- CIA director George Tenet told the Senate
Intelligence Committee that there is every reason to expect more terror
attacks in the coming months, because al-Qaida has not been destroyed.
He is probably right, and he might have gone on to note that government
has failed in its promise to protect Americans against terrorism, and that
would-be terrorists of the world are now more motivated than ever before..
This should raise some fundamental questions about the whole rationale
of the war and U.S. foreign policy.
In a 1997 report on the scourge of terrorism, the Pentagon's Defense Science
Board observed: "Historical data show a strong correlation between
U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist
attacks against the United States."[1] Recognizing that fact is crucial
to understanding why both terror and the response to terror have become
such grave threats to freedom and prosperity.
As a part of its status as the worldís only "superpower,"
the U.S. is the only country in the world that actively attempts to police
regions outside its own, so it should come as no surprise that one-third
of all terrorist attacks worldwide are perpetrated against U.S. targets.
Far from providing security, U.S. policy is stirring up security threats,
even as the government uses the aftermath of successful attacks as rationales
to expand government power.
Letís recount some highlights of the last half-century of terror
in light of U.S. foreign policy:
* November 1, 1950: Puerto Rican nationalists attempt to assassinate President
Truman. In 1954, the House of Representatives would be sprayed with gunfire,
wounding five congressmen. In 1973 and again in 1974, bombs would be set
off in New York City. In 1975, the FALN would plant bombs in New York,
Chicago and Washington, D.C., killing several people and wounding dozens.
-
- * June 5, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy is
assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant who regarded RFK
as a collaborator with Israel.
-
- * March 1971: The U.S. Senate is bombed
again. Suspected this time are opponents of the Vietnam fiasco.
-
- * November 4, 1979: Supporters of the
Ayatollah Khomeini storm the U.S. embassy in Teheran in anger at the longtime
U.S. support for the Shah's despotic regime. It would not be until two
years later that the hostages would be freed.
-
- * December 1979: A mob of Iranians burns
down the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, Libya. Iranian-sponsored terrorism against
the United States is promoted as a just cause in retaliation for U.S. support
for the Shah and Israel.
-
- * April 8, 1983: The Iranian-backed Hezbollah
bombs the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The attack kills 17 Americans.
All attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon around this time are in retaliation
for the U.S. openly choosing sides, supporting the Christian government
against the Muslim militias by training and arming the Lebanese National
Army (the LNA). U.S. Marines even began patrolling with the LNA, and the
U.S. Navy and Marines began shelling the Muslims to support the LNA.
-
- * October 23, 1983: A suicide truck-bomber
from Hezbollah attacks the U.S. embassy and destroys the U.S. Marine barracks
in Beirut, killing 290 people and wounding 200 more. The U.S. Marines soon
withdraw from Beirut. A Hezbollah spokesman brags that it took only two
"martyrs" to force the Marines out of Lebanon: one who blew up
the embassy, and the other who drove the truck that destroyed the Marine
barracks. In September 1984, Hezbollah would bomb the U.S. embassy annex
in East Beirut, killing 23 people and wounding four Marine guards. During
the 1980s, Hezbollah would kidnap 19 American diplomats, educators, businessm
-
- * March 1986: The largest peacetime American
naval armada ever assembled sails across the "line of death,"
which, according to Khadafy, marks Libyan territorial waters in the Gulf
of Sidra. Fulfilling the predictions of U.S. defense analysts, he shoots
off missiles at the fleet. U.S. forces then destroy a missile site and
three Libyan naval craft. In retaliation, Khadafy sponsors the bombing
on April 5, 1986, of the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin, which killed
an American soldier and a Turkish woman. On April 15, 1986 (two weeks after
the "line of death" incident in late March), the U.S. retaliates
for the La Belle bombing with air strikes against Libya
-
- According to the Defense Science Board
(and contrary to neocon belief), these air strikes did not cause Khadafy
to abandon terrorism. In fact, he expanded his terrorist campaign against
Western Europe to the United States. (See the next eight entries.) Beginning
in April 1986, State Department analysts began to link Libyan terrorist
agents to an average of one attack per month against U.S. targets. Some
examples of these are:
-
- * April 1986: An American hostage in
Lebanon is sold to Libya and executed.
-
- * 1986: Libyans attempt to blow up the
U.S. embassy in LomÈ, Togo.
