At the beginning of the year 2015 it is time to reflect. This is what I am reflecting on this time:
$14 Million (US) an Hour for 13 Years: War on Terror’s Astounding Cost
For the investment in some cardboard cutters and plane tickets on 9/11 the “return” for the terrorists was as unimaginable as the for everyone around the world to watch “perfect” implosion of the towers as a crumbling symbol of the capitalistic world.
However there is not only the “return” for the terrorists in the costs to the US taxpayer. There is also the even more important return to the newly created homeland security industry and the old military industrial complex, which have to thank the terrorists.
Fear is what makes us as governments and consumers spend without thinking and questioning. If we hadn’t the now perpetual “war” on terrorism we would have to invent it. It keeps our economy, which is largely based on the military industrial and homeland security complex, ticking over.
This is the logic of our capitalistic system that wars are there for money to be made.
Let’s imagine if we hadn’t started just another war as the ingrained reflex of our economic/political system after 9/11. Let’s imagine we had after the outrageous mass murder crime against almost 3000 victims just called the police as you do. What if the police and criminal justice system had dealt with the crime ? What different outcomes would we have ?
This is of course hypothetical as we cannot accurately asses the alternative history. However I dare to say that extremist islamist lunatics would not have gained so many recruits worldwide and the map of the Middle East would at the moment not look like that :
