United States and state terrorism

The United States has been accused of having directly committed acts of state terrorism, as well as funding, training, and harboring individuals and groups who engage in terrorism.

Terrorism, state terrorism, and international terrorism remain without a single internationally accepted definition, but Britannica defines terrorism as systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.

General allegations against the US

Arno Mayer, Emeritus Professor of History at Princeton University, has stated that "since 1947 America has been the chief and pioneering perpetrator of 'preemptive' state terror, exclusively in the Third World and therefore widely dissembled." Noam Chomsky also argues that "Washington is the center of global state terrorism and has been for years." Chomsky has characterized the tactics used by agents of the U.S. government and their proxies in their execution of U.S. foreign policy — in such countries as Nicaragua — as a form of terrorism and has also described the U.S as "a leading terrorist state."

After President George W. Bush began using the term "War on Terrorism", Chomsky stated in an interview:

The U.S. is officially committed to what is called "low-intensity warfare"... If you read the definition of low-intensity conflict in army manuals [5] and compare it with official definitions of "terrorism" in army manuals, or the U.S. Code, you find they're almost the same.

— Noam Chomsky, interview, Monthly Review

State terrorism and propaganda

Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton, has argued that the U.S. and other first-world states, as well as mainstream mass media institutions, have obfuscated the true character and scope of terrorism, promulgating a one-sided view from the standpoint of first-world privilege. He has said that "if 'terrorism' as a term of moral and legal opprobrium is to be used at all, then it should apply to violence deliberately targeting civilians, whether committed by state actors or their non-state enemies." Moreover, Falk argues that the repudiation of authentic non-state terrorism is insufficient as a strategy for mitigating it, writing that "we must also illuminate the character of terrorism, and its true scope... The propagandists of the modern state conceal its reliance on terrorism and associate it exclusively with Third World revolutionaries and their leftist sympathizers in the industrial countries."

Specific allegations against the US by region

Cuba (1956-present)

After revolutionary forces vanquished Fulgencio Batista’s forces, a new government was formed in Cuba on January 2, 1959. The CIA initiated a campaign of regime change in the early parts of 1959, and by the spring of 1959 was arming counter-revolutionary guerrillas inside Cuba. By winter of that year US-based Cubans were being supervised by the CIA in the orchestration of bombings and incendiary raids against Cuba.

Operation Mongoose

Further information: [[:Church Committee, Operation 40, Operation Mongoose, Operation Northwoods]]

A prime focus of the Kennedy administration was the removal of Fidel Castro from power. To this end it implemented Operation Mongoose, a US program of sabotage and other secret operations against the island. Mongoose was led by Edward Lansdale in the Defense Department and William King Harvey at the CIA. Samuel Halpern, a CIA co-organizer, conveyed the breadth of involvement: “CIA and the U. S. Army and military forces and Department of Commerce, and Immigration, Treasury, God knows who else — everybody was in Mongoose. It was a government-wide operation run out of Bobby Kennedy's office with Ed Lansdale as the mastermind.” . The scope of Mongoose included sabotage actions against a railway bridge, petroleum storage facilities, a molasses storage container, a petroleum refinery, a power plant, a sawmill, and a floating crane. Harvard Historian Jorge Domínguez states that "only once in [the] thousand pages of documentation did a U.S. official raise something that resembled a faint moral objection to U.S. government sponsored terrorism." The CIA operation was based in Miami, Florida and among other aspects of the operation, enlisted the help of the Mafia to plot an assassination attempt against Fidel Castro, the Cuban president; for instance, William Harvey was one of the CIA case officers who directly dealt with the mafiosi John Roselli.

Dominguez writes that "sabotage actions were approved against a railway bridge, some petroleum storage facilities and a molasses storage vessel. Actions were subsequently carried out against a petroleum refinery, a power plant, a sawmill, and a floating crane in a Cuban harbour.” He further remarks that "only once in these nearly thousand pages of documentation did a U.S. official raise something that resembled a faint moral objection to U.S. government sponsored terrorism." The CIA operation was based in Miami, Florida and among other aspects of the operation, enlisted the help of the Mafia to plot an assassination attempt against Fidel Castro, the Cuban president. William Harvey was one of the CIA case officers who dealt with the mafiosi John Roselli.

