Preface: As a patriotic American – I was born here, lived here all of my life, and love this country – I want the best for the U.S.
Lawless actions are tearing my country apart. I want my country to regain its vision, strength and moral compass. Thomas Jefferson said that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. I criticize my country because I know we are better than this … and that if enough people know how far we have fallen, we can start to pull ourselves back and reclaim our greatness.
Many Countries Sponsor Terror … But America Is the Worst
The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom said:
By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In u201878-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.
(audio here).
The Washington Post reported in 2010:
The United States has long been an exporter of terrorism, according to a secret CIA analysis released Wednesday by the Web site WikiLeaks.
The head and special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office said that most terror attacks are committed by our CIA and FBI.
Wikipedia notes:
Chomsky and Herman observed that terror was concentrated in the U.S. sphere of influence in the Third World, and documented terror carried out by U.S. client states in Latin America. They observed that of ten Latin American countries that had death squads, all were U.S. client states.
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They concluded that the global rise in state terror was a result of U.S. foreign policy.
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In 1991, a book edited by Alexander L. George [the Graham H. Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University] also argued that other Western powers sponsored terror in Third World countries. It concluded that the U.S. and its allies were the main supporters of terrorism throughout the world.
Indeed, the U.S. has created death squads in Latin America, Iraq and Syria:
Some in the American military have intentionally tried to “out-terrorize the terrorists”.
As Truthout notes:
Both [specialists Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber] say they saw their mission as a plan to u201Cout-terrorize the terrorists,u201D in order to make the general populace more afraid of the Americans than they were of insurgent groups.
In the interview with [Scott] Horton, Horton pressed Stieber:
u201C… a fellow veteran of yours from the same battalion has said that you guys had a standard operating procedure, SOP, that said – and I guess this is a reaction to some EFP attacks on y'all's Humvees and stuff that killed some guys – that from now on if a roadside bomb goes off, IED goes off, everyone who survives the attack get out and fire in all directions at anybody who happens to be nearby … that this was actually an order from above. Is that correct? Can you, you know, verify that?
Stieber answered:
u201CYeah, it was an order that came from Kauzlarich himself, and it had the philosophy that, you know, as Finkel does describe in the book, that we were under pretty constant threat, and what he leaves out is the response to that threat. But the philosophy was that if each time one of these roadside bombs went off where you don't know who set it … the way we were told to respond was to open fire on anyone in the area, with the philosophy that that would intimidate them, to be proactive in stopping people from making these bombs …u201D
Terrorism is defined as:
The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
So McCord and Stieber are correct: this constitutes terrorism by American forces in Iraq.
The U.S. has been supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorists in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Libya, Syria and Iran. Indeed, the American government has directly been supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups for many decades … even after 9/11. See this, this, this, this and this.
(The U.S. has also directly inserted itself into a sectarian war between the two main Islamic sects, backing the Sunnis and attacking the Shiites. See this, this and this. Because Saudi Arabia is the seat of the most radical sect of Islam – Wahhabism- the U.S. unquestioning support of the Saudis is indirectly supporting terrorism.)
Torture – which the U.S. has liberally used during the last 10 years – has long been recognized as a form of terrorism.
Wikipedia notes:
Worldwide, 74% of countries that used torture on an administrative basis were U.S. client states, receiving military and other support to retain power.
Of course, some would say that the American policy of assassination – especially using drone strikes on people whose identity isn’t even known – is a form of terrorism. And see this and this.
Particularly when the U.S. is killing children, and using the justifiably-vilified Al Qaeda tactic of killing people attending funerals of those killed – and targeting people attempting to rescue people who have been injured by – our previous strikes.
George Washington blogs at Washington’s Blog.
