Terrorism
Defined
By Stephen Lendman
31 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Probably
no word better defines or underscores the Bush presidency than "terrorism"
even though his administration wasn't the first to exploit this highly
charged term. We use to explain what "they do to us" to justify
what we "do to them," or plan to, always deceitfully couched
in terms of humanitarian intervention, promoting democracy, or bringing
other people the benefits of western civilization Gandhi thought would
be a good idea when asked once what he thought about it.
Ronald Reagan exploited it
in the 1980s to declare "war on international terrorism" referring
to it as the "scourge of terrorism" and "the plague of
the modern age." It was clear he had in mind launching his planned
Contra proxy war of terrorism against the democratically elected Sandinista
government in Nicaragua and FMLN opposition resistance to the US-backed
El Salvador fascist regime the same way George Bush did it waging his
wars of aggression post-9/11.
It's a simple scheme to pull
off, and governments keep using it because it always works. Scare the
public enough, and they'll go along with almost anything thinking it's
to protect their safety when, in fact, waging wars of aggression and
state-sponsored violence have the opposite effect. The current Bush
wars united practically the entire world against us including an active
resistance increasingly targeting anything American.
George Orwell knew about
the power of language before the age of television and the internet
enhanced it exponentially. He explained how easy "doublethink"
and "newspeak" can convince us "war is peace, freedom
is slavery, and ignorance is strength." He also wrote "All
war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably
from (chicken hawk) people who are not fighting (and) Big Brother is
watching...." us to be sure we get the message and obey it.
In 1946, Orwell wrote about
"Politics and the English Language" saying "In our time,
political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible"
to hide what its user has in mind. So "defenseless villages are
bombarded from the air (and) this is called 'pacification'." And
the president declares a "war on terrorism" that's, in fact,
a "war of terrorism" against designated targets, always defenseless
against it, because with adversaries able to put up a good fight, bullies,
like the US, opt for diplomacy or other political and economic means,
short of open conflict.
The term "terrorism"
has a long history, and reference to a "war on terrorism"
goes back a 100 years or more. Noted historian Howard Zinn observed
how the phrase is a contradiction in terms as "How can you make
war on terrorism, if war is terrorism (and if) you respond to terrorism
with (more) terrorism....you multiply (the amount of) terrorism in the
world." Zinn explains that "Governments are terrorists on
an enormously large scale," and when they wage war the damage caused
infinitely exceeds anything individuals or groups can inflict.
It's also clear that individual
or group "terrorist" acts are crimes, not declarations or
acts of war. So a proper response to the 9/11 perpetrators was a police
one, not an excuse for the Pentagon to attack other nations having nothing
to do with it.
George Bush's "war on
terrorism" began on that fateful September day when his administration
didn't miss a beat stoking the flames of fear with a nation in shock
ready to believe almost anything - true, false or in between. And he
did it thanks to the hyped enormity of the 9/11 event manipulated for
maximum political effect for the long-planned aggressive imperial adventurism
his hard line administration had in mind only needing "a catastrophic
and catalyzing (enough) event - like a new Pearl Harbor" to lauch.
With plans drawn and ready, the president and key administration officials
terrified the public with visions of terrorism branded and rebranded
as needed from the war on it, to the global war on it (GLOT), to the
long war on it, to a new name coming soon to re-ignite a flagging public
interest in and growing disillusionment over two foreign wars gone sour
and lost.
Many writers, past and present,
have written on terrorism with their definitions and analyses of it.
The views of four noted political and social critics are reviewed below,
but first an official definition to frame what follows.
How the US Code Defines
Terrorism
Under the US Code, "international
terrorism" includes activities involving:
(A) "violent acts or
acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws
of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation
if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any
State;"
(B) are intended to -
(i) "intimidate or coerce
a civilian population;
(ii) influence the policy
of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) affect the conduct
of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily outside
the territorial jurisdiction of the United States...."
The US Army Operational Concept
for Terrorism (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984) shortens the above
definition to be "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence
to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature....through
intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear."
Eqbal Ahmad On Terrorism
Before his untimely death,
Indian activist and scholar Eqbal Ahmad spoke on the subject of terrorism
in one of his last public talks at the University of Colorado in October,
1998. Seven Stories Press then published his presentation in one of
its Open Media Series short books titled "Terrorism, Theirs and
Ours." The talk when delivered was prophetic in light of the September
11 event making his comments especially relevant.
