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In a message dated 98-08-26 03:02:21 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< > In "Chomsky for beginners" it said someting like "when they do it its
> terrorism, when we (U$) does it its foreign policy."
You think WE'RE brutal? The Hezbollah targeted a Soviet diplomat in
Beirut - once. Within days, the body of a brother of one of the
Hezbollah leaders was dumped in front of their headquarters, with
his genitals sewn in his mouth. They never hit the Soviets in
Lebanon again. >>
Maybe we're not that brutal but we come pretty close. Thousands of south
americans have been tortured and kill in cruel ways by death squads trained by
the School of the Americas in fort bently. In the SOA the US gov't trains
commandos to assasinate and torure then they go to south america train locals.
they do things like rape a mans wife, sodomize his children then kill him.
Bodies have been found with eyes gouged out.
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by rly-zb03.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
Wed, 26 Aug 1998 03:02:05 -0400 (EDT)
(MDT)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 02:01:21 -0500
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From: "Joe E. Dees" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: STUDIES IN WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: U$ terrorism
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Date sent: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 02:49:43 EDT
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Subject: U$ terrorism
> In "Chomsky for beginners" it said someting like "when they do it its
> terrorism, when we (U$) does it its foreign policy."
You think WE'RE brutal? The Hezbollah targeted a Soviet diplomat in
Beirut - once. Within days, the body of a brother of one of the
Hezbollah leaders was dumped in front of their headquarters, with
his genitals sewn in his mouth. They never hit the Soviets in
Lebanon again.
--part0_904242885_boundary--
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Aug 27 12:58:28 1998
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 14:58:12 EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Query, please?
I just realized that I have spent the last what, week?, reading messages about
killing muslims (note: our newspaper has an AP article stating that the
dreaded bin Ladin had NO economic connections to the pharmacy lab), and
defending one member's plea for a more feminist list.
Those are not the sorts of things I expected from this list. I very much
would like to get off the list, but did not keep my log on info. Could
someone please send the correct info for signing off?
Thanks. You folks are OK, but this is not the list I was looking for.
Madrone
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu Aug 27 13:14:23 1998
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:14:01 EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: (en) Chomsky on Terror
(en) Chomsky on Terror
Date: 98-08-26 11:33:56 EDT
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Flint Jones)
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________
Noam Chomsky discusses Terror
-----------------------------
Is it terrorism to attack terrorists?
Murderous factions have untenable goals and
unlimited bombs
By Allan Thompson
Toronto Star Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA - IN A MACABRE sort of way, terrorism doesn't
seem to make as much sense as it used to.
Shadowy organizations are suddenly front and centre in news
coverage of the terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa,
bombings that prompted counter-attacks by the U.S. military
this week.
Who are these people and what do they want? And is it
terrorism to lash out at a terrorist?
``It's rather different than it used to be in that groups are more
elusive; they are harder to define, harder to track,'' says Reg
Whittaker, a political scientist at York University who
specializes in security issues.
``There is less known about them and they are harder to link
to specific regimes and specific movements,'' Whittaker says.
``In the past, a lot of the iceberg was visible. There's a lot
more of it below the surface now.''
In justifying the reprisal attacks on installations in Afghanistan
and Sudan, U.S. authorities cite the mounting threat of terrorist
attacks on American targets.
Notwithstanding the events of the past few weeks, some
experts say terrorism - politically motivated violence intended
to intimidate and terrify - has actually been on the decline in
recent years.
The most recent issue of a U.S. state department report called
Patterns In Global Terrorism, found there were 304 acts of
international terrorism in 1997 - eight more than 1996, but one
of the lowest annual totals since 1971.
The United States defines terrorism as ``premeditated,
politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine
agents, usually intended to influence an audience.''
The U.S. definition pointedly leaves out any reference to states
and their actions. And it regards soldiers as non-combatants if
they are attacked at a time when there is no state of military
hostilities.
By the state department definition, 221 persons died and 693
were wounded in international terrorist attacks in 1997. That
compares with 314 killed and 2,912 wounded in 1996.
The report says about one-third of attacks last year were
against U.S. targets and most of those consisted of low-level
bombings of multinational oil pipelines in Colombia, which are
regarded by terrorists as U.S. targets.
The predominant type of attack by non-state terrorists in 1997
was bombing; the foremost target was business-related.
Back when one of the main non-state actors involved in
terrorism was the Palestine Liberation Organization, ``there
was much better intelligence about who these people were and
the splinter groups on the fringes,'' Whittaker says.
``You've now got groups whose political roots in specific
conflicts are much more shadowy and hard to find. So you
have groups that are. . . operating with agendas that are harder
to figure out. They're not linked to specific political struggles
the way the Palestinians were,'' Whittaker says.
