F
fred f and the lot
Guest
3. What is the War Against Terrorism?
Well, let’s go to the third question, ‘What is the war against terrorism?’ and a side question,
‘What’s terrorism?’. The war against terrorism has been described in high places as a
struggle against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by “depraved opponents
of civilization itself.” That’s a feeling that I share. The words I’m quoting, however,
happen to be from 20 years ago. Those are…that’s President Reagan and his Secretary of
State. The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that the war
against international terrorism would be the core of our foreign policy….describing it in
terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. And it was the core of our foreign policy.
The Reagan administration responded to this plague spread by depraved opponents of
civilization itself by creating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totally
unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over the world,
primarily….well, partly nearby, but not only there. I won’t run through the record, you’re
all educated people, so I’m sure you learned about it in High School. [crowd laughter]
Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua
But I’ll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial, so we might as well not
argue about it, by no means the most extreme but uncontroversial. It’s uncontroversial
because of the judgments of the highest international authorities the International Court of
Justice, the World Court, and the UN Security Council. So this one is uncontroversial, at
least among people who have some minimal concern for international law, human rights,
justice and other things like that. And now I’ll leave you an exercise. You can estimate the
size of that category by simply asking how often this uncontroversial case has been
mentioned in the commentary of the last month. And it’s a particularly relevant one, not
only because it is uncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to how a law
abiding state would respond to…did respond in fact to international terrorism, which is
uncontroversial. And was even more extreme than the events of September 11th. I’m
talking about the Reagan-US war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands of people
dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.
Nicaragua’s Response
Nicaragua did respond. They didn’t respond by setting off bombs in Washington. They
responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting a case, they had no problem putting
together evidence. The World Court accepted their case, ruled in their favor, ordered
the…condemned what they called the “unlawful use of force,” which is another word for
international terrorism, by the United States, ordered the United States to terminate the
crime and to pay massive reparations. The United States, of course, dismissed the court
judgment with total contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdiction of
the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua then went to the UN Security Council which
considered a resolution calling on all states to observe international law. No one was
mentioned but everyone understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now
stands as the only state on record which has both been condemned by the World Court for
international terrorism and has vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on states to
observe international law. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly where there is
technically no veto but a negative US vote amounts to a veto. It passed a similar resolution
with only the United States, Israel, and El Salvador opposed. The following year again, this
time the United States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed to observing
international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn’t do anything lawful. It tried all the
measures. They don’t work in a world that is ruled by force.
This case is uncontroversial but it’s by no means the most extreme. We gain a lot of insight
into our own culture and society and what’s happening now by asking ‘how much we
know about all this? How much we talk about it? How much you learn about it in school?
How much it’s all over the front pages?’ And this is only the beginning. The United States
responded to the World Court and the Security Council by immediately escalating the war
very quickly, that was a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the war were also
changed. For the first time there were official orders given…official orders to the terrorist
army to attack what are called “soft targets,” meaning undefended civilian targets, and to
keep away from the Nicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the United States
had total control of the air over Nicaragua and the mercenary army was supplied with
advanced communication equipment, it wasn’t a guerilla army in the normal sense and
could get instructions about the disposition of the Nicaraguan army forces so they could
attack agricultural collectives, health clinics, and so on…soft targets with impunity. Those
were the official orders.
What was the Reaction Here?
What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it. The policy was regarded
as sensible by left liberal opinion. So Michael Kinsley who represents the left in
mainstream discussion, wrote an article in which he said that we shouldn’t be too quick to
criticize this policy as Human Rights Watch had just done. He said a “sensible policy”
must “meet the test of cost benefit analysis” -- that is, I’m quoting now, that is the
analysis of “the amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood that
democracy will emerge at the other end.” Democracy as the US understands the term,
which is graphically illustrated in the surrounding countries. Notice that it is axiomatic that
the United States, US elites, have the right to conduct the analysis and to pursue the
project if it passes their tests. And it did pass their tests. It worked. When Nicaragua
finally succumbed to superpower assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the
success of the methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So I’ll quote
Time Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success of the methods adopted: “to
wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives
overthrow the unwanted government themselves,” with a cost to us that is “minimal,” and
leaving the victims “with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms,”
and thus providing the US candidate with a “winning issue”: “ending the impoverishment
of the people of Nicaragua.” The New York Times had a headline saying “Americans
United in Joy” at this outcome.