Dominguez writes that Kennedy put a hold on Mongoose actions as the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated, and the "Kennedy administration returned to its policy of sponsoring terrorism against Cuba as the confrontation with the Soviet Union lessened." However, Chomsky argued that “terrorist operations continued through the tensest moments of the missile crisis,” remarking that “they were formally canceled on October 30, several days after the Kennedy and Khrushchev agreement, but went on nonetheless.” Accordingly, "the Executive Committee of the National Security Council recommended various courses of action, "including ‘using selected Cuban exiles to sabotage key Cuban installations in such a manner that the auction can plausibly be attributed to Cubans in Cuba’ as well as ‘sabotaging Cuban cargo and shipping, and [Soviet] Bloc cargo and shipping to Cuba." Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, raised the point that according to the documentary record, directly after the first executive committee (EXCOMM) meeting that was held on the missile crisis, Attorney General Robert Kennedy “convened a meeting of the Operation Mongoose team” expressing disappointment in its results and pledging to take a closer personal attention on the matter. Kornbluh accused RFK of taking “the most irrational position during the most extraordinary crisis in the history of U. S. foreign policy”, remarking that “Not to belabor the obvious, but for chrissake, a nuclear crisis is happening and Bobby wants to start blowing things up.”.

Professor of History Stephen Rabe writes that “scholars have understandably focused on…the Bay of Pigs invasion, the U.S. campaign of terrorism and sabotage known as Operation Mongoose, the assassination plots against Fidel Castro, and, of course, the Cuban missile crisis. Less attention has been given to the state of U.S.-Cuban relations in the aftermath of the missile crisis.” In contrast Rabe writes that reports from the Church Committee reveal that from June 1963 onward the Kennedy administration intensified its war against Cuba while the CIA integrated propaganda, "economic denial", and sabotage to attack the Cuban state as well as specific targets within. One example cited is an incident where CIA agents, seeking to assassinate Castro, provided a Cuban official, Rolando Cubela Secades, with a ballpoint pen rigged with a poisonous hypodermic needle. At this time the CIA received authorization for thirteen major operations within Cuba; these included attacks on an electric power plant, an oil refinery, and a sugar mill. Historian Stephen Rabe has observed that the “Kennedy administration...showed no interest in Castro's repeated request that the United States cease its campaign of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba. Kennedy did not pursue a dual-track policy toward Cuba....The United States would entertain only proposals of surrender." Rabe further documents how "Exile groups, such as Alpha 66 and the Second Front of Escambray, staged hit-and-run raids on the island...on ships transporting goods…purchased arms in the United States and launched...attacks from the Bahamas.”

Operation Northwoods

A secret plan, Operation Northwoods, was approved by the the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff and submitted for action to Robert McNamara then Secretary of Defense. This plan included acts of violence on U.S. soil or against U.S. interests, such as plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities; blowing up a U.S. ship, and contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "The U.S. could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by U.S. fighters 'evacuate' remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." The plan was rejected by the Kennedy administration after the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Cuban government officials have accused the United States Government of being an accomplice and protector of terrorism against Cuba on many occasions. According to Ricardo Alarcón, President of Cuba’s national assembly "Terrorism and violence, crimes against Cuba, have been part and parcel of U.S. policy for almost half a century.” The claims formed part of Cuba's $181.1 billion lawsuit in 1999 in Havana's Popular Provincial Tribunal against the United States on behalf of the Cuban people which alleged that for over 40 years, "terrorism has been permanently used by the U.S. as an instrument of its foreign policy against Cuba," and it "became more systematic as a result of the covert action program." The lawsuit detailed a history of terrorism allegedly supported by the United States. The United States has long denied any involvement in the acts named in the lawsuit.

