In a song titled “Reichstag Fire,” social activist and musician David Rovics says, “To justify your exploits you must have an enemy.” Welcome to the post-9/11 world in America, in which to justify its numerous foreign nation-building adventures, the United States government has misleadingly used many different foreign leaders and groups as fa�ades to partake in empire-building imperialism throughout the Middle East.

This year’s Christmas Day wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill, happy-go-lucky family celebration. It will forever be remembered as the day Flight 253 was almost blown to smithereens by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the now infamous Nigerian “underwear bomber.” The first question on people’s minds who weren’t too busy stuffing their faces with ham and opening copious amounts of gifts to realize the breaking news was most likely, “How the hell did this guy slip through security and how did this near-tragedy almost occur?” This is a question too complex to answer within an 800-word limit. But the more you learn, the more appalling the answer is.

Even more importantly, this is a time of national hysteria, in the midst of what has been coined by many as the “War on Terror.” In reality it is, and will continue to be, merely a war on our own terror, in which we are scared into a state of governmental subservience, biting at the hand that feeds. An important follow-up question at that same moment, which far too many people weren’t willing to ask was, “I wonder how this event will be used by the media and politicians to scare us into complacency and blind, ‘patriotic’ flag-waving support of expansionist, imperialistic, ruthless military action abroad?”

By no means is an attempt to blow up a plane and kill innocent Americans a commendable action. But the key question never pondered by establishment figures in Washington and in the mainstream, corporate media, both of whom profit heavily from promoting war, as they are locked into the military-industrial-media complex is simple: “Why? What motivates people to do things like this?”

Few have been courageous enough to ask and even fewer answer the question honestly. No one likes to hear the awful truth. It’s not an easy thing for a channel like MSNBC to ask, particularly since NBC is owned by General Electric who makes the very weapons used on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan and stands to profit from expanding the war to both Yemen and Pakistan. Nor is it an easy thing for politicians to ask, many of whom rely heavily on campaign contributions from these same entities. This is the sick country we live in.

The truth is that the same activity our media tycoons, the Pentagon and weapons manufacturers profit off of is what makes us continuously susceptible to more attacks by terrorist groups, as our imperialistic activities enrage the entire Muslim world. Imagine that! Talk about a conflict of interests.

Few will ever think about or examine things closely enough to see that this country is the original culprit, as we have continuously been at war or threatening to go to war with different countries since World War II. Our greed encompasses conquering other countries and “spreading democracy” throughout the world while simultaneously slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and ruining other countries’ infrastructures, all while expanding the American Empire throughout the globe. Looks like the chickens have come to roost.

What we must do is take a deep breath, use our mental capacity and try to examine the root cause of why an incident like this would happen in the first place. Every interventionist action is eventually countered with some type of blowback. We must also examine and think about how it is advantageous for those profiting off of bombing raids and killing sprees to continue to benefit from them. For if we do not think about what is going on from a critical point of view, the pillaging and thievery beginning in Washington and ending in countries spanning the Middle East will continue and the war-making, profiteering machine will persist without dissent. Senseless groupthink will continue to win the day.

Rovics, in a song titled “What if You Knew,” sings, “If every time we went to war/To fight our evil foes/They told you we were really fighting/For the good of CEOs.” Mull that over next time you see or hear the war profiteers beating their chests about the necessity to launch drones at Yemen or continue brutal occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The madness never ends. How many deaths and how many wounded will it take? How many homes must be razed? When will we learn from our destructive mistakes? The future certainly looks dim.

Steve Horn ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and legal studies.