There are two ways to approach the study of
terrorism. One may adopt a literal approach, taking the topic
seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept
of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system
of power. In each case it is clear how to proceed. Pursuing the
literal approach, we begin by determining what constitutes terrorism.
We then seek instances of the phenomenon -- concentrating on the major
examples, if we are serious -- and try to determine causes and
remedies. The propagandistic approach dictates a different course. We
begin with the thesis that terrorism is the responsibility of some
officially designated enemy. We then designate terrorist acts as
"terrorist" just in the cases where they can be attributed (whether
plausibly or not) to the required source; otherwise they are to be
ignored, suppressed, or termed "retaliation" or "self-defence."
It comes as no surprise that the propagandistic
approach is adopted by governments generally, and by their instruments
in totalitarian states. More interesting is the fact that the same is
largely true of the media and scholarship in the Western industrial
democracies, as has been documented in extensive detail.1
"We must recognize," Michael Stohl observes, "that by convention --
and it must be emphasized only by convention -- great power use
and the threat of the use of force is normally described as coercive
diplomacy and not as a form of terrorism," though it commonly involves
"the threat and often the use of violence for what would be described
as terroristic purposes were it not great powers who were pursuing the
very same tactic."2
Only one qualification must be added: the term "great powers" must be
restricted to favored states; in the Western conventions under
discussion, the Soviet Union is granted no such rhetorical license,
and indeed can be charged and convicted on the flimsiest of evidence.
Terrorism became a major public issue in the 1980s. The Reagan
administration took office announcing its dedication to stamping out
what the [jellybean-munching] president called "the evil scourge of
terrorism," a plague spread by "depraved opponents of civilization
itself" in "a return to barbarism in the modern age" (Secretary of
State George Shultz). The campaign focused on a particularly virulent
form of the plague: state-directed international terrorism. The
central thesis attributed responsibility to a Soviet-based "worldwide
terror network aimed at the destabilization of Western democratic
society," in the words of Claire Sterling, whose highly-praised book
The Terror Network became the Bible of the administration and
the founding document of the new discipline of terrorology. It was
taken to have provided "ample evidence" that terrorism occurs "almost
exclusively in democratic or relatively democratic societies" (Walter
Laqueur), leaving little doubt about the origins of the plague. The
book was soon exposed as a worthless propaganda tract, but the thesis
remained intact, dominating mainstream reporting, commentary, and
scholarship.
By the mid-1980s, concern over international terrorism reached the
level of virtual frenzy. Middle-East/Mediterranean terrorism was
selected by editors as the lead story of 1985 in an AP poll, and a
year later the tourism industry in Europe was badly hit as Americans
stayed away in fear of Arab terrorists infesting European cities. The
plague then subsided, the monster having been tamed by the cool
courage of the cowboy, according to the approved version.
Shifting to the literal approach, we first define the concept of
terrorism, and then investigate its application, letting the chips
fall where they may. Let us see where this course takes.
1. The Concept of Terrorism
Concepts of political discourse are hardly models of
clarity, but there is general agreement as to what constitutes
terrorism. As a point of departure we may take the official United
States Code:
"act of terrorism" means an activity that -- (A) involves a
violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of
the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would
be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the
United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to
intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the
policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to
affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.3
The concept is not precisely delimited. First, the boundary between
international terrorism and aggression is not always clear. On this
matter, let us give the benefit of the doubt to the United States and
its clients: if they reject the charge of aggression in the case of
some act of international violence, we will take it to fall under the
lesser crime of terrorism. There is also disagreement over the
distinction between terrorism and retaliation or legitimate
resistance, to which we return.
US sources also provide more succinct definitions of
"terrorism." A US Army manual on countering terrorism defines it as
"the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals
that are political, religious or ideological in nature. This is done
through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear." Still simpler is
the characterization in a Pentagon-commissioned study by noted
terrorologist Robert Kupperman, which speaks of the threat or use of
force "to achieve political objectives without the full-scale
commitment of resources."4
Kupperman, however, is not discussing terrorism, rather, low
intensity conflict (LIC), a central doctrine of the Reagan
administration. Note that as the description indicates and actual
practice confirms, LIC -- much like its predecessor
"counterinsurgency" -- is hardly more than a euphemism for
state-directed international terrorism, that is, reliance on force
that does not reach the level of the war crime of aggression.
The point is recognized within the scholarly
discipline, though with the usual doctrinal twist. One leading Israeli
specialist observes that "state-sponsored terrorism is a form of
low-intensity conflict that states undertake when they find it
convenient to engage in 'war' without being held accountable for their
actions" (Professor Yonah Alexander).5
Alexander restricts his attention to the Kremlin conspiracy to
destabilize the West with "surrogate groups," offering such examples
as "an extensive PLO training programme... provided for Nicaragua." In
this conception, "the PLO, which maintains a special relationship with
Moscow," serves its Soviet master by passing on the "specialized
training" in terrorism it acquires in the Soviet Union to Nicaragua,
which is therefore able to conduct LIC against the United States and
its interests. He also suggests ways in which "the Eastern Bloc's
sincerity must be tested;" for example, "Showing willingness to stop
propaganda campaigns linking the US and its allies to terrorism."
As the examples illustrate, it would take a fertile imagination to
conjure up a thought so outlandish as to ruffle the composure of the
fraternity, as long as doctrinal purity is preserved.
2. Terrorism and the Political Culture
There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States
is unusual in that it is officially committed to international
terrorism, and on a scale that puts its rivals to shame. Thus Iran is
surely a terrorist state, as Western governments and media rightly
proclaim. Its major known contribution to international terrorism was
revealed during the Iran-Contra inquiries: namely, Iran's perhaps
inadvertent involvement in the US proxy war against Nicaragua. This
fact is unacceptable, therefore unnoticed, though the Iranian
connection in US-directed international terrorism was exposed at a
time of impassioned denunciation of Iranian terrorism.
The same inquiries revealed that under the Reagan Doctrine, the US
had forged new paths in international terrorism. Some states employ
individual terrorists and criminals to carry out violent acts abroad.
But in the Reagan years, the US went further, not only constructing a
semi-private international terrorist network but also an array of
client and mercenary states -- Taiwan, South Korea, Israel,
Saudi Arabia, and others -- to finance and implement its terrorist
operations. This advance in international terrorism was revealed
during the period of maximal anguish over the plague, but did not
enter into the discussion and debate.
The US commitment to international terrorism reaches
to fine detail. Thus the proxy forces attacking Nicaragua were
directed by their CIA and Pentagon commanders to attack "soft
targets," that is, barely defended civilian targets. The State
Department specifically authorized attacks on agricultural
cooperatives -- exactly what we denounce with horror when the agent is
Abu Nidal. Media doves expressed thoughtful approval of this stand.
New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, at the liberal extreme of
mainstream commentary, argued that we should not be too quick to
dismiss State Department justifications for terrorist attacks on
farming cooperatives: a "sensible policy" must "meet the test of
cost-benefit analysis," an analysis of "the amount of blood and misery
that will be poured in, and the likelihood that democracy will emerge
at the other end." It is understood that US elites have the right to
conduct the analysis and pursue the project if it passes their tests.6
When a Contra supply plane was shot down in October
1986 with an American mercenary on board, it became impossible to
suppress the evidence of illegal CIA supply flights to the proxy
forces. The Iran-Contra hearings ensued, focusing much attention on
these topics. A few days after they ended, the Central American
presidents signed the Esquipulas II peace agreement. The US undertook
at once to subvert it.
