poll : Is the USA a terrorist nation?

I firmly say no, the USA is not a terrorist nation. Some of the posters here obviously believe otherwise.

Between 1979 and 1987, the United States armed, trained, and financially backed the military forces of the government of El Salvador, which over the same period carried out a policy of ongoing, systematic murder against the Salvadoran population. Seventy thousand men, women, and children--journalists, priests, nuns, teachers, labor organizers, students, political figures-- were murdered. About 1% of El Salvador's population was so destroyed.


Also as a direct result of United States actions, another seventy thousand civilians were similarly murdered during the same period by the military government of Guatemala. And during the same period, the United States created a force of counter-revolutionaries, the contras, to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The contras did not focus their attacks on military targets; they deliberately attacked defenseless civilians, a policy which our President felt made them the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.


The United States did not carry out the murders in these countries. But it put the bullets and guns in the hands of the terrorists, trained them how to use the weapons, and organized them for the purpose of terrorism.


During roughly the same period, according to the Israeli government, the PLO killed, in all acts of terror between 1968 and 1981, 282 Israelis.


We must oppose terrorism in all of its forms.

You neglected to add that those communist forces in Latin America had to be resisted: Soviet-style-supported communism presented very real long-term dangers to the security of the USA, even if these dangers were not easily quantifiable. The USA also could not exactly tell the anti-communist forces how to wage war in their own countries and to stick to what we believed was morally correct, and expect that they would accede to our requests; yet it was important to resist communism in Latin America. Now, I'm not saying everything we did was right, but combine the above with the fact that we were in fact resisting a greater "terrorism" (the governmental/military terrorism of Soviet tyranny and aims of world domination), and I believe there is room to dispute the "terrorism" designation of the USA activities you listed. That's not to say that we should not be more careful in the future, and we should of course keep such experiences and concerns in mind.

thats why i said in a posting here, about an american being killed at that taliban prison uprising, that hey, he was a cia interrogator (torturer), he deserved it.


if even a significant minority of americans start believing that well, we have to torture and murder people -just in case- , then were done.


brad

I kind of figured this post might get your attention. /images/wink.gif


These movements we opposed in Latin America were not Soviet-style supported communism. The Sandanistas were not running, as we were told by our President "a totalitarian dungeon." They held elections in which they were defeated and they left office. Ortega ran again this past year and lost again.


The U.S. supported and trained and armed the terrorists. We approved of their terrorism, always denying that they did anything wrong. Check the statements of our leaders, not just Reagan, Bush Sr., Kirkpatrick and the others from that time, but going all the way back to Richard Nixon and John Foster Dulles when we supported the butchers in Guatemala in the 1950s, overthrowing Arbenz for the benefit of United Fruit. When our leaders invoked the Soviets to justify our interventions, they were lying.


The Soviets were indeed an evil empire, but they were not responsible for all the evil in the world.


"combine the above with the fact that we were in fact resisting a greater "terrorism" (the governmental/military terrorism of Soviet tyranny and aims of world domination), and I believe there is room to dispute the "terrorism" designation of the USA activities you listed."


I don't understand this statement. Even assuming, for the sake or argument, that I agreed with your assertion (which I don't) that we were fighting the Soviets when we were supporting the terrorists in Latin America, how does this dispute the fact that this was indeed terrorism? Maybe you could argue that it was justified, but it certainly doesn't change it from what it was.


We must oppose terrorism in all of its forms. This is why I support the current campaign in Afghanistan and why I opposed the campaign in Latin America when we were on the side of the terrorists.

"Soviet-style-supported communism presented very real long-term dangers to the security of the USA, even if these dangers were not easily quantifiable."


Let's assume that the FSLN and FMLN in Nicaragua and El Salvador weren't really trying to topple murderous dictatorships, where the resources were owned by a few while many starved, for the usual or apparent reasons, but were really trying to turn their country into a Soviet-controlled dungeon.


How is it remotely possible that a Soviet-style government in El Salvador, with no navy, no armored infantry, and no air force save a few helicopters, and with the entire country's population a bit larger than Houston's, could possibly represent a threat to the mightiest superpower the world has ever seen? Dominos toppling in Costa Rica? Troops marching toward the Mexican oil fields, as GF Will once predicted? Then how do you explain that Mexico and Costa Rica were some of the bitterest critics of U.S. intervention in Central America? Missiles aimed at the U.S.? Answer: same agreement as with Cuba, and anyway there is no coner of the U.S. that cannot be targeted by land-based or submarine based missiles. Most tellingly, the U.S. never, and I mean not even once, proposed to lefists in Central America a version of peace on the condition that U.S. security interests were not threatened. Instead, at every opportunity, following the Cuban paradigm, the U.S. sought to isolate the left-wing movements in these countries in order to push them as far as possible into the "Soviet camp" to provide a pretext for a policy of domination and exploitation that has been ongoing in this region since before the Soviet Union even existed. The idea that the revolutions in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador stemmed from Soviet expansionism and arms rather than the indigenous social forces and the international arms market betrays a absolute ignorance of the history of these countries and the revolutions within them.


The reason the U.S. intervened in these countries is that it needs to continually remind the world that it will not tolerate political seccession from its empire for fear that successful alternatives to the usual State-backed private control over resources will spread to countries where it makes a real difference to U.S. business and financial interests (although virtually none to the average American, who could care less if his gasoline comes form the House of Saud or Saddam Hussein). Even in it's remotest corners the U.S. will kill almost any number of people to prevent it from happening.

It's good to find out who the dangerous dissatisfied radicals are that post here.


I'm amazed that anyone would call the USA a terrorist nation.

I don't think I'm dangerous. When my country does something wrong, I'm dissatisfied. The information I talked about in my initial reponse to your post contains the fact of our foreign policy vis-a-vis Latin America in the 1980s.

