The Boss of International Terrorism -from the book "US Empire of Terrorism

US foreign policy is characterized by state terrorism and military terrorism. First, the US has incessantly used assassinations, military coups and armed invasions to overthrow and dominate the governments of independent, developing countries. Obsessed by the desire for global hegemony in the aftermath of World War II, the US focussed on international terrorism as a lever to wipe out national liberation movements and cut off newly independent nations from the anti-imperialist front. Assassination of foreign leaders is a principal method employed by the US in its agenda of international terrorism. When the progressive Lumumba-led government was established in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960, the US saw it as an obstacle to its strategy of world domination and killed him in an armed attack under the cover of “maintenance of order”. In another instance, when Allende won the presidential election in Chile in September 1970 and thereafter adopted a socialist line the US instigated Pinochet to slay him and restore a pro-US military junta in September 1973. It also conspired to assassinate the independent-minded President Samora Moises Machel of Mozambique by staging a mid-air explosion of his plane. In April 1986, the US sent out 60- odd warplanes to bomb the residence of Libyan leader Muammar al Gaddafi and several other places, leaving his daughter dead. It has also persisted in its attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and other Cuban leaders. The assassinations of prominent leaders of Cyprus and Chile that shocked the world were the result of underhand moves by ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the famed “strategist of diplomacy”, as was disclosed by the recent declassification of diplomatic documents. The list is endless. The military coup is a stock-in-trade of the US in its strategy of attaining world supremacy. In the four decades following World War II, the US has masterminded some 100 coups—30 of them in the Latin American countries of Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Dominica and Brazil. These include the coup that toppled the Goulart-led government of Brazil in 1964, the sole reason for which was its diplomatic relations with Cuba, and the one that overthrew the independent government of Ghana during the President’s visit to foreign countries in 1966. There have also been many abortive coups in Cambodia, Syria, Tanzania, Egypt and other developing countries. A more direct method of international terrorism employed by the US is armed invasion of independent-minded countries. Military inroads by the US into developing nations from the end of World War II to early 1991 numbered 185. To cite just some of these: A 90,000-strong US force was involved in an operation to suppress the national-liberation movement in the Philippines between 1948 and 1953. In April 1961, US bombers pounded Havana, the capital, and several other places in Cuba, and US mercenaries staged an armed provocation at Playa Giron. A blockade by the US navy sparked off the Caribbean crisis in October 1962. Between 1964 and 1973, Laos was invaded by 50,000 US troops, 2,500 warplanes and 40 warships. In 1964, 20,000 US troops were sent forth in a campaign to crush a movement of the people of Panama demanding return of control over the Panama Canal. In April 1965, a revolutionary movement of the Dominican people was suppressed in a joint operation of 38,000 US troops, several hundred aircraft and close to 40 warships. Between 1961 and 1973, a 500,000-strong US force was engaged in the war against Vietnam. In May 1970, the invasion of Cambodia was undertaken by 30,000 US troops, 500 planes and 40 warships. In 1982 and 1983, 1,600 US Marines landed in Lebanon under the guise of a “peacekeeping force”. In October 1983, 15,000 American GIs overran Grenada under the pretext of “instability” in that country and “protection of American lives”. In April 1986, 60-odd US bombers ripped Libya apart. In December 1989, a 22,000-strong US force pounced upon Panama. All these were terrorist wars, as evidenced by the fact that the warfare was conducted from three fronts: the numerical strength of the forces and weapons involved were of an enormous scale; the attacks were justified in terms of the gangster logic of “instability”, “protection of American lives” and “menace to US security”; the bombings were indiscriminate, regardless of national capitals and residences of heads of state, with repeated incursions into a particular country if thought necessary. Let us look at a few more examples of US terrorism. In the spring of 1986, a bomb was detonated at a discotheque in West Berlin, leaving a GI killed and 60 wounded. The investigation disclosed that it was a US set-up, to be used as an excuse to attack Libya. In December 1989, the US marched into Panama under the pretext of “protection of US nationals” and “defence of democracy”, slaughtering civilians and razing towns and villages to the ground. It captured the resistant General Manuel Noriega and sentenced him to 40 years in prison on a charge of “drug trafficking”. The US is a rogue nation that commits acts of arbitrary terrorism against countries advocating equality or sovereignty. It manipulated the mid-air explosion of a Cuban airliner in 1976 and the hijacking of an Egyptian airliner in 1985. A bomb blast in Beirut that killed 80 women and children 13 and wounded 250 was a brainchild of Donald Rumsfeld, the present Defence Secretary of the US, who, as the Middle East envoy in those days, masterminded the planting of a high-powered bomb in a mosque on the outskirts of Beirut, making sure that it detonated when the place of worship was crowded with people. The horrifying slaughters undertaken in Bangladesh and East Timor were at the instance of ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, as was recently revealed by a declassified diplomatic document. In a ghastly show of arrogance, on May 8, 1999, US warplanes fired three missiles at the Chinese embassy in Serbia and Montenegro, causing scores of casualties and destroying the two-storeyed building. This flagrant encroachment upon a sovereign state was then dismissed as an “error of the map” and a “mistake”. The US, being devoid of any sense of