File:Porter Goss, Barry Seal, Felix Rodriguez, et al.jpg

Gathering of Operation 40 operatives including Guillermo Novo Sampol, (left; fourth from camera) wanted in Venezuela for extradition in connection with terrorist acts, Mexico City 22 January 1963.

Cuba also claims U.S. involvement in the paramilitary group Omega 7, the CIA undercover operation known as Operation 40, and the umbrella group the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations. Cuban Counterterrorism investigator Roberto Hernández testified in a Miami court that the bomb attacks were "part of a campaign of terror designed to scare civilians and foreign tourists, harming Cuba's single largest industry."Testifying before the United States Senate in 1978, Richard Helms, former CIA Director, stated; "We had task forces that that were striking at Cuba constantly. We were attempting to blow up power plants. We were attempting to ruin sugar mills. We were attempting to do all kinds of things in this period. This was a matter of American government policy."

In 2001, Cuban Ambassador to the UN Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla called for UN General Assembly to address all forms and manifestations of terrorism in every corner of the world, including - without exception - State terrorism. He alleged to the UN General Assembly that 3,478 Cubans have died as a result of aggressions and terrorist acts. He also alleged that the United States had provided safe shelter to "those who funded, planned and carried out terrorist acts with absolute impunity, tolerated by the United States Government." The Cuban government also asserted that in the 1990s, a total of 68 acts of terrorism were perpetrated against Cuba.

Allegations of harboring terrorists

The Cuban revolution resulted in a large Cuban refugee community in the U.S., some of whom have conducted sustained long-term insurgency campaigns against Cuba. and conducted training sessions at a secluded camp near the Florida Everglades. Initially these efforts are known to have been directly supported by the United States government. The failed military invasion of Cuba during the administration of John F. Kennedy at the Bay of Pigs marked the end of documented U.S. involvement.

The Cuban Government, its supporters and some outside observers believe that the group Alpha 66, whose former secretary general Andrés Nazario Sargén acknowledged terrorist attacks on Cuban tourist spots in the 1990s and conducted training sessions at a secluded camp near the Florida Everglades, has, according to Cuba's official newspaper Granma, been supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development and, more directly, the CIA.

The U.S. has also been criticized for failing to condemn Panama's pardoning of the alleged terrorists Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll, Pedro Remon, and Gaspar Jimenez, instead allowing them to walk free on U.S. streets. Claudia Furiati has suggested Sampol was linked to President Kennedy's assassination and plans to kill President Castro.

Luis Posada

Luis Posada

Luis Posada Carriles has been accused by Cuba of terrorism. He resides within the U.S., and his deportation action was denied by a federal court that cited torture and other concerns. His case is important because he symbolizes what Cuba view as the harboring of suspected terrorists by the United States.

The claims around Posada center on the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 in 1976 which killed all 73 people aboard and a series of attacks on tourist sites in the 1990s. Some allege some form of US involvement in these acts. For example, the FBI had multiple contacts with one of the bombers but provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities.

The Cubans cite what they describe as the admission by Luis Posada Carriles, a one-time supervisor for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and former chemist, that he was recruited by the CIA into becoming a trainer of other paramilitary forces in the mid 1960s. Posada, alongside Orlando Bosch, is accused by Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Cuba and Venezuela of organizing the terrorist bombing of the aircraft Cubana 455. As described by researcher Peter Kornbluh at the non-governmental research institute National Security Archive, he "is a terrorist, but he’s our terrorist," referring to Posada's relationship with the U.S. government. In 2006, the U.S. Justice Department described Posada as “an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks on tourist sites.”

The Cubans also cite the involvement of FBI attaché Joseph Leo, who admitted multiple contacts with one of the convicted bombers of Cubana 455, Hernan Ricardo, before the attack.

