'War on Terror'

Full text of the Amnesty International Annual Lecture Hosted by TrinityCollege

"Terror" is a term that rightly arouses strongemotions and deep concerns. The primary concern should, naturally, be to takemeasures to alleviate the threat, which has been severe in the past, and will beeven more so in the future. To proceed in a serious way, we have to establishsome guidelines. Here are a few simple ones:

(1) Facts matter, even if we do not like them.

(2) Elementary moral principles matter, even if they have consequences thatwe would prefer not to face.

(3) Relative clarity matters. It is pointless to seek a truly precisedefinition of "terror," or of any other concept outside of the hard sciencesand mathematics, often even there. But we should seek enough clarity at least todistinguish terror from two notions that lie uneasily at its borders: aggressionand legitimate resistance.

If we accept these guidelines, there are quite constructive ways to deal withthe problems of terrorism, which are quite severe. It’s commonly claimed thatcritics of ongoing policies do not present solutions. Check the record, and Ithink you will find that there is an accurate translation for that charge: "Theypresent solutions, but I don’t like them."

Suppose, then, that we accept these simple guidelines.

Let’s turn to the "War on Terror." Since factsmatter, it matters that the War was not declared by George W. Bush on 9/11, butby the Reagan administration 20 years earlier. They came into office declaringthat their foreign policy would confront what the President called "the evilscourge of terrorism," a plague spread by "depraved opponents ofcivilization itself" in "a return to barbarism in the modern age"(Secretary of State George Shultz). The campaign was directed to a particularlyvirulent form of the plague: state-directed international terrorism. The mainfocus was Central America and the Middle East, but it reached to southern Africaand Southeast Asia and beyond.

A second fact is that the war was declared and implemented by pretty much thesame people who are conducting the re-declared war on terrorism. The civiliancomponent of the re-declared War on Terror is led by John Negroponte, appointedlast year to supervise all counterterror operations. As Ambassador in Honduras,he was the hands-on director of the major operation of the first War on Terror,the contra war against Nicaragua launched mainly from US bases in Honduras. I’llreturn to some of his tasks. The military component of the re-declared War ledby Donald Rumsfeld. During the first phase of the War on Terror, Rumsfeld wasReagan’s special representative to the Middle East. There, his main task wasto establish close relations with Saddam Hussein so that the US could providehim with large-scale aid, including means to develop WMD, continuing long afterthe huge atrocities against the Kurds and the end of the war with Iran. Theofficial purpose, not concealed, was Washington’s responsibility to aidAmerican exporters and "the strikingly unanimous view" of Washington and itsallies Britain and Saudi Arabia that "whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader,he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country’s stabilitythan did those who have suffered his repression" -- New York TimesMiddle East correspondent Alan Cowell, describing Washington’s judgment asGeorge Bush I authorized Saddam to crush the Shi’ite rebellion in 1991, whichprobably would have overthrown the tyrant.

Saddam is at last on trial for his crimes. The first trial, now underway, isfor crimes he committed in 1982. 1982 happens to be an important year in US-Iraqrelations. It was in 1982 that Reagan removed Iraq from the list of statessupporting terror so that aid could flow to his friend in Baghdad. Rumsfeld thenvisited Baghdad to confirm the arrangements. Judging by reports and commentary,it would be impolite to mention any of these facts, let alone to suggest thatsome others might be standing alongside Saddam before the bar of justice.Removing Saddam from the list of states supporting terrorism left a gap. It wasat once filled by Cuba, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the US terroristwars against Cuba from 1961 had just peaked, including events that would be onthe front pages right now in societies that valued their freedom, to which I’llbriefly return. Again, that tells us something about the real elite attitudestowards the plague of the modern age.

Since the first War on Terror was waged by those now carrying out theredeclared war, or their immediate mentors, it follows that anyone seriouslyinterested in the re-declared War on Terror should ask at once how it wascarried out in the 1980s. The topic, however, is under a virtual ban. Thatbecomes understandable as soon as we investigate the facts: the first War onTerror quickly became a murderous and brutal terrorist war, in every corner ofthe world where it reached, leaving traumatized societies that may neverrecover. What happened is hardly obscure, but doctrinally unacceptable,therefore protected from inspection. Unearthing the record is an enlighteningexercise, with enormous implications for the future.

These are a few of the relevant facts, and they definitely do matter.

Let’s turn to the second of the guidelines:elementary moral principles. The most elementary is a virtual truism: decentpeople apply to themselves the same standards that they apply to others, if notmore stringent ones. Adherence to this principle of universality would have manyuseful consequences. For one thing, it would save a lot of trees. The principlewould radically reduce published reporting and commentary on social andpolitical affairs. It would virtually eliminate the newly fashionable disciplineof Just War theory. And it would wipe the slate almost clean with regard to theWar on Terror. The reason is the same in all cases: the principle ofuniversality is rejected, for the most part tacitly, though sometimesexplicitly. Those are very sweeping statements. I purposely put them in a starkform to invite you to challenge them, and I hope you do. You will find, I think,that although the statements are somewhat overdrawn – purposely -- theynevertheless are uncomfortably close to accurate, and in fact very fullydocumented. But try for yourselves and see.

