[Peace-discuss] US sponsored terrorism

[patton paul]

This article summarizes the history of US sponsored terrorism.  A history
which, the author contends, the US must publicly acknowledge if it wishes
to elicit international cooperation in stopping terrorism.
-Paul P.


Published on Tuesday, September 2, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
U.S. Government Must Take a Consistent Stance Against Terrorism
by Stephen Zunes


Last Fridays terrorist bombing outside the Tomb of Ali in the Iraqi city
of An-Najaf was the deadliest such attack against a civilian target in
Middle East history. It recalls a similar blast in the southern outskirts
of Beirut in March1985, which until last week held the regions record for
civilian fatalities in a single bombing.

There are some striking parallels between the two terrorist attacks: both
were the result of a car bomb that exploded outside a crowded mosque
during Friday prayers and both were part of an assassination attempt
against a prominent Shiite cleric that killed scores of worshipers and
passers-by.

There is a key difference, however: While no existing government is
believed to have been behind the An-Najaf bombing, the Beirut bombing was
a classic case of state-sponsored terrorism: a plot organized by the
intelligence services of a foreign power.

That foreign power was the United States.

The 1985 Beirut bombing was part of an operation, organized by CIA
director William Casey and approved by President Ronald Reagan, to
assassinate Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a prominent
anti-American Lebanese cleric. More than 80 civilians were killed and over
200 wounded, though Ayatollah Fadlallah escaped serious injury.

Few people today are aware of this major terrorist incident. Not only did
Casey, Reagan, and other officials responsible never face justice for the
crime, it is as if the tragedy has completely disappeared from history.

It is conspicuously absent from most lists of major terrorist attacks in
the Middle East and is rarely mentioned by the so-called experts on
terrorism who appear on radio and television talk shows. Often when I
refer to the incident during the course of an interview, my credibility is
suddenly placed into question.

The attack and the U.S. role in it is not, however, a matter of historical
debate. Major American daily newspapers not only made the bombing itself
front-page news, but when the CIA connection came to light several weeks
later, that too made the lead headlines. In addition, award-winning
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward examines the incident in detail in
his best-selling 1987 book Veil.

Despite increased corporate control of the media, there is very little
outright censorship of the news in this country. There is, however, a kind
of selective historical memory that makes it difficult to even recall
events which go beyond what the noted M.I.T. linguist Noam Chomsky has
referred to as the boundaries of thinkable thought.

As Thomas Kuhn describes in his classic work The Structure of Scientific
Revolution, if something occurs outside the dominant paradigm, it -- for
all practical purposes -- did not really happen because it is beyond the
comprehension of those stuck in the old ways of thinking. In this case, if
the dominant paradigm says that terrorism is the exclusive province of
movements or governments the United States does not like and the United
States is the world leader in fighting terrorism, there is therefore no
such thing as U.S.-backed terrorism.

Unfortunately, even if one restricts the definition of terrorism to
exclude acts of violence against civilians by official police and military
units of established governments, the United States has a long history of
supporting terrorism.

Much attention has been given to the ultimately successful U.S.-led effort
to force the extradition of two Libyans implicated in the 1988 bombing of
a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. Few Americans, however, are
aware that the United States has refused to extradite four terrorists --
right-wing Cuban exiles trained by the CIA -- convicted over twenty years
ago in Venezuela for blowing up a Cuban airline in 1976.

The United States has also refused to extradite John Hull, an American CIA
operative indicted in Costa Rica for the 1984 bombing of a press
conference in a Nicaraguan border town which killed five journalists.

Similarly, the United States refuses to extradite Emmanuel Constant for
trial in Haiti. The former military officer, who had worked closely with
the CIA, is believed to be responsible for the murder of upwards to 5000
people under the Haitian dictatorship in the early 1990s.

Perhaps the most significant U.S.-backed terrorist operations in recent
decades involved the Contras -- a paramilitary group composed largely of
Nicaraguan exiles in Honduras -- who were armed, trained and financed by
the U.S. government. They are believed to have been responsible for the
deaths of more than 20,000 civilians in a series of attacks against
villages and rural cooperatives in northern Nicaragua during the 1980s. A
number of prominent Reagan Administration officials directly involved in
supporting such terrorist activities are now in prominent positions in the
Bush Administration. Among these is the current U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations John Negroponte, who -- as President Reagans ambassador to
Honduras during the1980s -- actively supported the Contra terror campaigns
across the border.

Yet despite all the attention given to international terrorism in the two
years since the 9/11 attacks against the United States, this sordid
history is rarely raised in the mainstream media or on Capitol Hill.

This does not mean, when faced by very real threats from mega-terrorist
groups like Al-Qaeda and while Israeli and Iraqi civilians are being blown
up by extremists, that critics of U.S. policy should simply respond with
an attitude of, Well, we do it, too, so whats the big deal? Pointing out
hypocrisy and double-standards alone does not address the very real and
legitimate fears that Americans, Israelis, Iraqis and others have from
terrorist violence.

There must be decisive action by the international community to stop such
attacks, both through challenging policies that breed terrorism -- such as
military occupations and support for dictatorial regimes -- as well as
through improved intelligence, interdiction and, where necessary,
well-targeted paramilitary operations aimed at the terrorists themselves.

At the same time, the refusal by the U.S. government and media to
acknowledge the U.S. role in international terrorism raises serious
questions as to whether the United States really is waging a war on
terrorism or a war limited only to terrorism that does not support U.S.
strategic objectives. Until the U.S. government is willing to come out
categorically against all terrorism, it will be difficult to find the
international cooperation necessary to rid the world from this very real
threat.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace
& Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle
East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project and is the author of
'Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism'
www.commoncouragepress.com