The Terrorism Industrial Complex

One of the concerns that conservatives had curing the presidential campaign was that Barack Obama was inexperienced when it came to the military and national security issues. My personal fear, however, very well may come to fruition if he moves down the road he's currently traveling - that of encouraging a growth of the terrorism-industrial complex.

In his final television address to America, President Eisenhower warned us about the increasing entrenchment of the military-industrial complex. As a retired general and retiring commander in chief, he understood all too well the pervasive nature of the military and how it was beginning to invade our private sectors. He saw a clear danger in who we were becoming as a people and the nature of our lives because nationalism and militarism were getting ingrained in the lives of all Americans.

This evolution of sustaining a federal institution, the military, by private institutions is described in The Complex: How The Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse.

In his book, Turse maps the "matrix" of influence the military has on our lives. He states that every sector of our private society is tied into the military: industrial, technological, entertainment, academic, media, and corporate. The military is entwined in virtually everything we see, touch, smell, eat, and do during our daily lives.

Under the Bush administration, we have seen an entire industry and mindset laid on the American people to, supposedly, protect us from terror. Since 9/11 we have been bombarded with fear tactics and lies to manipulate us into accepting changes that are undemocratic and unconstitutional. Why do we not oppose these unilateral changes? Fear. It's why we now have "Homeland Security," terror alert levels, and domestic spying. Few legislators, including President-Elect Obama, were opposed to these transformative shifts.

We have also seen carefully regulated institutions change their mission, without congressional approval. Now, I'm not a fan of all the CIA has done in the past, but things it used to do in a clandestine fashion are now routinely a part of its operation, out in the open.

One horrendous activity has been the sanctioned torture committed against prisoners of "the war" we've made on terror. In Legacy of Ashes, Tim Weiner gives one example by explaining how the nature of the CIA has changed, from an information-gathering institution to a militaristic one. In an interview, he stated, "I believe the president has misused the CIA as a paramilitary police force. ... You have to put it in the context of the great fear that swept Washington after 9/11, but ... the orders that came down were basically to go snatch and grab anyone who might pose a threat. ... What's happened has exponentially harmed (the CIA's) ability to function in foreign countries. You get intelligence by convincing people to help you, and you're not going to win them over by beating the living daylights out of them."

Following Eisenhower's example, Weiner has termed this new framework for operations the "terrorism-industrial complex." What used to be closely regulated and separate from our daily lives becomes somehow acceptable and glued to our mindset and way of being. It has changed our national paradigm and, in the process, us as a people.

Our taxes, in addition to our fears, have been used to pay for paramilitary security forces, i.e. Blackwater. They also pay for the airport security checks, which have been determined to be of little use, since they are not effective at securing the planes they are meant to protect.

We have, in the process, become increasingly nationalistic and militaristic as a country. We have changed who we are in the depths of our national soul. No longer can we say we have the greatest constitution in the world when it has not protected us, when it has not prevented our soldiers from torturing, and when it has covered its ears at the lies that got us into Iraq.

Why? All in the name of "The War on Terror." President Obama has needed to cozy up to the military so as to show his support for them. He has also leaned heavily on former military for his cabinet. And he is making plans for swimming from the shallow end towards the deep end in Afghanistan. All in the name of "terror."

Obama, nonetheless, may be able to return us to a balance, where the military is used only when definitely needed, and he may be able to restore a sense of national confidence that will allow us to move through the misty barrier of terroristic fear. If so, perhaps we will be less controlled and consumed by the military and terrorism industrial complexes. Then we may return to being a people proud of the those who apply our constitution and the behavior they display towards our country, both here at home and abroad.
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