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| Anti-Terrorism As A Cover
For Terrorism Edward S. Herman Z-Mag http://www.zmag.org/hermancover.htm During the Cold War the United States
supported a string of terror states, from the immediate post-World War
backing given Thailand dictator Phibun Songkhram, "the first pro-Axis
dictator to regain power after the war," to its support of Suharto,
Marcos, Mobutu, Diem, Duvalier, Trujillo, Somoza, and a string of
murderous military regimes in Latin America. This was all done on the
rationale of needing to "stop Communism," but this excuse was
used in cases where the threat was non-existent and laughable. In May
1954, just one month before the United States overthrew an elected
government in Guatemala with a proxy army from dictator Somoza's territory
in Nicaragua, the National Security Council issued a report on the threat
of "Guatemalan Aggression in Latin America," and in a mode of
panic described that tiny country as "increasingly an instrument of
Soviet aggression in this hemisphere." Guatemala had not moved an
inch outside its territory, was virtually disarmed by a U.S. boycott, and
was quickly overthrown a month later. Did the NSC really believe their
hysterical nonsense? Whether they did or not this was a wonderfully
convenient ploy to deflect attention from the U.S. desire to dominate the
hemisphere, and it was used regularly to create governments of terror that
quickly opened their doors to foreign investment and kept labor markets as
"flexible" as the transnationals and IMF might desire. Anticommunism was a superb rhetorical
instrument for rationalizing U.S. support of convenient terrorism, and in
the 1954 Guatemala case and regularly elsewhere the mainstream media
helped make it work. There was some reaction to U.S. support of
terror regimes in the Carter years in the 1970s, with a claim that this
country should give a little more attention to "human rights."
This new look never took hold, except in government rhetoric (and in the
Carter years aid to Indonesia was stepped up as its attack on East Timor
reached genocidal levels in 1977-1978, and relations with Marcos, the
Brazilian generals and Mobutu remained solid). But with the coming of
Reagan there was a famous turn-about: from our devotion to human rights we
were going to turn our attention to "terrorism," announced
Secretary of State Alexander Haig in 1981. It was alleged that the Soviet
Union was behind a terror network, and in a book that became the bible of
the Reagan administration, The Terror Network, Claire Sterling claimed a
Soviet hand everywhere, from support of terrorists that threatened
governments from Italy and Germany to Argentina and South Africa. The problem with this new look is that it
focused only on retail terrorism --and selectively-- and ignored state
terrorism. It attended to the Red Brigades and Baader-Meinhof gang in
Italy and Germany, but neglected the Cuban refugee terrorist network
working out of Miami, Savimbi and Renamo in Angola and Mozambique, and the
Nicaraguan contras--these were OUR terrorists, therefore "freedom
fighters" or ignored. Even more important, Reagan supported Marcos,
Suharto, the murderous governments of El Salvador and Argentina, and
"constructively engaged" South Africa. These were premier state
terrorists; South Africa, crossing its borders into the neighboring states
and killing scores of thousands, was probably the leading terrorist state
in the 1980s. Kaddafi's Libya was an insignificant terrorist state by
comparison. Argentina, which Reagan rushed to embrace in 1981, was also a
violent terrorist state, and in a report on the history of that regime
sponsored by the Alfonsin government after the military government's
ouster in 1984, it was stated that "the armed forces responded to the
terrorists' crimes WITH A TERRORISM INFINITELY WORSE THAN THAT WHICH THEY
WERE COMBATTING." But this had never registered in the U.S.
