Songfacts®:

• A band composition by the Pittsburgh political punk group Anti-Flag, this song outlines ten steps governments take to justify war. Released five months after the September 11 attacks on America, the song was a bold statement against what the United States government called the "War on Terror."
• When we spoke with Anti-Flag drummer Pat Thetic in 2012, he told us that this was the song he was most proud of. Said Thetic: "It's just a snare drum and sort of a spoken word song. It's not my proudest work as a songwriter, but the text of the song is very important to me, because it talks about how people in power create enemies, so we will all go off and kill them as a culture. For me, it's a song that is very important, because a lot of young people don't see these processes happening, but they're happening every day, and people are creating enemies around us all the time and if you can see that it's just a tactic, it's very easy to see through the tactic."