The Rutherford Institute :: Violence Begets Violence: The Orlando Shootings and the War on Terror [SHORT]

Violence Begets Violence: The Orlando Shootings and the War on Terror [SHORT]


By John W. Whitehead
June 14, 2016

Until we start addressing the U.S. government’s part in creating, cultivating and abetting domestic and global terrorism—and hold agencies such as the FBI and Defense Department accountable for importing and exporting violence, breeding extremism and generating blowback, which then gets turned loose on an unsuspecting American populace—we’ll be no closer to putting an end to the violence that claimed 50 lives at an Orlando nightclub on June 12, 2016, than we were 15 years ago when nearly 3,000 individuals were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Here’s what I know:

While U.S. politicians have been lecturing American citizens on the dangers of gun violence and working to enact measures that would make it more difficult for Americans to acquire certain weapons, the United States, the world’s largest exporter of arms, has been selling violence to the world, equipping nearly half the world with deadly weapons andprofiting to the tune of $36.2 billion.

Blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities, is a reality. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback. We failed to heed his warning.

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