Terrorism Works – Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak
That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts. One is the fact that
terrorism works. It doesn’t fail. It works. Violence usually works. That’s world history.
Secondly, it’s a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is
the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it’s primarily a weapon of the
strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong
also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn’t count as terror. Now that’s close
to universal. I can’t think of a historical exception, even the worst mass murderers view the
world that way. So pick the Nazis. They weren’t carrying out terror in occupied Europe.
They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. And like
other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter
terror. Furthermore, the United States essentially agreed with that. After the war, the US
army did extensive studies of Nazi counter terror operations in Europe. First I should say
that the US picked them up and began carrying them out itself, often against the same
targets, the former resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methods published
interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they were inefficiently carried out,
so a critical analysis, you didn’t do this right, you did that right, but those methods with
the advice of Wermacht officers who were brought over here became the manuals of counter
insurgency, of counter terror, of low intensity conflict, as it is called, and are the manuals,
and are the procedures that are being used. So it’s not just that the Nazis did it. It’s that it
was regarded as the right thing to do by the leaders of western civilization, that is us, who
then proceeded to do it themselves. Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the
weapon of those who are against ‘us’ whoever ‘us’ happens to be. And if you can find a
historical exception to that, I’d be interested in seeing it.
Nature of our Culture – How We Regard Terrorism
Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our high culture, is the way in
which all of this is regarded. One way it’s regarded is just suppressing it. So almost nobody
has ever heard of it. And the power of American propaganda and doctrine is so strong that
even among the victims it’s barely known. I mean, when you talk about this to people in
Argentina, you have to remind them. Oh, yeh, that happened, we forgot about it. It’s
deeply suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can be very
powerful in ideological and other terms.
The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself
Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism is the reaction to the
idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself. Actually I went through this in
some detail with database searches and that sort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might
have the right to defend itself was considered outrageous. There is virtually nothing in
mainstream commentary indicating that Nicaragua might have that right. And that fact was
exploited by the Reagan administration and its propaganda in an interesting way. Those of
you who were around in that time will remember that they periodically floated rumors that
the Nicaraguans were getting MIG jets, jets from Russia. At that point the hawks and the
doves split. The hawks said, ‘ok, let’s bomb ‘em.’ The doves said, `wait a minute, let’s see
if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let’s bomb them. Because they are a
threat to the United States.’ Why, incidentally were they getting MIGs. Well they tried to
get jet planes from European countries but the United States put pressure on its allies so
that it wouldn’t send them means of defense because they wanted them to turn to the
Russians. That’s good for propaganda purposes. Then they become a threat to us.
Remember, they were just 2 days march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared a
national emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat of Nicaragua. And it
stayed in force. So it was much better for them to get arms from the Russians. Why would
they want jet planes? Well, for the reasons I already mentioned. The United States had
total control over their airspace, was over flying it and using that to provide instructions to
the terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without running into the army that
might defend them. Everyone knew that that was the reason. They are not going to use
their jet planes for anything else. But the idea that Nicaragua should be permitted to defend
its airspace against a superpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to attack
undefended civilian targets, that was considered in the United States as outrageous and
uniformly so. Exceptions are so slight, you know I can practically list them. I don’t suggest
that you take my word for this. Have a look. That includes our own senators, incidentally.
Honduras – The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the United
Nations
Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right now. The US has just
appointed an ambassador to the United Nations to lead the war against terrorism a couple
weeks ago. Who is he? Well, his name is John Negroponte. He was the US ambassador in
the fiefdom, which is what it is, of Honduras in the early 1980’s. There was a little fuss
made about the fact that he must have been aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scale
murders and other atrocities that were being carried out by the security forces in Honduras
that we were supporting. But that’s a small part of it. As proconsul of Honduras, as he
was called there, he was the local supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for
which his government was condemned by the world court and then the Security Council in
a vetoed resolution. And he was just appointed as the UN Ambassador to lead the war
against terror. Another small experiment you can do is check and see what the reaction was
to this. Well, I will tell you what you are going to find, but find it for yourself. Now that
tells us a lot about the war against terrorism and a lot about ourselves.