The agreement identified one factor as "an indispensable element to
achieving a stable and lasting peace in the region," namely
termination of any form of aid "to irregular forces or insurgent
movements" on the part of "regional or extraregional" governments. In
response, the US moved at once to escalate the attacks on soft targets
in Nicaragua. Right at the moment when indignation over Washington's
clandestine operations peaked, Congress and the media kept their eyes
scrupulously averted from the rapid increase in CIA supply flights to
several a day, while cooperating with the White House program of
dismantling the unwanted accords, a goal finally achieved in January
1988; though further steps were required to subvert a follow-up
agreement of the Central American presidents in February 1989.7
As supply and surveillance flights for the proxy
forces increased, so did violence and terror, as intended. This too
passed largely unnoticed, though an occasional reference could be
found. The Los Angeles Times reported in October 1987 that
"Western military analysts say the contras have been stashing tons of
newly dropped weapons lately while trying to avoid heavy combat...
Meanwhile, they have stepped up attacks on easy government targets
like the La Patriota farm cooperative..., where several militiamen, an
elderly woman and her year-old grandson died in a pre-dawn shelling."
To select virtually at random from the many cases deemed unworthy of
notice, on November 2, 1987, 150 Contras attacked two villages in the
southern province of Rio San Juan with 88-mm mortars and
rocket-propelled grenades, killing six children and six adults and
injuring 30 others. Even cooperatives of religious pacifists who
refused to bear arms were destroyed by the US terrorist forces. In El
Salvador too, the army attacks cooperatives, killing, raping and
abducting members.8
The decision of the International Court of Justice in June 1986
condemning the United States for the "unlawful use of force" and
illegal economic warfare was dismissed as an irrelevant pronouncement
by a "hostile forum" (New York Times). Little notice was taken
when the US vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states
to observe international law and voted against General Assembly
resolutions to the same effect (with Israel and El Salvador in 1986;
with Israel alone in 1987). The guiding principle, it appears, is that
the US is a lawless terrorist state and this is right and just,
whatever the world may think, whatever international institutions may
declare.
A corollary is the doctrine that no state has the
right to defend itself from US attack. The broad acquiescence in this
remarkable doctrine was revealed as Reagan administration agitprop
floated periodic stories about Nicaraguan plans to obtain jet
interceptors. There was some criticism of the media for uncritically
swallowing the disinformation, but a more significant fact was
ignored: the general agreement that such behavior on the part of
Nicaragua would be entirely unacceptable. When the tale was concocted
to divert attention from the Nicaraguan elections of 1984, Senator
Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, with the support of other leading
doves, warned that the US would have to bomb Nicaragua if it obtained
vintage 1950s MiGs, because "they're also capable against the United
States," hence a threat to its security -- as distinct, say, from US
nuclear missiles on alert status in Turkey, no threat to the USSR
since they are purely for defensive purposes.9
It is understood that jet interceptors might enable Nicaragua to
protect its territory from the CIA supply flights needed to keep the
US proxy forces in the field and the regular surveillance flights that
provide them with up-to-the-minute information on the disposition of
Nicaraguan troops, so that they can safely attack soft targets.
Understood, but scarcely mentioned.10
And it seems that no one in the mainstream released the open secret
that Nicaragua would happily accept French planes instead of MiGs if
the US had not pressured its allies to bar military aid so that we
might cower in fear of "the Soviet-supplied Sandinistas."
The same issue arose in August 1988, when congressional doves
effusively supported the Byrd Amendment on "Assistance for the
Nicaraguan Resistance." Three days before, the Contras had attacked
the passenger vessel Mission of Peace, killing two people and
wounding 27, all civilians, including a Baptist minister from New
Jersey who headed a US religious delegation. The incident was
unmentioned in the Senate debate on the Byrd Amendment. Rather,
congressional doves warned that if the Nicaraguan army carried out "an
unprovoked military attack" or "any other hostile action" against the
perpetrators of such terrorist atrocities, then Congress would respond
with vigor and righteousness by renewing official military aid to
them. Media coverage and other commentary found nothing odd or
noteworthy in this stance.
The message is clear: no one has the right of self-defense against
US terrorist attack. The US is a terrorist state by right. That
is unchallengeable doctrine.
Accordingly, organization of a terrorist proxy army
to subdue some recalcitrant population is a legitimate chore. On the
right, Jeane Kirkpatrick explained that "forceful intervention in the
affairs of another nation" is neither "impractical" nor "immoral"11
-- merely illegal, a crime for which people were hanged at Nuremberg
and Tokyo with ringing declarations that this was not "victor's
justice" because, as Justice Robert Jackson proclaimed, "If certain
acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether
the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not
prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which
we would not be willing to have invoked against us.12
Countering any such thoughts, Irving Kristol explains that "The
argument from international law lacks all credibility." True, "a great
power should not ordinarily intervene in the domestic affairs of a
smaller nation," but this principle is overcome if "another great
power has previously breached this rule." Since it is "beyond dispute"
that "the Soviet Union has intervened in Nicaragua" by providing arms
and technicians "in both the military and civilian spheres," then the
US has the right to send its proxy army to attack Nicaragua. By the
same argument, the Soviet Union has a perfect right to attack Turkey
or Denmark -- far more of a security threat to it than Nicaragua is to
the United States -- since it is "beyond dispute" that the US provides
them with assistance, and would do far more if the USSR were to
exercise the right of aggression accorded it by Kristol's logic.
Kristol might, however, counter this argument too by invoking a
crucial distinction that he has drawn elsewhere in connection with the
right of forceful intervention by the United States: "insignificant
nations, like insignificant people, can quickly experience delusions
of significance," he explained. And when they do, these delusions must
be driven from their minds by force: "In truth, the days of 'gunboat
diplomacy' are never over... Gunboats are as necessary for
international order as police cars are for domestic order." Hence the
US is entitled to use violence against Nicaragua, an insignificant
nation, though the USSR lacks this right in the case of Turkey or
Denmark.13
The overwhelming endorsement for US-directed
international terrorism should not be obscured by the wide elite
opposition to the Contra war. By 1986, polls showed that 80 percent of
"leaders" opposed aid to the Contras, and there was vigorous debate in
Congress and the media about the program. But it is important to
attend to the terms of the debate. At the dissident extreme, Tom
Wicker of the New York Times observed that "Mr. Reagan's policy
of supporting [the Contras] is a clear failure," so we should
"acquiesce in some negotiated regional arrangement that would be
enforced by Nicaragua's neighbors" -- if they can take time away from
slaughtering their own populations, a feature of these terror states
that does not exclude them from the role of enforcing regional
arrangements on the errant Sandinistas, against whom no remotely
comparable charge could credibly be made. Expressing the same thought,
the editors of the Washington Post saw the Contras as "an
imperfect instrument," so that other means must be sought to "fit
Nicaragua back into a Central American mode" and impose "reasonable
conduct by a regional standard," the standard of Washington's terror
states. Senate Majority Whip Alan Cranston, a leading dove, recognized
that "the Contra effort is woefully inadequate to achieve ...
democracy in Nicaragua" (the US aim by doctrinal fiat, whatever the
facts may be), so the US must find other means to "isolate" the
"reprehensible" government in Managua and "leave it to fester in its
own juices." No such strictures hold for Washington's murderous
clients.14
In short, there is little deviation from the basic terms of Michael
Kinsley's "sensible policy." The questions have to do with efficacy,
not principle. The state has the right to use violence as deemed
appropriate.
