“I think the world increasingly will understand that what we have here are a group of barbarians, that they threaten all of us. . . It’s an attack not just upon the United States, but upon civilized society.” – Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in his interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet The Press on September 16, 2001. The quote is from part one of the interview, at the 13:13 – 13:51 mark.

“The key here to keep in mind is that what we’re asking nations to do is step up and be counted. They’re going to have to decide. Are they going to stand with the United States, and believe in freedom, and democracy, and civilization, or are they going to stand with the terrorists and the barbarians? And it’s a fairly clear-cut choice.” – Dick Cheney, from part two of the interview, at the 1:39 – 2:00 mark.

“In Syria, there is mounting evidence that Al Qaeda and its allies are actively deploying terror tactics and suicide bombers to overthrow the Assad regime.

Syrian citizens who prefer the secular and stable state to the prospect of an Iraqi-style sectarian state may well be turning this same question around to the US government: are you with us, or with the terrorists?” – Joseph Wakim, “Al-Qaeda now a US ally in Syria,” The Canberra Times, September 11, 2012.

Reality is not black and white. It is gray. And nowhere is this truth more evident than in Syria, where U.S. and Western spies are arming Al-Qaeda terrorists, who are waging a “Jihad” against the secular Syrian state.

Let’s imagine today was September 11, 2001, rather than September 11, 2012. In this alternate universe, America and Syria are under attack by the same people and at the same time.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

In such a universe, what message would former Vice President Dick Cheney give to the Jihadis who are terrorizing ordinary Syrians? Would he say something like, “We’re right beside you in your fight against Assad, and we will support your struggle for freedom, and democracy, and civilization”?

Would he then turn around and tell the American people on the same day, “We have been attacked by Islamic extremists, they are barbarians who hate our freedom and want to destroy civilization”?

On second thought, there is no need for speculation. We don’t need to have a thought experiment and dream up imaginary universes because in the real world at the present time anti-terror chicken hawks like Dick Cheney and “human rights” interventionists are regularly making these contradictory statements. They are saying two things at once about Al-Qaeda and Jihadist terrorism.

According to their crazy worldview, Al-Qaeda’s terrorism in Syria is good because Assad is bad. They have funded and armed Islamic terrorists since the beginning of the conflict in an effort to destabilize Syria and overthrow its majority-backed government. In the process, they are making a mockery of the truth, democracy, national sovereignty, and international law. The “global war on terrorism” has been revealed to be nothing more than a propaganda slogan, not a real US policy.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have used the rhetoric of counter-terrorism to manipulate the American people and the international community into thinking that Washington’s wars in the Middle East are a justified reaction to the terrorist attacks upon America that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Although there has been resistance to the truth about 9/11 because of the religious nature of the big lie, a large number of the American people and most of the international community have not accepted the official 9/11 story as true and recognize the mainstream characterization of the war on terror as inaccurate.

The war on terror was sold to the world as a war between civilization and barbarism. In his interview with the late Tim Russert on Meet The Press on September 16, 2001, former Vice President Dick Cheney frequently used the word “barbarian” to describe the terrorists who he claimed struck America on 9/11. He said: “I think the world increasingly will understand that what we have here are a group of barbarians, that they threaten all of us. . . It’s an attack not just upon the United States, but upon civilized society.”

This is a simplistic, black and white picture of reality and the world. It is a myth that “civilized society” does not engage in acts of barbarism. The support by Western governments for Al-Qaeda barbarians in Syria and Libya is proof that America’s presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with defending civilization against the barbarians.

There is no civilization to defend. How can civilization exist on a planet that has thousands of nuclear weapons? Instead of the defense of civilization the war on terror represents the destruction of civilization.

We should replace the “war on terror,” which is idiotic, with “the war on fraud” and “the war on amnesia.” Western governments, under the ownership of private international banks and multinational monopolist corporations, are looting the West and the world in a fraudulent fashion. Whoever stands up to them is falsely labeled by the press as a “terrorist” and a “rogue.” And whoever points out the truth about 9/11 is shouted down as a “conspiracy theorist.”

Those who were responsible for 9/11 are making humanity the enemy. They are the barbarians inside the gates. And they are using their access to burn down civilization from within. They are lying when they yell, “Fire! Fire!” and point to the “Terrorists,” beyond the boundaries of civilization.

On this 11th anniversary of the September 11 events, it is time to stop irrationally chasing after ghosts and invented barbarians, and return to reality and reason.