This most elementary of moral truisms is sometimes upheld at least in words.One example, of critical importance today, is the Nuremberg Tribunal. Insentencing Nazi war criminals to death, Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counselfor the United States, spoke eloquently, and memorably, on the principle ofuniversality. "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes," hesaid, "they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germanydoes them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conductagainst others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us....Wemust never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is therecord on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants apoisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

That is a clear and honorable statement of the principle of universality. Butthe judgment at Nuremberg itself crucially violated this principle. The Tribunalhad to define "war crime" and "crimes against humanity." It craftedthese definition very carefully so that crimes are criminal only if they werenot committed by the allies. Urban bombing of civilian concentrations wasexcluded, because the allies carried it out more barbarically than the Nazis.And Nazi war criminals, like Admiral Doenitz, were able to plead successfullythat their British and US counterparts had carried out the same practices. Thereasoning was outlined by Telford Taylor, a distinguished international lawyerwho was Jackson’s Chief Counsel for War Crimes. He explained that "to punishthe foe – especially the vanquished foe – for conduct in which the enforcingnation has engaged, would be so grossly inequitable as to discredit the lawsthemselves." That is correct, but the operative definition of "crime" alsodiscredits the laws themselves. Subsequent Tribunals are discredited by the samemoral flaw, but the self-exemption of the powerful from international law andelementary moral principle goes far beyond this illustration, and reaches tojust about every aspect of the two phases of the War on Terror.

Let’s turn to the third background issue: defining"terror" and distinguishing it from aggression and legitimate resistance. Ihave been writing about terror for 25 years, ever since the Reaganadministration declared its War on Terror. I’ve been using definitions thatseem to be doubly appropriate: first, they make sense; and second, they are theofficial definitions of those waging the war. To take one of these officialdefinitions, terrorism is "the calculated use of violence or threat ofviolence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological innature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear," typicallytargeting civilians. The British government’s definition is about the same:"Terrorism is the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging ordisrupting, and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the publicand is for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideologicalcause." These definitions seem fairly clear and close to ordinary usage. Therealso seems to be general agreement that they are appropriate when discussing theterrorism of enemies.

But a problem at once arises. These definitions yield an entirelyunacceptable consequence: it follows that the US is a leading terrorist state,dramatically so during the Reaganite war on terror. Merely to take the mostuncontroversial case, Reagan’s state-directed terrorist war against Nicaraguawas condemned by the World Court, backed by two Security Council resolutions(vetoed by the US, with Britain politely abstaining). Another completely clearcase is Cuba, where the record by now is voluminous, and not controversial. Andthere is a long list beyond them.

We may ask, however, whether such crimes as the state-directed attack againstNicaragua are really terrorism, or whether they rise to the level of the muchhigher crime of aggression. The concept of aggression was defined clearly enoughby Justice Jackson at Nuremberg in terms that were basically reiterated in anauthoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposedto the Tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "Invasionof its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory ofanother State," or "Provision of support to armed bands formed in theterritory of another State, or refusal, notwithstanding the request of theinvaded State, to take in its own territory, all the measures in its power todeprive those bands of all assistance or protection." The first provisionunambiguously applies to the US-UK invasion of Iraq. The second, just asclearly, applies to the US war against Nicaragua. However, we might give thecurrent incumbents in Washington and their mentors the benefit of the doubt,considering them guilty only of the lesser crime of international terrorism, ona huge and unprecedented scale.

It may also be recalled the aggression was defined at Nuremberg as "thesupreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that itcontains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" – all the evil inthe tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example, andin Nicaragua too, if the charge is not reduced to international terrorism. Andin Lebanon, and all too many other victims who are easily dismissed on groundsof wrong agency – right to the present. A week ago (January 13), a CIApredator drone attacked a village in Pakistan, murdering dozens of civilians,entire families, who just happened to live in a suspected al-Qaeda hideout. Suchroutine actions elicit little notice, a legacy of the poisoning of the moralculture by centuries of imperial thuggery.