He began quoting a 1984 Reagan
Secretary of State George Shultz speech calling terrorism "modern
barbarism, a form of political violence, a threat to Western civilization,
a menace to Western moral values" and more, all the while never
defining it because that would "involve a commitment to analysis,
comprehension and adherence to some norms of consistency" not consistent
with how this country exploits it for political purposes. It would also
expose Washington's long record of supporting the worst kinds of terrorist
regimes worldwide in Indonesia, Iran under the Shah, Central America,
the South American fascist generals, Marcos in the Philippines, Pol
Pot and Saddam at their worst, the current Saudi and Egyptian regimes,
Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and for the people
of Greece, who paid an enormous price, the Greek colonels the US brought
to power in the late 1960s for which people there now with long memories
still haven't forgiven us.
Ahmad continued saying "What
(then) is terrorism? Our first job is to define the damn thing, name
it, give it a description of some kind, other than (the) "moral
equivalent of (our) founding fathers (or) a moral outrage to Western
civilization." He cited Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as a source
saying "Terrorism is an intense, overpowering fear....the use of
terrorizing methods of governing or resisting a government." It's
simple, to the point, fair, and Ahmad calls it a definition of "great
virtue. It focuses on the use of coercive violence....that is used illegally,
extra-constitutionally, to coerce" saying this is true because
it's what terrorism is whether committed by governments, groups, or
individuals. This definition omits what Ahmad feels doesn't apply -
motivation, whether or not the cause is just or not because "motives
differ (yet) make no difference."
Ahmad identifies the following
types of terrorism:
-- State terrorism committed
by nations against anyone - other states, groups or individuals, including
state-sponsored assassination targets;
-- Religious terrorism like
Christians and Muslims slaughtering each other during Papal crusades;
many instances of Catholics killing Protestants and the reverse like
in Northern Ireland; Christians and Jews butchering each other; Sunnis
killing Shiites and the reverse; and any other kind of terror violence
inspired or justified by religion carrying out God's will as in the
Old Testament preaching it as an ethical code for a higher purpose;
-- Crime (organized or otherwise)
terrorism as "all kinds of crime commit terror."
-- Pathology terrorism by
those who are sick, may "want the attention of the world (and decide
to do it by) kill(ing) a president" or anyone else.
-- Political terrorism by
a private group Ahmad calls "oppositional terror" explaining
further that at times these five types "converge on each other
starting out in one form, then converging into one or more others.
Nation states, like the US,
focus only on one kind of terrorism - political terrorism that's "the
least important in terms of cost to human lives and human property (with
the highest cost type being) state terrorism." The current wars
of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine underscore what Ahmad
means. Never mentioned, though, is that political or retail terrorism
is a natural response by oppressed or desperate groups when they're
victims of far more grievous acts of state terrorism. Also unmentioned
is how to prevent terrorist acts Noam Chomsky explains saying the way
to get "them" to stop attacking "us" is stop attacking
"them."
Ahmad responded to a question
in the book version of his speech with more thoughts on the subject.
Asked to define terrorism the way he did in an article he wrote a year
earlier titled "Comprehending Terror," he called it "the
illegal use of violence for the purposes of influencing somebody's behavior,
inflicting punishment, or taking revenge (adding) it has been practiced
on a larger scale, globally, both by governments and by private groups."
When committed against a state, never asked is what produces it.
Further, official and even
academic definitions of state terrorism exclude what Ahmad calls "illegal
violence:" torture, burning of villages, destruction of entire
peoples, (and) genocide." These definitions are biased against
individuals and groups favoring governments committing terrorist acts.
Our saying it's for self-defense, protecting the "national security,"
or "promoting democracy" is subterfuge baloney disguising
our passion for state-sponsored violence practiced like it our national
pastime.
Ahmad also observed that
modern-day "third-world....fascist governments (in countries like)
Indonesia (under Suharto), Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo
- DRC), Iran (under the Shah), South Korea (under its generals), and
elsewhere - were fully supported by one or the other of the superpowers,"
and for all the aforementioned ones and most others that was the US.
Further, Ahmad notes "religious
zealotry has been a major source of terror" but nearly always associated
in the West with Islamic groups. In fact, it's a global problem with
"Jewish terrorists....terrorizing an entire people in the Middle
East (the Palestinians, supported by) Israel which is supported by the
government of the United States." Crimes against humanity in the
name of religion are also carried out by radical Christians, Hindus,
Buddhists and others, not just extremist Muslims that are the only ones
reported in the West.
