State’s Civilians Sponsored Terrorism- Terrorists ‘R’ Us?

State Sponsored Terrorism when the State is of the People

"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an Air Force" - William Blum

terrorismIn our nation of ‘national security’, where everything is re-defined and justified by the notion of ‘fighting terrorism’, it would be only appropriate to revisit and examine the term ‘terrorism,’ and then go a few steps further and look into its implications.

Almost everyone thinks that they know what ‘terrorism’ is or what constitutes terrorism. There are hundreds of definitions for terrorism varied by cultural, sub-cultural, national, linguistic, political, historical, and numerous other interpretations, perceptions, factors and circumstances. I am going to use the general definition of terrorism under U.S. Law: Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.

innocentsThere is another type of ‘terrorism’ with a slightly different definition which was not commonly used until recently, when our nation’s status changed to a ‘national security’ state: State Sponsored Terrorism. In general state sponsored terrorism refers to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to widespread acts of violence by a state against its own people. In February 2011 I wrote a commentary on the Supreme Court decision which upheld the broad application of a federal law making it a crime to provide “material support” to designated “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs), and I wrote:


Many rational readers agreed with the above assessment- the fact that our government supports terrorist dictators and provides them with financial and other material support. That makes us a state that provides material support to terrorists.

Considering the escalating rate of our government’s undeclared and covert wars around the world, taking into account the tens of thousands of innocent lives lost as a result of these wars, and adding to that our intelligence agencies’ established record on rendition, torture and assassination, I believe some would agree with me on our nation’s terrorizing practices, thus its status as a terrorist state. I know some already do.

Innocents2Now here comes a term that I have not seen used, written or talked about. This may be due to needed denial for a self-perceived need for national pride. This may be due to the severity of the realistic implications that only a few are capable of handling once understood and digested. This is possibly caused by externalization of already acknowledged truths of the atrocities and inhumanities that have been committed by our nation, and are still being committed.

The term I am talking about here is: Nation’s Civilians Sponsored Terrorism. You see it is too vague and abstract when we attribute the atrocious overt and covert wars, inhumane and wide-spread practices of kidnapping, rendition, torture and assassination, to an entity called a government. I believe it is self-preserving, self-serving and convenient to externalize the atrocious practices constituting terrorism to some broad entity called ‘our government.’ It is shrugging off our key role, participation and responsibility when we express our disgust with our government’s atrocities and its terrorization of people around the world.

We may say, ‘…but I don’t agree with these wars. I am against torture. I don’t approve of what my government is doing…’ We may say all that, but the facts say otherwise.

Innocents3We pay our government. It is called taxes. Our government uses the money given to them by us to pay for bombs and drones that are used to kill, burn and handicap people, many if not most who are innocent civilians. Our government spends the money given to them by us to recruit and train assassins, kidnappers and torturers and send them around the globe to inflict terror. Thus, we the people provide direct financial-material support for all the terrorism inflicted by our nation around the world. Our dollars enable and sustain these terrorism practices. Period.

We may say, ‘…they collect these taxes by force and I have no choice but let them take them otherwise I’d be jailed…I don’t want my dollars to go to these terror practices…’ We may cry innocent and helpless, but again, we have no logical-rational-legal ground to stand on. Here is why:

We believe we have a representative government and a democracy. We believe we make choices when we vote. We believe we elect individuals and give them the power and the right to make decisions in our behalf and implement those decisions in our behalf. Well, ‘our’ representatives, those we have willingly given our representation to, are doing just that when they decide on and sanction overt and covert wars, rendition and torture, in short, all those terror practices. They are deciding, as ‘our’ representatives, in ‘our’ behalf to inflict terror. ‘Our’ representatives decide in ‘our’ behalf how much money to collect from us, and what to spend our dollars on. Period.

Now, we either have to come out and say we Americans do NOT have a representative government, we Americans have no freedom or democracy, or, we have to readily claim our role and responsibility and say: we Americans are this representative government’s governed people who decide on, sanction, finance and implement terrorism.

We cannot have it both ways. And there is no other way than the two. We either come out, set aside our nationalistic pride, and say that we do not have a representative government or democracy of any form when it comes to our nation’s governance, or, we proudly pretend our democratic status, and shoulder responsibility for all the terrorism being inflicted in our name. I have yet to see or hear anyone who has come out and recognized his or her status as a terrorist. It simply never happens. As they say, one group or nation’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. When you look at it from the other side, in fact, when you look at it from a logical and rational side, we sponsor and sanction our government’s terror practices, and doesn’t that make the terrorists us?