The motivation for the resort to international
terrorism has been candidly explained. High administration officials
observed that the goal of the attack against Nicaragua was "forcing
[the Sandinistas] to divert scarce resources to the war and away from
social programs." This was the basic thrust of the 1981 CIA program
endorsed by the administration. As outlined by former CIA analyst
David MacMichael in his testimony before the World Court, this program
has as its purpose: to use the proxy army to "provoke cross-border
attacks by Nicaraguan forces and thus serve to demonstrate Nicaragua's
aggressive nature," to pressure the Nicaraguan Government to "clamp
down on civil liberties within Nicaragua itself, arresting its
opposition, demonstrating its allegedly inherent totalitarian nature
and thus increase domestic dissent within the country," and to
undermine the shattered economy. Discussing the strategy of
maintaining a terrorist force within Nicaragua after the huge CIA
supply operation was theoretically cancelled by Congress in February
1988 (and the proxy forces largely fled, revealing -- though not to
articulate opinion -- how little resemblance they bore to indigenous
guerillas), a Defense Department official explained:
"Those 2000 hard-core guys could keep some pressure on the
Nicaraguan government, force them to use their economic resources
for the military, and prevent them from solving their economic
problems -- and that's a plus... Anything that puts pressure on the
Sandinista regime, calls attention to the lack of democracy, and
prevents the Sandinistas from solving their economic problems is a
plus."
Viron Vaky, Assistant Secretary of State for Interamerican Affairs
in the Carter administration, observed that the principal argument for
the terrorist attack is that "a longer war of attrition will so weaken
the regime, provoke such a radical hardening of repression, and win
sufficient support from Nicaragua's discontented population that
sooner or later the regime will be overthrown by popular revolt,
self-destruct by means of internal coups or leadership splits, or
simply capitulate to salvage what it can." As a dove, Vaky regards the
conception as "flawed" but in no way wrong.15
The terrorist forces fully understand their
directives, as we learn from one of the most important defectors of
the 1980s, the head of intelligence of the main Contra force (FDN),
Horacio Arce, whose nom de guerre was "Mercenario", -- talk of
"democrats" and "freedom fighters" is for home consumption. Sandinista
defectors are eagerly exploited by the White House and the media, and
the Contras generally received extensive coverage. Contra defectors
are another matter, particularly when they have unwelcome tales to
relate. Arce was ignored in the US when he defected in late 1988. In
interviews in Mexico before returning to Managua to accept amnesty,
Arce described his illegal training in an air force base in the
southern United States, identified by name the CIA agents who provided
support for the Contras under the AID cover in the US Embassy in
Tegucigalpa, outlined how the Honduran army provides intelligence and
support for Contra military activities, and discussed the immense
corruption of the proxy forces and their sale of arms to the Honduran
arms bazaar where they then reach Salvadoran guerillas. He then
explained: "We attack a lot of schools, health centers, and those sort
of things. We have tried to make it so that the Nicaraguan government
cannot provide social services for the peasants, cannot develop its
project... that's the idea." The success of the US training is amply
confirmed by the record.16
The contra war easily qualifies as "state-sponsored terrorism," as
former CIA director Stansfield Turner testified before Congress in
April 1985. But one might argue that it should be termed outright
aggression. That might be taken to be the import of the 1986 World
Court decision. Let us, however, continue to give the US the benefit
of the doubt, thus assigning its actions against Nicaragua to the
category of international terrorism.
3. International Terrorism in the 1980s
During the 1980s, the primary locus of international
terrorism has been Central America. In Nicaragua the US proxy forces
left a trail of murder, torture, rape, mutilation, kidnapping, and
destruction, but were impeded because civilians had an army to defend
them. No comparable problems arose in the US client states, where the
main terrorist force attacking the civilian population is the
army and other state security forces. In El Salvador, tens of
thousands were slaughtered in what Archbishop Rivera y Damas in
October 1980, shortly after the operations moved into high gear,
described as "a war of extermination and genocide against a
defenseless civilian population." This exercise in state terror sought
"to destroy the people's organizations fighting to defend their
fundamental human rights," as Archbishop Oscar Romero warned shortly
before his assassination, while vainly pleading with President Carter
not to send aid to the armed forces who, he continued, "know only how
to repress the people and defend the interests of the Salvadorean
oligarchy."17
The goals were largely achieved during the Reagan administration,
which escalated the savagery of the assault against the population to
new heights. When it seemed that the US might be drawn into an
invasion that would be harmful to its own interests, there was some
concern and protest in elite circles, but that abated as state terror
appeared successful, with the popular organizations decimated and
"decapitated." After elections under conditions of violence and
repression guaranteeing victory to privileged elements acceptable to
the US, the issue largely passed below the threshold.
Little notice was taken of the significant increase
in state terror after the Esquipulas II accords; or of an Amnesty
International report entitled El Salvador: "Death Squads" -- A
Government Strategy (October 1988), reporting the "alarming rise"
in killings by official death squads as part of the government
strategy of intimidating any potential opposition by "killing and
mutilating victims in the most macabre way," leaving victims
"mutilated, decapitated, dismembered, strangled or showing marks of
torture... or rape." Since the goal of the government strategy is "to
intimidate or coerce a civilian population" (that is, terrorism, as
officially defined in the US Code), it is not enough simply to kill.
Rather, bodies must be left dismembered by the roadside, and women
must be found hanging from trees by their hair with their faces
painted red and their breasts cut off, while domestic elites pretend
not to see as they continue to fund, train, and support the murderers
and torturers.
In the same years, a massacre of even greater scale took place in
Guatemala, also supported throughout by the United States and its
mercenary states. Here too, terror increased after the Esquipulas II
peace agreement in order to guard against steps towards democracy,
social reform, and protection of human rights called for in the
accords. As in El Salvador, these developments were virtually ignored;
the assigned task at the time was to focus attention on Nicaragua and
to express vast outrage when Nicaragua occasionally approached the
lesser abuses that are regular practices in the US client states.
Since the goal is to restore Nicaragua to "the Central American mode"
and ensure that it observes the "regional standards" satisfied by El
Salvador and Guatemala, terror in client states is of no real concern,
unless it becomes so visible as to endanger the flow of aid to the
killers.18
Notice crucially that all of this is international
terrorism, supported or directly organized in Washington with the
assistance of its international network of mercenary states.
Well after the 1984 elections that were hailed for
having brought democracy to El Salvador, the church-based human rights
organization Socorro Juridico, operating under the protection of the
archdiocese of San Salvador, described the results of the continuing
terror, still conducted by "the same members of the armed forces who
enjoy official approval and are adequately trained to carry out these
acts of collective suffering," in the following terms:
Salvadoran society, affected by terror and panic, a result of the
persistent violation of basic human rights, shows the following
traits: collective intimidation and generalized fear, on the one
hand, and on the other the internalized acceptance of the terror
because of the daily and frequent use of violent means. In general,
society accepts the frequent appearance of tortured bodies, because
basic rights, the right to life, has absolutely no overriding value
for society.19
The same comment applies to the societies that oversee these
operations, or simply look the other way.
4. Before the Official Plague
International terrorism is, of course, not an invention of the
1980s. In the previous two decades, its major victims were Cuba and
Lebanon.
Anti-Cuban terrorism was directed by a secret Special
Group established in November 1961 under the code name "Mongoose,"
involving 400 Americans, 2,000 Cubans, a private navy of fast boats,
and a $50 million annual budget, run in part by a Miami CIA station
functioning in violation of the Neutrality Act and, presumably, the
law banning CIA operations in the United States.20
These operations included bombing of hotels and industrial
installations, sinking of fishing boats, poisoning of crops and
livestock, contamination of sugar exports, etc. Not all of these
actions were specifically authorized by the CIA, but no such
considerations absolve official enemies.