In August, 1998 in the Dawn
English-language Pakistani newspaper, Ahmad wrote about the power of
the US in a unipolar world saying: "Who will define the parameters
of terrorism, or decide where terrorists lurk? Why, none other than
the United States, which can from the rooftops of the world set out
its claim to be sheriff, judge and hangman, all at one and the same
time." So while publicly supporting justice, the US spurns international
law to be the sole decider acting by the rules of what we say goes,
and the law is what we say it is. Further, before the age of George
Bush, Ahmad sounded a note of hope saying nothing is "historically
permanent (and) I don't think American power is permanent. It itself
is very temporary, and therefore its excesses have to be, by definition,
impermanent."
In addition, he added, "America
is a troubled country" for many reasons. It's "economic capabilities
do not harmonize with its military (ones and) its ruling class' will
to dominate is not quite shared by" what its people want. For now,
however, the struggle will continue because the US "sowed in the
Middle East (after the Gulf war but before George Bush became president)
and South Asia (signaling Pakistan and Afghanistan) very poisonous seeds.
Some have ripened and others are ripening. An examination of why they
were sown, what has grown, and how they should be reaped is needed (but
isn't being done). Missiles won't solve the problem" as is plain
as day in mid-2007, with the Bush administration hanging on for dear
life in the face of two calamitous wars the president can't acknowledge
are hopeless and already lost.
Edward S. Herman
On Terrorism
Herman wrote a lot on terrorism
including his important 1982 book as relevant today as it was then,
"The Real Terror Network." It's comprised of US-sponsored
authoritarian states following what Herman calls a free market "development
model" for corporate gain gotten through a reign of terror unleashed
on any homegrown resistance against it and a corrupted dominant media
championing it with language Orwell would love.
Back then, justification
given was the need to protect the "free world" from the evils
of communism and a supposedly worldwide threat it posed. It was classic
"Red Scare" baloney, but it worked to traumatize the public
enough to think the Russians would come unless we headed them off, never
mind, in fact, the Russians had good reason to fear we'd come because
"bombing them back to the stone age" was seriously considered,
might have happened, and once almost did.
Herman reviews examples of
"lesser and mythical terror networks" before discussing the
real ones. First though, he defines the language beginning with how
Orwell characterized political speech already explained above. He then
gives a dictionary definition of terrorism as "a mode of governing,
or of opposing government, by intimidation" but notes right off
a problem for "western propaganda." Defining terrorism this
way includes repressive regimes we support, so it's necessary finding
"word adaptations (redefining them to) exclude (our) state terrorism
(and only) capture the petty (retail) terror of small dissident groups
or individuals" or the trumped up "evil empire" kind
manufactured out of whole cloth but made to seem real and threatening.
Herman then explains how
the CIA finessed terrorism by referring to "Patterns of International
Terrorism" defining it as follows: "Terrorism conducted with
the support of a foreign government or organization and/or directed
against foreign nationals, institutions, or governments." By this
definition, internal death squads killing thousands are excluded because
they're not "international" unless a foreign government supports
them. That's easy to hide, though, when we're the government and as
easy to reveal or fake when it serves our purpose saying it was communist-inspired
in the 1980s or "Islamofascist al Qaeda"-conducted or supported
now. Saying it makes it so even when it isn't because the power of the
message can make us believe Santa Claus is the grinch who stole Christmas.
Herman also explains how
harsh terms like totalitarianism and authoritarianism only apply to
adversary regimes while those as bad or worse allied to us are more
benignly referred to with terms like "moderate autocrats"
or some other corrupted manipulation of language able to make the most
beastly tyrants look like enlightened tolerant leaders.
In fact, these brutes and
their governments comprise the "real terror network," and
what they did and still do, with considerable US help, contributed to
the rise of the "National Security State" (NSS) post-WW II
and the growth of terrorism worldwide supporting it. In a word, it rules
by "intimidation and violence or the threat of violence."
Does the name Augusto Pinochet ring a bell? What about the repressive
Shah of Iran even a harsh theocratic state brought relief from?
Herman explained "the
economics of the NSS" that's just as relevant today as then with
some updating of events in the age of George Bush. He notes NSS leaders
imposed a free market "development model" creating a "favorable
investment climate (including) subsidies and tax concessions to business
(while excluding) any largess to the non-propertied classes...."
