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The Farcical Definition at the Heart of the War on Terrorism
By James Bovard
01/31/06 "Lew
Rockwell" -- -- A recent denunciation of U.S.
government foreign policy offers insights into a paradox of the
war of terrorism. On January 24, 2006, the East Timor Commission
for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation denounced the U.S.
government for backing the 1975 Indonesian invasion of East
Timor. In the following decades, a quarter million East Timorese
residents died as a result of this incursion. The commission
declared that U.S. “political and military support were
fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation.”
The Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor were among
the most barbaric actions of the late 20th century. President
Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with
Indonesian President Suharto in Jakarta the day before the
invasion and gave U.S. approval. The primary concern of U.S.
officials seemed to be to get back to Washington before the
bloodbath began. Kissinger told Suharto, “We understand your
problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that
it would be better if it were done after we returned.”
Kissinger, doing his best imitation of Lady Macbeth, urged
Suharto, “It is important that whatever you do succeeds
quickly.”
Indonesia used U.S. military weapons to bombard East Timor and
to crush resistance. The Indonesian military finally left East
Timor in 1999, inflicting one more orgy of burning and killing
on the island in the final days before its exit.
More people died as a result of the U.S.-backed invasion of East
Timor than were killed by international terrorists in the
subsequent 30 years. According to the U.S. State Department,
between 1980 and 2005 fewer than 25,000 people were killed in
international terrorist incidents around the globe.
The Bush administration, in its war on terror, stresses that
anyone who aids and abets a terrorist is as guilty as the
terrorist. By this standard, the U.S. government was guilty of
enabling the Indonesian government to terrorize the Timorese
people. The Timorese victims of U.S.-backed aggression received
far less than 1 percent of the attention than have American
victims of terrorist attacks.
The U.S. government currently bankrolls and arms many foreign
regimes that terrorize their own people, including Colombia,
Indonesia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Frida Berrigan of the
World Policy Institute noted that the State Department’s 2002
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices “lists 52 countries
that are currently receiving U.S. military training or weapons
as having ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ human-rights records.”
President Bush declared in 2002, “Our mission is to make the
world free from terror.” But the only way that Bush’s pledge
makes any sense is by relying on a myopic – if not absurd –
definition of terrorism.
The United States has long insisted that government agents
cannot be terrorists. The FBI defines terrorism as “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.” Since government action is almost always lawful –
or at least not considered criminal by the government itself –
governments almost never qualify as terrorists under the U.S.
definitions.
A far sounder definition was offered by Israeli National
Security Council chairman Major General Uzi Dayan, who defined
as terrorist in a December 2001 speech “any organization that
systematically harms civilians, irrespective of its motives.”
This definition catches all types of terrorism – not just
actions that lack political blessings or official sanctions.
If a government systematically attacks civilians, the government
is no less culpable than private cabals that blow up planes,
buses, or cafés. By this standard, the Indonesian invasion of
East Timor was as much a terrorist action as the bombings of
Bali nightclubs in October 2002 that killed hundreds of
civilians.
The U.S. terrorism definition is the key to the Bush
administration claim that the war on terrorism is automatically
a war for freedom. Without the “state-exempt” concept of
terrorism, fighting terrorism would, in most parts of the world,
have little or nothing to do with defending freedom. With an
honest definition of terrorism, many governments in the Bush
“freedom-loving coalition” are guilty of inflicting more
terrorism than they prevent.
Having a “state action” exemption to the concept of terrorism is
like having a “mass murder exemption” in the homicide statute.
Any action carried out by private citizens that would be
considered terrorism should also be considered terrorism if
carried out by government agents. The United States should
recognize that its bankrolling and support of governments that
terrorize their own people make a mockery of Bush's promise to
rid the world of evil.
James
Bovard [send
him mail] is the author of the just-released
Attention Deficit Democracy,
The Bush Betrayal, and
Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid
the World of Evil. He serves as a policy advisor for
The
Future of Freedom Foundation.
Copyright ©
2006 The Future of Freedom Foundation
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