REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
Auke Hulst wrote:
> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Het is misschien moeilijk een sluitende definitie van "terrorist" te
> produceren, maar het is wel belangrijk een schim van een schijn van
> duidelijkheid te scheppen. Het woord kan anders - zoals nu veelvuldig
> gebeurt - te pas en te onpas gebruikt en misbruikt worden om groepen
> met onwelgevallige doelen, opinies en methoden te demoniseren en
> onderwerp te maken van dubieuze justitiële methoden.
Defining Terrorism
http://www.counterpunch.org/cryan1.html
"
Defining Terrorism
By Phillip Cryan
"Terrorism" may be the most important, powerful word in the
world right now. In the name of doing away with terrorism,
the United States is bombing Afghanistan and talking about
possible attacks elsewhere. Political leaders from many
countries are at once declaring support for the new U.S. war
and seeking to re-name their own enemies as "terrorists."
According to polls, many people in the U.S. believe that war
on the al'Qaeda network is justified in retaliation for the
September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
The defined enemy of the U.S. military campaign has not,
however, been just the people responsible for the September
11 attacks, but "terrorism" in general. The U.S. has
declared a "War on Terrorism"--a war which also includes as
enemies, as President Bush has made clear since his first
public address on the afternoon of the 11, "all those who
harbor terrorists." What exactly do these words, "terrorism"
and "harboring," mean? What definitions are we using?
Legal definition: seeking international consensus
The difficulty of answering this question was stated
concisely in a recent New York Times article: "immediately
beyond al'Qaeda, the high moral condemnations of global
terrorism rapidly become relative, and the definition
blurred." The international community has been actively
seeking consensus on the definition of "terrorism" for many
years, to no avail.
Twelve separate international conventions have been signed,
each covering a specific type of criminal activity seizure
of airplanes, political assassination, the use of
explosives, hostage-taking, etc. Broad ratification of these
treaties has been difficult to achieve; and the more
fundamental issue of creating a comprehensive, binding
international convention against terrorism has been set
aside, after repeated efforts, as practically unresolvable.
As the UN puts it, "the question of a definition of
terrorism has haunted the debate among States for decades."
One of the points of heated contention in this debate has
been whether the term "terrorism" should apply to the
actions of States in the same way that it applies to the
actions of non-State groups. It's easy to see why this
question would be so contentious: whatever one's overall
view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, for example, it's
pretty easy to admit that unjustifiable acts of terror and
murder have been committed by both sides. Should the two
sides be held equally accountable, even though one is an
already-recognized State and one is a national liberation
movement? These kinds of questions have been repeatedly
raised as will be described below not only in regard to
the Middle East but in regard to State-sponsored acts of
terrorism throughout the world.
Since international consensus has been so difficult to
reach, for the purposes of this brief discussion of
terrorism and "harboring" I'll use the U.S. FBI's
definition: "Terrorism is 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."
How does such a definition line up with the goals and
strategies of the emerging "War on Terrorism"?
Justice
How does a definition of terrorism, such as the FBI's, get
applied? Who has the authority to judge what counts as
"terrorism" and what doesn't? Is there a level playing
field, internationally, for the persecution of terrorists?
A recent comment made by Syria's Information Minister, Adnan
Omran, frames these problems in a provocative, yet also
precise and urgent, way: "The Americans say either you are
with us or you are with the terrorists. That is something
God should say." The original title given to the U.S.
military campaign in Afghanistan "Operation Infinite
Justice" seems to confirm Omran's concern. President Bush
has indeed stated, in his address to Congress, that "Every
nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: either
you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Is our
government in fact equating its judgments, policies, and
military actions with the meting out of God-like "infinite
justice"? If so, what kind of moral blamelessness do we
ground such authority in?
A brief review of some U.S. political and military
interventions over the last few decades reveals just how far
we are sadly, tragically as a nation from having the
kind of virtue and integrity required to wage such a war
with a clear conscience and certainty of purpose. Following
the FBI definition, our government has repeatedly, in
country after country, used "force or violence"
"unlawfully," "to intimidate or coerce a government, [a]
civilian population, or [a] segment thereof," in order to
achieve "political or social objectives." I will mention
only a few examples.
Terrorism and "harboring" of terrorists by the U.S.