It means human welfare be damned, social benefits and democracy are
incompatible with the needs of business, unions aren't allowed, a large
"reserve army" of workers can easily replace present ones,
and those complaining get their heads knocked off with terror tactics
being the weapon of choice, and woe to those on the receiving end.
The Godfather in Washington
makes it work with considerable help from the corrupted dominant media
selling "free market" misery like it's paradise. Their message
praises the dogma, turning a blind eye to the ill effects on real people
and the terror needed to keep them in line when they resist characterized
as protecting "national security" and "promoting democracy,"
as already explained. All the while, the US is portrayed as a benevolent
innocent bystander, when, if fact, behind the scenes, we pull the strings
and tinpot third-world despots dance to them. But don't expect to learn
that from the pages of the New York Times always in the lead supporting
the worst US-directed policies characterized only as the best and most
enlightened.
At the end of his account,
Herman offers solutions worlds apart from the way the Bush administration
rules. They include opposing "martial law governments" and
demanding the US end funding, arming and training repressive regimes.
Also condemned are "harsh prison sentences, internments and killings,"
especially against labor leaders. Finally, he cites "the right
to self-determination" for all countries free from foreign interference,
that usually means Washington, that must be held to account and compelled
to "stop bullying and manipulating....tiny states" and end
the notion they must be client ones, or else.
Referring to the Reagan administration
in the 1980s, Herman says what applies even more under George Bush.
If allowed to get away with it, Washington "will continue to escalate
the violence (anywhere in the world it chooses) to preserve military
mafia/oligarch control" meaning we're boss, and what we say goes.
Leaders not getting the message will be taught the hard way, meaning
state-sponsored terrorism portrayed as benign intervention.
Herman revisited terrorism
with co-author Gerry O'Sullivan in 1989 in their book "The Terrorism
Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror."
The authors focus on what kinds of victims are important ("worthy"
ones) while others (the "unworthy") go unmentioned or are
characterized as victimizers with the corrupted media playing their
usual role trumpeting whatever policies serve the interests of power.
The authors state "....the West's experts and media have engaged
in a process of 'role reversal' in....handling....terrorism... focus(ing)
on selected, relatively small-scale terrorists and rebels including....genuine
national liberation movements" victimized by state-sponsored terror.
Whenever they strike back in self-defense they're portrayed as victimizers.
Examples, then and now, are legion, and the authors draw on them over
that earlier period the book covers.
They also explain the main
reason individuals and groups attack us is payback for our attacking
or oppressing them far more grievously. As already noted, the very nature
of wholesale state-directed terror is infinitely more harmful than the
retail kind with the order of magnitude being something like comparing
massive corporate fraud cheating shareholders and employees to a day's
take by a local neighborhood pickpocket.
"The Terrorism Industry"
shows the West needs enemies. Before 1991, the "evil empire"
Soviet Union was the lead villain with others in supporting roles like
Libya's Gaddafi, the PLO under Arafat (before the Oslo Accords co-opted
him), the Sandinistas under Ortega laughably threatening Texas we were
told, and other designees portrayed as arch enemies of freedom because
they won't sell out their sovereignty to rules made in Washington. Spewing
this baloney takes lots of chutzpah and manufactured demonizing generously
served up by "state-sponsored propaganda campaigns" dutifully
trumpeted by the dominant media stenographers for power. Their message
is powerful enough to convince people western states and nuclear-powered
Israel can't match ragtag marauding "terrorist" bands coming
to neighborhoods near us unless we flatten countries they may be coming
from. People believe it, and it's why state-sponsored terrorism can
be portrayed as self-defense even though it's pure scare tactic baloney.
The authors stress the western
politicization process decides who qualifies as targeted, and "The
basic rule has been: if connected with leftists, violence may be called
terrorist," but when it comes from rightist groups it's always
self-defense. Again, it's classic Orwell who'd be smiling saying I told
you so if he were still here. He also understood terrorism serves a
"larger service." Overall, it's to get the public terrified
enough to go along with any agenda governments have in mind like wars
of aggression, huge increases in military spending at the expense of
social services getting less, and the loss of civil liberties by repressive
policies engineered on the phony pretext of increasing our safety, in
fact, being harmed.
The authors also note different
forms of "manufactured terrorism" such as inflating or inventing
a menace out of whole cloth. It's also used in the private sector to
weaken or destroy "union leaders, activists, and political enemies,
sometimes in collusion with agents of the state."
The authors call all of the
above "The Terrorism Industry of institutes and experts who formulate
and channel analysis and information on terrorism in accordance with
Western demands" often in cahoots with "Western governments,
intelligence agencies, and corporate/conservative foundations and funders."