Several of these terrorist operations took place at
the time of the Cuban missile crisis of October-November 1962. In the
weeks before, Raymond Garthoff reports, a Cuban terrorist group
operating from Florida with US government authorization carried out "a
daring speedboat strafing attack on a Cuban seaside hotel near Havana
where Soviet military technicians were known to congregate, killing a
score of Russians and Cubans;" and shortly after, attacked British and
Cuban cargo ships and again raided Cuba, among other actions that were
stepped up in early October. At one of the tensest moments of the
missile crisis, on November 8, a terrorist team dispatched from the
United States blew up a Cuban industrial facility after the Mongoose
operations had been officially suspended. Fidel Castro alleged that
400 workers had been killed in this operation, guided by "photographs
taken by spying planes." This terrorist act, which might have set off
a global nuclear war, evoked little comment when it was revealed.
Attempts to assassinate Castro and other terror continued immediately
after the crisis terminated, and were escalated by Nixon in 1969.21
Such operations continued after the Nixon years. In
1976, for example, two Cuban fishing vessels were attacked in April by
boats from Miami, the main center of anti-Cuban terrorism worldwide. A
few weeks later, the Cuban embassy in Portugal was bombed with two
killed. In July, the Cuban mission to the UN in New York was bombed
and there were bombings aimed at Cuban targets in the Caribbean and
Colombia, along with the attempted bombing of a pro-Cuban meeting at
the Academy of Music in New York. In August, two officials of the
Cuban embassy in Argentina were kidnapped and Cubana airlines offices
in Panama were bombed. The Cuban embassy in Venezuela was fired upon
in October and the embassy in Madrid was bombed in November. In
October, CIA-trained Cuban exiles bombed a Cubana civilian airliner,
killing all 73 aboard, including Cuba's gold-medal-winning
international fencing team. One of the agents of this terrorist
operation, Bay of Pigs veteran Luis Posada Carriles, was sprung from
the Venezuelan jail where he was held for the bombing; he mysteriously
escaped and found his way to El Salvador, where he was put to work at
the Ilopango military airbase to help organize the US terrorist
operations in Nicaragua. The CIA attributed 89 terrorist operations in
the US and the Caribbean area for 1969-79 to Cuban exile groups, and
the major one, OMEGA 7, was identified by the FBI as the most
dangerous terrorist group operating in the US during much of the
1970s.22
Cuba figures heavily in scholarly work on international terrorism.
Walter Laqueur's standard work (see note 1) contains
many innuendos about Cuban sponsorship of terrorism, though little
evidence. There is not a word, however, on the terrorist operations
against Cuba. He writes that in "recent decades... the more
oppressive regimes are not only free from terror, they have helped to
launch it against more permissive societies." The intended meaning is
that the United States, a "permissive society," is one of the victims
of international terrorism, while Cuba, an "oppressive regime," is one
of the agents. To establish the conclusion it is necessary to suppress
the fact that the US has undeniably launched major terrorist attacks
against Cuba and is relatively free from terror itself; and if there
is a case to be made against Cuba, Laqueur has signally failed to
present it.
Turning to the second major example of the pre-Reagan
period, in southern Lebanon from the early 1970s the population was
held hostage with the "rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that
affected populations would exert pressure for a cessation of
hostilities" and acceptance of Israeli arrangements for the region
(Abba Eban, commenting on Prime Minister Menachem Begin's account of
atrocities in Lebanon committed under the Labor government, in the
style "of regimes which neither Mr Begin nor I would dare to mention
by name," Eban observed, acknowledging the accuracy of the account).23
Notice that this justification, offered by a respected Labor party
dove, places these actions squarely under the rubric of international
terrorism (if not aggression).
Thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands
driven from their homes in these attacks. Little is known because the
matter was of no interest; PLO attacks against Israel in the same
years, barbaric but on a far lesser scale, elicited great indignation
and extensive coverage. ABC correspondent Charles Glass, then a
journalist in Lebanon, found "little American editorial interest in
the conditions of the south Lebanese. The Israeli raids and shelling
of their villages, their gradual exodus from south Lebanon to the
growing slums on the outskirts of Beirut were nothing compared to the
lurid tales of the 'terrorists' who threatened Israel, hijacked
aeroplanes and seized embassies." The reaction was much the same, he
continues, when Israeli death squads were operating in southern
Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion. One could read about them in
the London Times, but US editors were not interested. Had the
media reported the operations of "these death squads of plainclothes
Shin Beth [secret police] men who assassinated suspects in the
villages and camps of south Lebanon," "stirring up the Shiite Muslim
population and helping to make the Marine presence untenable," there
might have been some appreciation of the plight of the US Marines
deployed in Lebanon. They seemed to have no idea of why they were
there apart from "the black enlisted men: almost all of them said,
though sadly never on camera, that they had been sent to protect the
rich against the poor." "The only people in Lebanon they identified
with were the poor Shiite refugees who lived all around their base at
the Beirut airport; it is sad that it was probably one of these poor
Shiites... who killed 241 of them on 23 October 1983." If any of these
matters had been reported, it might have been possible to avert, or at
the very least to comprehend, the bombing in which the Marines were
killed, victims of a policy that "the press could not explain to the
public and their information officers could not explain to the Marines
themselves."
In 1976, Syria entered Lebanon with US approval and helped
implement further massacres, the major one at the Palestinian refugee
camp of Tel Al-Zaater, where thousands were murdered by Syrian-backed
Christian forces with Israeli arms.24
Without proceeding further, it is clear that the plague of
state-directed international terrorism was rampant well before it was
converted into a major issue by the "public diplomacy" of the Reagan
administration.
5. The Canon: Retail Terrorism
Wholesale terrorism of the kind reviewed here has largely been
excluded from the discussion of "the evil scourge of terrorism." Let
us then turn to the smaller-scale acts of terror that fall within the
canon.
Here too, the record goes back well before the 1980s,
though the literature is too selective to be very useful. To mention a
few examples not found in Laqueur's standard source, while he refers
to the use of letter-bombs and "a primitive book bomb" used by Israeli
intelligence to kill General Mustapha Hafez in Gaza in 1956 at a time
when he was responsible for preventing Palestinian Fedayeen from
infiltrating to attack Israeli targets.25
Laqueur's review of the use of letter-bombs does not
include the testimony of Ya'akov Eliav, who claims to have been the
first to use letter-bombs when he served as a commander of the
terrorist group headed by the current [c. 1991] prime minister of
Israel, Yitzhak Shamir (Lehi, the "Stern gang"). Working from Paris in
1946, he arranged to have 70 such bombs sent in official British
government envelopes to all members of the British cabinet, the heads
of the Tory opposition, and several military commanders. In June 1947,
he and an accomplice were caught by Belgian police while attempting to
send these letter-bombs, and all were intercepted.26
The standard record of hijacking and bombing of
airliners also avoids some important topics, among them the US refusal
of requests from communist countries in the 1950s to return "persons
who hijacked planes, trains, and ships to escape" (State Department
legal adviser Abraham Sofaer, who notes that the policy was
"reexamined" from the late 1960s -- when the US and its allies were
targeted). Sofaer's comment understates the case. A Tass report
condemning the Achille Lauro hijacking accused Washington of
hypocrisy because two men who hijacked a Soviet airliner, killing a
stewardess and wounding other crew members, were given refuge in the
United States, which refused extradition.27
The first airplane hijacking in the Middle East also
falls outside the canon: Israel's hijacking of a Syrian airways
civilian jet in 1954, with the intent "to get hostages in order to
obtain the release of our prisoners in Damascus," who had been
captured on a spy mission in Syria (Prime Minister Moshe Sharett).