After the United States took over the country again under the conditions that were so
graphically described by the press, the country was pretty much destroyed in the 1980’s,
but it has totally collapsed since in every respect just about. Economically it has declined
sharply since the US take over, democratically and in every other respect. It’s now the
second poorest country in the Hemisphere. I should say….I’m not going to talk about it,
but I mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversial case. If you
look at the other states in the region, the state terror was far more extreme and it again
traces back to Washington and that’s by no means all.
US & UK Backed South African Attacks
It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During the Reagan years
alone, South African attacks, backed by the United States and Britain, US/UK-backed
South African attacks against the neighboring countries killed about a million and a half
people and left 60 billion dollars in damage and countries destroyed. And if we go around
the world, we can add more examples.
Now that was the first war against terror of which I’ve given a small sample. Are we
supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of think that that might be relevant? After all
it’s not exactly ancient history. Well, evidently not as you can tell by looking at the current
discussion of the war on terror which has been the leading topic for the last month.
Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua
I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere.
What’s the poorest country? Well that’s of course Haiti which also happens to be the
victim of most US intervention in the 20th century by a long shot. We left it totally
devastated. It’s the poorest country. Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US
intervention in the 20th century. It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with
Guatemala. They interchange every year or two as to who’s the second poorest. And they
also vie as to who is the leading target of US military intervention. We’re supposed to
think that all of this is some sort of accident. That is has nothing to do with anything that
happened in history. Maybe.
Colombia and Turkey
The worst human rights violator in the 1990’s is Colombia, by a long shot. It’s also the, by
far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the 1990’s maintaining the terror and human
rights violations. In 1999, Colombia replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms
worldwide, that is excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate category. And that tells
us a lot more about the war on terror right now, in fact.
Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you take a look at the flow
of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a lot of US arms. It’s strategically placed, a
member of NATO, and so on. But the arms flow to Turkey went up very sharply in 1984.
It didn’t have anything to do with the cold war. I mean Russian was collapsing. And it
stayed high from 1984 to 1999 when it reduced and it was replaced in the lead by
Colombia. What happened from 1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a major
terrorist war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that’s when US aid went up,
military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet planes, tanks, military training, and so
on. And it stayed high as the atrocities escalated through the 1990’s. Aid followed it. The
peak year was 1997. In 1997, US military aid to Turkey was more than in the entire period
1950 to 1983, that is the cold war period, which is an indication of how much the cold war
has affected policy. And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 million refugees. Some
of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990’s. Tens of thousands of people killed, 3500
towns and villages destroyed, way more than Kosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the
United States was providing 80% of the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased, peaking
in 1997. It declined in 1999 because, once again, terror worked as it usually does when
carried out by its major agents, mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish terror, called of
course counter-terror, but as I said, that’s universal, it worked. Therefore Turkey was
replaced by Colombia which had not yet succeeded in its terrorist war. And therefore had
to move into first place as recipient of US arms.
Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals
Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this was taking place right in the
midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation on the part of Western intellectuals which
probably has no counterpart in history. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple
years ago. Massive self-adulation about how for the first time in history we are so
magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and values; dedicated to ending
inhumanity everywhere in the new era of this-and-that, and so-on-and-so-forth. And we
certainly can’t tolerate atrocities right near the borders of NATO. That was repeated over
and over. Only within the borders of NATO where we can not only can tolerate much
worse atrocities but contribute to them. Another insight into Western civilization and our
own, is how often was this brought up? Try to look. I won’t repeat it. But it’s instructive.
It’s a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system to carry this off in a free society. It’s
pretty amazing. I don’t think you could do this in a totalitarian state.
Turkey is Very Grateful
And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that
Turkey would join the coalition against terror, very enthusiastically, even more so than
others. In fact, he said they would contribute troops which others have not willing to do.