It's a "closed system" designed to "reinforce state propaganda"
to program the public mind to go along with any agenda the institutions
of power have in mind, never beneficial to our own. Yet, their message
is so potent they're able to convince us it is. It's an astonishing
achievement going on every day able to make us believe almost anything,
and the best way to beat it is don't listen.
Noam Chomsky On Terrorism
In his book "Perilous
Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy," co-authored with
Gilbert Achcar, Chomsky defines terrorism saying he's been writing about
it since 1981 around the time Ronald Reagan first declared war on "international
terrorism" to justify all he had in mind mentioned above. Chomsky
explained "You don't declare a war on terrorism unless you're planning
yourself to undertake massive international terrorism," and calling
it self-defense is pure baloney.
Chomsky revisits the subject
in many of his books, and in at least two earlier ones addressed terrorism
or international terrorism as those volumes' core issue discussed further
below. In "Perilous Power," it's the first issue discussed
right out of the gate, and he starts off defining it. He does it using
the official US Code definition given above calling it a commonsense
one. But there's a problem in that by this definition the US qualifies
as a terrorist state, and the Reagan administration in the 1980s practiced
it, so it had to change it to avoid an obvious conflict.
Other problems arose as well
when the UN passed resolutions on terrorism, the first major one being
in December, 1987 condemning terrorism as a crime in the harshest terms.
It passed in the General Assembly overwhelmingly but not unanimously,
153 - 2, with the two opposed being the US and Israel so although the
US vote wasn't a veto it served as one twice over. When Washington disapproves,
it's an actual veto in the Security Council or a de facto one in the
General Assembly meaning it's blocked either way, and it's erased from
history as well. Case closed.
Disguising what Martin Luther
King called "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,"
referring to this country, a new definition had to be found excluding
the terror we carry out against "them," including only what
they do to "us." It's not easy, but, in practical terms, this
is the definition we use - what you do to "us," while what
we do to you is "benign humanitarian intervention." Repeated
enough in the mainstream, the message sinks in even though it's baloney.
Chomsky then explains what
other honest observers understand in a post-NAFTA world US planners
knew would devastate ordinary people on the receiving end of so-called
free trade policies designed to throttle them for corporate gain. He
cites National Intelligence Council projections that globalization "will
be rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic
divide....Regions, countries, and groups feeling left behind will face
deepening economic stagnation, political instability, and cultural alienation.
They will foster political, ethnic, ideological, and religious extremism,
along with the violence that often accompanies it."
Pentagon projections agree
with plans set to savagely suppress expected retaliatory responses.
How to stop the cycle of violence? End all types of exploitation including
so-called one-way "free trade," adopting instead a fair trade
model like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government follows that's
equitable to all trading partners and their people. The antidote to
bad policy, brutal repression, wars and the terrorism they generate
is equity and justice for all. However, the US won't adopt the one solution
sure to work because it hurts profits that come ahead of people needs.
Chomsky wrote about terrorism
at length much earlier as well in his 1988 book "The Culture of
Terrorism." In it he cites "the Fifth Freedom" meaning
"the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate society, to undertake
any course of action to insure that existing privilege is protected
and advanced." This "freedom" is incompatible with the
other four Franklin Roosevelt once announced - freedom of speech, worship,
want and fear all harmed by this interloper. To get the home population
to go along with policies designed to hurt them, "the state must
spin an elaborate web of illusion and deceit (to keep people) inert
and limited in the capacity to develop independent modes of thought
and perception." It's called "manufacturing consent"
to keep the rabble in line, using hard line tactics when needed.
"The Cultural of Terrorism"
covers the Reagan years in the 1980s and its agenda of state terror
in the post-Vietnam climate of public resistance to direct intervention
that didn't hamper Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. So unable to send in
the Marines, Reagan resorted to state terror proxy wars with key battlegrounds
being Central America and Afghanistan. The book focuses on the former,
the scandals erupting from it, and damage control manipulation so this
country can continue pursuing policies dedicated to rule by force whenever
persuasion alone won't work.
A "new urgency"
emerged in June, 1986 when the World Court condemned the US for attacking
Nicaragua using the Contras in a proxy war of aggression against a democratically
elected government unwilling to operate by rules made in Washington.
In a post-Vietnam climate opposed to this sort of thing, policies then
were made to work by making state terror look like humanitarian intervention
with local proxies on the ground doing our killing for us and deceiving
the public to go along by scaring it to death.