On May 18, 2005, the National Security Archive posted additional documents that purportedly show the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb an airliner of the Cuban airline Cubana. The archive also alleges that while Posada stopped being a CIA agent in 1974, there remained "occasional contact" until June 1976, a few months before the bombing. The Cuban ambassador to the U.N. stated that Posada had been "doubly employed by the Government of the U.S." both before and after the bombing of the Cubana aircraft. After escaping from prison in Venezuela, Posada, who has boasted of plans to "hit" a Cuban airliner only days before the attack, went to work alongside CIA operative Felix Rodriguez under Richard Secord supplying the Contras.

After serving 10 years for his role in the Cubana bombing and other terrorist attacks, Orlando Bosch was released from jail in Venezuela and given permission to reside in the United States with the assistance of Otto Reich, then U.S. ambassador to Venezuela.

On his arrival in Miami in 1988, Bosch was honored with an "Orlando Bosch Day" celebration by the city politicians in Miami. Despite decisions made by the justice department and FBI to deport Bosch, they were overruled by President George H. W. Bush and he was allowed permanent residency. In an interview in 2001, Cuban Vice President Ricardo Alarcón stated: "The most quoted phrase by President Bush or ever repeated by him refers to the same idea every time he speaks. "'Those who harbor a terrorist are as guilty as the terrorist himself'".

In a series of interviews with the New York Times, Posada claimed responsibility for the bombings at hotels and nightclubs in Cuba in 1997 in which an Italian tourist died and scores more were injured. Posada said his activities were directly supported by Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the Cuban-American National Foundation. Posada stated "The FBI and the CIA do not bother me, and I am neutral with them," he said. "Whenever I can help them, I do." He later denied that he was involved, stating that he had only wanted to create publicity for the bombing campaign in order to scare tourists.

As more revelations were made public via declassified documents and testimonies from involved parties, journalist Robert Scheer wrote in a column in the Los Angeles Times "For almost 40 years, we have isolated Cuba on the assumption that the tiny island is a center of terrorism in the hemisphere, and year after year we gain new evidence that it is the U.S. that has terrorized Cuba and not the other way around."

Mr. Posada was arrested in Miami in May 2005 and held for entering the U.S. illegally. On September 28, 2005 a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Posada cannot be deported because he faced the threat of torture in Venezuela. On May 8, 2007 U.S. district judge Kathleen Cardone dismissed seven counts of immigration fraud and ordered Posada's electronic bracelet removed. The ruling criticized the U.S. government's "fraud, deceit and trickery" during the interview with immigration authorities that was the basis of the charges against Posada. He has declared that he no longer believes that the Castro government has long-term viability and he stated "I sincerely believe that nothing would help to go back to the past with sabotage campaigns."

Venezuela has accused the US of hypocrisy on terrorism since the US "virtually" collaborated with convicted terrorist Luis Posada by failing to contest statements that Posada would be tortured if he were extradited to Venezuela. Some U.S. officials, who declined to speak on the record, also deplored the decision by immigration judge William Abbott not to extradite Posada. The administration stressed that Posada may still be subject to deportation to another country, although their efforts thus far to persuade several Latin American countries have proved fruitless.

Nicaragua (1979-90)

Further information: [[:Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare]]

Following the rise to power of the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Ronald Reagan administration ordered the CIA to organize and train the right wing guerrilla group "Contras". In 1981 President Reagan secretly authorized his Central Intelligence Agency under his appointee William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, 28 January 1981 - 29 January 1987, to recruit and support the guerrillas. Casey was to have testified before Congress about the disastrous Iran-Contra affair, in which a third country was to help sell Raytheon's MIM-23 Hawk missiles to the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages whom Hezbollah kidnapped. Deteriorating health made it impossible for Casey to speak to the committee.

Nicaragua vs. United States

Main article: Nicaragua vs. United States

The Republic of Nicaragua vs. The United States of America was a case heard in 1986 by the International Court of Justice which found that the United States had violated international law by direct acts of U.S. personnel and by the supporting Contra guerrillas in their war against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The US was not imputable for possible human rights violations done by the Contras.