Sharett accepted the "factual affirmation of the US State Department
that our action was without precedent in the history of international
practice." In October 1956, the Israeli air force shot down an unarmed
Egyptian civilian plane, killing 16 people including four journalists,
in a failed attempt to assassinate Field Marshall Abdul Hakim Amar,
second to President Nasser, at a time when the two countries were not
in a state of war. This was a preplanned operation, thus unlike
Israel's downing of a Libyan civilian airliner with 110 killed as it
was lost in a sandstorm two minutes flight time from Cairo, towards
which it was heading. This February 1973 action took place while
Israeli airborne and amphibious forces were attacking Tripoli in
northern Lebanon, killing 31 people (mainly civilians) and destroying
classrooms, clinics, and other buildings in a raid justified as
preemptive.28
All of this was (and is) dismissed as insignificant, if even noticed.
The reaction to Arab terrorism is quite different.
Turning to the 1980s, consider 1985, when media
concern peaked. The major single terrorist act of the year was the
blowing up of an Air India flight, killing 329 people. The terrorists
had been trained in a paramilitary camp in Alabama run by Frank
Camper, where mercenaries were trained for terrorist acts in Central
America and elsewhere. According to ex-mercenaries, Camper had close
ties to US intelligence and was personally involved in the Air India
bombing, allegedly a "sting" operation that got out of control. On a
visit of India, Attorney-General Edwin Meese conceded in a backhanded
way that the terrorist operations originated in a US terrorist
training camp.29
Any connection of a terrorist to Libya, however frail, suffices to
demonstrate that Qaddafi is a "mad dog" who must be eliminated.
In the Middle East, the main center of international
terrorism according to the canon, the worst single terrorist act of
1985 was a car-bombing in Beirut on March 8 that killed 80 people and
wounded 256. "About 250 girls and women in flowing black chadors,
pouring out of Friday prayers at the Imam Rida Mosque, took the brunt
of the blast," Nora Boustany reported three years later: "At least 40
of them were killed and many more were maimed." The bomb also "burned
babies in their beds, killed a bride buying her trousseau," and "blew
away three children as they walked home from the mosque" as it
"devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut
suburb. The target was the Shi'ite leader Sheikh Fadlallah, accused of
complicity in terrorism, but he escaped. The attack was arranged by
the CIA and its Saudi clients with the assistance of Lebanese
intelligence and a British specialist, and specifically authorized by
CIA director William Casey, according to Bob Woodward's account in his
book on Casey and the CIA.30
Even under its chosen conventions, then, it seems
that the United States wins the prize for acts of international
terrorism in the peak year of the official plague. The US client state
of Israel follows closely behind. Its Iron Fist operations in Lebanon
were without parallel for the year as sustained acts of international
terrorism in the Middle East, and the bombing of Tunis (with tacit US
support) wins second prize for single terrorist acts, unless we take
this to be a case of actual aggression, as was determined by the UN
Security Council.31
In 1986, the major single terrorist act was the US
bombing of Libya -- assuming, again, that we do not assign this attack
to the category of aggression. This was a brilliantly staged media
event, the first bombing in history scheduled for prime-time TV, for
the precise moment when the networks open their national news
programs. This convenient arrangement allowed anchormen to switch at
once to Tripoli so that their viewers could watch the exciting events
live. The next act of superbly crafted TV drama was a series of news
conferences and White House statements explaining that this was
"self-defense against future attack" and a measured response to a
disco bombing in West Berlin ten days earlier for which Libya was
[allegedly] to blame. The media were well aware that the evidence for
this charge was slight, but the facts were ignored in the general
adulation for Reagan's decisive stand against terrorism, echoed across
the political spectrum. Crucial information undermining the US charges
was suppressed from that moment on. It was later conceded quietly that
the charges were groundless, but they nevertheless continued to be
aired and the conclusions that follow from this belated recognition
were never drawn.32
For 1986 too the United States seems to place well in
the competition for the prize for international terrorism, even apart
from the wholesale terrorism it sponsored in Central America, where,
in that year, Congress responded to the World Court call for an end to
the "unlawful use of force" by voting $100 million of military aid to
the US proxy forces in what the administration gleefully described as
a virtual declaration of war.33
6. Terror and Resistance
Let us turn now to several contentious questions about the scope of
terrorism, so far avoided.
Consider the boundary between terrorism and
legitimate resistance. Sometimes, nationalist groups are prepared to
describe their actions as terrorism, and some respected political
leaders decline to condemn acts of terrorism in the national cause. An
example particularly relevant to current discussion is the pre-state
Zionist movement. Israel is the source of the 1980s "terrorism
industry" (then transferred to the US for further development), as an
ideological weapon against the Palestinians.34
The PLO is anathema in the United States. A special act of Congress,
the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, "prohibits American citizens from
receiving any assistance, funds, or anything of value except
informational materials from the PLO," which is not permitted to
establish offices or other facilities to further its interests.35
Palestinian violence has received worldwide condemnation.
The pre-state Zionist movement carried out extensive
terror against Arab civilians, British, and Jews, also murdering UN
mediator Folke Bernadotte (whose killers were protected after the
state was established). In 1943, current Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir
wrote an article entitled "Terror" for the journal of the terrorist
organization he headed (Lehi) in which he proposed to "dismiss all the
'phobia' and babble against terror with simple, obvious arguments."
"Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow
terror as a means of war," he wrote, and "We are very far from any
moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle." "First
and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate
for the circumstances of today, and its task is a major one: it
demonstrates in the clearest language, heard throughout the world
including by our unfortunate brethren outside the gates of this
country, our war against the occupier." As has been widely observed in
Israel, the British occupation was far less repressive than Israel's
rule in the occupied territories and faced a much more violent
resistance.
British philosopher Isaiah Berlin recalls that Chaim Weizmann,
first president of Israel and considered one of the saintly figures of
the national movement,
did not think it morally decent to denounce either the acts [of
Jewish terrorism] or their perpetrators in public... he did not
propose to speak out against acts, criminal as he thought them,
which sprang from the tormented minds of men driven to desperation,
and ready to give up their lives to save their brothers from what,
he and they were equally convinced, was a betrayal and a destruction
cynically prepared for them by the foreign offices of the western
powers.36
The archives of the mainstream Zionist resistance
group, Haganah, contain the names of 40 Jews killed by Menachem
Begin's Irgun and Lehi. Yitzhak Shamir's personal assassination of a
Lehi associate is a famous incident. The official Irgun history, while
recalling with admiration many acts of terror against Arab civilians,
also cites the murder of a Jewish member who, it was feared, would
give information to the police if captured. Suspected collaborators
were a particular target. The Haganah Special Actions Squads carried
out "punitive actions" against Jewish informers. A Haganah prison in
Haifa contained a torture chamber for interrogation of Jews suspected
of collaboration with the British. In a 1988 interview, Dov Tsisis
describes his work as a Haganah enforcer, "following orders, like the
Nazis," to "eliminate" Jews interfering with the national struggle,
"particularly informers."
He also rejects the familiar charge that the murderous bombing of
the King David Hotel was carried out by the Irgun alone, identifying
himself as the special representative of Haganah commander Yitzhak
Sadeh, who authorized it. He was later recommended by Moshe Dayan to
replace him as commander of an elite unit. Anti-Nazi resisters also
describe the murder of collaborators, throughout Europe. Israel
Shahak, one of Israel's foremost civil libertarians and a survivor of
the Warsaw ghetto and the concentration camps, recalls that "before
the Warsaw ghetto revolt, ... the Jewish underground, with complete
justification, killed every Jewish collaborator that they could find."
He recalls a vivid childhood memory from February 1943, "when I danced
and sang together with other children around the body [of a murdered
Jewish collaborator], with blood still flowing from his body, and to
the present I have no regrets about that; on the contrary."37
While frank avowal of terrorism of the Shamir variety
can occasionally be found, the more normal pattern is for actions
undertaken against oppressive regimes and occupying armies to be
considered resistance by their perpetrators and terrorism by the
rulers, even when they are non-violent. What the Western democracies
considered to be resistance in occupied Europe or Afghanistan, the
Nazis and the USSR branded terror -- in fact, terror inspired from
abroad, therefore international terrorism. The US took the same
position towards the South Vietnamese who bore the brunt of the US
attack.