So with lots of dominant
media help, Reagan pursued his terror wars in Central America with devastating
results people at home heard little about if they read the New York
Times or watched the evening news suppressing the toll Chomsky reveals
as have others:
-- over 50,000 slaughtered
in El Salvador,
-- over 100,000 corpses in
Guatemala just in the 1980s and over 200,000 including those killed
earlier and since,
-- a mere 11,000 in Nicaragua
that got off relatively easy because the people had an army to fight
back while in El Salvador and Guatemala the army was the enemy.
The tally shows Ronald Reagan
gets credit for over 160,000 Central American deaths alone, but not
ordinary ones. They came "Pol Pot-style....with extensive torture,
rape, mutilation, disappearance," and political assassinations
against members of the clergy including El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar
Romero gunned down by an assassin while celebrating mass inside San
Salvador's Hospital de la Divina Frovidencia. His "voice for the
voiceless" concern for the poor and oppressed and courageous opposition
to death squad mass-killing couldn't be tolerated in a part of the world
ruled by wealthy elites getting plenty of support from some of the same
names in Washington now ravaging Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chomsky cites the Reagan
Doctrine's commitment to opposing leftist resistance movements throughout
the 1980s, conducting state-sponsored terror to "construct an international
terrorist network of impressive sophistication, without parallel in
history....and used it" clandestinely fighting communism.
With lots of help from Congress
and the dominant media, the administration contained the damage that
erupted in late 1986 from what was known as the Iran-Contra scandal
over illegally selling arms to Iran to fund the Contras. Just like the
farcical Watergate investigations, the worst crimes and abuses got swept
under the rug, and in the end no one in the 1980s even paid a price
for the lesser ones. So a huge scandal greater than Watergate, that
should have toppled a president, ended up being little more than a tempest
in a teapot after the dust settled. It makes it easy understanding how
George Bush gets away with mass-murder, torture and much more almost
making Reagan's years seem tame by comparison.
Chomsky continued discussing
our "culture of terrorism" with the Pentagon practically boasting
over its Central American successes directing terrorist proxy force
attacks against "soft targets" including health centers, medical
workers and schools, farms and more, all considered legitimate military
targets despite international law banning these actions.
Latin America is always crucial
to US policy makers referring to it dismissively as "America's
backyard" giving us more right to rule here than practically any
place else. It's because of the region's strategic importance historian
Greg Grandin recognizes calling it the "Empire's Workshop"
that's the title of his 2006 book subtitled "Latin America, the
United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism." In it, he
shows how the region serves as a laboratory honing our techniques for
imperial rule that worked in the 1980s but now face growing rebellion
providing added incentive to people in the Middle East inspiring them
to do by force what leaders like Hugo Chavez do constitutionally with
great public support.
But Washington's international
terror network never quits or sleeps operating freely worldwide and
touching down anywhere policy makers feel they need to play global enforcer
seeing to it outliers remember who's boss, and no one forgets the rules
of imperial management. Things went as planned for Reagan until the
1986 scandals necessitated a heavy dose of damage control. They've now
become industrial strength trying to bail George Bush out his quagmire
conflagrations making Reagan's troubles seem like minor brush fires.
It worked for Reagan by following "overriding principles (keeping)
crucial issues....off the agenda" applicable for George Bush, including:
-- "the (ugly) historical
and documentary record reveal(ing)" US policy guidelines;
-- "the international
setting within which policy develops;"
-- application of similar
policies in other nations in Latin America or elsewhere;
-- "the normal conditions
of life (in Latin America or elsewhere long dominated by) US influence
and control (and) what these teach us about the goals and character
of US government policy over many years;
-- similar matters (anywhere
helping explain) the origins and nature of the problems that must be
addressed."
It was true in the 1980s
and now so these issues "are not fit topics for reporting, commentary
and debate" beyond what policy makers disagree on and are willing
to discuss openly.
The book concludes considering
the "perils of diplomacy" with Washington resorting to state
terror enforcing its will through violence when other means don't work.
But the US public has to be convinced through guile and stealth it's
all being done for our own good. It never is, of course, but most people
never catch on till it's too late to matter. They should read more Chomsky,
Herman, Ahmad, and Michel Chossudovsky discussed below, but too few
do so leaders like Reagan and Bush get away with mass-murder and much
more.
