Neighbors Times: October 2006 #2

Terrorism and US Exemption

Fear of an attack from an elusive and foreign enemy renders many of us incapable of critical thinking. The propaganda our government disseminates distracts us from how those in current and former U.S. administrations have terrorized other nations and groups. The reality is that those who work to perpetuate and expand the U.S. empire are not interested in freedom or democracy anywhere in the world, despite their repetitive, hypocritical use of the terms. Worse, they have been very active in terrorizing more vulnerable nations.

A very loose, ambiguous definition of terrorism has shaped much of this country's foreign and domestic policies since 9/11. The definitions used in Title 22 of the U.S. Code explicitly exclude states as potential terrorists and deliberately target groups and individuals, usually those groups opposed to the political aims of the country identifying them as terrorists.

However, the Department of Defense calls terrorism "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological." This definition presents a problem for the U.S. government, as well as for Israel and the U.K.: it describes why our government and Great Britain really invaded Iraq, and sums up the relations our heads of governments have with other countries whose policies they don't particularly like, including Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. It also describes Israel's occupation of Palestine, its continued oppression of the Palestinian people, and its recent attack on Lebanon.

We often forget that in the 1980‚s, the Reagan administration first identified the "war on terror" as U.S. policy . The U.S. war on Nicaragua during that time led to the World Court‚s ruling that the United States had committed the "unlawful use of force" and should pay reparations to Nicaragua for its act of international terrorism. Of course the U.S. government refused to pay the reparations or acknowledge its guilt, being exempt from World Court prosecution in cases based on multilateral treaty obligations, unless it involved all parties to the treaty or the United States specially agrees to jurisdiction. In July of 1986 the United States also vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that supported the World Court's ruling. To this day, Nicaragua is still mired in extreme poverty, with an ineffective public health system and a largely uneducated population. Its U.S.-backed government is in debt to the World Bank and has made the country "the ultimate laboratory for social vulnerability." The great shame of this is that the reparations the World Court ordered the U.S. to pay to Nicaragua would more than cover their World Bank debt. It isn't difficult to research the history of Latin American operations under the Reagan and Bush I administrations: the story is well documented and can be discovered with minor effort. Yet the planners and directors of this murderous agenda, many of whom now serve in the current administration, work hard to cover up these facts in distortions and lies, often with great success.

Most damning is our government's foreknowledge of the spread of terrorism and its ambivalence towards extremist groups and governments in the Middle East, despite Bush's belligerent claims of fighting "Islamofascism." As Noam Chomsky reports in his book, Failed States, it was "predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict." Despite the pessimistic intelligence reports produced in the US and the UK, Bush and Blair went ahead with their agenda, fully knowledgeable of the warnings and what the results would be.

What we are now hearing in the news about the Iraq war should come as no surprise. Shortly after Al Qaeda's September 11 attack, a U.N. report on the effectiveness of Security Council sanctions against Al Qaeda and the Taliban revealed an increase in these groups‚ success in recruiting and training new members. On September 26, 2006, The New York Times reported, "Portions of a National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism that the White House released under pressure said that Muslim jihadists were increasing in both number and geographic dispersion‚ and that current trends could lead to increasing attacks around the globe." Although this news may signal a beginning of the end for the legitimacy of Bush's war, it is unclear why more attention has not been paid to equally salient points: Osama Bin Laden is still the world's most elusive fugitive, Saudi Arabia's authoritarian regime remains intact, and Pakistan remains a haven for extremist groups.

Few can argue that the U.S. public was given a violent wake-up call about its place in the world five years ago. But in understanding our own relation to terror, it becomes easy to see that the implementation of diplomatic and genuinely democratic strategies will do more to combat terror in the world than the current "counterterrorism" efforts. Heeding the voices in the international community that call for cooperation and peaceful talks, we would undoubtedly see a drop in the hostility to the U.S. among nations in the Middle East. The most effective and proven method to capture known terrorists, recommended by many experts, is the use of law enforcement and intelligence agencies throughout the world, rather than illegal invasions of sovereign countries.

In short, the U.S. government must stop promoting violence, especially in the regions most likely to breed more terrorist activity. It must respect and honor international law, as well as the rights of all people, regardless of citizenship, religion or ethnicity. Tactics like politically convenient color coded warnings, trumpeting the careless arrests of "terrorists" and "terrorist supporters" (many of whom are later proven innocent) and the empty and often racist rhetoric of so-called leaders who remain disconnected from world opinion are tools intended to control this population. Yet these devices perpetuate a war that will end only when we hand the leadership of the U.S. over to people who have a progressive vision and agenda for a peaceful future.

(1) Title 22 of the U.S. Code defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents". A terrorist group is "any group practicing, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism." International terrorism is defined as "terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than 1 country."

(2) The Security Council voted twice on this issue, first in July of 1986 and then October 1986. 11 members voted in favor of the resolutions with 3 members abstaining and the U.S. voting against them. As a permanent member of the Security Council, the U.S. can veto any resolution with a "no" vote.

(3) See Noam Chomsky, Failed States, (Metropolitan Books, 2006). On p. 156 Chomsky cites a 2004 report by La Prensa on Nicaragua‚s status as a "laboratory for social vulnerability".