Sunday, Jul 6, 2008
Do you distinguish between different kinds of terrorism, and if so, how?
There are different kinds. The U.S., of course, did declare a war on terrorism 20 years ago. The Reagan administration came into office announcing that the war on terrorism would be the core of U.S. foreign policy. To quote Reagan and George Schultz, terrorism was condemned as a war carried out by depraved opponents of civilization itself, a return to barbarism in our time, an evil scourge. They were concerned primarily with what they called state-sponsored international terrorism. So the Oklahoma City bombing was terrorism but not state-supported international terrorism.
I take terrorism to be just how they define it. By that standard, it's uncontroversial that the United States is a leading terrorist state. In fact, it's the only state that was condemned for international terrorism by the highest bodies: the International Court of Justice in 1986 [for backing Contra forces against Nicaragua] and the supporting resolution of the Security Council which followed shortly after that. The United States vetoed it.
How do you distinguish between what you consider U.S. terrorism and al-Qaida's terrorism on Sept. 11?
One is state terrorism and the other is private terrorism.
How do you think both cases should be addressed?
Nicaragua dealt with the problem of terrorism in exactly the right way. It followed international law and treaty obligations. It collected evidence, brought the evidence to the highest existing tribunal, the International Court of Justice, and received a verdict -- which of course the U.S. dismissed with contempt. The court called upon the United States to terminate the crime and pay substantial reparations. The U.S. responded by immediately escalating the war; new funding was provided. In fact, the U.S. official orders shifted to more extreme terrorism. The Contra forces were encouraged to attack "soft targets," as they were called, or undefended civilian targets, and avoid combat with the Nicaraguan army.
It continued until 1990. Nicaragua followed all the right procedures, but of course, couldn't get anywhere because the U.S. simply did not adhere to it. In that case, there was no need to carry out a police investigation. The facts were clear.
And al-Qaida?
In the case of something like al-Qaida terrorism -- I presume like everyone else that al-Qaida was responsible for Sept. 11, or some network very much like it -- the right approach has been laid out by others. For example, in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, there's an article by the preeminent Anglo-American military historian, Michael Howard, a very conservative figure, who's very supportive of U.S. policy and British policy.
I don't agree with a lot of what Howard says about history, but his recommendation seems to make sense. He says that the right way to deal with criminal atrocities like the al-Qaida bombings is careful police work; a criminal investigation carried out by international authorities; the use of internationally sanctioned means, which could include force, to apprehend the criminals; bring the criminals to justice; ensure that they have fair trials and international tribunals. That sounds to me like sound judgement. It's also been proposed by the Vatican and innumerable others. So it's not only my opinion.
Do you think that American force is justified in the case of self-defense?
Sure, anybody is entitled to self-defense. That's Article 51 of the U.N. charter. However, it's very hard to find such cases. Nicaragua, for example, was entitled to the use of violence in self-defense. They didn't follow that but they would have been entitled to because they were certainly under attack.
Nicaragua's not the only case. All through Latin America, there's sharp condemnation of the criminal atrocities of Sept. 11. But it's qualified by the observation that although these are horrible atrocities, they are not unfamiliar. The Jesuit University in Managua's research journal, Envio, says that yes, [Sept. 11] could be called Armageddon but we're familiar with our own Armageddon. They describe the assault on Nicaragua, which was no small thing. Tens of thousands of people were killed and the country was practically destroyed during the Contra war.
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