Al Qaeda: The Invisible Enemy, PART II

On April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in downtown Oklahoma City. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a U.S. Government office complex that partially collapsed after a Ryder truck full of 5,000 pounds of explosive material exploded, killing 168 including 19 children. It is still the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States and was the deadliest act of terror within U.S. borders until 9/11.

Domestic terrorism has been a part of our history since, well, the dawning of our history. What was the Revolutionary Way, if not a series of calculated terrorist attacks against an oppressive government. Idealists, visionaries and extremists, some vicious, some noble, founded this country. For two centuries the United States amassed a wrap sheet of internal violence, hatred and strife and now, in the 21st century, bored stupid by domestic issues and locked in a scissor hold by the legs of modernity, the nation is at a crossroads of attrition.

If our forefathers were alive today, they would probably loathe our imperialistic passions, though that doesn’t leave them exempt from the causation of this mindset. For a country founded on rebellion, slavery and violence, is our current state of affairs that big of a surprise? Why are we so worried about Iraq, North Korea and Iran? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about when and where the next Columbine will take place? By the end of this year, it is completely plausible that more soldiers will have died in the Iraqi War than perished in the World Trade Center attack. Wow, talk about payback.

I could go on and on about the reasons of this misplaced, militaristic aggression, but I’m not going to. Just know this: Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein was not an Islamic fundamentalist. Despite how he’s portrayed by our revolting leaders and overzealous media, Hussein was and still is an atheist. I’m not saying he’s not a horrible man, he is. He’s guilty of crimes against humanity. He’s a filthy dictator. But Al Qaeda? Fundamental Islam? This is all a farce. The relationship between Al Qaeda and pre-war Iraq is about as intimate as my relationship with Jessica Alba.

For several years now I’ve been working under the assumption that the next mass scale act of terrorism perpetrated in this country, other than the almost daily assaults on our civil liberties, will be domestically born. It’s just a feeling. In fact, there are plenty of small timof terrorism happening all the time. This country, which popularized the art of serial killing through dramatic, star-making press coveragee acts , has seen a distressing rise of late in that terror field. School shootings? Highway snipers? Don’t fool yourself, this is terrorism and it’s being committed by us, on us, all the time.

So where does that leave us? With all these horrific domestic issues and the bankroll to attend to them, why are we so preoccupied with Al Qaeda and a global war on terrorism? If our leaders weren’t blinded by the soulless greed that’s killing this nation then maybe they would realize that there is a far less costly solution to this “terrorism” problem. It’s called “Get the fuck out of everywhere (and stop backing Israel)”. Sure, it sounds like a Top 40 hit, but it’s a legit, real world solution.

TO BE CONTINUED