I can't remember many terrorists incidents Israel has encouraged
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations
By extension you'd have to call the CIA a terrorist organization.
Latin America in the 1980's, US-Backed campaigns of terror against the civilian population. If massacring children then displaying their bodies in the streets to strike terror into the hearts of the populace isn't terrorism, what is?
The USA especially under Reagan has a vivid history of using pure terror to try and control the politics of latin america, usually through front groups of mercenaries, but working closely with US advisors who were either CIA or Green Beret. "The School of the Americas" trained a large proportion of the worst human rights violators of latin america. In fact, having been a graduate of that school is the strongest indicator of later human rights violations, and those people worked closely with US political advisors. The CIA even produced manuals for the school on how to murder political opponents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_in_Guerrilla_WarfareBasically, it's a manual created by the CIA for a rebel group explaining how to murder civilians to try and create an atmosphere of terror which would undermine the local government. This is text-book state-sponsored international terrorism. Considering that there are a whole long list of similar things from the 80's, the USA under Reagan was actually the
number one state supporter of terrorism in the 1980s.
The sandinistas built a lot of schools and hospitals, and brought in democracy. And they had a squeaky clean human rights record compared to anyone the USA was supporting. Yet the USA was determined to turn the country into a bloody battlefield because they had the nerve to kick out Reagan's beloved murderous dictator. The US trained and backed forces did stuff like beheading women and children with machetes, raped and murdered nuns etc. But you know what, even today the US political guys involved in setting it up still say it was a good thing.
There's also an example from 1988 which illustrates how being a state actor allows you to do things which would be considered terrorism otherwise - the USA's downing of the Iranian airliner which was on a regular scheduled route over Iranian airspace (which killed 290 people). It was an accident of course, but "whoops sorry" wouldn't be enough if it was anyone else but US armed forces. So effectively we delineate things as - it's not terrorism if you have a badge, but only if it's a badge of a country we like.
The captain of the US ship had a history of trying to provoke violence from the Iranians, interfering with Iranian ships going about their normal legal stuff (like, he'd fire on Iranian patrol boats which were searching container ships for contraband within their own territory, which is entirely legal for them to do so). So you had this cruiser captain itching for a fight, attacks several ships that were doing nothing to him, then shoots down a civilian airliner then claims it was an F14 attacking his ship, even though his own ships instruments contradict everything he said.
Did he get charged, demoted or suspended? No he got a
medal straight afterwards, then was put in charge of naval training for officers in handling combat situations.
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1291085 times)