And he explained why. He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because
the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute so massively to our
own, in his words “counter-terrorist” war, that is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and
atrocities and terror. Other countries helped a little, but they stayed back. The United
States, on the other hand, contributed enthusiastically and decisively and was able to do so
because of the silence, servility might be the right word, of the educated classes who could
easily find out about it. It’s a free country after all. You can read human rights reports. You
can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose to contribute to the atrocities and Turkey is very
happy, they owe us a debt of gratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as
during the war in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using its F-16’s which we
supplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had been doing with the same planes against its
own population up until the time when it finally succeeded in crushing internal terror as
they called it. And as usual, as always, resistance does include terror. Its true of the
American Revolution. That’s true of every case I know. Just as its true that those who
have a monopoly of violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror.
The Coalition – Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia
Now that’s pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition that is now being
organized to fight the war against terror. And it’s very interesting to see how that coalition
is being described. So have a look at this morning’s Christian Science Monitor. That’s a
good newspaper. One of the best international newspapers, with real coverage of the
world. The lead story, the front-page story, is about how the United States, you know
people used to dislike the United States but now they are beginning to respect it, and they
are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war against terror. And the prime
example, well in fact the only serious example, the others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out
that Algeria is very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. The person who wrote the
article is an expert on Africa. He must know that Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist
states in the world and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population
in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under wraps. But it was finally
exposed in France by defectors from the Algerian army. It’s all over the place there and in
England and so on. But here, we’re very proud because one of the worst terrorist states in
the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war on terror and in fact is cheering on
the United States to lead the war. That shows how popular we are getting.
And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror it tells you a lot more. A
leading member of the coalition is Russia which is delighted to have the United States
support its murderous terrorist war in Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it in the
background. China is joining enthusiastically. It’s delighted to have support for the
atrocities it’s carrying out in western China against, what it called, Muslim secessionists.
Turkey, as I mentioned, is very happy with the war against terror. They are experts.
Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more US support for atrocities it is carrying out
in Ache and elsewhere. Now we can run through the list, the list of the states that have
joined the coalition against terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic in
common. They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world. And they
happen to be led by the world champion.
What is Terrorism?
Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have been assuming we
understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen to be some easy answers to this. There
is an official definition. You can find it in the US code or in US army manuals. A brief
statement of it taken from a US army manual, is fair enough, is that terror is the calculated
use of violence or the threat of violence to attain political or religious ideological goals
through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That’s terrorism. That’s a fair enough
definition. I think it is reasonable to accept that. The problem is that it can’t be accepted
because if you accept that, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the
consequences I have just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort right now at the UN
to try to develop a comprehensive treaty on terrorism. When Kofi Annan got the Nobel
prize the other day, you will notice he was reported as saying that we should stop wasting
time on this and really get down to it.
But there’s a problem. If you use the official definition of terrorism in the comprehensive
treaty you are going to get completely the wrong results. So that can’t be done. In fact, it is
even worse than that. If you take a look at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is
official US policy you find that it is a very close paraphrase of what I just read. In fact,
Low Intensity Conflict is just another name for terrorism. That’s why all countries, as far
as I know, call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying out, counter terrorism. We
happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low Intensity Conflict. So that’s a serious
problem. You can’t use the actual definitions. You’ve got to carefully find a definition that
doesn’t have all the wrong consequences.
Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major Resolution Condemning
Terrorism?
There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December 1987, at the peak of
the first war on terrorism, that’s when the furor over the plague was peaking. The United
Nations General Assembly passed a very strong resolution against terrorism, condemning
the plague in the strongest terms, calling on every state to fight against it in every possible
way. It passed unanimously. One country, Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the
usual two, United States and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against a
major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in fact pretty much the terms
that the Reagan administration was using? Well, there is a reason. There is one paragraph in
that long resolution which says that nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of
people struggling against racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation to
continue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other states, states outside in
their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel can’t accept that. The main reason that
they couldn’t at the time was because of South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially
called an ally. There was a terrorist force in South Africa. It was called the African National
Congress. They were a terrorist force officially. South Africa in contrast was an ally and
we certainly couldn’t support actions by a terrorist group struggling against a racist regime.
