Terrorism Defined

[mmven...@gmail.com]

by Stephen Lendman

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
lendman...@sbcglobal.net.

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.