Preface
St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. "How dare you molest the sea?" asked Alexander. "How dare you molest the whole world?" the pirate replied. "Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor."
The pirate's answer was "elegant and excellent," St. Augustine relates. It also captures with some accuracy the current relations between the United States and various minor actors on the stage of international terrorism, such as Libya and factions of the PLO. More generally, St. Augustine's tale illuminates the concept of international terrorism in contemporary Western usage, and reaches the heart of the frenzy over selected incidents of terrorism currently being orchestrated, with supreme cynicism, as a cover for Western violence.
The term "terrorism" came into use at the end of the eighteenth century, primarily referring to violent acts of governments designed to ensure popular submission. That concept is plainly of little benefit to the practitioners of state terrorism, who, holding power, are in a position to control the system of thought and expression. The original sense has therefore been abandoned, and the term "terrorism" has come to be applied mainly to "retail terrorism" by individuals or groups. Whereas the term was once applied to emperors who molest their own subjects and the world, it is now restricted to thieves who molest the powerful.
Extricating ourselves from the system of indoctrination, we will use the term "terrorism" to refer to the threat or the use of violence to intimidate or coerce (generally for political ends), whether it is the wholesale terrorism of the emperor or the retail terrorism of the thief.
The pirate's maxim explains the recently-evolved concept of "international terrorism" only in part. It is necessary to add a second feature: an act of terrorism enters the canon only if it is committed by "their side," not ours. Consider, for example, the public relations campaign around "international terrorism" launched in early 1981 by the Reagan Administration. The major text was a book by Claire Sterling , which offered ingenious proof that international terrorism is a "Soviet-inspired" instrument "aimed at the destabilization of Western democratic society." The proof is that the major terrorist actions are confined to the Western democratic states, and are not "directed against the Soviet Union or any of its satellites or client states." This insight much impressed other terrorologists, notably Walter Laqueur, who wrote that Sterling had provided "ample evidence" that terrorism occurs "almost exclusively in democratic or relatively democratic countries."
The Sterling thesis is true, in fact true by definition, given the way in which the term "terrorism" is employed by the emperor and his loyal coterie. Since only acts committed by "their side" count as terrorism, it follows that Sterling is necessarily correct, whatever the facts.
In the real world, the story is different. The major victims of international terrorism in the past several decades have been Cubans, Central Americans, and inhabitants of Lebanon; but none of this counts, by definition. When Israel bombs Palestinian refugee camps, killing many civilians--often without even a pretense of "reprisal"--or sends its troops into Lebanese villages in "counter-terror" operations to murder and destroy, or hijacks ships and places hundreds of hostages in prison camps under horrifying conditions, this is not "terrorism." In fact, the rare voices of protest are thunderously condemned by loyal party-liners for their "anti-Semitism" and their "double standards," as demonstrated by their failure to join the chorus of praise for "a country that cares for human life," in whose "high moral purpose"' is the object of never-ending awe and acclaim, a country which, according to its American claque, "is held to a higher law, as interpreted for it by journalists" (Walter Goodman).
Neither is it terrorism when paramilitary forces operating from U.S. bases and trained by the CIA bombard Cuban hotels, sink fishing boats and attack Russian ships in Cuban harbours, poison crops and livestock, attempt to assassinate Castro, and so on, in missions that were running almost weekly at their peak. These and innumerable similar actions on the part of the emperor and his clients are not the subject of conferences and learned tomes, nor of anguished commentary and diatribes in the media and journals of opinion.
Standards for the emperor and his court are unique in two, closely-related respects. First, their terrorist acts are excluded from the canon, as noted; second, while terrorist attacks against them are regarded with extreme seriousness, even requiring violent "self-defense against future attack," as we will see, comparable or more serious terrorist attacks against others do not merit retaliation or pre-emptive action; if they were to evoke such a response, there would be no end of hysterical outrage in the United States.
Indeed, the significance of such terrorist attacks is so slight that they need barely be reported, surely not remembered.
Suppose, for example, that a seaborne Libyan force were to attack three American ships in the Israeli port of Haifa, sinking one of them and damaging the others, using East German-made missiles. I need not comment on what the reaction would be. Turning to the real world, "on June 5th [ 1986]," the British press reports, "a seaborne South African force attacked three Russian ships in the southern Angolan harbour of Namibe, sinking one of them," using "Israeli-made Scorpion [Gabriel] missiles."
Had the Soviet Union responded to this terrorist attack like the U.S. would have under similar circumstances perhaps destroying Johannesburg by firebomb, to judge by the action-response scale of U.S. and Israeli "retaliation" the U.S. might well have considered a nuclear strike as legitimate "retaliation" against the Communist devil. In the real world, again, the USSR did not respond, and the events were considered so insignificant that they were barely mentioned in the U.S. press.
Suppose Cuba had invaded Venezuela in late 1976 in self-defense against terrorist attack, with the intent of establishing "New Order" there organised by elements under its control, killing two hundred Americans manning an air defense system, heavily shelling the U.S. embassy in Caracas, and finally occupying the embassy for several days during its conquest of Caracas in violation of a cease-fire agreement. How would the U.S. have responded? The question is academic, since the first sign of a Cuban soldier near Venezuela would probably have evoked a nuclear attack against Havana.
Turning again to the real world, in 1982 Israel attacked Lebanon under the (entirely fabricated) pretext of protecting the Galilee against terrorist attack, with the intent of establishing a "New Order" there organised by elements under its control, killing two hundred Russians manning a (Syrian) air defense system, heavily shelling the Russian embassy in Beirut, and finally occupying the embassy for two days during its conquest of West Beirut in violation of a cease-fire agreement. The facts were casually reported in the U.S., with the context and the crucial background ignored or denied (as we shall see). There was, fortunately, no Soviet response, or we would not be here today to discuss the matter.