That would be impossible.
Well, let’s go to the third question, ‘What is the war against terrorism?’ and a side question,
‘What’s terrorism?’. The war against terrorism has been described in high places as a
struggle against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by “depraved opponents
of civilization itself.” That’s a feeling that I share. The words I’m quoting, however,
happen to be from 20 years ago. Those are…that’s President Reagan and his Secretary of
State. The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that the war
against international terrorism would be the core of our foreign policy….describing it in
terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. And it was the core of our foreign policy.
The Reagan administration responded to this plague spread by depraved opponents of
civilization itself by creating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totally
unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over the world,
primarily….well, partly nearby, but not only there. I won’t run through the record, you’re
all educated people, so I’m sure you learned about it in High School. [crowd laughter]
Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua
But I’ll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial, so we might as well not
argue about it, by no means the most extreme but uncontroversial. It’s uncontroversial
because of the judgments of the highest international authorities the International Court of
Justice, the World Court, and the UN Security Council. So this one is uncontroversial, at
least among people who have some minimal concern for international law, human rights,
justice and other things like that. And now I’ll leave you an exercise. You can estimate the
size of that category by simply asking how often this uncontroversial case has been
mentioned in the commentary of the last month. And it’s a particularly relevant one, not
only because it is uncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to how a law
abiding state would respond to…did respond in fact to international terrorism, which is
uncontroversial. And was even more extreme than the events of September 11th. I’m
talking about the Reagan-US war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands of people
dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.
Nicaragua’s Response
Nicaragua did respond. They didn’t respond by setting off bombs in Washington. They
responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting a case, they had no problem putting
together evidence. The World Court accepted their case, ruled in their favor, ordered
the…condemned what they called the “unlawful use of force,” which is another word for
international terrorism, by the United States, ordered the United States to terminate the
crime and to pay massive reparations. The United States, of course, dismissed the court
judgment with total contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdiction of
the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua then went to the UN Security Council which
considered a resolution calling on all states to observe international law. No one was
mentioned but everyone understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now
stands as the only state on record which has both been condemned by the World Court for
international terrorism and has vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on states to
observe international law. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly where there is
technically no veto but a negative US vote amounts to a veto. It passed a similar resolution
with only the United States, Israel, and El Salvador opposed. The following year again, this
time the United States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed to observing
international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn’t do anything lawful. It tried all the
measures. They don’t work in a world that is ruled by force.
This case is uncontroversial but it’s by no means the most extreme. We gain a lot of insight
into our own culture and society and what’s happening now by asking ‘how much we
know about all this? How much we talk about it? How much you learn about it in school?
How much it’s all over the front pages?’ And this is only the beginning. The United States
responded to the World Court and the Security Council by immediately escalating the war
very quickly, that was a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the war were also
changed. For the first time there were official orders given…official orders to the terrorist
army to attack what are called “soft targets,” meaning undefended civilian targets, and to
keep away from the Nicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the United States
had total control of the air over Nicaragua and the mercenary army was supplied with
advanced communication equipment, it wasn’t a guerilla army in the normal sense and
could get instructions about the disposition of the Nicaraguan army forces so they could
attack agricultural collectives, health clinics, and so on…soft targets with impunity. Those
were the official orders.
What was the Reaction Here?
What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it. The policy was regarded
as sensible by left liberal opinion. So Michael Kinsley who represents the left in
mainstream discussion, wrote an article in which he said that we shouldn’t be too quick to
criticize this policy as Human Rights Watch had just done. He said a “sensible policy”
must “meet the test of cost benefit analysis” -- that is, I’m quoting now, that is the
analysis of “the amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood that
democracy will emerge at the other end.” Democracy as the US understands the term,
which is graphically illustrated in the surrounding countries. Notice that it is axiomatic that
the United States, US elites, have the right to conduct the analysis and to pursue the
project if it passes their tests. And it did pass their tests. It worked. When Nicaragua
finally succumbed to superpower assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the
success of the methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So I’ll quote
Time Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success of the methods adopted: “to
wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives
overthrow the unwanted government themselves,” with a cost to us that is “minimal,” and
leaving the victims “with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms,”
and thus providing the US candidate with a “winning issue”: “ending the impoverishment
of the people of Nicaragua.” The New York Times had a headline saying “Americans
United in Joy” at this outcome.
