On September 11, 2001, the world watched as the World Trade Center, the twin towers that represented US global dominance, were struck by hijacked U.S. commercial jetliners and came crashing to the ground. Nearly 3,000 people were killed, from high-powered executives to clerical workers and immigrant kitchen workers. The hijackers were Middle Eastern men, primarily from Saudi Arabia.
Twenty-five years later, many questions remain about how the US military and security establishment could have allowed this to happen. Hardly anybody believes the official 9/11 story, which raises more questions than it answers, and there are many competing theories about who was behind this tragedy. Was this an incredible US security lapse or a highly coordinated false flag? Whatever the case, the neocons in George W. Bush’s administration immediately declared a “war on terrorism,” and put into motion their longstanding designs to conquer seven Muslim countries in the Middle East (as revealed by General Wesley Clark) – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan. Over the last 25 years, the US has initiated wars against all of these countries, as well as Afghanistan.
U.S. administrations under Presidents George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump (again) are responsible for creating a hell on earth throughout the Middle East, resulting in millions of deaths and millions more homeless refugees. Thousands of US soldiers also died in Iraq and Afghanistan, any thousands more carry the physical, mental and spiritual wounds to this day.
These nations may never fully recover, but Iran still stands. It may be the only Middle Eastern country still strong enough to resist domination by Israel, the US and the former European colonial powers. That is why it is being frantically targeted by militarists in Israel and the U.S. And that is why the US peace movement must do all we can to end the escalating US on Iran.
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Under the slogan of “the war on terror,” the US government has carried out an increasing campaign of terror worldwide and against its own people. Torture has been normalized as represented by the extralegal Guantanamo torture prison on occupied Cuban land. The US and NATO provoked Russia into a catastrophic war in Ukraine which they continue to fuel with billions of dollars, arms and military advisers. Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses have enabled an ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. In January of this year, the US made a brazen attack on Venezuela, kidnapped its president and first lady, and are holding the Venezuelan government hostage while they steal Venezuelan oil. The US has blocked all oil shipments to Cuba, greatly exacerbating the damage done by the 64-year-old US blockade of Cuba, even as they threaten to invade. President Trump and “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth post “snuff videos” of their blatantly illegal bombing of boats in South American waters, where they have murdered hundreds of fisherman and alleged “narco-terrorists” without any evidence or judicial proceeding.
Trump’s War of Terror Comes Home
The stepped-up US aggression abroad is now being mirrored by state-sponsored terror in these United States. Armed gangs of ICE agents routinely carry out racist attacks on immigrant communities and people of color, no matter their immigration or citizenship status. The mass incarceration of Black men is now matched by mass incarceration of brown men, women and children in for-profit prisons, where abusive conditions have led to many deaths. White supremacism is out in the open as cruel fascist practices are being normalized. US peace activists and immigrant rights activists are being labeled as terrorists and prosecuted as terrorists for nonviolent resistance to the terror of the state.
Even as the US war on Iran continues and escalates, the Trump administration and Republican Party are openly seeking to undermine the midterm US elections by blatant last-minute gerrymandering of congressional districts, by trying to prevent mail-in voting, by reducing the number of polling places, by threatening to deploy intimidating ICE agents at polling places and even “joking” about canceling the elections altogether. Veterans For Peace has joined with other veterans’ groups and military families in the Veteran Against Fascism coalition to do all we can to defend the elections, for example by providing safe accompaniment to the polls.
The Terror of Nuclear War
Adding to the atmosphere of global terror is the ever-growing threat of nuclear war. Multiple sources have confirmed that the Trump administration has been discussing the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons in its war on Iran. Pentagon war-gaming of the U.S. use of tactical nuclear weapons has consistently resulted in global nuclear war that leads to a nuclear winter in which billions of people would starve to death – those that survived the initial nuclear blasts and radiation illnesses. Seventy-five countries have ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which outlaws the possession, sharing, transporting, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has ditched the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with Russia, while it carries out a series of wars that – if not checked – will inevitably lead to nuclear war. In fact, the US is actively planning to wage a war against China that would start with a US nuclear first strike on China. These policies only lead more countries to seek nuclear weapons, directly the opposite of the stated US policy and treaty obligations to seek nuclear non-proliferation and good-faith negotiations to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
The so-called “War on Terror” has revealed itself to be a war OF terror, one that is being waged by our own government on foreign soil as well as here in the United States. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we must rededicate ourselves to resisting US wars at home and abroad.