Let's get down to Basics: Terrorism 101

Washingtonsblog:

Sunday, September 12, 2010The Warped Mission of the American Military: "Out-Terrorize the Terrorists"

A number of American soldiers are blowing the whistle on the American military practice of indiscriminately killing Iraq civilians - by randomly firing bullets in a 360 degree circle - anytime that an improvised explosive device hits a U.S. soldier.

As Truthout notes:

Both [specialists Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber] say they saw their mission as a plan to "out-terrorize the terrorists," in order to make the general populace more afraid of the Americans than they were of insurgent groups.

In the interview with [Constitutional lawyer Scott] Horton, Horton pressed Stieber:

"... 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:

"Yeah, 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 ..."

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.

Of course, America's institutionalized policy of torture (see this and this) is also terrorism. As I pointed out last year:

An article today in Der Spiegel describes a study on the use of torture over the last couple of thousand years:

A new book, ["Extreme Violence in the Visuals and Texts of Antiquity"] by Martin Zimmerman, a professor of ancient history in Munich, looks at current research into the kinds of violence that inspired "loathing, dread, horror and disgust."

In the ancient Far East, where there were large states peopled by many different ethnicities, leaders demonstrated their might by inventing ingenious new tortures and agonizing methods of execution -- as a way to keep the population obedient...

The issue of state-sanctioned torture to achieve political goals is still a current one.

The study reinforces what I wrote last year:

Listen to the testimony to Congress by a representative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

"Governments that use torture intend to intimidate their citizens in order to maintain control; those who are tortured become examples of the consequences of dissent."

Indeed, this is a well-known tactic for brutal regimes. Take Zimbabwe, for example:

"Victims and eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that [Zimbabwe’s brutal regime] has set up detention centers . . . to round up and instill fear in suspected political opponents."

Torture is a form of terrorism, plain and simple.

As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services director told Congress:

"... torture is the deliberate mental and physical damage caused by governments to individuals to ... terrorize society."

And the U.S. policy of assassinating people all over the world (including Americans) - without trial - is a form of terrorism as well.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. As the former director of the National Security Agency said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 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.

(the audio is here).

And as Truthout points out, the 360 degree firing on innocent bystanders is most definitely a war crime:

High-level orders to kill civilians in the context of retaliation for attacks on forces have already been successfully prosecuted as a war crime. In 1944, German SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler ordered the execution of civilians in the ratio of ten to one for every German soldier killed in a March 1944 attack by Italian partisans. Kappler was sentenced to life in prison. The executions took place in the Caves of Ardeatine in Italy, and were made into the subject of a movie starring Richard Burton. None of the lower-ranking soldiers who actually carried the order out were prosecuted.

***

The attack which spurred the World War II German commander's retaliatory executions, intended as collective punishment for not informing on partisans, was an IED planted in a garbage container. Kappler's rank was the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel.

The ironic thing is that top conservative and liberal terrorism experts say that torture and other war crimes increase terrorism and reduce national security.

And terrorism is bad for the economy as well.

Educating Thomas Friedman

Jonathan Schwarz:

As Glenn Greenwald points out, Thomas Friedman endorsed terrorism yesterday in his New York Times column:

Israel’s counterstrategy [in 2006] was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in the future...

In Gaza, I still can’t tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to educate Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population...If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims.

That's an interesting theory about using massive force to "educate" people. I wonder how well it worked on Thomas Friedman himself after the 9/11 attacks? His immediate reaction to the "heavy pain" inflicted on New York City's population was to try to restrain America's nationalistic right wing, right?

Tim Russert Show, CNBC
October 13, 2001

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: So it's time we got tough. It's time that we looked people in the eye. It's time that the terrorists were the ones who are always afraid, always looking over their shoulder, and to create that, you do have to fight a different kind of war. I was a critic of Rumsfeld before, but there's one thing...that I do like about Rumsfeld. He's just a little bit crazy, OK? He's just a little bit crazy, and in this kind of war, they always count on being able to out-crazy us.

Huh. Well, I'm sure it will work differently on the filthy wogs, given that they're subhuman.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Despite what you may have heard, there are virtually no Islamic Terrorists in Europe

Spinwatch:

The statistical invisibility of Islamist 'terrorism' in Europe

Wednesday, 23 May 2007

New figures from Europol, the European police agency, reveal that Islamist terror attacks in Europe constituted 0.2% of all 'terrorism' throughout the continent in 2006.* Unsurprisingly, there has been little in the media about this interesting figure in the month since it was published.

