4 Terrorism: the struggle against closure Edward S. Herman Published in Brian Martin (editor), Confronting the Experts (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 77-97 Introduction ment experts, who don’t like open debate any In one important respect confronting the more than Commissars (see below, under “The experts on a subject like terrorism is more marginalization process”). difficult than on issues like fluoridation or It is not at all difficult to deconstruct and nuclear power. On the latter topics, the reveal terrible flaws and bias in the writings of public’s health and safety are clearly and the establishment terrorism experts; their work directly at stake, its interest in rational inquiry is often extremely crude, rhetorical, and bears is evident, and anti- or non-establishment little resemblance to serious social science experts or spokespersons, while at a serious scholarship, so that refuting them generally disadvantage in reaching the public, can involves merely looking at obvious sources sometimes be heard widely and exert influ- and using the rules of logic, as I describe ence.1 In the case of terrorism, where mainly below. But their work, though technically distant and hazy foreign enemies are claimed vulnerable, is immune to critical attack by to be posing a threat, the public’s interest is virtue of the closure process and exclusion of more remote, its knowledge is slight, and it is dissenting views. Neither my occasional therefore more easily caught up in and collaborator, Professor Noam Chomsky, nor I manipulated by a web of symbols. For have ever had an opinion column or article in example, political leaders in the United States, the New York Times. I had a single opinion with the help of the mass media, have easily column on terrorism in my home town mobilised a consensus on the dire threat posed newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, in by a demonised foreign enemy like Libyan 1983, after which I was blacklisted for the leader Muammar Kadaffi,2 that has given them next decade. In the US, dissident experts on political and popular backing for attacks on terrorism have been restricted almost entirely Libya and indirect support for larger political to reaching audiences of 50 to 2,000 in public agendas.3 gatherings, and by writing articles in small This consensus has been quickly estab- circulation journals and books that reach lished, and alternative definitions and ways of thousands, but in the aggregate with direct looking at terrorism have been extremely access to substantially less than five percent of difficult to introduce into discussions of the the public.4 subject. This process of “closure” occurs not It is a cliché of the West that under free only because of the symbolic power of the institutions, truth will eventually conquer demonised enemy, but also because the falsehood and correct error; but in the terror- mainstream media confine themselves to an ism field the question must be asked: what if exceptional degree to official sources and unconventional views are systematically establishment experts. Given the rapid marginalized by the free institutions through- consensus, unaccredited experts would hardly out the periods when they are socially be understood, would elicit protests by vocal relevant? groups (including the government itself), and their participation in public forums is often Terrorism and its politicization vetoed in advance by officials and establish- The Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s defini- tion of terrorism captures both the vagueness 46 Confronting the experts and historical scope of usage of the term: “a in world terrorism was repeatedly cited by the mode of governing, or of opposing govern- US Secretaries of State and Reagan himself, ment, by intimidation.” “Mode of governing” and was a core element in the western by intimidation is “state terrorism,” and for a ideology of terrorism elaborated in the 1980s. long time the word conjured up images of the But the US president was about to meet with mobs and guillotines of the French Revolu- the Soviet head of state, so the Soviet Union tion’s “terror.” In the twentieth century, the was momentarily exempted from status as a use of extreme violence by Hitler’s Nazi terrorist state for diplomatic reasons. Syria had Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Stalin’s just helped the US win the release of hostages Soviet Union reinforced the tie-in of state and in Lebanon, so it too was relieved of terrorist terrorism. state onus as a reward for services rendered. An alternative vision of terrorism emerged Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was also exempt from in the late nineteenth century, which pointed to terrorist status, despite its ongoing aggression alienated and radical individuals and small against Iran, employment of chemical groups who used violence to disrupt the weapons in the Iran war and against its own established order. Here the image was the Kurdish people, and more general repression