NEWTON'S 3rd, TERRORISM, & SAN BERNARDINO

Isaac Newton's Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I suggest here that in the realm of foreign relations and military actions Newton's laws of physics also apply.

Violent and tragic terrorist acts over the last decades in New York, and now most recently in Paris and now in San Bernardino leave our nation puzzling. Why do they hate us so? What motivates them? Why are they willing to die to kill us? Newton (1642-1727) one the the truly great geniuses of the scientific world, who among many other achievements postulated the laws of motion, may have seen our predicament in an entirely different light. Perhaps viewing them, as a scientist might in the form of a simple equation of forces.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, which left our nation as the sole world power, in a unipolar world, we embarked on a (perhaps unintended but sure) journey of imperial world domination. No other nation was strong enough to modulate our actions and keep our sometimes base motives in check. We determined to dominate the world with our powerful economy. When that faltered we used diplomacy. And when foiled there, we sent in the CIA to destabilize and eliminate regimes who did not play ball with us. Finally, and too often, we unsheaathed our weapons designed to protect us from oppression and resorted to military action to alter the world to suit our needs or impulses at the time.

Most people do not like change. The vast majority (Americans at the forefront of these) resent being forced to change or to submit to an invader or occupier at the end of a bayonet or gun barrel. But, having the world's most advanced and massive military, it was easy for us to fall back on its use. Sadly this has been our policy and behavior over the last decades. In our process of attempting to hubristically remaking the world in an image satisfying only to OUR leaders in Washington we have understandably made many enemies. Some of our actions, were, no doubt, necessary or unavoidable. But the vast majority of our foreign adventures since 9-11 were foolhardy and unnecessary.

Historians of the future will undoubtably see our wars in the Middle East over thes last decade and a half as a renewal of the Christian Crusades against the Moslem World--the western world's "Seventh Crusade". Many will be tempted to call it "George Bush's Crusade against the Muslim World" (But now after nearly eight years of Mr. Obama's complicity in these efforts it is probably more accurately termed the "Bush-Obama Crusade").

In the last fifteen years we have invaded and occupied a wide swath of the Middle East. Our leaders repeat over and over again assurances that our policies "are NOT a Crusade against the Muslim world", but actions speak louder than words. In our military efforts, ostensibly to exact revenge for 9-11, but more likely to expand influence, secure markets and control raw materials, we have killed more than half a million Muslims of all stripes-- Sunnis and Shia, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and now in Syria. In these nations our forces and those of our allies have literally bombed these countries back into the Stone Age. Our actions displaced and made refugees of many millions. We have left behind smouldering cities, broken and failed communities, devastated infrastructure, and social chaos--- as well angry and resentful populations.

In Newton's terms "actions" have "reactions". Our invasions and bombing campaigns have consequences. The results are, as predictable as the force diagram you may have solved in elementary physics. Just as we can not imagine the thrust of a jet engine NOT driving a rocket upward and airborne, we can NOT expect our political and military actions to have zero consequences. Our military campaigns, drone attacks and extra juridical executions generate terrorist responses. This is not to try to "excuse" the actions of vicious terrorists. It is the "why do they hate us?" Anser. It is oa logical and reasoned explanation of behavior. "Radicalization" of a our or French Muslim citizen need not come from some distant or foreign source. The history of our recent military adventures may be sufficient motivation. Listening to news radio, domestic television programs where constant visuals of destruction seen through aerial bomb sights is all too common may be all that is necessary to provide the impetus for a response. Actions beget reactions.

Our military bombing, death-dealing night raids, rogue acts of military personnel, cruise missile attacks, covert assassinations, drone attacks, torture, extra-juridical killings, etcetera, etcetera, all beget reaction responses. The responses of the Muslim reactors, such as: 9-11, Paris, San Bernardino, are not generated out of thin air.

And in a nation where there are millions of Muslims and more guns than people, what can one expect? The question we must debate is, do we all want to live...and die this way? Is this the America of our future? We must have a political reckoning in which we logically review the costs and benefits of our actions abroad. What are the benefits? To whom do they accrue? Our actions and the reactions of the enemies we have created around the Moslem world have costs. We can plainly see the drastic social and monetary impacts on our citizens, to our communities, to our nation, in the almost hysterical fear and insecurity manifested post-Paris and San Bernadino. That fear and hysterical reactions are more dangerous than the actual terrorist threat.

It does not have to be this way---unending war, reprisal attacks, increasing loss of freedoms, death and destruction and descent into despotism abroad and at home.

We have let the demons of war, fear and religious intolerance and divisiveness out of the bottle. It is now time that we found ways to put these false gods back and firmly plug the opening closed.