U.S. intervention in Nicaragua provides an astounding, but
by no means extraordinary, example. First, some background:
by 1934, when the authoritarian Somoza regime was
established, the U.S. had already occupied the country
militarily on at least four different occasions, established
training schools for right-wing militia, dismantled two
liberal governments, and helped to orchestrate fake
elections. In 1981, the CIA began to organize the "Contras"
many of whom had already received training from the U.S.
military as members of the Somozas' National Guardsmen to
overthrow the progressive Sandanista government. In other
words: the CIA "harbored," recruited, armed and trained the
Contras, in order to "coerce" and overthrow a government,
and terrorize a people, through violent means ("in
furtherance of political [and] social objectives"). U.S.
intervention went well beyond "harboring," however, in this
case. In 1984, the CIA mined three Nicaraguan harbors. When
Nicaragua took this action to the World Court, an $18
billion judgment was brought against the U.S. The U.S.
response was to simply refuse to acknowledge the Court's
jurisdiction.
Another striking example of U.S. terrorist activity was the
bombing of a suburban Beirut neighborhood in March 1985.
This attack which killed 80 people and wounded 200 others,
making it the single largest bombing attack against a
civilian target in the modern history of the Middle East
was ordered by the director of the CIA (William Casey) and
authorized by President Reagan. Another U.S. attack on
civilians, the 1986 bombing of Libya, is listed by the UN's
Committee on the Legal Definition of Terrorism as a "classic
case" of terrorism on a short list that includes the
bombing of PAN AM 103, the first attempt made on the World
Trade Center, and the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal
Building.
Other instances of U.S. support for, or direct engagement
in, terrorist acts include:
* overthrow of the democratically elected Allende
government in Chile in 1973--leading to widespread torture,
rape, and murder by the military regime, and the termination
of civil liberties
* extensive support for a right-wing junta in El
Salvador that ended up being responsible for 35,000 civilian
deaths between 1978 and 1981
* assassination attempts, exploded boats, industrial
sabotage, and the burning of sugar fields in Cuba
* the training of thousands of Latin American military
personnel in torture methods at the School of the Americas
* providing huge quantities of arms--far more than any
other nation-- to various combatants in the Middle East and
West Asia
* and massive support, in funds and arms, for Israeli
attacks on Palestinian civilians.
The rationale provided for many of these interventions in
those case where a rationale was in fact provided was the
"war on Communism." This often served as an alibi, however,
for the protection of economic interests: unrestricted
access to oil and other natural resources for U.S.-based
(and other "First World") corporations.
Double standards
U.S. officials successfully pressured the UN to impose
sanctions on Libya for its initial refusal to extradite
Libyan agents implicated in the PAN AM 103 bombing; but they
(U.S. officials) have consistently refused to extradite U.S.
citizens all of whom have ties to the CIA charged with
acts of terrorism in Costa Rica and Venezuela (including
blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976). We have provided no
support for attempts to bring Augusto Pinochet (the Chilean
military dictator responsible for the atrocities described
above) to justice probably not only because our own
government was so heavily involved in his rise to power but
also because the prosecution of such an obvious
State-terrorist would open the door, legally, for the likes
of Henry Kissinger and Oliver North to be tried for having
ordered terrorist acts.
The double standards at play, the hypocrisy and bad faith
involved, in calling for the world to decide whether it is
"with us" or "with the terrorists" should by now be fairly
evident. To use President Bush's terms, our nation has --
tragically -- in reality championed "Fear" and suppressed
"Freedom" in a great many countries, for millions of people.
We have been directly responsible for acts of terrorism, and
for the "harboring" of terrorists, on an almost unimaginable
scale in terms of human death and the creation of fear. When
Green Berets trained the Guatemalan army in the 1960s
leading to a campaign of bombings, death squads, and
"scorched earth" assaults that killed or "disappeared"
20O,000 -- U.S. Army Colonel John Webber called it "a
technique of counter-terror." This comment can serve as a
reminder and warning for us now--not that there are not real
terrorist threats to our national security, but that we have
to be incredibly careful about how we define terrorism, who
defines it, and what tactics are used to uproot it. There is
something truly chilling, as the Syrian Information Minister
pointed out, in the apparent consensus within the United
States that we stand for "Freedom" and all that is "Good" in
the world, and that we are somehow entitled and equipped to
mete out "infinite justice."