On similar grounds, South Africa [during the apartheid years] takes
strong exception to the international conventions on terrorism.
Specifically, it objects to UN General Assembly Resolution 42/159
(December 7, 1987) because, while condemning international terrorism
and outlining measures to combat it, the General Assembly:
Considers that nothing in the present resolution could in any way
prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom and independence,
as derived from the Charter of the United Nations, of peoples,
forcibly deprived of that right..., particularly peoples under
colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation or other forms of
colonial domination, nor... the right of these peoples to struggle
to this end and to seek and receive support [in accordance with the
Charter and other principles of international law].38
While this provision is endorsed by virtually the
entire world community, South Africa is not entirely alone in opposing
it. The resolution passed 153 to 2, with the United States and Israel
opposed and Honduras alone abstaining. In this case, the stand of the
US government won wide approval in the United States. Across the
spectrum of articulate opinion in the US, it is implicitly taken for
granted that the South African position is correct, indeed beyond
controversy.
The issue came to a head in late 1988 in connection with the
Israel-Palestinian conflict. In November, the Palestinian National
Council (PNC) declared an independent Palestinian state alongside of
Israel, endorsing the UN terrorism resolution and other relevant UN
resolutions. Yasser Arafat repeated the same positions in subsequent
weeks in Europe, including a special session of the UN General
Assembly convened in Geneva when he was barred from New York, in
violation of legal obligations to the United Nations, on the grounds
that his presence there would pose an unacceptable threat to the
security of the United States. The reiteration by the PNC and Arafat
of the UN terrorism resolution was denounced in the United States on
the grounds that the Palestinian leadership had failed to meet
Washington's conditions on good behavior, including "Rejection of
terrorism in all its forms" without qualification. The qualification
in question is the one endorsed by the world community with the
exception of the US and Israel (and South Africa).
The editors of the New York Times ridiculed the PNC
endorsement of international conventions on terrorism as "the old
Arafat hedge." Anthony Lewis, who is at the outer limits of tolerable
dissent on these matters, wrote that Arafat was progressing, but not
sufficiently: "the United States says correctly that the PLO must
unambiguously renounce all terrorism before it can take part in
negotiations," and this proper condition had not yet been met. The
general reaction largely fell within these bounds.
The reasoning is straightforward. The PLO had refused to join the
US, Israel and South Africa off the spectrum of world opinion, and
therefore merits either derision (from the hardliners) or
encouragement for its limited but insufficient progress (from the
dissidents).
When the US became isolated diplomatically, by December 1988,
Washington moved to a fall-back position, pretending that Arafat had
capitulated to US demands, though his position had not changed in any
substantive way -- for years, in fact. With Arafat's capitulation to
US demands now official, by US stipulation, he could be rewarded by
discussions with the US Ambassador in Tunis. As was underscored by
Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the US-PLO discussions were
designed to deflect diplomatic pressures for settlement and to grant
Israel a year or more to suppress the Palestinian uprising (Intifada)
by "harsh military and economic pressure" so that "they will be
broken."
39
The issue of terrorism versus resistance arose at
once during the US-PLO discussions. The protocols of the first meeting
were leaked and published in the Jerusalem Post, which
expressed its pleasure that "the American representative adopted the
Israeli positions," stating two crucial conditions that the PLO must
accept: the PLO must call off the Intifada, and must abandon the idea
of an international conference. With regard to the Intifada, the US
stated it position as follows:
Undoubtedly the internal struggles that we are witnessing in the
occupied territories aim to undermine the security and stability of
the State of Israel, and we therefore demand cessation of those
riots, which we view as terrorist acts against Israel. This
is especially true as we know you are directing, from outside the
territories, those riots which are sometimes very violent.40
Once this "terrorism" is called off and the previous conditions of
repression restored, the US and Israel can proceed to settle matters
to their satisfaction. Again, the resistance of an oppressed
population to a brutal military occupation is "terror," from the point
of view of the occupiers and their paymaster.
The same issue arose during the 1985 Iron Fist
operations of the Israeli army in southern Lebanon. These too were
guided by the logic outlined by Abba Eban, cited earlier. The civilian
population was held hostage under the threat of terror to ensure its
acceptance of the political arrangements dictated by Israel for
southern Lebanon and the occupied territories. The threat can be
realized at will. To cite only one case, while the eyes of the world
were focused in horror on Arab terrorists, the press reported that
Israeli tank cannon poured fire into the village of Sreifa in southern
Lebanon, aiming at 30 houses from which the Israeli Army claimed they
had been fired upon by "armed terrorists," resisting their military
actions as they searched for two Israeli soldiers who had been
"kidnapped" in the "security zone" Israel has carved out of Lebanon.
Kept from the American press was the report by the UN peace-keeping
forces that the IDF "went really crazy" in these operations, locking
up entire villages, preventing the UN forces from sending in water,
milk, and oranges to the villagers subjected to "interrogation" by the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or its local mercenaries. The IDF then
left with many hostages including pregnant women, some taken to Israel
in further violation of international law, destroying houses and
looting and wrecking others. Prime Minister Shimon Peres, lauded in
the US as a man of peace, said that Israel's search "expresses our
attitude towards the value of human life and dignity."
41
To the Israeli high command, the victims of the Iron
Fist operations were "terrorist villagers;" it was thus understandable
that 13 villagers were massacred by militiamen of the Israeli
mercenary forces in the incident that elicited this observation. Yossi
Olmert of the Shiloah Institute, Israel's Institute of Strategic
Studies, observed that "these terrorists operate with the support of
most of the local population." An Israeli commander complained that
"the terrorist... has many eyes here, because he lives here." The
military correspondent of the Jerusalem Post (Hirsh Goodman)
described the problems faced in combating the "terrorist mercenary,"
"fanatics, all of whom are sufficiently dedicated to their causes to
go on running the risk of being killed while operating against the
IDF," which must "maintain order and security" despite "the price the
inhabitants will have to pay."
42
A similar concept of terrorism is widely used by US
officials and commentators. The press reports that Secretary of State
Shultz's concern over international terrorism became "his passion"
after the suicide bombing of US Marines in Lebanon in October 1983,
troops that much of the population saw as a military force sent in to
impose the "New Order" established by the Israeli aggression: the rule
of right-wing Christians and selected Muslim elites. The media did not
call upon witnesses from Nicaragua, Angola, Lebanon and the occupied
territories, and elsewhere, to testify to Shultz's "passion," either
then, or when they renewed their praise for his "visceral contempt for
terrorism" and "personal crusade" against it in explaining his refusal
to admit Arafat to speak at the United Nations.43
Doubtless Syria too regards the Lebanese who resist its bloody rule
as "terrorist," but such a claim would evoke the ridicule and contempt
it merits. The reaction changes with the cast of characters.
7. Terror and Retaliation
The concept of retaliation is a useful device of
ideological warfare. Throughout a cycle of violent interaction, each
side typically perceives its own acts as retaliation for the terrorism
of the adversary. In the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict
provides many examples. Israel being a client state, US practice
adopts the Israeli conventions.