Dalmer didn't think he was dangerous either. I think the government should decide who is dangerous.

"Dalmer didn't think he was dangerous either"


-Who's Dalmer?


"I think the government should decide who is dangerous."


For disagreeing with a particular foreign policy? That's the way Lenin and Stalin worked; it's not the way our government works.

He means Jeffrey Dalmer, the mass murderer. Quite an argument, eh?


You are wasting your time sparring with Ray Springfield here. Look around the threads. There is no "cd," just as there's no "Charlie Davidson" or "sad" or "anonymous Alger supporter." These are all Springfield posts, disguised because he knows no one will pay any attention to them if he uses his real name, and up to hia time-worn tactic of generating threads when no one wants to pay any attention to him.

More paranoia. You really must be getting desperate.

Actually, I understand Andy Fox's point of view.

I was a supporter of Citizens in Support of the People of El Salvador in the '80's. I was very disturbed by the assasination of Archbishop Rmero.


I speak fluent SPanish and have travelled in Central America.


I'm not Charlie Davidson.

I don't support Islamic terrorists.

I don't openly defy the laws of Colorado.


Alger, the sick man, can't say the same on the last rwo counts.

What you may be failing to take into account is that those who were enemies of those we supported, may themselves have also qualified as terrorists or dirty fighters under your definition. Those we supported weren't the only dirty fighters in Latin America.

Didn't the Soviets arm and even train some of those whom you claim represented no threat to the long-term security of the USA?


Anyways, the past is past...the USA is not currently engaging in these types of things, largely because the communist/totalitarian threat is greatly diminished (although there is a chance that a few decades from now we may see a renewed threat from China).


Your last paragraph, I'm sorry to say, is largely hogwash in my opinion.

"Didn't the Soviets arm and even train some of those whom you claim represented no threat to the long-term security of the USA?"


Nope. The assault rifle of choice for the Salvadoran rebels was the M-16, which they acquired on the open arms market and by buying them from Salvadoran solidiers equipped by the U.S. In fact, David McMichaels, a CIA analyst charged with finding the alleged arms link between the Nicaragu and the Salvadoran resigned in protest upon learning no such link existed and became an outspoken opponent of the war.


Anyway, what if they did? It's not a question of where they get their arms, but of the justification and necessity for using them.


"the USA is not currently engaging in these types of things"


Sure it is. The Colombians and Turks currently engaged in state terrorsim get their arms from the U.S.


And what if it isn't? Does that fact that a murderer "is not currently engaged" in murder somehow make him less culpable than those that are? This is a classic version of the double standard applied to the U.S. by those that are so quick to point fingers and condemn official enemies in other countries: even if we did the same thing, it's ok if we stopped doing it.

According to Amnesty International and other organizations who monitored the activities in those countries at that time, by far the great majority of terrorist deeds were committed by the people we supported in those countries. One doesn't have to sanctify the Sandanistas to know that the contras were thugs. Archbishop Romero in El Salvador was a saintly man; our guys who killed him were thugs. The succession of governments we supported in Guatemala were comprised of thugs; the groups trying to establish a democratic country were not.


Our guys were the dirtiest of the dirty.

If the question were, "is Iran a terrorist state," because of the arms they supply to Hezbollah, and someone were to reply, "but their enemies also committed terrorism," what you find that the slightest bit exculpatory? If not, why the double standard for the U.S.?

But Chris, we were involved in Latin America largely to stop the expansion of Soviet influence in the region. OK, I realize not in all cases, and I erred in not differentiating between certain involvements in an above post. I also don't defend everything the USA did...but the whole has to be taken in the context of the times..I'm not saying everything we did was OK...but some of it may unfortunately have been necessary. I don't think we can just totally discount the fact that the USA was trying to hold off an expansionist and totalitarian USSR when we take stock of these issues.

Our guys may have been the dirtiest of the dirty in Latin America, but the Soviets were dirtier than any of them...and that is who we were trying to hold off in some of these instances, really.

I see your point, and I believe I may have an answer to it. The reason there may in some cases be an acceptable double standard is because there was a larger "war" being fought...the effort to stop the Soviet empire from slowly taking over the world. Similarly, certain cases of the Allies committing horrific acts during WWII may be viewed with a double standard because we were trying to prevent the totalitarian Nazi regime from taking over the world. Of course, such justifications will at times undoubtedly lead to abuses, mistakes and tragedies...which of course did occurrred in Latin America...but that is the primary underlying difference IMO and the reason why a double standard in some instances may not be unreasonable. In other words the forces behind the countries which are directly involved must be considered in the equation also.

It's just not so, M. We used the Soviets as an excuse to intervene. At the very beginning of our involvement in Guatemala, for example, in the early 1950s, we knew that their elected leaders, Arevalo and Arbenz. were not agents of the Soviet Union. They were simply too far left for our liking and for United Fruit. We were trying to hold off the expropriation of United Fruit's landholding, not the Soviets.


Anyway, I enjoy the debate with you. I'll let you have the last word here.

>It's good to find out who the dangerous >dissatisfied radicals are that post here.


So anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a dangerous radical? That's ridiculous. I don't think the US is a terrorist nation, but as andy fox pointed out, it has funded some very unsavory governments who have terrorized their own people. In addition to the Latin American despots, the US also was friendly to dictators in Asia, such as Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Suharto of Indonesia.


If objecting to my country's backing of these criminals makes me "a dangerous radical", so be it.

He's a Nazi that doesn't recognize UN resolution 242. He openly particpates in illegal activity in Colorado, even though he is a licensed attorney. The man feels that he is above USA and Colorado law. This is a the true picture of the man your trying to reason with. It won't work.