Of course, despite the definitions, there is no agreement on
what ``terrorism'' means and who should be labelled a
``terrorist.''
Author and U.S. political critic Noam Chomsky is among
those who contend that some of the main practitioners of
terrorism are countries like the United States, which regularly
use violence for political motives, to intimidate and terrify.
In explaining the American strikes on targets in Afghanistan
and Sudan, U.S. President Bill Clinton told Americans he was
determined to strike back at terrorists, to send a message that
such attacks won't be tolerated and to try to head off further
violence.
Chomsky says that if the Clinton doctrine on retaliation is to be
taken literally, ``then all around the world there are countries
that have a perfect right to set off bombs in Washington.''
He points to the recent publication in the New York Times of
evidence that a Miami-based organization was involved in
bombings in Cuba that claimed civilian lives.
And he says that by the same token, Lebanon would have the
right to set off bombs in Israel, ``which is constantly carrying
out terrorist attacks north of what it calls its security zone'' in
southern Lebanon.
``Nobody takes this principle seriously. It is a principle for the
strong, and what it says is that the strong are allowed to attack
the weak and defenceless any time they want to,'' Chomsky
says.
``In response to terrorism, further terrorism is not authorized.
If Cuba or Nicaragua or Lebanon or whatever were to drop
bombs in Washington - although it would be justified under the
Clinton doctrine - it wouldn't be justified in any other sense.
``It's all blatantly illegal, there's nothing more clear than what
the U.N. Charter says about this (use of violence).''
Chomsky says law-abiding states should refrain from using
violence and try to prosecute the perpetrators of terrorist
attacks, rather than resorting to the same tactics.
``People who carry out terrorist attacks are culpable and
should be punished just like any other crime.''
The way to deal with the perpetrators of such violence is to
gather evidence, track them down and seek extradition for
trial, he adds.
While the motives for terrorism are murky at best, there is an
apparent pattern in the methodology.
Despite all the hype and attention to the threat of
unconventional terrorism - chemical or biological attack - the
weapon of choice in recent years seems to have been the car
bomb.
In both domestic and international terrorism in the past two
decades, there has been no more visible trend than car bombs
- the kind used at the U.S. Marine barracks and American
embassy in Beirut, the World Trade Centre in New York, the
federal building in Oklahoma City, the Israeli embassy and the
Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires, and the Khobar
Towers in Saudi Arabia.
In the past, terrorism was often part of the strategy of an
armed national liberation movement and often succeeded in
the end.
Organizations that once engaged in terrorism to bring attention
to their causes - such as the PLO and Irish Republican Army -
later sat down at the negotiating table with their adversaries
and have largely withdrawn from the use of violence.
Whittaker says violence, while ``wrong-headed and immoral,''
was connected to a specific political cause now being
addressed through negotiations.
``You can see that transition there from a kind of broadly
rational use of terror, in a sense - if you want to use those
terms - to where terrorism becomes simply the act of people
who are in a sense political lunatics, who can't connect to a
real political world at all and instead want to play these
murderous games on the margin.''
As Whittaker points out, it is hard to imagine the terms needed
to negotiate with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born millionaire
who is accused of sponsoring terrorism from his base in
Afghanistan.
``Look at the stuff going on today and you have to ask
yourself, what could be done to recognize, is there any
legitimate cause that lies behind this kind of activity that ought
to be addressed and in addressing it, that would reduce this
level of threat?''
Whittaker estimates that terrorism, while marginally less
frequent, has become more lethal and cost effective.
``If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s, and Palestinian
terrorism for example, a lot of it was designed, above all else,
to draw attention to the cause. You had airline hijackings and
so on, not necessarily to endanger a lot of lives but simply to
do something so high-profile that there would be a lot of
attention focussed on the cause,'' he says.
``What you're seeing now are acts that are not demonstrations
in that sense and not clearly, in any obvious way, linked to any
political agendas.''
And Whittaker says there is little evidence that returning fire on
terrorists is a workable strategy.
``There's not a whole lot of evidence that this type of thing
accomplishes a great deal. It's not clear exactly what would be
accomplished in terms of concrete actions that would actually
have effects.''
He says that, because the U.S. is the only remaining
superpower, there is no point entering into the debate about
whether it can throw its weight around.
``The question is not whether they can get away with it, or the
abstract morality of it. To me, the question is, are such attacks
actually productive, are they actually going to achieve the goals
that they are claiming, in reducing terrorism?''
http://www.thestar.com/back_issues/ED19980822/opinion/980822INS04_IN-
TERROR22.html
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