[Peace-discuss] Noam Chomsky: The Long, Shameful History of American Terrorism

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

IN THESE TIMES

<http://inthesetimes.com/article/17311/noam_chomsky_the_worlds_greatest_terrorist_campaign> 


Photos of the six Jesuit priests and their housekeeper murdered by 
U.S.-supported soldier in El Salvador's civil war---one of many examples 
of American-sponsored terrorism---at a 2009 commemoration. (Steve Rhodes 
/ Flickr)


          Web Only / Features » November 3, 2014


  Noam Chomsky: The Long, Shameful History of American Terrorism

President Obama should call our country's history of supporting 
insurgents abroad for what it is: U.S.-backed terrorism.

BY Noam Chomsky <http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/10246>
Email 
<http://inthesetimes.com/article/17311/noam_chomsky_the_worlds_greatest_terrorist_campaign#contact>
Print 
<http://inthesetimes.com/article/print/17311/noam_chomsky_the_worlds_greatest_terrorist_campaign>

A recent /New York Times/ articles lists three major examples of "covert 
aid," in Angola, Nicaragua and Cuba. In fact, each case was a major 
terrorist operation conducted by the U.S.

"It's official: The U.S. is the world's leading terrorist state, and 
proud of it."

That should have been the headline for the lead story in the /New York 
Times/ on October 15, which was more politely titled "CIA Study of 
Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/us/politics/cia-study-says-arming-rebels-seldom-works.html?_r=0>."

The article reports on a CIA review of recent U.S. covert operations to 
determine their effectiveness. The White House concluded that 
unfortunately successes were so rare that some rethinking of the policy 
was in order.

The article quoted President Barack Obama as saying that he had asked 
the CIA to conduct the review to find cases of "financing and supplying 
arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well. And 
they couldn't come up with much." So Obama has some reluctance about 
continuing such efforts.

The first paragraph of the /Times/ article cites three major examples of 
"covert aid": Angola, Nicaragua and Cuba. In fact, each case was a major 
terrorist operation conducted by the U.S.

/Get a copy of Noam Chomsky's newest book/ Masters of Makind /by 
donating $30 or more to/ In These Times /today/ 
<https://app.etapestry.com/onlineforms/InTheseTimes/OnlineDonation_Chomsky.html>!

Angola was invaded by South Africa, which, according to Washington, was 
defending itself from one of the world's "more notorious terrorist 
groups"---Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. That was 1988.

By then the Reagan administration was virtually alone in its support for 
the apartheid regime, even violating congressional sanctions to increase 
trade with its South African ally.

Meanwhile, Washington joined South Africa in providing crucial support 
for Jonas Savimbi's terrorist Unita army in Angola. Washington continued 
to do so even after Savimbi had been roundly defeated in a carefully 
monitored free election, and South Africa had withdrawn its support. 
Savimbi was a "monster whose lust for power had brought appalling misery 
to his people," in the words of Marrack Goulding, British ambassador to 
Angola.

The consequences were horrendous. A 1989 U.N. inquiry estimated that 
South African depredations led to 1.5 million deaths in neighboring 
countries, let alone what was happening within South Africa itself. 
Cuban forces finally beat back the South African aggressors and 
compelled them to withdraw from illegally occupied Namibia. The U.S. 
alone continued to support the monster Savimbi.

In Cuba, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, President John 
F. Kennedy launched a murderous and destructive campaign to bring "the 
terrors of the earth" to Cuba---the words of Kennedy's close associate, 
the historian Arthur Schlesinger, in his semiofficial biography of 
Robert Kennedy, who was assigned responsibility for the terrorist war.

The atrocities against Cuba were severe. The plans were for the 
terrorism to culminate in an uprising in October 1962, which would lead 
to a U.S. invasion. By now, scholarship recognizes that this was one 
reason why Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev placed missiles in Cuba, 
initiating a crisis that came perilously close to nuclear war. U.S. 
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later conceded that if he had been a 
Cuban leader, he "might have expected a U.S. invasion."

American terrorist attacks against Cuba continued for more than 30 
years. The cost to Cubans was of course harsh. The accounts of the 
victims, hardly ever heard in the U.S., were reported in detail for the 
first time in a study by Canadian scholar Keith Bolender, /Voices From 
the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba 
<http://www.powells.com/partner/36495/biblio/9780745330419?p_tx>/, in 2010.

The toll of the long terrorist war was amplified by a crushing embargo, 
which continues even today in defiance of the world. On Oct. 28, the 
U.N., for the 23rd time, endorsed "the necessity of ending the economic, 
commercial, financial blockade imposed by the United States against 
Cuba." The vote was 188 to 2 (U.S., Israel), with three U.S. Pacific 
Island dependencies abstaining.

There is by now some opposition to the embargo in high places in the 
U.S., reports ABC News, because "it is no longer useful" (citing Hillary 
Clinton's new book /Hard Choices 
<http://www.powells.com/partner/36495/biblio/9781476751443?p_tx>/). 
French scholar Salim Lamrani reviews the bitter costs to Cubans in his 
2013 book /The Economic War Against Cuba 
<http://www.powells.com/partner/36495/biblio/9781583673409?p_tx>/.

Nicaragua need hardly be mentioned. President Ronald Reagan's terrorist 
war was condemned by the World Court, which ordered the U.S. to 
terminate its "unlawful use of force" and to pay substantial reparations.

Washington responded by escalating the war and vetoing a 1986 U.N. 
Security Council resolution calling on all states---meaning the 
U.S.---to observe international law.

Another example of terrorism will be commemorated on November 16, the 
25th anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuit priests in San 
Salvador by a terrorist unit of the Salvadoran army, armed and trained 
by the U.S. On the orders of the military high command, the soldiers 
broke into the Jesuit university to murder the priests and any 
witnesses---including their housekeeper and her daughter.

This event culminated the U.S. terrorist wars in Central America in the 
1980s, though the effects are still on the front pages today in the 
reports of "illegal immigrants," fleeing in no small measure from the 
consequences of that carnage, and being deported from the U.S. to 
survive, if they can, in the ruins of their home countries.

Washington has also emerged as the world champion in generating terror. 
Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar warns of the "resentment-generating 
impact of the U.S. strikes" in Syria, which may further induce the 
jihadi organizations Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State toward 
"repairing their breach from last year and campaigning in tandem against 
the U.S. intervention by portraying it as a war against Islam."

That is by now a familiar consequence of U.S. operations that have 
helped to spread jihadism from a corner of Afghanistan to a large part 
of the world.

Jihadism's most fearsome current manifestation is the Islamic State, or 
ISIS, which has established its murderous caliphate in large areas of 
Iraq and Syria.

"I think the United States is one of the key creators of this 
organization," reports former CIA analyst Graham Fuller, a prominent 
commentator on the region. "The United States did not plan the formation 
of ISIS," he adds, "but its destructive interventions in the Middle East 
and the War in Iraq were the basic causes of the birth of ISIS."

To this we may add the world's greatest terrorist campaign: Obama's 
global project of assassination of "terrorists." The 
"resentment-generating impact" of those drone and special-forces strikes 
should be too well known to require further comment.

This is a record to be contemplated with some awe.


    Noam Chomsky

<http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/10246/>

*Noam Chomsky* is Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics 
(Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the author 
of dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy. He writes a monthly column 
for /The New York Times/ News Service/Syndicate.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20141103/005c061d/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 4112933675_a9031211b7_b_850_458.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 214739 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20141103/005c061d/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: photo_10246_75_75_c1.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 7424 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20141103/005c061d/attachment-0003.jpg>