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WHAT IS TERRORISM?
The nation state emerged in the 16th century in order to tax and raise money to subsidize commerce, which at that time was the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company with their government charters, providing them with colonial _monopoly_ power to reach out and touch someone.
Anotherwords, state government was established to expand and exploit and acquire someone else's wealth and protect it at home from the masses using whatever means possible - which required an army or police with legal power to impose violent remedies.
Obviously these new nation states required force also to protect these companies and that necessitated more taxes to pay for the army and the navy to protect transportation - which at that time was mostly shipping, which was to no small degree also slave trading and invasions of conquest to take land and resources away from someone else.
Soon that army was also being used to put down rebellions. This was big government in action by and for the benefit of the property owning classes.
"Laws and governments may be considered in this and indeed in every
case, a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to
themselves the inequality of the goods, which would otherwise be soon
destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the
government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves
by open violence." [Adam Smith]
After the American Revolution, propertied colonists established a government to put down rebellions like the farmer's rebellion led by Danial Shays and to protect wealth.
"They see the weakness of government; they feel at once their own
poverty, compared to the opulent, and their own force, and they are
determined to make use of the latter in order to remedy the former."
[General Henry Knox issued this warning to George Washington]
A constitution was written and "big government" established specifically as Howard Zinn points out in The Progressive in "Big Government for Whom?"
"...to protect the interests of merchants, slaveholders, land
speculators, establish law and order, and avert future rebellions
like that of Shays."
"And so the Constitution set up big government, big enough to protect
slaveholders against slave rebellion, to catch runaway slaves if they
went from one state to another, to pay off bondholders, to pass
tariffs on behalf of manufacturers, to tax poor farmers to pay for
armies that would then attack the farmers if they resisted payment, as
was done in the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794. Much of
this was embodied in the legislation of the first Congress, responding
to the request of the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton."
[IBID]
And that is the way it has been for several hundred years. Government is big in order to protect property not just from outsiders, but from impoverished insiders who wish to throw off their shackles of oppression. Government will always defend those special interests and that is why there is no difference between various political parties who represent the same special interests. That is why there is little difference between a Bill Clinton and a George Bush. That is why we give subsidies to airlines and none to the businesses which folded as a result of the terrorist attack on NY and Washington. It is why we saved the railroads and the automobile industry. Jobs were an excuse but they were secondary and inconsequential to profits.
Governments also support insurgents to influence and alter the results of elections, often preferring a dictatorship to a democracy, if the dictator we support will do business with us. There is a saying that "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter - and a government's terrorist is really another governments freedom fighter. We thought nothing about supporting right wing death squads in South America if it furthered the interests of the ruling elites, but to the people they were terrorists.
There should be a world-wide debate on the subject of terrorism in lieu of this blanket acceptance of who President Bush tells us is a terrorist. What kind of proof have they ever given us? Often they accuse and later they excuse but they never make their case.
A massive, cold-blooded destruction of human lives and property is the result of violence. Violence exists when people are hungry and when they lose their freedom. When we back the wrong people or impose our values on other people or take their resources for our own while they continue to starve or lack medical care or work for slave wages and we do that to them, we are in effect causing violence which could be avoided.
If world organizations are having a difficult time finding an acceptable definition of terrorism, it is because they lack the will and courage to define official "state" terrorism. State terrorism has the effect of generating rebellion, just like Shays Rebellion, which was caused by a revolutionary government which benefited the rich and ignored the people.
The U.S. does not give the same weight to state sponsored terrorism as it does to individual acts of terrorism. The U.S. definition of terrorism would make Nelson Mandela a terrorist who at times used violence to overthrow a legitimate but very bad regime. How about anyone who _fought_ for independence? How about George Washington? How about Jomo Kenyatta and his Mau Mau? What about Jonas Savimbi and his UNITA Movement? The U.S. considered the Contras a legitimate organization who fought against the Sandandistas and was supported by the U.S., but the Contras often murdered their opposition. What about Foday Sankoh and his RUF (Revolutionary United Front), or John Garang and the Sudan People's Liberation Army, or Arafat and the PLO who the U.S. now meets with and expects Israel to make concesssions with (as they must)? And what about Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda?
TheGolem http://pnews.org/
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http://pnews.org/art/5art/ourFLAG.shtml
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http://pnews.org/art/1art/AFFORDbasics.shtml
(Struggle to Afford Basic Necessities)
http://pnews.org/art/5art/warHORROR.shtml
(RACIST WAR Against Arabs)