Blowback
As most of us have read at some point in the last few weeks,
our current attacks on the Taliban and al'Qaeda are
complicated, politically and morally, by our military and
economic support for the Mujahideen war against the U.S.S.R.
in the 1980s. We provided over $7 billion in arms and funds,
plus training supplied through the Pakistani intelligence
agency. The lesson: lines of distinction between "Good" and
"Evil" are dramatically more blurred and complex than
President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and most voices in the
media seem to want us to think. U.S. funding, training, and
supply of arms literally, U.S. harboring of terrorists
were a crucial part of what enabled the Taliban to come to
power in Afghanistan. This is what military analysts call
"blowback."
A less frequently discussed but equally important instance
of blowback is the U.S. role in Iraq. Throughout the 1980s,
the U.S. actively supported Iraq as an ally against Iran and
as a potentially profitable future source for raw goods and
market for exports. Though the U.S. government was clearly
aware of Saddam Hussein's extermination of Kurds and his
development of military and chemical weapons capacity (there
is ample documentation of the extent of U.S. leaders'
knowledge ), the U.S. continued to support Hussein's
government with billions of dollars in export credit
insurance. This situation only changed when U.S. oil access
was threatened (by the invasion of Kuwait). Up until then,
no matter how extreme the fiscal duplicity, military
build-up or outright genocide committed by Hussein's regime,
U.S. officials urged "hard-headedness" and a recognition of
Iraq's strategic and economic importance as an ally. Again,
this brief outline of a piece of recent history complicates
the current situation enormously: how can Hussein be "Evil"
and "a terrorist," and we "Good" and the world's defenders
of "Freedom," if we funded him through many of the
atrocities he's committed, fully conscious that he was
committing them? As with Afghanistan, a short memory on our
part, together with a preference for black-and-white
thinking, are likely to prove responsible for yet more
suffering and violence now and down the road.
The situation in Iraq is perhaps more complex and tragic
than any other, in terms of the U.S. role past and future.
U.S.-imposed sanctions (almost every country in the UN
opposes them) against Iraq have so far led to the deaths of
approximately one million people. Two Assistants to the
Secretary-General of the UN responsible for humanitarian aid
to Iraq have resigned in protest, calling the sanctions
"genocide." Our government is waging a methodical, hugely
violent, daily war against the people of Iraq attacking
civilians in numbers that grotesquely dwarf the horrific
tragedies of September 11th. When asked in 1996 what she
felt about the deaths of 500,000 children caused by the
sanctions, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
replied that it was "a very hard choice," but, all things
considered, "we think the price is worth it." (It is worth
pausing here, for a moment, perhaps, to try to take in the
reality of such a statement.)
Language's dangers
In a world of such extreme violence, hypocrisy, and moral
ambiguity, we need to be careful about whom we listen to,
whom we believe, and whose wars we fight.
The term "War on Terrorism" has been quickly picked up by
political leaders seeking to advance a host of different
agendas domestically and internationally. The phrase is
likely to be with us for some time (Secretary Rumsfeld has
described the war as "sustained, comprehensive, and
unrelenting"), used as the justification for all sorts of
military, political, and economic interventions abroad not
to mention the removal of civil liberties at home.
Some examples of international uses:
* Russia has been seeking, since September 11, to cast
Chechen rebels as terrorists, and Georgia as a
terrorist-harboring State, in order to legitimate its use of
violence in those two arenas.
* In mid-October, the U.S. sent military advisers to
the Phillipines, to assist the government in what it
describes as a campaign against Muslim "terrorists."
* A Heritage Foundation report named Iraq, Iran, Syria,
Sudan, and Libya as States which need to be "put on notice .
. . that they will not escape America's wrath if they
continue to support international terrorism."
* Colombian army officials switched, within just a few
days of September 11, from calling the FARC and ELN rebels
"narcoguerrillas" to calling them "narcoterrorists."
* Francis X. Taylor, head of the U.S. Department of
State's Office of Counterterrorism, recently stated that
these Colombian groups will "get the same treatment as other
terrorist groups," including "where appropriate -- as we are
doing in Afghanistan -- the use of military power."
