasters, are being pursued on both sides of the Atlantic, much of which disproportionately targets activists, journalists and ethnic minorities, especially Muslims.’
‘Yet the new Pentagon report reveals that, contrary to Western government claims, the primary cause of the threat comes from their own deeply misguided policies of secretly sponsoring Islamist terrorism for dubious geopolitical purposes.’
Despite my protestations and those of thousands of others, Mr Cameron has now involved us in the bombing of Syria against the will of parliament and the wishes of the public by the secondment of our pilots to foreign air forces. As government is in place to serve us and we are supposed to be living in a democracy, surely it is our will that should be implemented not the will of the Prime minister.
So here we go again – more of the same; more speeches, more killing, more suffering, more surveillance, more fear mongering, more debt, more refugees and of course, more reprisals.
With the internet at our fingertips it has never been easier to get to the truth. There are now hundreds of independent online news outlets and thousands of journalists worldwide but most people would still rather be spoon fed by the mainstream. And the upshot of all this speech making and biased, one-sided reporting in the mainstream media is that people who are understandably war-weary and austerity-weary now often vent their anger by blaming the wrong people.
The problem with believing only what we are told is that someone else is deciding for us what is true and what isn’t and what matters and what doesn’t. We know that governments, politicians and the mainstream media have all lied to serve their own ends. They cannot be relied upon for the truth.
It saddens me greatly to hear so many ordinary, decent people now speaking out against all Muslims, all refugees or all immigrants as if they are all at fault. In their eyes they areallterrorists orallscroungers when, in truth they are just other ordinary, decent people in desperate circumstances.
This widespread, gullible, apathetic attitude when it comes to the truth will lead us all into an Orwellian oblivion:
‘War is peace’ ‘Freedom is slavery’ ‘Ignorance is strength’
As Adolf Hitler so succinctly put it:
“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”
It is up to each of us to make sure we do.
To read between the lines.
To get our news from far and wide.
To hold governments to account for their actions.
To ensure the words we speak are our own and are rooted in truth not in propaganda. For there is the true value of free speech and the way to a better world.
Sean Hunter