The World Court did not take up the charge of aggression in the Nicaraguacase. The reasons are instructive, and of quite considerable contemporaryrelevance. Nicaragua’s case was presented by the distinguished HarvardUniversity law professor Abram Chayes, former legal adviser to the StateDepartment. The Court rejected a large part of his case on the grounds that inaccepting World Court jurisdiction in 1946, the US had entered a reservationexcluding itself from prosecution under multilateral treaties, including the UNCharter. The Court therefore restricted its deliberations to customaryinternational law and a bilateral US-Nicaragua treaty, so that the more seriouscharges were excluded. Even on these very narrow grounds, the Court chargedWashington with "unlawful use of force" – in lay language, internationalterrorism – and ordered it to terminate the crimes and pay substantialreparations. The Reaganites reacted by escalating the war, also officiallyendorsing attacks by their terrorist forces against "soft targets,"undefended civilian targets. The terrorist war left the country in ruins, with adeath toll equivalent to 2.25 million in US per capita terms, more than thetotal of all wartime casualties in US history combined. After the shatteredcountry fell back under US control, it declined to further misery. It is now thesecond poorest country in Latin America after Haiti – and by accident, alsosecond after Haiti in intensity of US intervention in the past century. Thestandard way to lament these tragedies is to say that Haiti and Nicaragua are"battered by storms of their own making," to quote the Boston Globe, at theliberal extreme of American journalism. Guatemala ranks third both in misery andintervention, more storms of their own making.

In the Western canon, none of this exists. All is excluded not only fromgeneral history and commentary, but also quite tellingly from the hugeliterature on the War on Terror re-declared in 2001, though its relevance canhardly be in doubt.

These considerations have to do with the boundarybetween terror and aggression. What about the boundary between terror andresistance? One question that arises is the legitimacy of actions to realize "theright to self-determination, freedom, and independence, as derived from theCharter of the United Nations, of people forcibly deprived of that right...,particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation..."Do such actions fall under terror or resistance? The quoted word are from themost forceful denunciation of the crime of terrorism by the UN General Assembly;in December 1987, taken up under Reaganite pressure. Hence it is obviously animportant resolution, even more so because of the near-unanimity of support forit. The resolution passed 153-2 (Honduras alone abstaining). It stated that "nothingin the present resolution could in any way prejudice the right toself-determination, freedom, and independence," as characterized in the quotedwords.

The two countries that voted against the resolution explained their reasonsat the UN session. They were based on the paragraph just quoted. The phrase "colonialand racist regimes" was understood to refer to their ally apartheid SouthAfrica, then consummating its massacres in the neighboring countries andcontinuing its brutal repression within. Evidently, the US and Israel could notcondone resistance to the apartheid regime, particularly when it was led byNelson Mandela’s ANC, one of the world’s "more notorious terrorist groups,"as Washington determined at the same time. Granting legitimacy to resistanceagainst "foreign occupation" was also unacceptable. The phrase wasunderstood to refer to Israel’s US-backed military occupation, then in its20th year. Evidently, resistance to that occupation could not be condonedeither, even though at the time of the resolution it scarcely existed: despiteextensive torture, degradation, brutality, robbery of land and resources, andother familiar concomitants of military occupation, Palestinians underoccupation still remained "Samidin," those who quietly endured.

Technically, there are no vetoes at the General Assembly. In the real world,a negative US vote is a veto, in fact a double veto: the resolution is notimplemented, and is vetoed from reporting and history. It should be added thatthe voting pattern is quite common at the General Assembly, and also at theSecurity Council, on a wide range of issues. Ever since the mid-1960s, when theworld fell pretty much out of control, the US is far in the lead in SecurityCouncil vetoes, Britain second, with no one else even close. It is also of someinterest to note that a majority of the American public favors abandonment ofthe veto, and following the will of the majority even if Washington disapproves,facts virtually unknown in the US, or I suppose elsewhere. That suggests anotherconservative way to deal with some of the problems of the world: pay attentionto public opinion.

Terrorism directed or supported by the most powerful states continues to thepresent, often in shocking ways. These facts offer one useful suggestion as tohow to mitigate the plague spread by "depraved opponents of civilizationitself" in "a return to barbarism in the modern age": Stop participatingin terror and supporting it. That would certainly contribute to the proclaimedobjections. But that suggestion too is off the agenda, for the usual reasons.When it is occasionally voiced, the reaction is reflexive: a tantrum about howthose who make this rather conservative proposal are blaming everything on theUS.

Even with careful sanitization of discussion, dilemmasconstantly arise. One just arose very recently, when Luis Posada Carrilesentered the US illegally. Even by the narrow operative definition of "terror,"he is clearly one of the most notorious international terrorists, from the 1960sto the present. Venezuela requested that he be extradited to face charges forthe bombing of a Cubana airliner in Venezuela, killing 73 people. The chargesare admittedly credible, but there is a real difficulty. After Posadamiraculously escaped from a Venezuelan prison, the liberal Boston Globe reports,he "was hired by US covert operatives to direct the resupply operation for theNicaraguan contras from El Salvador" – that is, to play a prominent role interrorist atrocities that are incomparably worse than blowing up the Cubanaairliner.