Terrorism Works – Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak
That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts. One is the fact that
terrorism works. It doesn’t fail. It works. Violence usually works. That’s world history.
Secondly, it’s a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is
the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it’s primarily a weapon of the
strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong
also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn’t count as terror. Now that’s close
to universal. I can’t think of a historical exception, even the worst mass murderers view the
world that way. So pick the Nazis. They weren’t carrying out terror in occupied Europe.
They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. And like
other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter
terror. Furthermore, the United States essentially agreed with that. After the war, the US
army did extensive studies of Nazi counter terror operations in Europe. First I should say
that the US picked them up and began carrying them out itself, often against the same
targets, the former resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methods published
interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they were inefficiently carried out,
so a critical analysis, you didn’t do this right, you did that right, but those methods with
the advice of Wermacht officers who were brought over here became the manuals of counter
insurgency, of counter terror, of low intensity conflict, as it is called, and are the manuals,
and are the procedures that are being used. So it’s not just that the Nazis did it. It’s that it
was regarded as the right thing to do by the leaders of western civilization, that is us, who
then proceeded to do it themselves. Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the
weapon of those who are against ‘us’ whoever ‘us’ happens to be. And if you can find a
historical exception to that, I’d be interested in seeing it.
Nature of our Culture – How We Regard Terrorism
Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our high culture, is the way in
which all of this is regarded. One way it’s regarded is just suppressing it. So almost nobody
has ever heard of it. And the power of American propaganda and doctrine is so strong that
even among the victims it’s barely known. I mean, when you talk about this to people in
Argentina, you have to remind them. Oh, yeh, that happened, we forgot about it. It’s
deeply suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can be very
powerful in ideological and other terms.
The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself
Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism is the reaction to the
idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself. Actually I went through this in
some detail with database searches and that sort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might
have the right to defend itself was considered outrageous. There is virtually nothing in
mainstream commentary indicating that Nicaragua might have that right. And that fact was
exploited by the Reagan administration and its propaganda in an interesting way. Those of
you who were around in that time will remember that they periodically floated rumors that
the Nicaraguans were getting MIG jets, jets from Russia. At that point the hawks and the
doves split. The hawks said, ‘ok, let’s bomb ‘em.’ The doves said, `wait a minute, let’s see
if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let’s bomb them. Because they are a
threat to the United States.’ Why, incidentally were they getting MIGs. Well they tried to
get jet planes from European countries but the United States put pressure on its allies so
that it wouldn’t send them means of defense because they wanted them to turn to the
Russians. That’s good for propaganda purposes. Then they become a threat to us.
Remember, they were just 2 days march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared a
national emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat of Nicaragua. And it
stayed in force. So it was much better for them to get arms from the Russians. Why would
they want jet planes? Well, for the reasons I already mentioned. The United States had
total control over their airspace, was over flying it and using that to provide instructions to
the terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without running into the army that
might defend them. Everyone knew that that was the reason. They are not going to use
their jet planes for anything else. But the idea that Nicaragua should be permitted to defend
its airspace against a superpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to attack
undefended civilian targets, that was considered in the United States as outrageous and
uniformly so. Exceptions are so slight, you know I can practically list them. I don’t suggest
that you take my word for this. Have a look. That includes our own senators, incidentally.
Honduras – The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the United
Nations
Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right now. The US has just
appointed an ambassador to the United Nations to lead the war against terrorism a couple
weeks ago. Who is he? Well, his name is John Negroponte. He was the US ambassador in
the fiefdom, which is what it is, of Honduras in the early 1980’s. There was a little fuss
made about the fact that he must have been aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scale
murders and other atrocities that were being carried out by the security forces in Honduras
that we were supporting. But that’s a small part of it. As proconsul of Honduras, as he
was called there, he was the local supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for
which his government was condemned by the world court and then the Security Council in
a vetoed resolution. And he was just appointed as the UN Ambassador to lead the war
against terror. Another small experiment you can do is check and see what the reaction was
to this. Well, I will tell you what you are going to find, but find it for yourself. Now that
tells us a lot about the war against terrorism and a lot about ourselves.