To illustrate, consider the hijacking of the Achille Lauro
and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer in 1985, doubtless a vile terrorist
act. The hijackers, however, regarded their action not as terror but
as retaliation for the Israeli bombing of Tunis a week earlier,
killing 20 Tunisians and 55 Palestinians with smart bombs that tore
people to shreds beyond recognition, among other horrors described by
Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk on the scene. Washington cooperated
by refusing to warn its ally Tunisia that the bombers were on their
way, and George Shultz telephoned Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak
Shamir to inform him that the US administration "had considerable
sympathy for the Israeli action," the press reported.44
Shultz drew back from this open approval when the UN Security Council
unanimously denounced the bombing as an "act of armed aggression" (the
US abstaining). Prime Minister Shimon Peres was welcomed to Washington
a few days later, while the press solemnly discussed his consultations
with President Reagan on "the evil scourge of terrorism" and what can
be done to counter it.
For the US and Israel, the Tunis bombing was not
terror or aggression but rather legitimate retaliation for the cold
blooded murder of three Israelis in Larnaca, Cyprus. Secretary Shultz
termed the Tunis bombing "a legitimate response" to "terrorist
attacks," evoking general approbation.45
The Larnaca killers, as Israel conceded, had probable connections to
Syria but none to Tunis, which was selected as a target because it was
defenseless; the Reagan administration selected Libyan cities as a
bombing target a few months later in part for the same reason.
The perpetrators of the Larnaca atrocity, in turn,
regarded their act not as terrorism but as retaliation. It was, they
claimed, a response to Israeli hijackings in international waters for
many years, including civilian ferries travelling from Cyprus to
Lebanon, with large numbers of people kidnapped, over 100 kept in
Israeli prisons without trial, and many killed, some by Israeli
gunners while they tried to stay afloat after their ship was sunk,
according to survivors interviewed in prison. These Israeli terrorist
operations are sometimes marginally noted. Thus after a prisoner
exchange in 1983, the New York Times observed in paragraph 18
of a front page story that 37 of the Arab prisoners, who had been held
at the notorious Ansar torture chamber in southern Lebanon, "had been
seized recently by the Israeli Navy as they tried to make their way
from Cyprus to Tripoli," north of Beirut. In 1989, the Washington
Post ran a story on the release of Palestinian prisoners held
under administrative detention, many "at the controversial Negev tent
city prison of Ketziot," another torture chamber. The story mentioned
incidentally that "Meanwhile, before dawn, the Israeli navy stopped a
boat sailing from Lebanon to Cyprus and seized 14 people described as
suspected terrorists," taking them to Israel for "interrogation." The
Israeli peace organization Dai l'Kibbush reports that in 1986-7,
Israeli military courts convicted dozens of people kidnapped at sea or
in Lebanon of "membership in a forbidden organization" but no
anti-Israel activity or plans; the Palestinians kidnapped allegedly
belonged to the PLO, and the Lebanese to Hizballah and in at least one
case to the major Shi'ite organization Amal, all legal in Lebanon.46
By the same logic, British occupying forces could have sent agents to
kidnap Zionists in the United States or on the high seas in 1947,
placing them in prison camps without charge or convicting them of
support for terrorism. These Israeli operations are little discussed
and do not fall within the canon.
The concepts of terrorism and retaliation are supple instruments,
readily adapted to the needs of the moment.
8. From Literalism to Doctrinal Necessity
This review of state-directed international terrorism suffers from
a serious flaw: it has adhered to naive literalism and is thus
irrelevant to contemporary debate over the plague of the modern age.
The review is, furthermore, very far from comprehensive. It barely
scratches the surface even for Central America and the Middle East,
and the plague is by no means limited to these regions. But it does
suffice to raise a few questions. One stands out particularly: how is
it possible for scholars and the media to maintain the thesis that the
plague of the modern age is traceable to the Soviet-based "worldwide
terror network aimed at the destabilization of Western democratic
society?" How is it possible to identify Iran, Libya, the PLO, Cuba,
and other official enemies as the leading practitioners of
international terrorism?
The answers are not difficult to find. We must simply abandon the
literal approach and recognize that terrorist acts fall within the
canon only when conducted by official enemies. When the US and its
clients are the agents, they are acts of retaliation and self-defense
in the service of democracy and human rights. Then all becomes clear.
Turning finally to possible remedies for the plague,
the standard literature offers some proposals. Walter Laqueur urges
that "the obvious way to retaliate" against international terrorism
"is, of course, to pay the sponsors back in their own coin," though
such legitimate response may be difficult for Western societies, which
fail to comprehend that others do not share their "standards of
democracy, freedom and humanism." Before those afflicted with
incurable literalism draw the wrong conclusions, however, it should be
stressed that legitimate response does not include bombs in Washington
and Tel Aviv, given the careful way in which the concept of terrorism
has been crafted.
The New York Times called upon an expert on terrorism to
offer his thoughts on how to counter the plague. His advice, based
upon long experience, was straightforward: "The terrorists, and
especially their commanders, must be eliminated." He gave three
examples of successful counterterrorist actions: the US bombing of
Libya, the Israeli bombing of Tunis, and Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
He recommends more of the same "if the civilized world is to prevail."
The Times editors gave his article the title: "It's Past Time
to Crush The Terrorist Monster," and they highlighted the words: "Stop
the slaughter of innocents." They identify the author solely as
"Israel's Minister of Trade and Industry." His name is Ariel Sharon.47
His terrorist career, dating back to the early 1950s, includes the
slaughter of 69 villagers in Qibya and 20 at the al-Bureig refugee
camp in 1953; terrorist operations in the Gaza region and northeastern
Sinai in the early 1970s including the expulsion of some ten thousand
farmers into the desert, their homes bulldozed and farmlands destroyed
in preparation for Jewish settlement; the invasion of Lebanon
undertaken in an effort -- as now widely conceded -- to overcome the
threat of PLO diplomacy; the subsequent massacre at Sabra and
Shatilla; and others.
Some might feel that the choice of Ariel Sharon to provide "the
civilized world" with lessons on how to "stop the slaughter of
innocents" may be a little odd, perhaps perverse, possibly even
hypocritical. But that is not so clear. The choice is not inconsistent
with the values expressed in action and the intellectual culture
expressed in words -- or in silence.
In support of this conclusion, we may observe that the remedy for
international terrorism -- at least, a substantial component of it --
is within our grasp. But no action is taken to this end, and indeed
the matter is never discussed and is even inconceivable in respectable
circles. Rather, one finds accolades to our benevolent intentions and
nobility of purpose, our elevated "standards of democracy, freedom and
humanism," sometimes flawed in performance. Elementary facts cannot be
perceived and obvious thoughts are unthinkable. Simple truths, when
expressed, elicit disbelief, horror, and outrage -- at the fact that
they are voiced.
In a moral and intellectual climate such as this, it may well be
appropriate for the world's greatest newspaper to select Ariel Sharon
as our tutor on the evils of terrorism and how to combat it.
Notes
1 Among other sources, see Edward S. Herman,
The Real Terror Network (South End Press, 1982); Herman and Frank
Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection
(Sheridan Square Publications, 1986); Noam Chomsky, Pirates and
Emperors (Claremont, 1986; Amana, 1988); Alexander George, "The
Discipline of Terrorology," this volume. Also the discussion of Walter
Laqueur's The Age of Terrorism (Little, Brown and Co., 1987),
in Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions (South End, 1989, pp.
278ff). See this book for references, where not cited here.
2 "States, Terrorism and State Terrorism," in
Robert O. Slater and Michael Stohl, Current Perspectives on
International Terrorism (Macmillan, 1988). Stohl concludes that
"In terms of terrorist coercive diplomacy the USA has...been far more
active in the Third World than has the Soviet Union." Other studies
show a similar pattern. In her review of military conflicts since
World War II, Ruth Sivard finds that 95 percent have been in the Third
World, in most cases involving foreign forces, with "western powers
accounting for 79 percent of the interventions, communist for 6
percent"; World Military and Social Expenditures 1981 (World
Priorities, 1981), p. 8
3 United States Code Congressional and
Administrative News, 98th Congress, Second Session, 1984, Oct. 19,
volume 2; par. 3077, 98 STAT. 2707 (West Publishing Co., 1984).