-
- * September 1987: Abu Nidal, working
for Libya, hijacks Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan. Several Americans
are killed during the hijacking.
-
- * April 12, 1988: A Japanese Red Army
operative with three bombs is arrested in New Jersey with a plan to attack
a military base in the United States. The attack has been timed to coincide
with the second anniversary of the U.S. air strikes on Libya.
-
- * April 14, 1988: The Japanese Red Army,
under contract from Abu Nidal, plants a bomb at the USO military club in
Naples, Italy, to coincide with the anniversary. Five people are killed.
-
- * December 1988: Two Libyan intelligence
agents allegedly bomb Pan Am Flight 103. The bomb kills 270 people, 200
of whom were Americans.
-
- * 1988: Libyan agents bomb U.S. library
facilities in Peru, Colombia, and Costa Rica.
-
- * September 1989: Libyan agents recruit
a Chicago gang to shoot down U.S. airliners with shoulder-fired missiles,
the same type so generously given to the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan
in the late '70s and the '80s. The plot, fortunately, is foiled.
-
- * March 10, 1989: The wife of the commander
of the U.S.S. Vincennes is pipe-bombed in retaliation for the July 3, 1988,
shooting down of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf that killed
290 civilians.
-
- * March 31, 1990: Four terrorists attack
a U.S. Air Force bus in Honduras. Eight people are injured. The Moranzanist
Patriotic Front claims responsibility, to protest U.S. military presence
in Honduras.
-
- * May 13, 1990: New People's Army assassins
kill two U.S. airmen near Clark Air Base in the Philippines.
-
- * May 1990: A group led by Ramzi Yousef
assassinates, in the United States, Rabbi Meir Kahane, leader of the Jewish
Defense League. The murder would later be discovered to be a part of a
larger revenge campaign against U.S. foreign policy--a campaign that included
the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
-
- * January 2, 1991: A U.S. military helicopter
is shot down by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front militants
(a Marxist guerrilla group) in San Miguel, El Salvador. The two crewmen
are then executed, most likely because the U.S. provided military aid and
advisers to the government of El Salvador.
-
- * Mid-January to late February 1991 (during
the Persian Gulf War): The number of terrorist attacks on American targets
all over the world sharply increases: 120, compared with 17 over the same
period in 1990. Terrorism analysts label these incidents "freelance"
Iraqi-inspired terrorism.
-
- * March 12, 1991: A U.S. Air Force sergeant
is blown up at the entrance to his residence in Athens, Greece. The deadliest
terrorist group in Greece, known as November 17, claims responsibility
and says the attacks are in response to "American imperialism-nationalism."
-
- * March 28, 1991: Three U.S. Marines
driving near Jubial, Saudi Arabia, are shot by an Arab.
-
- * October 28, 1991: Turkish Islamic Jihad
claims responsibility for a car bomb that kills a U.S. Air Force sergeant.
-
- * June 10, 1992: A U.S. Army vehicle
traveling between Panama City and ColÛn, Panama, is sprayed with
gunfire, killing the driver and a passenger and wounding a civilian bystander.
The incident is likely related to the U.S. presence in Panama and control
of the Panama Canal.
-
- * January 23, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi,
a Pakistani, opens fire on CIA employees on the street outside the agency's
headquarters in Virginia. Kansi allegedly is angry about the treatment
of Muslims in Bosnia; in retaliation, he had planned to get even by shooting
up the CIA, the White House, and the Israeli embassy.
-
-
- * February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists
truck-bomb the World Trade Center. The perpetrators had wanted to kill
up to a quarter million people by toppling the twin towers like two dominos.
Ramzi Yousef, the leader of the bombers, said they intended to inflict
Hiroshima-level casualties as punishment for U.S. policies in the Middle
East.
-
- * March 3, 1993: A bomb explodes in front
of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, most likely in response to U.S. policy
toward Serbia and Bosnia.
-
- * April 15, 1993: Seventeen Iraqis are
arrested in Kuwait smuggling in a large car bomb and weapons as part of
an Iraqi plot to assassinate former president George Bush on his visit
to Kuwait. President Clinton would later retaliate against Iraq for the
plot with cruise missiles strikes against the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence,
killing several Iraqi civilians.