Guatemala (1954-96)

Further information: [[:History of Guatemala, Operation PBSUCCESS, CIA sponsored regime change, Church Committee]]

Background

The Guatemala Civil War was predominantly fought between the government of Guatemala and insurgents between 1960 and 1996.

In 1999, an independent Guatemalan Truth Commission (the "Historical Clarification Commission") issued a report which, according to Robert Parry writing in Consortiumnews.com, among other things, stated that the "government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some of these state operations." Parry also writes that the report

...estimate[s] that the Guatemalan conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s. Based on a review of about 20% of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93% of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved....the army committed 626 massacres against Mayan villages... [which] "eliminated entire Mayan villages... completely exterminat[ing] Mayan communities, destroy[ing] their livestock and crops."

— Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com

School of the Americas

Main article: Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation

Professor Gareau argues that the School of the Americas (reorganized in 2001 as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), a U.S. training institution mainly for Latin America, is a terrorist training ground. He cites a UN report which states the school has "graduated 500 of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere." Gareau alleges that by funding, training and supervising Guatemalan 'Death Squads' Washington was complicit in state terrorism.

Defenders argue that the alleged connection to human rights abusers is often weak. For example, Roberto D'Aubuisson's sole link to the SOA is that he had taken a course in Radio Operations long before El Salvador's civil war began. They also argue that no school should be held accountable for the actions of only some of its many graduates. Before coming to the current WHINSEC each student is now “vetted” by his/her nation and the U.S. embassy in that country. All students are now required to receive "human rights training in law, ethics, rule of law and practical applications in military and police operations."

El Salvador (1980-92)

The Salvadoran Civil War was predominantly fought between the government of El Salvador against a coalition of four leftist guerrilla groups and one communist group known as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) mainly between 1980 and 1992. A violent insurgency existed already in the 1970s. The United States supported the government and Cuba and other Communist states the guerrillas. In total the civil war killed 75,000 people.

Iran (1979-present)

An article in the Asia Times Online by an Indian diplomat asserts that the United States is providing aid to rebels in Iran, who are currently engaged in a revolt against the Tehran government. Stratfor, a think tank with ties to the American military and intelligence establishments, reported that militant anti-government groups are receiving aid from foreign intelligence agencies. In addition Stratfor stated, "The US-Iranian standoff has reached a high level of intensity ... a covert war [is] being played out ... the United States has likely ramped up support for Iran's oppressed minorities in an attempt to push the Iranian regime toward a negotiated settlement over Iraq." The state controlled media of Iran reported that this is an attempt to stir up sectarian violence inside Iran. An Asian Times article refers to this as part of a U.S. policy of continuous fomenting of ethnic strife and sponsorship of terrorism in Iran.

Jundullah

The Sunni militant organization Jundallah has been identified as a terrorist organization by Iran and Pakistan. According to an April 2007 report by Brian Ross and Christopher Isham of ABC News, the United States government had been secretly encouraging and advising the Jundullah in its attacks against Iranian targets. This support is said to have started in 2005 and arranged so that the United States provided no direct funding to the group, which would require congressional oversight and attract media attention. The report was denied by Pakistan official sources .

Alexis Debat, one of the sources quoted by Ross and Isham in in their report alleging US support for the Jundullah, resigned from ABC News in June 2007, after ABC officials discovered he faked several interviews while working for the company. .

Brian Ross, the correspondent who worked most closely with Mr. Debat, said the Jundullah story had many sources. “We’re only worried about the things Debat supplied, not about the substance of that story,” he said in regard to the Jundullah report.So far, ABC has found nothing that would undermine the stories Mr. Debat worked on, Mr. Ross said last night. But he acknowledged that as the stories of fabrications continue to roll in, the network “at some point has to question whether anything he said can be believed.”