* The ongoing U.S. policy toward Colombia -- "Plan
Colombia" -- involves chemical warfare, just what we fear so
greatly now in this country: crop-duster planes spray
broad-spectrum herbicides onto the Colombian countryside and
the people who live there, leading to widespread illness,
displacement, and hunger (as a result of the destruction of
food crops).
* Ariel Sharon has stepped up campaigns against
Palestinians. The Israeli Cabinet, in blunt and ominous
language, has issued statements like the following: "Failure
to meet these demands . . . will leave us no choice but to
view the Palestinian Authority as an entity supporting and
sponsoring terror, and to act accordingly."
* China is expected to use the justifying rhetoric of
the "War on Terrorism" to further crack down on Uighur
Muslims, Tibetans, and Taiwan.
Final remarks
On October 4, Amnesty International published a report on
the tightening of security in the wake of September 11. In
the report, Amnesty observed that "some of the definitions
of terrorism under discussion are so broad that they could
be used to criminalize anyone out of favor with those in
power." We must be careful with definitions; we must know
what we mean. When asked to define "terrorism," Sir Jeremy
Greenstock, the British diplomat charged with leading UN
efforts to combat terrorism, replied: "What looks, smells,
and kills like terrorism is terrorism." It is, simply, not
that simple. Such oversimplifications and appeals to
"obviousness" are not only inaccurate but profoundly
dangerous, as the Amnesty International report suggests. And
clear delineation of definitions will become increasingly
complicated and difficult to achieve over time, as more
governments and special interests seek to advance the
policies they favor by calling them "attacks on terrorism."
Who are we, the United States, in the end, to tell the world
what Good and Evil are, after our history of unlawful
violence, double standards, and outright engagement in acts
of terrorism? President Bush's explanation for anti-U.S.
sentiment -- "These people can't stand freedom" -- is
ludicrous, deplorable: it grotesquely misrepresents the
realities of current world politics and the history of 20th
century U.S. foreign policy. In light of that history, and
of the fact that the definition of "terrorism" has been
debated without resolution for decades, it is our
responsibility as U.S. citizens and as human beings to think
carefully, long and hard and well, about this war, to notice
and question each use of the word "terrorism" that we come
across and to educate ourselves, and one another, about the
reality of suffering in the world in which we live--its
causes, and ways to uproot them. CP
Phillip Cryan works for the Pesticide Action Network of
North America, challenging U.S.-funded "Plan Colombia" aerial
herbicide fumigations in Colombia. He received a BA in
English from UC-Berkeley. He is part of the Buddhist
Alliance for Social
Engagement and the Zen Hospice Project.He can be contacted
at phillipcryan at mindspring.com
SOURCES:
"Definitions of Terrorism," The United Nations Office for
Drug Control and Crime Prevention, l on October 9, 2001;
"The algebra of infinite justice" by Arundhati Roy, on
October 17, 2001; "Democratic Gains Falter With Tighter
Security in Central Europe" New York Times October 4, 2001;
"America Strikes Back: Looking Ahead" by Kim R. Holmes, The
Heritage Foundation, October 8, 2001;
"International Terrorism" by Stephen Zunes, on October 15, 2001;
"A Growing List of Foes Now Suddenly Friends" New York Times
October 5, 2001;
"Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy and the Prelude to
the Persian Gulf War, 1980-1994," Digital National Security
Archive, on October 15, 2001;
"Legal Definition of Terrorism," GA: Legal Committee, on
October 9, 2001; "Conventions Against Terrorism," The United
Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, on
October 9, 2001;
"The Challenges of Alliance With Russia" New York Times
October 5, 2001; "Terrorist Threats Against America,"
testimony by Francis X. Taylor to the Committee on
International Relations, on October 11, 2001;
"U.S. Interventions in Latin America" by Mark Rosenfelder,
on October 15, 2001;
"Lessons from History: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan,
1978-2001" by Reyko Huang, Center for Defense Information
Terrorism Project, on October 15, 2001;
"U.S. May Use Military in Hemisphere" Associated Press
October 16, 2001;
"Defining 'Terrorism'" by Nick Cooper, on October 15, 2001.
"
Henk Elegeert
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