Terrorist wins
Almost ten years ago, the world suffered an emotional breakdown. Two planes blasted New York’s WTC towers. Following that, the US sent its soldiers into Afghanistan and Irak in order to ‘promote freedom’ and to ‘protect the american way of life’.
Exactly six years ago, an Al Qaeda franchise blasted 10 bombs inside trains in Madrid. After one day of paroxysm and with Spanish government (Popular) assuring that the bombing was done by basque terrorists, the ‘mobile phone revolution’ led Mr. Zapatero (Socialist) to win the elections two days after the blasts.
Five years ago, three suicide bombers blasted themselves on the subway, while another one did it on a bus in London. Fourteen days after, on July 21st, four more bombs disrupted London’s subway system. The day after Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian citizen, was shot dead in public by armed police officers when he was waiting for the subway.
After the first attack in New York, the US took some measures in order to ‘protect’ its citizens and ensure the free world to remain free.
Some of those measures were the US Patriot Act, invading two countries (and convincing half the world to join), implanting restrictions to travellers around the world in the shape of looney security controls, restrain those silly and useless restrictions even more, creating some no-fly lists, imposing restrictions to worldwide commerce and money movements, imposing upon almost all airlines to ‘facilitate’ their customers data including credit card and frequent flight numbers, even if the customers were not flying to the US, placing armed police officers and bomb-sniffing dogs in NY’s subway… not to mention the ability for intelligence agencies to ‘legally’ kidnap any person in any place of the world at any time.
Oh, and if you survive all these new ‘freedom’ strategies, you have to know that if you refuse to handle your passwords to a UK police officer, you will face five (5!) years in prison.
And, thanks to the bombings in Madrid and London (carried using mobile phones), the European Union passed a directive, EU law that every member state is obliged to apply, in order to identify and register each and everyone person buying a pre-paid mobile phone card.
And we could go on for a while…
David MacGregor spoke about a big turn point around 9/11 and how it can undermine the ongoing war on freedom. I hope that americans who still believe in their country can make it. I hope and wish it. But this war on freedom, disguised in the shape of a war against a phantom menace, is too much well funded.
We heard a lot about not letting terrorists impose their law. About maintaining freedom and lifestyle. But people all around the world want to be safe at all costs, but what I suspect is that they do not know that the costs includes their freedom and liberty. What they do not know is that they have the enemy just at home. Those states, supposed to grant freedom and protection upon their citizens, are the very same who shoot them on the streets and drain their money to pay costly and lousy anti-terrorism programs and devices as body or shoe scanners.
At the end of the day, and if we believe them, terrorists wins. Both.