Fars News Agency, an Iranian state run news agency, reported that the United States government is involved in PRMI's terrorists acts. On April 2, 2007, Abdul Malik Rigi, appeared on the Iranian branch of the Voice of America, the official broadcasting service of the United States government, which identified Rigi as "the leader of popular Iranian resistance movement". This incident resulted in public condemnation by Persian-American communities in the U.S, as well as the Iranian regime.

People's Mujahedin of Iran

In April 2007, CNN reported that the US military and the International Committee of the Red Cross were protecting the People's Mujahedin of Iran, with the US army regularly escorting PMOI supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf. The PMOI have been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States (since 1997), Canada, and Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal "senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the PMOI figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." The PMOI is also on the European Union's blacklist of terrorist organizations, which lists 28 organizations, since 2002. The enlistments included: Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States in 1997 under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and again in 2001 pursuant to section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224; as well as by the European Union (EU) in 2002. Its bank accounts were frozen in 2002 after the September 11 attacks and a call by the EU to block terrorist organizations' funding. However, the European Court of Justice has overturned this in December 2006 and has criticized the lack of "transparency" with which the blacklist is composed. However, the Council of the EU declared on 30 January 2007 that it would maintain the organization on the blacklist. The EU-freezing of funds was lifted on December 12, 2006 by the European Court of First Instance. In 2003 the US State Department included the NCRI on the blacklist, under Executive Order 13224.

According to a 2003 article by the New York Times, the US 1997 proscription of the group on the terrorist blacklist was done as "a goodwill gesture toward Iran's newly elected reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami" (succeeded in 2005 by the more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). In 2002, 150 members of the United States Congress signed a letter calling for the lifting of this designation. The PMOI have also tried to have the designation removed through several court cases in the U.S. The PMOI has now lost three appeals (1999, 2001 and 2003) to the US government to be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and its terrorist status was reaffirmed each time. The PMOI has continued to protest worldwide against its listing, with the overt support of some US political figures.

Past supporters of the PMOI have included Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Rep. Bob Filner, (D-CA), and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, "who became involved with the [PMOI] while a Republican senator from Missouri." In 2000, 200 U.S. Congress members signed a statement endorsing the organization's cause.

Iraq (1992-95)

The New York Times reported that, according to former U.S. intelligence officials, the CIA once orchestrated a bombing and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq via one of the resistance organizations, Iyad Allawi's group in an attempt to destabilize the country. According to the Iraqi government at the time, and one former CIA officer, the bombing campaign against Baghdad included both government and civilian targets. According to this former CIA official, the civilian targets included a movie theater and a bombing of a school bus where children were killed. No public records of the secret bombing campaign are known to exist, and the former U.S. officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. "But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because," as a former CIA official said, "the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then."

Lebanon (1985)

The CIA has been accused of being the perpetrator of a 1985 Beirut car bombing which killed 81 people. The bombing was apparently an assassination attempt on an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. The bombing, known as the Bir bombing after Bir el-Abed, the impoverished Beirut neighborhood in which it had occurred, was reported by the New York Times to have caused a "massive" explosion "even by local standards," killing 81 people, and wounding more than 200. Investigative journalist Bob Woodward stated that the CIA was funded by the Saudi Arabian government to arrange the bombing. Fadlallah himself also claims to have evidence that the CIA was behind the attack and that the Saudis paid $3 million.

The U.S. National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane admitted that those responsible for the bomb may have had American training, but that they were "rogue operative(s)" and the CIA in no way sanctioned or supported the attack. Roger Morris writes in the Asia Times that the next day, a notice hung over the devastated area where families were still digging the bodies of relatives out of the rubble. It read: "Made in the USA". The terrorist strike on Bir el-Abed is seen as a product of U.S. covert policy in Lebanon. Agreeing with the proposals of CIA director William Casey, president Ronald Reagan sanctioned the Bir attack in retaliation for the truck-bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks at Beirut airport in October 1983, which, Roger Morris alleges, in turn had been a reprisal for earlier U.S. acts of intervention and diplomatic dealings in Lebanon's civil war that had resulted in hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian lives. After CIA operatives had repeatedly failed to arrange Casey's car-bombing, the CIA allegedly "farmed out" the operation to agents of its longtime Lebanese client, the Phalange, a Maronite Christian, anti-Islamic militia. Others allege the 1984 Bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut as the motivating factor.

