MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

If economic sabotage of the United States is terrorism, then most of the House GOP should be sent to Guantanamo. Not that BuzzFlash at Truthout supports the opening of Guantanamo in any way (we believe it should be closed forthwith), but the members of the House GOP do. And since they are terrorizing the American economy and precarious financial conditions of so many US citizens with a government shutdown and the threat of not increasing the debt ceiling, they should -- according to the cliche -- get a dose of their own medicine.

So often when US presidents and members of congress talk about the need for military intervention abroad and a humongous military, spy and surveillance budget, they refer to "national security." The politicians and the mass media generally imply that this is a term that means the US needs to use armed forces and to start wars and kill people to protect us from physical harm or death. The elected officials and their appointees hope that this meme will keep American citizens in line and in support of a huge war machine that also happens to profit those in the DC revolving door of the military-industrial complex.

But protecting "national security" -- i.e., about 95 percent of the use of that loaded term -- really means protecting the economic interests and dominance of the United States. Can anyone doubt that is what it means in the Middle East, given that America has about 4 percent of the world's population but consumes about 25 percent of its oil? We wouldn't have the relatively small number of Islamic terrorists wanting to kill US citizens if we weren't pulling the strings in most of the US and using the military and CIA to ensure regional dominance (along with the UK and other European powers).

In short, if one argues that Islamic terrorism -- such as it exists -- is a by-product of US fighting to maintain its role as empire overseer of the Middle East (in order to retain our wealth for those who have it -- and general standard of living), we wouldn't be the occasional targets of Islamic terrorism (and the numbers of Americans who are victims of terror is absolutely miniscule compared to the number of Americans who are shot by other Americans each year, and infinitesimally small in relation to the number who annually die in automobile accidents.)

So, that would mean those who undercut our economy with zealotry and fanaticism are akin to terrorists. That would put the House GOP caucus right in there as part of the jihad against the US financial system.

Financially wounding the US by not passing a budget; threatening a default of the US treasury -- these are economic acts of terrorism that threaten our "national security," just like the groups and individuals (who are relatively small in number) who this nation is going broke spending hundreds of billions of dollars to target.

In our own Congress some elected officials who are either wearing tin foil hats or feeling the jingle of campaign money in their pockets from stirring up the primordial pit of emotions in white Americans feeling the multi-cultural society (and resenting a black president) close around them...these congressional representatives are committing an act of terror against US interests. The National Journal even attributes the current government shutdown to what it calls Newt Gingrich's "permanent insurgency."

It's the GOP jihad alright, obsessed with Obamacare for the simple reason that the repetition of its name rallies its troops against the name of a black president and everything they resent in the fact that a person of a different skin color could be president.

Call it racism, call it political opportunism...but by all means call it terrorism against our "national security."

(Photo: ell brown)