After the United States took over the country again under the conditions that were so
graphically described by the press, the country was pretty much destroyed in the 1980’s,
but it has totally collapsed since in every respect just about. Economically it has declined
sharply since the US take over, democratically and in every other respect. It’s now the
second poorest country in the Hemisphere. I should say….I’m not going to talk about it,
but I mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversial case. If you
look at the other states in the region, the state terror was far more extreme and it again
traces back to Washington and that’s by no means all.
US & UK Backed South African Attacks
It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During the Reagan years
alone, South African attacks, backed by the United States and Britain, US/UK-backed
South African attacks against the neighboring countries killed about a million and a half
people and left 60 billion dollars in damage and countries destroyed. And if we go around
the world, we can add more examples.
Now that was the first war against terror of which I’ve given a small sample. Are we
supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of think that that might be relevant? After all
it’s not exactly ancient history. Well, evidently not as you can tell by looking at the current
discussion of the war on terror which has been the leading topic for the last month.
Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua
I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere.
What’s the poorest country? Well that’s of course Haiti which also happens to be the
victim of most US intervention in the 20th century by a long shot. We left it totally
devastated. It’s the poorest country. Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US
intervention in the 20th century. It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with
Guatemala. They interchange every year or two as to who’s the second poorest. And they
also vie as to who is the leading target of US military intervention. We’re supposed to
think that all of this is some sort of accident. That is has nothing to do with anything that
happened in history. Maybe.
Colombia and Turkey
The worst human rights violator in the 1990’s is Colombia, by a long shot. It’s also the, by
far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the 1990’s maintaining the terror and human
rights violations. In 1999, Colombia replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms
worldwide, that is excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate category. And that tells
us a lot more about the war on terror right now, in fact.
Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you take a look at the flow
of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a lot of US arms. It’s strategically placed, a
member of NATO, and so on. But the arms flow to Turkey went up very sharply in 1984.
It didn’t have anything to do with the cold war. I mean Russian was collapsing. And it
stayed high from 1984 to 1999 when it reduced and it was replaced in the lead by
Colombia. What happened from 1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a major
terrorist war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that’s when US aid went up,
military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet planes, tanks, military training, and so
on. And it stayed high as the atrocities escalated through the 1990’s. Aid followed it. The
peak year was 1997. In 1997, US military aid to Turkey was more than in the entire period
1950 to 1983, that is the cold war period, which is an indication of how much the cold war
has affected policy. And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 million refugees. Some
of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990’s. Tens of thousands of people killed, 3500
towns and villages destroyed, way more than Kosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the
United States was providing 80% of the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased, peaking
in 1997. It declined in 1999 because, once again, terror worked as it usually does when
carried out by its major agents, mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish terror, called of
course counter-terror, but as I said, that’s universal, it worked. Therefore Turkey was
replaced by Colombia which had not yet succeeded in its terrorist war. And therefore had
to move into first place as recipient of US arms.
Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals
Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this was taking place right in the
midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation on the part of Western intellectuals which
probably has no counterpart in history. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple
years ago. Massive self-adulation about how for the first time in history we are so
magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and values; dedicated to ending
inhumanity everywhere in the new era of this-and-that, and so-on-and-so-forth. And we
certainly can’t tolerate atrocities right near the borders of NATO. That was repeated over
and over. Only within the borders of NATO where we can not only can tolerate much
worse atrocities but contribute to them. Another insight into Western civilization and our
own, is how often was this brought up? Try to look. I won’t repeat it. But it’s instructive.
It’s a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system to carry this off in a free society. It’s
pretty amazing. I don’t think you could do this in a totalitarian state.
Turkey is Very Grateful
And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that
Turkey would join the coalition against terror, very enthusiastically, even more so than
others. In fact, he said they would contribute troops which others have not willing to do.