4 US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism
Counteraction (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984); Robert Kupperman
Associates, Low Intensity Conflict, July 30, 1983. Both cited
in Michael Klare and Peter Kornbluh (eds), Low Intensity Warfare
(Pantheon, 1988), pp. 69, 147. The actual quotation from Kupperman
refers specifically to "the threat of force;" its use is also plainly
intended.
5 Jerusalem Post (August 4, 1988).
6 See Noam Chomsky, The Culture of Terrorism
(South End, 1988), pp. 43, 77.
7 For details on the highly successful demolition
job, see Chomsky, Culture of Terrorism and Necessary
Illusions. On the immediate destruction of the Esquipulas IV
accords of February 1989 by the White House and congressional doves
with media cooperation, see Chomsky, "The Tasks Ahead: 1", Z
magazine (May 1989).
8 Richard Boudreaux and Marjorie Miller, Los
Angeles Times (October 5, 1988); Associated Press, November 21,
1987; Witness for Peace, Civilian Victims of the US Contra War
(February-July 1987), p. 5. Americas Watch, The Civilian Toll
1986-1987 (August 30, 1987); Americas Watch Petition to US Trade
Representative (May 29, 1987).
9 Boston Globe (November 9, 1984), citing
also similar comments by Democratic dove Christopher Dodd.
10 A search of the liberal Boston Globe,
perhaps the least antagonistic to the Sandinistas among major US
journals, revealed one editorial reference to the fact that Nicaragua
needs air power "to repel attacks by the CIA-run contras, and to stop
or deter supply flights" (November 9, 1986).
11 Jeane Kirkpatrick, "US Security and Latin
America," Commentary (January 1981), p. 29.
12 Cited by Stohl, "States, Terrorism and State
Terrorism."
13 Irving Kristol, "Why a Debate Over Contra
Aid?," Wall Street Journal (April 11, 1986); Kristol, "Where
Have All the Gunboats Gone?," Wall Street Journal (December 13,
1973).
14 See Chomsky, Necessary Illusions, p.
60
15 Julia Preston, Boston Globe (February
9, 1986); MacMichael, see Chomsky Culture of Terrorism; Doyle
McManus, Los Angeles Times (May 28, 1988); Vaky, see Chomsky,
Necessary Illusions.
16 Ibid., pp. 204-5.
17 Rivera y Damas quoted in Ray Bonner,
Weakness and Deceit (Times Books, 1984), p. 207; Romero quoted in
Jenny Pearce, Under the Eagle (Latin America Bureau, 1981).
18 For documentation on these matters, see
Chomsky Necessary Illusions
19 LADOC (Latin American Documentation),
Torture in Latin America (LADOC, 1987), the report of the First
International Seminar on Torture in Latin America (Buenos Aires,
December 1985), devoted to "the repressive system" that "has at its
disposal knowledge and a multinational technology of terror, developed
in specialized centers whose purpose is to perfect methods of
exploitation, oppression and dependence of individuals and entire
peoples" by the use of "state terrorism inspired by the Doctrine of
National Security." This doctrine can be traced to the historic
decision of the Kennedy administration to shift the mission of the
Latin American military to "internal security," with far-reaching
consequences.
20 Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the
Cuban Missile Crisis (Brookings Institution, 1987), p. 17.
21 Ibid., pp. 16f, 78f, 89f, 98. See the
references of note 1. Also Bradley Earl Ayers, The War that Never
Was (Harper & Row, 1981); William Blum, The CIA (Zed Books,
1986), updated and republished in expanded form as Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII (Common Courage
Press, 1995); Morris Morley, Imperial State and Revolution
(Cambridge University Press, 1987); Taylor Branch and George Crile,
"The Kennedy Vendetta: Our Secret War on Cuba," Harper's
(August 1975).
22 See Noam Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War
(Pantheon, 1982), pp. 48-9; see Chomsky, Culture of Terrorism,
p. 40; Stohl, "States, Terrorism and State Terrorism."
23 Jerusalem Post (August 16, 1981); see
Chomsky, Fateful Triangle (South End, 1983), Chapter 5,
sections 1, 3.4, for further quotes, background, and description.
24 Charles Glass, "No News is Bad News,"
Index on Censorship (January 1989). See Chomsky, Fateful
Triangle, pp. 184f, and sources cited.
25 Ehud Ya'ari, Egypt and the Fedayeen
(Hebrew) (Givat Haviva, 1975), pp. 27f, a study based on captured
Egyptian and Jordanian documents. At the same time, Salah Mustapha,
Egyptian military attaché in Jordan, was severely injured by a
letter-bomb sent from East Jerusalem, presumably from the same source;
ibid.
26 Israeli military historian Uri Milshtein,
Hadashot (December 31, 1987), refering to Eliav's 1983 book
Hamevukash.
27 Sofaer, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1986;
New York Times (October 12, 1985).
28 See Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, pp.
92-3, 108; Ha'aretz (April 5, 1989).
29 Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987), p. 26; Chomsky, Pirates and
Emperors, p. 136.
30 Boustany, Washington Post Weekly
(March 14, 1988); Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA
1981-1987 (Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 396f.
31 For a review of the Iron Fist operations and
the Tunis bombing, see Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, chapter
2.
32 For details, see Chomsky, Pirates and
Emperors, chapter 3; Chomsky, Necessary Illusions, pp.
272-3; and sources cited.
33 James LeMoyne, "Week in Review," New York
Times (June 29, 1986).
34 See Edward S. Herman, The Terrorism
Industry (Pantheon, 1990); Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan,
"'Terrorism' as Ideology and Cultural Industry," this volume.
35 Lawrence Harke, "The Anti-Terrorism Act of
1987 and American Freedoms: A Critical Review," University of Miami
Law Review, 43 (1989), pp. 667f.
36 Shamir, "Terror," Hazit (August 1943);
parts reprinted in Al Hamishmar (December 24, 1987); Berlin,
Personal Impressions (Viking, 1981), p. 50.
37 See Chomsky, Fateful Triangle, pp.
164-5n.; Gafi Amir, Yediot Ahronot Supplement (August 14,
1988); Israel Shahak, "Distortion of the Holocaust," Kol Ha'ir
(May 19, 1989).
38 Text appears as Appendix III, State
Terrorism at Sea, EAFORD Paper 44, Chicago, 1988.
39 For details, see Chomsky, Necessary
Illusions; also Chomsky, "The Trollope Ploy," Z Magazine
(March 1989); Chomsky, "The Art of Evasion: Diplomacy in the Middle
East," Z Magazine (January 1990).
40 Emphasis in Jerusalem Post. See
references of preceding note. The unacceptability of an international
conference follows from the opposition of the US and Israel to a
political settlement of the kind supported by most of the world
community.
41 See Chomsky, Pirates and Emperors, p.
69.
42 Ibid., pp. 63f.
43 Don Oberdorfer, "The Mind of George Shultz,"
Washington Post Weekly (February 17, 1986); New York Times
(November 28, 1988).
44 Bernard Gwertzman, New York Times
(October 7, 1985).
45 Bernard Gwertzman, New York Times
(October 2, 1985).
46 See Pirates and Emperors, pp. 51f.,
87f.; note 35 above; Linda Gradstein, Washington Post (April 6,
1989); "Political Trials," Dai l'Kibbush, Jerusalem, August 1988,
published in News from Within (December 14, 1988).
47 New York Times (September 30, 1986). |
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