America’s Sham War on Terrorism

Wiki Image

James Bovard
The Future of Freedom Foundation

Almost a decade after the 9/11 attacks, the war on terrorism continues chugging along. Despite the trillions of dollars that the U.S. government has spent supposedly in response to 9/11, few people have raised questions about the fundamental definition of what the United States is fighting. The U.S. government’s definition of terrorism almost guarantees that the so-called war on terrorism will be a failure — and will last forever.

Federal agencies have an array of definitions for “terrorism”:

• The Defense Department defined terrorism as “the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a revolutionary organization against individuals or property, with the intention of coercing or intimidating governments or societies, often for political or ideological purposes.”

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation defined terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

• The State Department defined terrorism as “the use or threat of the use of force for political purposes in violation of domestic or international law.”

Since government use of force (based on government edicts and sovereign immunity) is almost automatically lawful, governments by definition cannot commit terrorist acts. For decades, U.S. representatives to the United Nations have been adamant that “state terrorism” is a near impossibility. Private cars packed with dynamite are evil, while guided missiles launched from government jet fighters that blow up cars driven by terrorist suspects are good, regardless of how many children are in the back seat at the time of the “surgical strike.”

When the UN General Assembly tried to enact a convention to advance the international war on terrorism in 2002, the effort was paralyzed by conflicts over how to define terrorism. “The United States, backed by most European nations, says the convention should not apply to any acts of violence against civilians committed by the military forces of recognized states — a provision fought by Arab states and others that insist that ‘state terrorism’ should also be penalized,” the Los Angeles Times reported on April 16, 2002.

Double standard

The United States’s official definition of terrorism — that terrorism is a private, not a governmental, crime — drives the U.S. government’s perception of the Middle East conflict. The New York Times noted on April 7, 2002, “Israel, as American officials often note, is a democracy accountable to the norms of international law. The practical effect is that only the Palestinians, who lack a state, are generally labeled terrorists.”

Former President Bill Clinton fully embraced this absurd double standard when he declared in 2009 that “‘terror’ means killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority and go beyond national borders.” That is the same standard tactic invoked by tyrants and authoritarian regimes throughout history. A few years ago, after the Ethiopian government brutalized protesters, Ethiopian Minister of Information Bereket Simon warned, “Anyone who incites violence, other than those elected, will have to face the law.”

The same double standard has long permeated the thinking of the American ruling class. In the days after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the Clinton administration launched a full-court press to whitewash federal action two years earlier at Waco. When a journalist stated in April 1995 on CNN that he considered the 1993 federal attack on the Branch Davidians a terrorist act, Labor Secretary Robert Reich rushed to distinguish between what the feds did at Waco and the bombing at Oklahoma City: “We are talking about acts of violence that are not sanctioned by the government — that are not official.” Reich sounded as if the government has a moral magic wand that can automatically absolve law-enforcement officials of any abuse, regardless of how many dead babies are left when the smoke clears. Atrocities committed by the government cannot really be considered to be atrocities — instead, they are merely policy errors — or, more accurately, public-relations mistakes.

Read Full Article