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  1. Sibel,

    I love everything you write about, and couldn’t agree more. When I use the “Share” function, I am asked for permission for some entity to access my FB information, permission I won’t willingly give. Can you get a different method for sharing that doesn’t include exposing my FB details? To be clear, I like this sight enough that I bought an annual subscription, and encourage anyone I meet to do so as well. Thank you,

  2. Hi Sibel,

    For the most part I agree with you. I’d make the one qualification of pointing out that if someone had done as much as they could to try and elect a government that didn’t do these things and failed because of the apathy or ignorance of the majority that person could say that they had a representative government, just not one representative of them. But, having said that, I’m not in any way sure what would count as having done enough to live up to the implied responsibility, and I’m pretty certain that whatever enough is I fall far short and many others probably do too. So practically speaking we’re in full agreement.

  3. Rich, just copy the url and paste it into your status update. It’ll show up as a post linking to the page. Also, with you on the subscription. Money’s tight, but the reasons why encourage me to invest in this site; it’s well worth it.

  4. @Sam: Thank you, sir. I totally rely on supporters and friends like you to make up for my tecnologically challenged status. One day, hopefully, I’ll have a web master to solve my many many problems/shortcomings.

  5. @ Metem: Thank you for your comment. I was worrying about being misunderstood with this commentary, but I see that our irate minority gets it; they do. I love my country, and I want to be proud to be an American, but I refuse to turn a blind eye to where we are today; I accept responsibility for it. Just like AA meetings, the first step is acknowledging and taking responsibility…Next, I have to find a way to not pay our not-so-representative gov. Temporary relocation? Maybe.

  6. jschoneboom says:

    Well, I’m ready to come out and say it: We Americans do NOT have a representative government, we Americans have no freedom or democracy. What we have is (a very tiny very irate minority surrounded and overwhelmed by) a nation of TV-watching zombies who happily swallow all the lies they’re fed by the insatiable ultra-violent leaders who simultaneously build a police state all around them while they totally fail to notice. Perhaps when the whole place crashes and burns we might rebuild it along the lines of what we once thought it was.

    Erm, not that I’m bitter or anything… ;-)

  7. Bill Bergman says:

    I just sent this to a large local newspaper, asked them to read it and to reflect on the photographs, and to stop cheerleading for the powers that be.

  8. Yes, we are terrorists – absolutely! Americans don’t want to deal with this reality. But I will be in DC later this week wearing a Boiling Frogs t-shirt as part of my fight to end this terror.

    If one major media outlet aired the video and photography I have seen of American terrorist acts perpetrated on people who are guilty of nothing but living in a different country, this shit would end in a month. What did these people do to deserve Americans showing up to destroy their lives? They can’t harm us, and they don’t want to harm us. They are no less human than we are. They have the same hopes and dreams that we do. This is complete madness!

    Can you imagine drone aircraft flying over the U.S. shooting missiles at people on the ground as someone in another country decides who lives and who dies? Do you think fathers forgive us when we explain the mutilation of their wives and children by American soldiers and weapons as collateral damage? Do you think the people that have to live under the yoke of the tyrants we prop up around the world are grateful for our meddling? Is it any surprise that there is widespread resentment and anger toward the United States?

    Americans have no moral high ground on anybody. Has any nation in human history been responsible for more death and destruction than the United States? We will not stop murdering and maiming people in other countries until the day we run out of money. Fortunately for the rest of the world, it appears that day is not far away. And when it comes, the U.S. government will turn its focus on its own people, as they become stressed by economic hardship. The same interests who are behind the terror abroad today will use the same tactics to maintain control at home. It will be at this time that all those Americans who supported the enactment of the Patriot Act and other laws sold to them under the pretense of making them secure will finally realize why the rest of us fought to repeal those same laws for so many years. The Patriot Act and the States Secrets Privilege were never meant to protect Americans from foreign threats, they were designed to protect the powers behind the U.S. government from the American people.

    You cannot understand what is happening in the U.S. and the rest of the world today until you learn the truth about what happened on 9/11.

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