Chomsky wrote another book
on terrorism titled "Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International
Terrorism in the Real World." It was first published in 1986 with
new material added in more recent editions up to 2001. The book begins
with a memorable story St. Augustine tells about a pirate Alexander
the Great captured asking him "how he dares molest the sea."
Pirates aren't known to be timid, and this one responds saying "How
dare you molest the whole world? ....I do it with a little ship only
(and) am called a thief (while you do) it with a great navy (and) are
called an Emperor." It's a wonderful way to capture the relationship
between minor rogue states or resistance movements matched off against
the lord and master of the universe with unchallengeable military power
unleashing it freely to stay dominant.
The newest edition of "Pirates
and Emperors, Old and New" explores what constitutes terrorism
while mainly discussing how Washington waged it in the Middle East in
the 1980s, also then in Central America, and more recently post-9/11.
As he often does, Chomsky also shows how dominant media manipulation
shapes public perceptions to justify our actions called defensible against
states we target as enemies when they resist - meaning their wish to
remain free and independent makes them a threat to western civilization.
Washington never tolerates
outlier regimes placing their sovereignty above ours or internal resistance
movements hitting back for what we do to them. Those doing it are called
terrorists and are targeted for removal by economic, political and/or
military state terror. In the case of Nicaragua, the weapon of choice
was a Contra proxy force, in El Salvador, the CIA-backed fascist government
did the job, and in both cases tactics used involved mass murder and
incarceration, torture, and a whole further menu of repressive and economic
barbarism designed to crush resistance paving the way for unchallengeable
US dominance.
The centerpiece of US Middle
East policy has been its full and unconditional support for Israel's
quest for regional dominance by weakening or removing regimes considered
hostile and its near-six decade offensive to repress and ethnically
cleanse indigenous Palestinians from all land Israelis want for a greater
Israel. Toward that end, Israel gets unheard of amounts of aid including
billions annually in grants and loans, billions more as needed, multi-billions
in debt waved, billions more in military aid, and state-of-the-art weapons
and technology amounting in total to more than all other countries in
the world combined for a nation of six million people with lots of important
friends in Washington, on Wall Street, and in all other centers of power
that count.
It all goes down smoothly
at home by portraying justifiable resistance to Israeli abuse as terrorism
with the dominant media playing their usual role calling US and Israeli-targeted
victims the victimizers to justify the harshest state terror crackdowns
against them. For Palestinians, it's meant nearly six decades of repression
and 40 years of occupation by a foreign power able to reign state terror
on defenseless people helpless against it. For Iraq, it meant removing
a leader posing no threat to Israel or his neighbors but portrayed as
a monster who did with Iranian leaders and Hugo Chavez now topping the
regime change queue in that order or maybe in quick succession or tandem.
It's all about power and
perception with corrupted language, as Orwell explained, able to make
reality seem the way those controlling it wish. It lets power and ideology
triumph over people freely using state terror as a means of social control.
Chomsky quoted Churchill's notion that "the rich and powerful have
every right to....enjoy what they have gained, often by violence and
terror; the rest can be ignored as long as they suffer in silence, but
if they interfere with....those who rule the world by right, the 'terrors
of the earth' will be visited upon them with righteous wrath, unless
power is constrained from within." One day, the meek may inherit
the earth and Churchill's words no longer will apply, but not as long
as the US rules it and media manipulation clouds reality enough to make
harsh state terror look like humanitarian intervention or self-defense
by helpless victims look like they're the victimizers.
Michel Chossudovsky
on "The War on Terrorism"
No one has been more prominent
or outspoken since the 9/11 attacks in the US than scholar/author/activist
and Global Research web site editor Michel Chossudovsky. He began writing
that evening publishing an article the next day titled "Who Is
Osama Bin Laden," perhaps being the first Bush administration critic
to courageously challenge the official account of what took place that
day. He then updated his earlier account September 10, 2006 in an article
titled "The Truth behind 9/11: Who is Osama Bin Ladin." Chossudovsky
is a thorough, relentless researcher making an extraordinary effort
to get at the truth no matter how ugly or disturbing.
Here's a summary of what
he wrote that was included in his 2005 book titled "America's War
on Terrorism (In the Wake of 9/11)" he calls a complete fabrication
"based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden (from a cave
in Afghanistan and hospital bed in Pakistan), outwitted the $40 billion-a-year
American intelligence apparatus." He called it instead what it
is, in fact - a pretext for permanent "New World Order" wars
of conquest serving the interests of Wall Street, the US military-industrial
complex, and all other corporate interests profiting hugely from a massive
scheme harming the public interest in the near-term and potentially
all humanity unless it's stopped in time.