bewhiskered, fanatical looking, foreigner at home. But Iraq’s aggression against Iran (earlier, Jewish or eastern European, more was approved and aided by the West, and Iraq recently Middle Eastern), although the phrases was, like South Africa and Guatemala, “state terrorism” and “terrorist state” have “constructively engaged,” not treated as an remained in use. Thus, in a speech given on aggressor or terrorist state. It was only when it July 8, 1985, US president Ronald Reagan attacked the wrong victim (Kuwait) that the denounced state terrorism and listed the cast of US officials spoke of “naked aggression,” and villains on the world stage as Iran, Cuba, Iraq was reclassified as a terrorist state. North Korea, Libya and Nicaragua. It should also be noted that in western Reagan’s list illustrates the enormous semantics, countries were not classed as politicization in the use of the word terrorism. “terrorist states” if they merely abused their The named villains were all states with which own citizens, but only if they sponsored the US was in conflict. Nicaragua was actually terrorist groups outside their own borders. under attack by a US-organised and funded Thus states like Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, proxy army (the contras), and was therefore a and Guatemala, which carried out indigenous literal victim of US-sponsored terrorism,5 but holocausts in the 1970s and early 1980s, were its designation as one of the world’s terrorist not terrorists but merely indulging in “human states was presented in the mainstream media rights” abuses, in the memorable distinction without comment in news stories and editori- made by Secretary of State Alexander Haig in als. South Africa, which was supporting its January 1981. Haig went on to disclose that own cross-border insurgents in Angola the US was going to shift its attention from (Savimbi and UNITA) and Mozambique “human rights” to “terrorism,” claiming that (RENAMO), and engaged in regular the latter was a more serious problem and even commando raids and invasions across the an extreme version of human rights abuse. But borders of the front line states, was not this was a gross misrepresentation of fact. designated a terrorist state, nor was Israel, Nobody but Haig has ever claimed that which had invaded Lebanon in 1982, terrorists in the narrow sense in which he used maintained a cross-border proxy army in the term have intimidated and killed on the Southern Lebanon, and carried out frequent air scale of state terrorists. The 13-year total, and commando attacks on Lebanon. 1968-1980, for world-wide terrorist killings, As a further reflection of the politicization given by the CIA in 1981, was 3,680, a figure of usage, the Soviet Union, Syria, and Iraq exceeded by Guatemalan government killings were excluded from Reagan’s 1985 list, by more than twenty-fold between 1978 and although the Soviet Union’s alleged centrality 1983.6 Terrorism 47 The fact is that the Reagan administration obvious arbitrariness and political basis of was actively supporting state terrorists in their selections. They also accepted the Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and implicit model of terrorism in which the South Africa (among others) in the early Soviet Union and its leading proxy, Libya, 1980s. The Reaganite redefinition of terrorism were encouraging and sustaining terrorism in so as to exclude the state terrorism of its order to destabilize the western “democracies” clients was thus an arbitrary politicization of (presumably including Guatemala and South the word, a manipulation of language to serve Africa). Even the truly laughable politicization an immediate political agenda. The Reaganites of 1985 noted earlier, where Reagan listed the did want to capture some states in the US enemies of the moment, including the terrorism web, however, so they retained the victimized Nicaragua, and “temporarily” notion of state terrorism in the form of excluded the Evil Empire, Syria and Iraq for possible sponsorship of “international good behaviour, did not evoke any comment. terrorism” across borders. The world’s The terrorists were what a very opportunist terrorists therefore included the various state apparatus declared to be terrorists, governments which aided individuals, groups, however absurd and vacillating the desig- and insurgencies labelled terrorist, the nations. supporting governments being “sponsors” of Although a clear prima facie case can be terrorism. This convenient lexicon permits the made that the 1980s insurgents in South invidious word “terrorist” to be applied to Africa, Guatemala and El Salvador were anybody using force against the West, or victims of state terrorism and that the word helping those who do so. The latter were part terrorist should have been applied to the of The Terror Network, as set forth in a 1981 governments of those countries, this was not book by Claire Sterling, who tied all the left done by accredited experts in the US and its and insurgent groups of the world to a Soviet allied countries.