By Geoff Kennedy
Political posturing won’t end terrorism. Telling the truth is a good start. To get at the truth, we need to consider it from two different perspectives.
One, there are two kinds of terrorists. The first kind includes the more publicized groups like al-Qaida, the Irish Republican Army, Hamas, the Basque Separatists, and, to some extent, the US abortion clinic bombers. These groups have at times used indiscriminate violence against innocent persons to fight injustices. The second kind includes the death squads in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and South Africa in the apartheid era. These groups have at times used indiscriminate violence against innocent persons to perpetuate injustices. Also in this category are Nazi Germany, the USSR, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, the Philippines, and apparently Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Then we have a whole bunch of dictatorships that eliminate political opponents through murder. Communist Cuba and China come to mind as well as a number of former Soviet Union “republics” and oppressive Asian and African regimes.
We don’t have to worry about the second kind. We’re the world’s only superpower and so no one could use terrorism to continue their power over us.
In the second way of considering terrorism, we should consider terrorism we are not responsible for, terrorism we are partly responsible for, and terrorism we are completely responsible for.
As far as I can tell, we are not responsible for terrorist acts committed by al Qaida, Hamas, the Basque separatists, the Muslim terrorists in the Philippines and the Shining Path terrorists in Peru. One may argue, though, that we contributed to the injustices that the terrorists used to justify their terrorism.
Americans are partly responsible for the Irish Republican Army terrorists in Northern Ireland. Citizens in the New York and Boston areas created their own IRA accounts. In this instance, IRA did not stand for individual retirement accounts, but rather Irish Republican Army. To my knowledge, none of these supporters of terrorism have ever been brought to justice.
But, at least, they used their own money. Which is more than I can say for our government. Our taxes financed the murders of Jean Donovan, Michael Hammer, John Sullivan and Sisters Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clarke, and Ita Ford, US citizens, four of whom were also raped by El Salvador terrorists funded by American taxpayers. Our government also funded state terrorists in the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos and throughout Central and South America.
And we trained terrorists in Panama and later at Ft. Benning, Ga. at the School of the Americas. Like the owners of the Exxon Valdez who renamed the vessel the Sea River Mediterranean, the government tried to cover up the criminal behaviors of the SOA by renaming the place WHINSEC. But whatever name you stick on the place, the fact remains the US government trained people in murder, torture and terrorism. That’s fact, not opinion. Government lies don’t change the truth. Now, there’s ample evidence of the “Salvador Option,” a plan by former Reagan Administration officials to introduce US-funded terrorists into Iraq. If you don’t believe me, you can read about it in “Beyond the Green Zone,” a book by former Anchorage resident Dahr Jamail. Even mainstream media like the January, 2005 Newsweek reported on this US-government-sponsored terrorism.
We Americans are responsible for Ku Klux Klan terrorism against black Americans and civil rights workers. We Americans are responsible because Americans committed these acts of terrorism and other Americans let them. At least one American blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1994. Americans are also responsible for murdering abortion doctors and bombing abortion clinics. And Americans are responsible for the Contras, a terrorist group founded by the US government to intimidate the people of Nicaragua by murdering innocent civilians.
Some may consider the statements above politically incorrect because the idea that Americans encourage, finance and train terrorists and even commit terrorism makes people uncomfortable. Tough. This essay is about truth, not about people’s discomfort. If you think I’m lying, go ahead and google “Contras and terrorism.” I am not blaming America for every evil in the world, but I am blaming us Americans for our actions. I know it’s not fashionable to say these things when it’s so chic to be a right-winger. But I’d rather tell the truth than be fashionable.
After all, the founder of my religion, Jesus Christ, once said, “The truth shall make you free.” Our freedom from terrorism begins by facing the truth about terrorism and our role in it.
The second thing we do about terrorism is follow the advice of that founder of my religion, Jesus: Let him without sin cast the first stone. And before we notice the speck (of terrorism) in our neighbor’s eye, let’s notice the two-by-four (of terrorism) in our own eyes.