On the morning of 9/11, the
Bush administration didn't miss a beat telling the world Al Qaeda attacked
the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon meaning Osama bin Laden was
the main culprit - case closed without even the benefit of a forensic
and intelligence analysis piecing together all potential helpful information.
There was no need to because, as Chossudovsky explained, "That
same (9/11) evening at 9:30 pm, a 'War Cabinet' was formed integrated
by a select number of top intelligence and military advisors. At 11:00PM,
at the end of that historic (White House) meeting, the 'War on Terrorism'
was officially launched," and the rest is history.
Chossudovsky continued "The
decision was announced (straightaway) to wage war against the Taliban
and Al Qaeda in retribution for the 9/11 attacks" with news headlines
the next day asserting, with certainty, "state sponsorship"
responsibility for the attacks connected to them. The dominant media,
in lockstep, called for military retaliation against Afghanistan even
though no evidence proved the Taliban government responsible, because,
in fact, it was not and we knew it.
Four weeks later on October
7, a long-planned war of illegal aggression began, Afghanistan was bombed
and then invaded by US forces working in partnership with their new
allies - the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan or
so-called Northern Alliance "warlords." Their earlier repressive
rule was so extreme, it gave rise to the Taliban in the first place
and has now made them resurgent.
Chossudovsky further explained
that the public doesn't "realize that a large scale theater war
is never planned and executed in a matter of weeks." This one,
like all others, was months in the making needing only what CentCom
Commander General Tommy Franks called a "terrorist, massive, casualty-producing
event" to arouse enough public anger for the Bush administration
to launch it after declaring their "war on terrorism." Chossudovsky,
through thorough and exhausting research, exposed it as a fraud.
He's been on top of the story
ever since uncovering the "myth of an 'outside enemy' and the threat
of 'Islamic terrorists' (that became) the cornerstone (and core justification)
of the Bush administration's military doctrine." It allowed Washington
to wage permanent aggressive wars beginning with Afghanistan and Iraq,
to ignore international law, and to "repeal civil liberties and
constitutional government" through repression laws like the Patriot
and Military Commissions Acts. A key objective throughout has, and continues
to be, Washington's quest to control the world's energy supplies, primarily
oil, starting in the Middle East where two-thirds of known reserves
are located.
Toward that end, the Bush
administration created a fictitious "outside enemy" threat
without which no "war on terrorism" could exist, and no foreign
wars could be waged. Chossudovsky exposed the linchpin of the whole
scheme. He uncovered evidence that Al Queda "was a creation of
the CIA going back to the Soviet-Afghan war" era, and that in the
1990s Washington "consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while
at the same time placing him on the FBI's 'most wanted list' as the
World's foremost terrorist." He explained that the CIA (since the
1980s and earlier) actively supports international terrorism covertly,
and that on September 10, 2001 "Enemy Number One" bin Laden
was in a Rawalpindi, Pakistan military hospital confirmed on CBS News
by Dan Rather. He easily could have been arrested but wasn't because
we had a "better purpose" in mind for "America's best
known fugitive (to) give a (public) face to the 'war on terrorism' "
that meant keeping bin Laden free to do it. If he didn't exist, we'd
have had to invent him, but that could have been arranged as well.
The Bush administration's
national security doctrine needs enemies, the way all empires on the
march do. Today "Enemy Number One" rests on the fiction of
bin Laden-led Islamic terrorists threatening the survival of western
civilization. In fact, however, Washington uses Islamic organizations
like Islamic jihad as a "key instrument of US military-intelligence
operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union" while, at
the same time, blaming them for the 9/11 attacks calling them "a
threat to America."
September 11, 2001 was, indeed,
a threat to America, but one coming from within from real enemies. They
want to undermine democracy and our freedoms, not preserve them, in
pursuit of their own imperial interests for world domination by force
through endless foreign wars and establishment of a locked down national
"Homeland Security (police) State." They're well along toward
it, and if they succeed, America, as we envision it, no longer will
exist. Only by exposing the truth and resisting what's planned and already
happening will there be any hope once again to make this nation a "land
of the free and home of the brave" with "a new birth of freedom"
run by a "government of the people, by the people, for the people"
the way at least one former president thought it should be.
Stephen Lendman lives
in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Steve Lendman
News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US
central time.
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