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WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 564
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WCL 564 July 2007
Terrorism again
There is history in this. In August 1945 the U.S. air force wiped out well over 100.000 people before breakfast. Civilians in their homes and unsuspecting were suddenly despatched in order that the Japanese population would be terrorized into rapid surrender. They were. Terrorism had worked. A few days later the Americans did the same thing to the city of Nagasaki. That was principally a terrorist demonstration of to persuade Stalin and the Russians not to oppose the United States. It may have worked temporarily but it confirmed the U.S. on its path of lawlessness and belief in terror as a weapon.
And recently has been admitted the long history of American CIA illegalities and outrages, from kidnapping and poisoning to assassination attempts on foreign rulers like Fidel Castro. They included persecution of anti-war Americans who were pursuing legitimate democratic aims and activities. That was on a par with the previous 'anti-American' witch-hunts of the McCarthy era, again persecuting democratic dissenters. The official disclosure of CIA files has revealed a miasma of covert and illegal behaviour.
But the story really gets more relevant to current concerns about terrorism with the American attack on Baghdad at the outbreak of the war on Iraq. Its apt description as 'shock and awe' reveals the intention to terrorize an entire population to quell any support for the ruler, Saddam Hussein. Nor did the opening barrage comprise the whole of the terror offered: that continued and was to be repeated. Some years after the president had claimed victory and ‘Job completed’ the U.S. army stormed Falluja. In that town a civilian population was left to cower in terror without shelter from the American bombardment and then forced to flee their town and homes.
The scandals associated with the prisoners held in Abu Ghraib may not have been as organized for terrorism as more wide-reaching American actions, but the disregard of protection or succour for Iraqi civilians has constantly accompanied U.S.action in Iraq, as they did in Vietnam. Again and again, the use of overwhelming air power and heavy weaponry have shown a determination or willingness to employ terror in order to discourage or inhibit any support for Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation. This pattern, according to news reports, is being repeated in Afghanistan.
For the past five years the CIA, under the direction of the current U.S. administration, has operated operations, illegal and immoral, throughout the world. Designed in part to strike terror in some of those seen as enemies, it equally aimed at innocent neighbours who might help them. To seize the supposed foes the CIA has been scouring the world, with illegal aid from spies and informers of all kinds of regimes, democratic and tyrannical. The prisoners, once captured, guilty and innocent alike, have been incarcerated, often for years, in various places of detention. Hundreds of them have finally been taken to a priso at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Methods used to seize these victims, sometimes mere children, were illegal, the imprisonment was without legal warranty and the secret abductions that occurred further transgressed the laws of other countries that were complicit in these kidnappings. The American prison at Guantanomo Bay has been condemned for its illegality and abuse of human rights by judges, jurists and lawyers of almost all civilized countries. It is a standing challenge to Right and Law by the state with more Might than any other.
This demonstration of Terrorism needs to be borne in mind whenever an attempt is made to label all anti-American acts as 'terrorist'. They may be wrong, unwise, futile, stupid or even criminal but they are rarely without provocation. Nor should we try to quantify the rights and wrongs and come out with some balance-sheet that exonerates the U.S. The catalogue of acts and intentions stretches back to the days of black slavery and beyond in ways that precludes such exculpation. The scroll of U.S. terrorism is too long and extensive to be sloughed off by pointing the finger of blame at others.
The United States has a constitution proudly claimed to be based upon law. Americans, awarding themselves innumerable accolades for their good intentions, moral behaviour and upholding of freedom and democracy, cannot be excused their own nationalist crimes against morality, freedom, democracy and law. When it comes to using terror, most other societies cannot hold a candle to the blinding beams of American terrorism.
John Roberts
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