The next step in fighting terrorism is getting out of the terrorism business. Round up and prosecute the US-financed terrorists in Iraq. Shut down that abomination, WHINSEC. Kick the murderers and terrorists out of the CIA, NSA and whatever other evil-perpetrating secret agency of the federal government.
Next, stop supporting terrorism. End handouts to governments that oppress their peoples in the name of fighting communism, terrorism and narcotrafficing. Hold the bad guys accountable for their actions, not their phony baloney excuses. Stop simply taking their word for it. As Ronald Reagan used to say, “Trust but verify.”
That goes for Israel, too. I’m not as gullible as my friend, The Sdog, (a Daily News critic who responds to my essays) who says Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty in bright daylight with American flags flying was an “accident.” Maybe in TSd’s make-believe world, if the perps who commit the crime calls it an accident, then it must be an accident. But not in the real world. Let Israel prove it was an accident. I’m no more willing to take Israeli thugs’ word for it than I am to buy that bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island. I wonder if TSd had been around in 1941. Would he have called Pearl Harbor an accident as well?
Unlike TSd, Michael Scheuer lives in the real world. He worked more than 30 years for the CIA on gathering information on the Middle East. He’s not the “liberal” TSd likes to demonize. Scheuer considers Ronald W. Reagan a great president. Scheuer dismisses as pure BS the claim people in the Middle East hate us because we love freedom. Scheuer says the real reasons are these:
1) Osama bin Laden led the 9-11 terrorist attacks in retaliation for stationing US troops in the Holy Land in Saudi Arabia in preparation for attacking Iraq in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. bin Laden considers the use of the sacred land for secular military purposes as blasphemy, a capital offense.
2) The US has consistently supported and financed Israel’s aggression against its neighbors, driving people from their homes and ancestral lands and creating conditions of apartheid, which both Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela consider worse than that they experienced in South Africa.
3) The US has constantly claimed to support democracy while supporting Muslim dictatorships in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Muslims aren’t that dumb; they have lots of experience with phonies in Arab lands and therefore can recognize phony American politicians as well.
Scheuer challenges the myth that Israel is our ally. He says he can’t point to anything Israel has ever done for us. I certainly can’t think of anything Israel has ever done for me to justify confiscating my paycheck to reward the criminal who killed Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer. If that guy had been a Muslim, we would have incinerated him long ago. And his country along with him. And we wouldn’t take his word for it that it was an accident any more than we let Timothy McVeigh or Charles Manson get away with their crimes.
What radio commentator Walter Kiernan said about Vietnam 45 years ago remains just as true today—you can’t kill a mosquito with a steamroller. Scheuer says you can’t fight today’s insurgencies the way we fought World War II—with overwhelming force. Killing innocent civilians and calling them “collateral damage” doesn’t fight terrorism; it encourages terrorists to recruit more terrorists.
Martin Luther King, Jr. told the truth when he said, “Injustice anywhere threatens justice anywhere.” Injustice recruits terrorists. Justice fights terrorism. Once again, Jesus’ advice is good, “Love your neighbors as yourselves…love your enemies.”
The trouble is our politicians don’t really have faith in Jesus’ competence. He may be God and all, they say, but he doesn’t understand the real world the way we do.
Well, let me say I have more faith in him than in them. His advice really works. But not immediately. We have to stay the course. Converting one’s enemies takes time. It took the ancient Christians almost 300 years to conquer Rome. But they didn’t have the internet and they didn’t twitter.
It comes down to this: The only way to fight terrorism is the Jesus way. Replace injustice with justice. Love your enemies and your neighbors as yourselves. Protect the lives of all human beings—not only the unborn, but also the born. Fight the terrorists at the source by cutting off their supplies—the injustices they use for their excuses.
Until and unless we do that, we won’t get serious about fighting terrorism.