-
-
- * June 1993: Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman
and other Muslims conspire to attack several New York landmarks all on
the same day to inflict maximum casualties. As a sequel to the bombing
of the World Trade Center, the group planned to blow up, on July 4, the
headquarters of the U.N., the Lincoln and Holland tunnels under the Hudson
River, the George Washington Bridge, and the federal government's main
office building in New York. The group also planned to assassinate Senator
Alfonse D'Amato and others. At the time they were arrested, the con*
-
- July 1, 1993: Terrorists fire two rockets
at the U.S. Air Force base at Yokota, Japan. The incident happens a few
days before President Clinton is due to visit the base. The attacks are
most likely from opponents of the U.S. military occupation of Japan.
-
- * July 7, 1993: Just six days later,
four rockets are fired at the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force in Japan
at Camp Zama, Japan.
-
- * October 3, 1993: After U.S. armed forces
kill thousands of Somalians--an attack about which the commander of the
operation, Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, told the press, "I'm not
counting bodies . . . I'm not interested"--al-Qaeda-trained Somalian
tribesmen conduct ambushes of U.S. "peacekeeping" forces in Somalia.
The attacks down two helicopters and kill 18 American Army Rangers, resulting
in the infamous dragging of dead American soldiers through the streets
of Mogadishu. An indictment alleges that al-Qaeda believes the United States
has plans to occupy Islamic countries, as demonstrated by its involvement
in Somalia and <s* October 21, 1994: Members of Abu Nidal's organization
are convicted of plotting to kill Jews in the United States, to blow up
the Israeli embassy in Washington, and to kill anyone who exposed their
plans.
-
- * February 7, 1995: Ramzi Yousef, mastermind
of the World Trade Center bombing, is finally arrested in Pakistan. The
arrest foils a plan already set in motion to bomb 12 U.S. jumbo jets in
flight over the Atlantic and kill 4,000 passengers.
-
- * March 20, 1995: The Japanese apocalyptic
cult Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) releases sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo
subway. According to the group's beliefs, the last years of the millennium
would give rise to an Armageddon between Japan and the United States, and
the cult believed that attacking the Tokyo subway would hasten this Armageddon.
The group was hoping to kill tens of thousands of people.
- * April 1995: Members of the Aum Shinrikyo
religious cult plan a nerve-gas attack on Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
The group plans to attack during a fireworks celebration at which attendance
at the park would reach maximum capacity. Tipped off by Japanese police,
U.S. authorities apprehend members of the group at the Los Angeles airport
before they can launch the attack. The plan also called for an attack on
petrochemical facilities in Los Angeles.The Aum Shinrikyo cult has assets
of at least $1.2 billion and the capability to produce sarin and VX gas--agents
that cause anthrax and botulism--and radiological weapons. This cult is
still active.
-
- * August 18, 1995: The Manuel Rodriguez
Patriotic Front bombs an office building of the American company Fluor
Daniel in Santiago, Chile, citing as its reason solidarity with Cuba and
opposition to the U.S. economic blockade.
-
- * September 13, 1995: A rocket-propelled
grenade is fired at the U.S. embassy in Russia. The attack is suspected
to have been retaliation for U.S. involvement in the NATO air strikes on
Bosnian Serb targets.
-
- * November 13, 1995: A military complex
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, housing U.S. troops is car-bombed, killing seven
people, including five Americans, and wounding 42 others. Muslims seeking
to overthrow the oppressive Saudi monarchy and expel the United States
from Saudi Arabia carried out the bombings. Three groups, including the
Islamic Movement for Change, claim responsibility, and U.S. officials suspect
Osama bin Laden was involved.
-
- * November 15, 1995: An explosive device
is discovered on a power line to a U.S. military complex in Sagmihara,
Japan.
-
- * February 15, 1996: A rocket is fired
at the U.S. embassy compound in Athens, Greece, causing minor damage to
three diplomatic vehicles and surrounding buildings. The State Department
says the circumstances of the attack suggest it was another attack by the
group known as November 17..
-
- * June 25, 1996: A U.S. military apartment
complex, Khobar Towers, near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, is truck-bombed, killing
19 U.S. airmen and wounding 515 people, including 240 U.S. citizens. U.S.
officials have linked Osama bin Laden to the bombing, and some analysts
also suspect Iran of complicity.
-
- * February 23, 1997: A Palestinian,
Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, opens fire on the observation deck of the Empire
State Building, killing and wounding several tourists before committing
suicide.