The Philippines (1990s-present)

US involvement

The U.S. influence upon the Philippine military has been condemned as sponsorship or support of state terrorism through the policies implemented by the military aid and advisers it has delivered as part of the War on Terror.

The Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace documents that most of the human rights violations were committed by the AFP, the Philippine National Police, and the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Government Units) under the mantle of the anti-insurgency campaign initially created as one arm of the U.S. War on Terror.

According to Reality of Aid, in the period from 2000 to 2003, military loans and grants to the Philippines from the U.S. grew by 1,776 percent. As of 2005, according to President Arroyo the Philippines were the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Asia and fourth worldwide; aid since then has continued to increase. U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the Philippines almost trebled from $30 million in 2004 to $80 million in 2005, with the bulk of that money used to upgrade Philippine marine and counter-terrorism capabilities. Allegedly, development aid has been used "to intensify [military] attack[s]...against unarmed civilians including the leaders and members of legal people's organizations.""While development aid may be used for livelihood projects, infrastructure, or social services, we fear that the AFP will only use such projects to gather intelligence or launch special operations in communities that they believe are NPA bases."

By late 2006, the United States had given roughly US$300 million of aid to the AFP and delivered hundreds of American soldiers to organize and execute extended training exercises with the Filipino police and military apparatus. In May of 2006 the Philippines and the U.S. approved an agreement to establish a formal board to "determine and discuss the possibility of holding joint U.S.-Philippine military exercises against terrorism and other non-traditional security concerns.".

The United States — through the person of National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley — has broadly "congratulated the government of the Philippines...for [its] achievements [in anti-terror military actions] while at the same time acknowledging the valuable role of [its] partnership with the United States".

President Arroyo invited thousands of U.S. Special Forces to engage in police actions together with the AFP, thus violating an explicit Constitutional provision against the intervention of foreign troops in local affairs. She followed Fidel Ramos in implementing the Visiting Forces Agreement, together with other onerous treaties, thus maintaining U.S. control of the Philippine military via training of officers, logistics, and dictation of punitive measures against the Moro insurgents as well as the New People's Army guerrillas. The Philippines became the "second front in the war on terror," with Bush visiting the Philippines in October 2004 and citing the neocolony as a model for the rebuilding of devastated Iraq.

— Dr. E. San Juan, Jr.,

[The] U.S....fashioned..."low-intensity warfare" to deal with upheavals in the post-Vietnam period. Its military field manuals endorsed tactical tools of...psychological warfare, forced mass evacuations or "hamletting," imprisonment of whole communities in military garrisons, militarization of villages, selective assassinations, disappearances, mass executions, etc. Tried in Indochina, Korea, Central America, it continues to be implemented in Colombia, Iraq, and the Philippines....With U.S. help, the AFP mobilized vigilante and paramilitary death squads with license to kill revolutionary militants, immune from prosecution. U.S. military force midwived the restoration of U.S.-backed oligarchic oppression of the Filipino masses.

— Dr. E. San Juan, Jr.,

In March 2007, the Permanent People’s Tribunal at The Hague, Belgium, rendered a judgment of guilty for “crimes against humanity” against the Philippine government and its chief backer, the Bush administration. The Dutch ambassador to the Philippines Monday said the Permanent People’s Tribuna that found the Arroyo administration responsible for political killings in the Philippines was not much more than a kangaroo court -- a view shared by Malacañang officials and their allies in Congress. He said the verdict was “not serious” because the accused were not even invited to the sessions. The head of the European Commission in the Philippines, said the European Union would not issue any statement on the PPT’s verdict because the tribunal was a "nonofficial body, nongovernment." The Dutch ambassador to the Philippines stated that the Netherlands, along with other European nations, was concerned about the human rights situation in the Philippines.[6]