And he explained why. He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because
the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute so massively to our
own, in his words “counter-terrorist” war, that is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and
atrocities and terror. Other countries helped a little, but they stayed back. The United
States, on the other hand, contributed enthusiastically and decisively and was able to do so
because of the silence, servility might be the right word, of the educated classes who could
easily find out about it. It’s a free country after all. You can read human rights reports. You
can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose to contribute to the atrocities and Turkey is very
happy, they owe us a debt of gratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as
during the war in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using its F-16’s which we
supplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had been doing with the same planes against its
own population up until the time when it finally succeeded in crushing internal terror as
they called it. And as usual, as always, resistance does include terror. Its true of the
American Revolution. That’s true of every case I know. Just as its true that those who
have a monopoly of violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror.
The Coalition – Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia
Now that’s pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition that is now being
organized to fight the war against terror. And it’s very interesting to see how that coalition
is being described. So have a look at this morning’s Christian Science Monitor. That’s a
good newspaper. One of the best international newspapers, with real coverage of the
world. The lead story, the front-page story, is about how the United States, you know
people used to dislike the United States but now they are beginning to respect it, and they
are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war against terror. And the prime
example, well in fact the only serious example, the others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out
that Algeria is very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. The person who wrote the
article is an expert on Africa. He must know that Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist
states in the world and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population
in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under wraps. But it was finally
exposed in France by defectors from the Algerian army. It’s all over the place there and in
England and so on. But here, we’re very proud because one of the worst terrorist states in
the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war on terror and in fact is cheering on
the United States to lead the war. That shows how popular we are getting.
And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror it tells you a lot more. A
leading member of the coalition is Russia which is delighted to have the United States
support its murderous terrorist war in Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it in the
background. China is joining enthusiastically. It’s delighted to have support for the
atrocities it’s carrying out in western China against, what it called, Muslim secessionists.
Turkey, as I mentioned, is very happy with the war against terror. They are experts.
Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more US support for atrocities it is carrying out
in Ache and elsewhere. Now we can run through the list, the list of the states that have
joined the coalition against terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic in
common. They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world. And they
happen to be led by the world champion.
What is Terrorism?
Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have been assuming we
understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen to be some easy answers to this. There
is an official definition. You can find it in the US code or in US army manuals. A brief
statement of it taken from a US army manual, is fair enough, is that terror is the calculated
use of violence or the threat of violence to attain political or religious ideological goals
through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That’s terrorism. That’s a fair enough
definition. I think it is reasonable to accept that. The problem is that it can’t be accepted
because if you accept that, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the
consequences I have just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort right now at the UN
to try to develop a comprehensive treaty on terrorism. When Kofi Annan got the Nobel
prize the other day, you will notice he was reported as saying that we should stop wasting
time on this and really get down to it.
But there’s a problem. If you use the official definition of terrorism in the comprehensive
treaty you are going to get completely the wrong results. So that can’t be done. In fact, it is
even worse than that. If you take a look at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is
official US policy you find that it is a very close paraphrase of what I just read. In fact,
Low Intensity Conflict is just another name for terrorism. That’s why all countries, as far
as I know, call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying out, counter terrorism. We
happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low Intensity Conflict. So that’s a serious
problem. You can’t use the actual definitions. You’ve got to carefully find a definition that
doesn’t have all the wrong consequences.
Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major Resolution Condemning
Terrorism?
There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December 1987, at the peak of
the first war on terrorism, that’s when the furor over the plague was peaking. The United
Nations General Assembly passed a very strong resolution against terrorism, condemning
the plague in the strongest terms, calling on every state to fight against it in every possible
way. It passed unanimously. One country, Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the
usual two, United States and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against a
major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in fact pretty much the terms
that the Reagan administration was using? Well, there is a reason. There is one paragraph in
that long resolution which says that nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of
people struggling against racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation to
continue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other states, states outside in
their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel can’t accept that. The main reason that
they couldn’t at the time was because of South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially
called an ally. There was a terrorist force in South Africa. It was called the African National
Congress. They were a terrorist force officially. South Africa in contrast was an ally and
we certainly couldn’t support actions by a terrorist group struggling against a racist regime.
That would be impossible.