-
- * July 31, 1997: Police in Brooklyn arrest
two Palestinian men who allegedly are planning suicide bombings of the
subway and a commuter bus.
-
- * November 12, 1997: Four employees of
Union Texas Petroleum are killed in an attack one mile from the U.S. consulate
in Karachi, Pakistan. The Islamic Revolutionary Council and the Aimal Secret
Committee claim the killings are revenge for the conviction of Mir Aimal
Kansi, the Pakistani man who murdered CIA employees in their cars in January
1993.
-
- * December 23, 1997: The teachers' residential
compound of the Karachi American School is fired upon. This attack is also
probably in retaliation for the conviction of Mir Aimal Kansi.
-
- * April 3, 1998: November 17 claims responsibility
for a rash of attacks against U.S. targets in Greece. Since 1975, its victims
include a CIA station chief and three other Americans.
-
- * August 7, 1998: Simultaneous car-bombings
of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, both linked to Osama bin Laden,
kill more than 200 Africans--mostly Muslims. Before the bombings, bin Laden
issues a Fatwa that he will kill Americans and will not discriminate between
military personnel and civilians. In retaliation, on August 20, 1998, the
U.S. launches cruise missiles on bin Ladenís al-Qaeda training camps
in Afghanistan and a factory in Sudan. The Clinton1:pla
-
- * August 25, 1998: A Planet Hollywood
restaurant in South Africa is bombed. A local terrorist group called Muslims
Against Global Oppression is said to be the likely culprit, seeking revenge
on the United States for the cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and
Sudan.
-
- * August 26, 1998: A U.S. government
information center in Pristina, Kosovo, is fire-bombed, most likely in
opposition to U.S. and NATO policy on Kosovo.
-
- * Early September 1998: The Ugandan
government and the FBI uncover a plot by Osama bin Laden to attempt to
bomb the U.S. embassy in Kampala, Uganda, for a second time. Ugandan officials
say that the cruise missile strike on Sudan in retaliation for the bombings
in Kenya and Tanzania might have prompted bin Laden to try a second time
to attack the embassy in Kampala. Several arrests are made in connection
with the bombing.
-
- * October 2000: The USS Cole is dinghy-bombed
while in port in Yemen. Al-Qaeda is widely suspected, in bin Laden's ongoing
personal war against U.S. policies in the Middle East.
-
- * September 11, 2001: The World Trade
Center is bombed a second time, killing nearly 3,000 and sparking a new
"war on terrorism," a resurgence in statism throughout the Western
world, and increased nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan.
These examples illustrate the folly of the uniquely modern American theory
of self-defense, which decrees that the U.S.government must occupy and
manipulate the globe in order to prevent wars that drag in the United States
and destroy the lives of American men and women. The policies result in,
not less, but more terror.
Richard Betts, writing in Foreign Affairs before September 11, raised the
prospect that "some angry group that blames the United States for
its problems may decide to coerce Americans, or simply exact vengeance,
by inflicting devastation on them where they live." He concluded that
"the best way to keep people from believing that the United States
is responsible for their problems is to avoid involvement in their conflicts."[2]
Yet the supporters of this latest war believe the solution to criminal
acts against Americans is yet more criminal behavior--the destruction of
innocent lives and property--by the United States done in their name. In
the interest of peace, security, and the freedom of global commercial relations,
all Americans and non-Americans the world over must forcefully oppose the
hyper-interventionism of the United States government, which by its own
admission endangers the lives and property of Americans. Interventionism
and jingoism are not the solutions to terrorism, but rather its motive
force.
-
- ___
-
-
- Adam Young is studying computer science
in Ontario, Canada. His articles have appeared in Ideas on Liberty, Mises.org,
LewRockwell.com, and The Free Market. Also, see his Mises.org <http://www.mises.org/articles.asp?mode=a&author=Young>
- Articles Archive.
[1] Defense Science Board, The Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study
Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats (Washington: U.S.
Department of Defense, October 1997), vol. 1, Final Report, p. 15. Cited
in "Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism: The Historical
Record" by Ivan Eland, <http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb50.pdf>Foreign
Policy Briefing , Cato Institute, December 17, 1998. Much of the information
in this article comes from Elandís excellent piece.
[2] Richard Betts, "The New Threat of Mass Destruction," in
Foreign Affairs 77, no. 1 (January-February 1998): 28.
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- http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=887&FS=A+History+of+Terror
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