international justice and fair play and desperate to bring the UN and international law under its control, is a terrorist state true to type. Second, the US has frequently taken recourse to force of arms in a frantic bid to dominate recalcitrant countries and countries of key strategic importance for reasons of regional hegemony and economic profit. Typical examples are the Gulf War of 1991, the air raids on Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 and the recent war in Afghanistan. In the early morning of January 17, 1991, the US unleashed the Gulf War against Iraq, which saw the mobilization of 450,000 military personnel, 1,300 fighter planes, 1,500 helicopter gunships, 1,000-odd tanks and 2,000 armoured vehicles. In the first 26 days of the 43-day war, all civilian facilities, economic, cultural and religious, were pounded by promiscuous bombing; 20,000 civilians were killed, 60,000 wounded, and economic losses worth 200 billion dollars were incurred. In the 78-day-long Balkan War by the US-led NATO, 900 fighterbombers flew a total 20,000 sorties in 60 days, more than 2,000 cruise missiles were fired and over 10,000 tons of bombs dropped. As a result, 1,300 civilians were killed, 6,000 wounded and 300 schools and 115 healthcare facilities devastated. In the recent and continuing war in Afghanistan, the US employed BLU 82 bombs, a conventional bomb next only to the tactical nuclear bomb in power. As of November 11, 2001, the figure of civilian casualties stood at 2,000. If these weapons of mass destruction had been employed by any other country, the US would have been the first to come out against it, raising a hue and cry. What a heinous “Empire of Evil” it is, indeed! Military commentators agree that the above three wars were typical terrorist wars launched by reactionary forces of domination against civilians. All of them were multi-purpose wars, meant to gain regional influence and economic profit, apart from their military intent. The US seeks to unseat the fractious government of Saddam Hussein and dominate Iraq in pursuit of control over that country’s abundant oil resources and for military-political supremacy in the region. Afghanistan and Central Asia are another region of strategic importance and a major area of natural resources, on which the US has cast a covetous eye. Holding sway over the region will enable the US to hold the rear of Russia and China, secure a bridgehead for inroads into Southwest Asia and enjoy a dominant position over the rich oil deposits in this region including the Caspian Sea. This is why it seeks a permanent presence of its forces now stationed in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, on a number of pretexts. The Balkan War too, though veiled in the disguise of “regional stability”, was a terrorist war designed to demonstrate the might of the US as the only superpower and tighten its control over the region. Third, the US is a sponsor of terrorism and patronizes international terrorists. It has already earmarked 5 million dollars to assist in the rule of Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein. These funds, as distinct from the aid of 4 million dollars supplied to the “National Congress”, the antigovernment force in Iraq, have been allocated to the Washington-based Middle East Institute, one of whose sponsors is Edward Walker, ex Assistant Secretary of State. These funds in aid of terrorism are reportedly geared to supporting a military coup from within Iraq rather than overthrow of its government by those in exile. This fact is a far cry from the habitual US claim that financial channels that provide aid to terrorism should be blocked. The US also continues to support the separatists of Chechnya and denounce Russia’s measures of self-defence, even after it has been confirmed that international terrorists are active there. Recently, in a move rightly seen as tacit approval of Israel’s killing spree, the US was the sole world power to exercise a veto against the UN Security Council resolution on dispatching an international observer group to Palestine. At the same time, within the US itself, terrorists named or indicted by several countries continue to operate under official protection. Those who were engaged in terrorism, subversion and sabotage against Cuba are living in Florida under the wings of the government. Hector, ex-Defence Minister of Guatemala, who was indicted on a charge of slaughter and assassination of thousands of innocent people, has not only taken up his abode in the US but has been awarded the highest academic degree by the Kennedy Policy Institute of Harvard University. Some others in a similar category are Armando Lareus, who killed hundreds of civilians as a secret service agent during the rule of Pinochet in Chile, Gorzi Azak, a notorious terrorist of Argentina, and leaders of “death squads” that killed thousands in El Salvador. It was recently disclosed that Osama bin Laden, targeted by the US as the “boss of terrorism”, had had a long-standing relationship with the Bush family. The bankrupt Enron Corporation not only provided President Bush with election funds but also used 400 million dollars of slush funds as bargaining money to win a contract for laying an oil pipeline after the advent of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, supplying the bulk of the kickbacks to the Taliban leaders. The US, which had illicit financial dealings with the Taliban, is now painting it as the “devil”. The conclusion from this is only too obvious. The US, even as it randomly designates other nations as “state sponsors of terrorism”, is guilty of numerous crimes of backing terrorism. The American newspaper, Baltimore Sun, has described the US as the world’s greatest sponsor of terrorism, and John Fielder, a US peace campaigner, has commented that US fundamentalism is the most important source of global terrorism. The state terrorism or military terrorism of the US is “imperialistic terrorism for hegemony”. The US has 250,000 of its military personnel stationed in 141 countries and 20,000 nuclear warheads at its disposal. These are at potential and constant risk of being used as a means of terrorism to enable its “strategy of expansion”. As a man sows, so shall he reap. The US must plead guilty to terrorism and put a lid on its terrorist activities without any further delay .