In the real world, we assume as a matter of course that the Soviet Union and other official enemies, most of them defenseless, will calmly endure provocations and violence that would elicit a furious reaction, verbal and military, if the emperor and his court were the victims.
The stunning hypocrisy illustrated by these and countless other cases, some of which will be discussed below, is not restricted to the matter of international terrorism. To mention a different case, consider the World War II agreements that allocated control over part of Europe and Asia to the several Allied powers and called for withdrawal at specified times. There was great outrage over indeed outrageous Soviet actions in Eastern Europe modeled closely on what the U.S. had done in the areas assigned to Western control under wartime agreements (Italy, Greece, South Korea, etc.); and over the belated Soviet withdrawal from northern Iran, while the U.S. violated its wartime agreements to withdraw from Portugal, Iceland, Greenland, etc., on the grounds that "military considerations" made such withdrawal "inadvisable," the joint Chiefs of Staff argued with State Department concurrence.
There was and is no outrage over the fact that West German espionage operations directed against the USSR were placed under the control of Reinhard Gehlen, who had conducted similar operations for the Nazis in Eastern Europe, or that the CIA was sending agents and supplies to armies encouraged by Hitler fighting in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine as late as the early 1950s as part of the "roll-back strategy" made official in NSC-68 (April 1950). Soviet support for armies encouraged by Hitler fighting in the Rockies in 1952 might have elicited a different reaction.
Examples are legion. Perhaps the most notorious is that regularly offered as the ultimate proof that Communists cannot be relied upon to live up to agreements: the 1973 Paris Peace Treaty concerning Vietnam and its aftermath. The truth is that the U.S. announced at once that it would reject every term of the scrap of paper it had been compelled to sign, and proceeded to do so. The media, meanwhile, in a display of servility that goes beyond the norm, accepted the U.S. version of the treaty (violating every essential element of it) as the actual text, so that U.S. violations were "in accord" with the treaty while the Communist reaction to these violations proved their innate treachery. This example is now regularly offered as justification for the U.S. rejection of a negotiated political settlement in Central America, demonstrating the usefulness of a well-run propaganda system."
As noted, "international terrorism" (in the specific Western sense) was placed at the centre of attention by the Reagan Administration as soon as it was installed in 1981. The reasons were not difficult to discern, though they were--and continue to be--inexpressible within the doctrinal system.
The Administration was committed to three related policies, all achieved with considerable success: (1) transfer of resources from the poor to the rich; (2) an enormous increase in the state sector of the economy in the traditional American way, through the Pentagon system, a device used to make the public finance high-technology industry by means of the state-guaranteed market for the production of high-technology waste and thus to contribute to the programme of public subsidy, private profit, called "free enterprise"; and (3) a substantial increase in U.S. intervention, subversion, and international terrorism (in the true sense of the expression). Such policies cannot be presented to the public in the terms in which they are intended. They can be implemented only if the population is properly frightened by monsters against whom they must defend themselves.
The standard device is an appeal to the threat of what the president called "the monolithic and ruthless conspiracy" bent on world conquest--President Kennedy, in this case, when he launched a similar programme"--Reagan's "Evil Empire." But confrontation with the Evil Empire can be a dangerous affair. It is much safer to do battle with defenseless enemies designated the Evil Empire's proxies, a choice that conforms to the third plank in the Reagan agenda, pursued for quite independent reasons: to ensure "stability" and order" in U.S. global domains. The "terrorism" of properly chosen pirates, or of such enemies as Nicaragua or Salvadoran peasants who dare to defend themselves from U.S. terrorist attack, is an easier target--and with an efficiently functioning propaganda system it can be exploited to induce a proper sense of fear and mobilisation in the domestic population.
It is in this context that "international terrorism" replaced human rights as "the Soul of our foreign policy" in the 1980s. Human rights achieved this exalted status as part of the campaign to reverse the notable improvement in the moral and intellectual climate during the 1960s termed the "Vietnam syndrome," and to overcome the dread "crisis of democracy" that erupted in the same context as large elements of the general population organised for political action, threatening the system of elite decision, public ratification, called "democracy" in Western Newspeak.
In what follows, I will be concerned with international terrorism in the real world, focusing on the Mediterranean region. "Mid-East/Mediterranean terrorism" was selected top story of 1985 by editors and broadcasters--primarily American--polled by the Associated Press; the poll was taken before the terrorist attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports in December, which probably would have eliminated remaining doubts. In the early months of 1986, concern over Mid-East/Mediterranean terrorism reached a fever pitch, culminating in the U.S. bombing of Libya in April. The official story is that this courageous punitive action aimed at the leading practitioner of international terrorism achieved its goal. Qaddafi and other such criminals are now cowering in their bunkers, tamed by the noble defender of human rights and dignity.
But despite this grand victory over the forces of darkness, the issue of terrorism emanating from the Islamic world and the proper response for the democracies that defend civilised values remains a leading topic of concern and debate, as illustrated by numerous books, conferences, articles and editorials, and television commentary. Insofar as any large or elite public can be reached, the discussion strictly observes the principles just enunciated: attention is restricted to the terrorism of the thief, not that of the emperor and his clients; on Them, not Us. I will, however, not observe these decencies.
Chapter One is devoted to the conceptual framework in which these and related issues are presented within the reigning doctrinal system. Chapter Two provides a sample--only a sample--of Middle East terrorism in the real world, along with some discussion of the style of apologetics employed to ensure that it proceeds unhampered. In Chapter Three, I will turn to the role played by Libya in the doctrinal system. Chapter Four deals with the role of the United States in the Middle East.