In their first report of this nature - European Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2007 - Europol reports that across the EU there were 498 terrorist attacks in 2006. These include:

424 'ethno-nationalist and separatist' (mostly in France and Spain)

55 'left-wing and anarchist' (mainly Greece , Italy, Spain and Germany)

1 failed Islamist terrorist attack (in Germany, plus two more attempts allegedly foiled in Denmark and the UK)
1 right-wing terrorist attack (in Poland)

The figures appear to over report left and anarchist 'terror' by categorising some political demonstrations which result in damage to property as 'terrorism'. On Germany it reports that 'the G8 Summit 2007 that still has to be held has already been the target of left-wing and anarchist terrorists.' The report also appears to under report 'right wing' and neo-fascist violence since this is as the report states: 'mainly investigated as right-wing extremism and not as right-wing terrorism'. The report only includes rightwing and animal rights political violence as terrorism if reported as such by member states.

The report does also note that the 0.2% of attacks undertaken by Islamists resulted in fully half the 706 arrests in the EU being of Muslims. The UK itself has seen hundreds of arrests on trumped up charges which are later shown to be false and often propagandist. Indeed one of the two alleged 'foiled' attacks in the figures is the much heralded transatlantic bomb plot in the UK which has certainly adversely affected millions of air passengers. However, it does appear that this plot existed much more in the minds of the security establishment than in reality.

I wondered how well the pattern of media reporting conformed to the pattern of offences or the pattern of arrests. In 2006 the National press in the UK carried 26, 577 reports which mentioned the word 'terrorist' or 'terrorism'.^ Of these 7,620 also referred to 'Islam', 'Islamist' or 'Muslim'. In other words the media reported Islamist violence out of all proportion to the number of attacks. This is hardly helpful to those trying the resist the wave of islamophobia emanating from sections of the police and from the intelligence agencies and politicians. Nor does it give much hope for muslims under attack throughout the UK.

Notes

*Thanks to Eric Herring for drawing these figures to my attention.

^Figures from searches conducted on Lexis-nexis press database.

Europol, 'First Terrorism Situation and Trend Report of Europol released' News Release, The Hague, 10 April 2007. http://www.europol.eu.int/index.asp?page=news&news=pr070410.htm

European Terrorism Situation and trend Report 2007
http://www.europol.eu.int/publications/TESAT/TESAT2007.pdf

And when I do hear about terrorist attacks in Europe the first thing I think of is Gladio...

Illegal War Authorized by Head of Major World Power

Yes, news is that the leader of a major world power has approved a covert attack against a sovereign country, involving propaganda, misinformation, currency manipulation, and, more importantly, support of terrorists.

This is being approved by a very high-ranking official who has a history of being convicted of previous criminal activity against another country, only to be pardoned by the world leader's father when he was the president of his country.

Just imagine if these actions were perpetrated against the US. What would our reaction be?

ABCNews.com/The blotter:

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding' that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

...

Also briefed on the COA proposal, according to intelligence sources, were National Security Adviso Steve Hadley and deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams.

"The entire plan has been blessed by Abrams, in particular," said one intelligence source familiar with the plan." And Hadley had to put his chop on it."

Abrams' last involvement with attempting to destabilize a foreign government led to criminal charges.

He pleaded guilty in October 1991 to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress about the Reagon administrations's ill-fated efforts to destabilize the Nicataguan sandinista government in Central America, known as the Iran-Contra affair. Abrams was later pardoned by President H. W. Bush in December 1992.

In June 2001, Abrams was named by then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to head the National Security Council's office for democracy, human rights and international operations. On Feb. 2, 2005, National Security Advisor Hadley appointed Abrams deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy, one of the nation's most senior national security positions.

As earlier reported on the Blotter on ABSNews.com, the United States has supported and encouraged an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, that has conducted deadly raids inside Iran from bases on the rugged Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan "tri-border region."

U.S. officials deny any "direct funding" of Jundullah groups but say the leader of Jundullah was in regular contact with U.S. officials.

American intelligence sources say Jundullah has received money and weapons through the Afghanistan and Pakistan military and Pakistan's intelligence service. Pakistan has officially denied any connection.

A report broadcast on Iranian TB last Sunday said Iranian authorities had captured 10 men crossing the border with $500,000 in cash along with "maps of sensitive areas" and "modern spy equipment."

(Reminds me of some military leader mentioning in passing last year that the US had had covert agents operating in Iran for many months, passing out stacks of money to groups to stir up trouble.)

Even more striking and dangerously depressing, a quick scan of the first batch of hundreds of comments on this Blotter story reveals that most of them castigate ABC for "treasonously" daring to alert us to these actions. We seem to have entered a new era (or returned to an old one) in which international law is considered "quaint and old fashioned." Since the US is the "sole bastion of freedom and justice," it's quite proper to use covert terror and injustice to further it's aims. And many think it treasonous to mention it!

Remember those Germans back in the 40s who said "We didn't know about the illegal things our government was doing! How could we know? If we knew, we surely wouldn't have let this happen!" And we still held them responsible. Imagine if, instead, they had said, "When people told us about illegal things our country was doing, we didn't dispute it—indeed, we endorsed it!—but instead called the messengers traitors!"

Would we be inclined to forgive them now?