mainstream media while that terrorism took place; they had always called
the retail terrorists terrorists, but not the "infinitely worse"
state terrorists. The Alfonsin report was given very little attention, and
in a miracle of propaganda service the Reagan administration, supporting
the world's worst terrorists, engaging in it directly by military actions
in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and sponsoring terrorism by supporting the
Nicaraguan contras and Savimbi in Angola (among others), was allowed to be
fighting terrorism! So coming to George W. Bush's new
dedication to fighting terrorism, we are in familiar territory. The rule
is that terrorism is what the U.S. government says it is--if it or its
allies or clients do precisely the same thing as the named terrorists,
that is not terrorism, by rule of affiliation. Thus, if we bombed Serbian
civilian facilities to intimidate that population, killing many hundreds,
that cannot be terrorism because we did it. It isn't put this crudely of
course, it is merely understood, a silent double standard, just as it is
tacitly understood that international law applies to others but not to us. And if we have refused to allow Iraq to
import equipment to repair its destroyed water treatment plants, and if
this and the overall sanctions regime kills hundreds of thousands of
civilians, as we strive to remove or control Saddam Hussein, this
intimidation and large-scale killings is not terrorism, because we are
doing it. U.S. support of the Colombian army (and indirectly, its
paramilitaries) is not sponsoring terrorism, despite the thousands killed
and scores of thousands displaced each year, because we cannot sponsor
terrorism by definition. Similarly, although Ariel Sharon's crucial role
in the killings at Sabra and Shatila, Qibya, and elsewhere gives him a
civilian death toll that exceeds that of Carlos the Jackal by better than
fifteen to one, Carlos is EVIL, a major terrorist, whereas Sharon is
accepted and supported as Prime Minister of Israel and is not labelled a
terrorist. Israel, also, can invade Lebanon repeatedly, maintain a
murderous "contra" army in Lebanon, and kill and expropriate
freely in its occupied territories, without designation as a terrorist
state or sponsor of terrorism, by rule of affiliation. And George W. Bush can threaten to attack
Afghanistan if its Taliban rulers (or faction) does not surrender bin
Laden, without providing the Taliban with any evidence of his
participation in the World Trade Center/Pentagon bombings, putting large
numbers of Afghanis into flight for fear of bombing; and Bush can force
Pakistan to close its borders, threatening the several million Afghanis
already in peril of starvation with accelerated death--but nowhere in the
mainstream media is this described as terrorism, although it fits
perfectly the dictionary definition: "a mode of governing, or
opposing government, by intimidation." I noted earlier that during the Cold War the Red Threat provided the intellectual cover for support of a string of terror states that served U.S. political and economic interests. The Bush war on terrorism is already providing the same kind of cover for supporting OUR terror regimes, and they have been delighted with the new developments. Benjamin Netanyahu could barely contain his pleasure at the bombings, barely catching himself to note his regrets at the deaths! ""It's very good....Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy." Sharon immediately stepped up his own campaign of intimidation, and the new war on terrorism plays into his hands, as Israel has long been perceived to be only a victim of terror, fighting terrorism, but never itself engaging in terror; therefore a natural ally in the war on terrorism from whom we can learn much. Only the Palestinians terrorize and are never obliged to fight terrorism. Bush is strengthening ties with Pakistan,
Russia, Turkey, and Indonesia, among other states that engage in serious
terror, just as Reagan built his relationship with South Africa,
Argentina, Marcos, and the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala in the
1980s. There wasn't an insurmoutable public relations problem then and
there hasn't been a problem currently, because the mainstream media take
it as gospel that we are virtuous and terrorists are those who we say are
terrorists. The liberal E. J. Dionne, Jr., writes that "Progressives
who believe in justice should be able to back war on terror"
(Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 29, 2001). In the great tradition of
apologetics for U.S.- and U.S.-sponsored terrorism, Dionne never bothers
to discuss what terror is; he just takes it as a patriotic premise that
his country never engages in it, or supports it. He follows his
predecessors, who never discussed whether overthrowing the elected
government of Guatemala in 1954 was legal, moral, or based on a real Red
Threat; or whether perhaps Reagan's antiterrorism campaign of the 1980s
was really a cover for the support of terrorisms "infinitely
worse" than those Reagan and the media played up. In sum, the propaganda system works extremely well, providing Big Brother-quality results under a system of "freedom." The only losers are what Thorstein Veblen called "the underlying population." |