From the beginning — as early as 2001 — the U.S. State Department publicly acknowledged in a published report that "Members of the [Philippines'] security services were responsible for extra-judicial killings, disappearances, torture, and arbitrary arrest and detention," In the same report, the State Department admitted that the presence of U.S. Special Forces and other military advisers had "helped create an environment in which human rights abuses increased", commenting that 'there were allegations by human rights groups that these problems worsened as the Government sought to intensify its campaign against the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).'" Further, in 2003 the U.S. government — in anticipation that its military personnel would be charged with human rights abuses — offered the Philippines' government an extra US$30 million of military aid in exchange for "an agreement that would exempt U.S. soldiers operating in the Philippines from the International Criminal Court".

General Jovito Palparan has been widely condemned for his roles in the killings; notorious as the 'Butcher of Mindoro", Palparan has been officially condemned by official Philippine investigations as responsible for an extensively documented, long list of gross human rights abuses. For instance, "[w]hen Palparan was assigned to Central Luzon in September 2005, the number of political assassinations in that region alone jumped to 52 in four months. Prior to his promotion, the regions with the largest number of summary executions like Eastern Visayas and Central Luzon were under then-Colonel Palparan." In an opinion article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer Palparan was quoted as saying:

The killings are being attributed to me but I did not kill them. I just inspire the triggermen...Their disappearance is good for us but as to who abducted them, we don’t know....I encourage people victimized by communist rebels to get even.

President Arroyo's promotion of him to one-star general has been widely condemned as a gesture of support for military-backed state terrorism. Palparan has received advanced training and official support from the U.S. government, as well as heading up the Philippine forces in the initial 2001 invasion of Iraq.

Opposing views

See also: Foreign relations of the United States#Support

War crimes, such as rapes and killing POWs, are not not legally sanctioned by the US government or the US military.[7] They are not the official policy of the US government.

Bias in media coverage is also argued. Advocates of this stance point to studies that claim that the New York Times coverage of worldwide human rights violations predominantly focuses on the human rights violations in nations where there is clear U.S. involvement, while having relatively little coverage of the human rights violations in other nations.[8][9]

See also

• Allegations of state terrorism by Iran
• Allegations of state terrorism by Russia
• Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka
• American terrorism
• Command responsibility
• Economic terrorism
• List of terrorist incidents
• U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals

External links

• Paper argues that US State Terrorism is a function of the global capitalist economy, described as Imperialism.

References

• Alexander, George (December 1991). Western State Terrorism. Polity Press. p. 276. ISBN 9780745609317.
• Chomsky, Noam (January 1988). The Culture of Terrorism. South End Press. p. 269. ISBN 9780896083349.
• Sluka,, Jeffrey A., editor (1999). Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1711-7. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Selden,, Mark, editor (November 28, 2003). War and State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0742523913. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Menjívar, Cecilia and Rodríguez,Néstor, editors, When States Kill:Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror, University of Texas Press 2005,isbn=978-0-292-70647-7
• Pilger, John (December 12, 2002). "Bush Terror Elite Wanted 9/11 to Happen". Third World Traveler. Retrieved 2007-07-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Perdue, William D. (August 7, 1989). Terrorism and the State: A Critique of Domination Through Fear. Praeger Press. p. 240. ISBN 9780275931407. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
• Campbell, Bruce B., and Brenner,Arthur D.,eds. 2000. Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability. New York: St. Martin's Press
• "Understanding Terrorism". Public Broadcasting Service. August 15, 1997. Retrieved 2007-07-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Vann, Bill (November 21, 2001). "Bush nominee linked to Latin American terrorism". World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved 2007-07-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Wright,, Thomas C. (February 28, 2007). State Terrorism in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and International Human Rights. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0742537217. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)