United States and state terrorism

Several scholars have accused the United States of conducting state terrorism. They have written about the liberal democracies and their use of state terrorism, particularly in relation to the Cold War. According to them, state terrorism was used to protect the interest of capitalist elites, and the U.S. organized a neo-colonial system of client states, co-operating with local elites to rule through terror. However, little of this work has been recognized by other scholars of terrorism or even of state terrorism.

Notable works include Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's The political economy of human rights (1979), Herman's The real terror network (1985), Alexander L. George' Western state terrorism (1991), Frederick Gareau's State terrorism and the United States (2004) and Doug Stokes' America's other war (2005). Of these, Chomsky and Herman are considered the foremost writers on the United States and state terrorism.

Notable works
Beginning in the late 1970s, Chomsky and Herman wrote a series of books on the United States and state terrorism. Their writings coincided with reports by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations of a new global "epidemic" of state torture and murder. Chomsky and Herman observed that terror was concentrated in the U.S. sphere of influence in the Third World, and documented terror carried out by U.S. client states in Latin America. They observed that of ten Latin American countries that had death squads, all were U.S. client states. Worldwide, 74% of countries that used torture on an administrative basis were U.S. client states, receiving military and other support to retain power. They concluded that the global rise in state terror was a result of U.S. foreign policy.

In 1991, a book edited by Alexander L. George also argued that other Western powers sponsored terror in Third World countries. It concluded that the U.S. and its allies were the main supporters of terrorism throughout the world. Gareau states that the number of deaths caused by non-state terrorism (3668 deaths between 1968 and 1980, as estimated by the CIA) is "dwarfed" by those resulting from state terrorism in U.S.-backed regimes such as Guatemala (150,000 killed, 50,000 missing in Guatemala - 93% of whom Gareau classifies as "victims of state terrorism").

Chomsky concluded that all powers backed state terrorism in client states. At the top were the U.S. and other powers, notably the United Kingdom and France, that provided financial, military and diplomatic support to Third World regimes kept in power through violence. These governments acted together with multinational corporations, particularly in the arms and security industries. In addition, other Third World countries outside the Western sphere of influence carried out state terror supported by rival powers.

The involvement of major powers in state terrorism in Third World countries has led scholars to study it as a global phenomenon, rather than study individual countries in isolation.

Definition
The United States legal definition of terrorism excludes acts done by recognized states. According to U.S. law (22 U.S.C. 2656f(d)(2)) terrorism is defined as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience".  There is no international consensus on a legal or academic definition of terrorism. United Nations conventions have failed to reach consensus on a definition of terrorism and state terrorism.

According to professor Mark Selden, "American politicians and most social scientists definitionally exclude actions and policies of the United States and its allies" as terrorism. Historian Henry Commager wrote that "Even when definitions of terrorism allow for state terrorism, state actions in this area tend to be seen through the prism of war or national self-defense, not terror.” According to Dr Myra Williamson "The meaning of “terrorism” has undergone a transformation. During the reign of terror a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary state against the enemies of the people. Now the term “terrorism" is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by non-state or subnational entities against a state.

In State terrorism and the United States Frederick F. Gareau writes that the intent of terrorism is to intimidate or coerce both targeted groups and larger sectors of society that share or could be led to share the values of targeted groups by causing them "intense fear, anxiety, apprehension, panic, dread and/or horror". The objective of terrorism against the state is to force governments to change their policies, to overthrow governments or even to destroy the state. The objective of terrorism by the state, or "state terrorism", is to eliminate people who are considered to be actual or potential enemies, and to discourage those actual or potential enemies who are not eliminated.

General critiques
Professor William Odom, formerly President Reagan's NSA Director wrote:

"As many critics have pointed, out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world."

Professor Richard Falk has argued that the U.S. and other first-world states, as well as mainstream mass media institutions, have obfuscated the true character and scope of terrorism, promulgating a one-sided view from the standpoint of first-world privilege. He has said that
 * if 'terrorism' as a term of moral and legal opprobrium is to be used at all, then it should apply to violence deliberately targeting civilians, whether committed by state actors or their non-state enemies.

Falk has argued that the repudiation of authentic non-state terrorism is insufficient as a strategy for mitigating it. Falk also argued that people who committed "terrorist" acts against the United States could use the Nuremberg Defense.

Daniel Schorr, reviewing Falk's Revolutionaries and Functionaries, argued that Falk's definition of terrorism hinges on some unstated definition of "permissible"; this, says Schorr, makes the judgment of what is terrorism inherently "subjective", and furthermore, he suggests, leads Falk to characterize some acts he considers impermissible as "terrorism", but others he considers permissible as merely "terroristic".

In a review of Chomsky and Herman's The Political Economy of Human Rights, Yale political science professor James S. Fishkin argues that the authors' case for accusing the United States of state terrorism is "shockingly overstated". Fishkin writes of Chomsky and Herman: They infer an extent of American control and coordination comparable to the Soviet role in Eastern Europe. ... Yet even if all [the authors'] evidence were accepted... it would add up to no more than systematic support, not control. Hence the comparison to Eastern Europe appears grossly overstated. And from the fact that we give assistance to countries that practice terror it is too much to conclude that "Washington has become the torture and political murder capital of the world." Chomsky's and Herman's indictment of US foreign policy is thus the mirror image of the Pax Americana rhetoric they criticize: it rests on the illusion of American omnipotence throughout the world. And because they refuse to attribute any substantial independence to countries that are, in some sense, within America's sphere of influence, the entire burden for all the political crimes of the non-communist world can be brought home to Washington. Fishkin praises Chomsky and Herman for documenting human rights violations, but argues that this is evidence "for a far lesser moral charge", namely, that the United States could have used its influence to prevent certain governments from committing acts of torture or murder but chose not to do so.

Commenting on Chomsky's 9-11, former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett said: "Chomsky says in the book that the United States is a leading terrorist state. That's a preposterous and ridiculous claim. ... What we have done is liberated Kuwait, helped in Bosnia and the Balkans. We have provided sanctuary for people of all faiths, including Islam, in the United States. We tried to help in Somalia. ... Do we have faults and imperfections? Of course. The notion that we're a leading terrorist state is preposterous."

Stephen Morris also criticized Chomsky's thesis: "There is only one regime which has received arms and aid from the United States, and which has a record of brutality that is even a noticeable fraction of the brutality of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao, or the Hanoi Politburo. That is the Suharto government in Indonesia. But....the United States was not the principal foreign supplier of Indonesia when the generals seized power (nor is there any credible evidence of American involvement in the coup).  Within the period of American assistance to Indonesia, and in particular during the period of the Carter administration, the number of political prisoners has declined.  Finally, the current brutality of the Suharto regime is being directed against the people of East Timor, a former colony of Portugal that Indonesia is attempting to take over by force....not as part of its normal process of domestic rule."