"Terrorism" out of control?
mentally wrong with "punishing"
of "state terrorism" by military acts operations is that bombs and bullets have no political convictions. They can be used equally by rightists, leftists, criminals, uncontrolled individuals and lunatics - for all sorts of reasons. Under the best of circumstances, it can be very difficult to
AS WE GO to press, the threat of a US military strike against Libya continues to hold the world on edge. Washington's European allies themselves have been showing acute signs of the jitters.
There is good reason for worry. This is probably the first time since 1914 that a situation is being created in which any terrorist incident could be used as an excuse for launching a major military action by a great power.
GERRY FOLEY
The Zionist state launches strikes all the time which tend to lead them into deeper and deeper waters. The bombing of the Iraqi nuclear project is the most lurid example of this. There is now an indication that this line may be extended even further.
A major Indian news magazine,
India Today, reported in
15 issue that Israel had approached
New Delhi with a request for secret refuelling facilities in Jamnagar so that it could bomb the Kahuta nuclear installation in Pakistan and put an end to the "Islamic bomb."
The US attacks launched from the
Gulf of Sidra at the end of March against Libyan radar bases apparently had a similar objective. The only thing that the United States seemed to gain from the exercise on the military level was that it systems Qadhafi bought from against the more advanced US elecmeans of warfare and that it could put the Libyan guidance systems out of commission any time it wanted.
Qadhafi appear to have two objectives. One is to force the Soviet
Union to back off from supporting
Third World regimes in collision with
While Washington might win certain concessions in that area, as it has in the past, it clearly cannot force the Soviet Union to desist from such practices in general.
That would fundamental interests.
detachment of Third World from direct subordination to imperialism has been one of the factors protecting the Soviet
Union from Western military threats.
The second political objective, however, gaining the backing of US public for military intervention abroad, was apparently achieved, at least temporarily and on a limited
The support shown for Reagan's polls in the United States seems to reflect two ideas. The first and the most important is that international identified with Qadhafi as well as other Arab states and movements, is a threat to ordinary Americans. The second is that such "outlaw"
movements punished at little or no cost to ordinary people by superior US firepower operating from a distance.
of these ideas are false. dangerous all the time because of poverty; because of the exploitation of the masses of the Third World, who are increasingly pushed to the point of desperation; and because of a massive military build-up aimed at preserving an intolerable status quo.
Reagan calls "international is the tiniest part of these
Moreover, it is the United States itself that has built up a really massive terrorist apparatus in its attempts to suppress the struggles of World peoples - Green Berets, "covert political assassination teams to "terminate with extreme prejudice" local agents and allies that become an
Who knows how many and what other regimes have employed such people. The United States has trained a whole layer of professional killers determine responsiblities.
When terrorist acts are used as a pretext for military action by great powers, "terror" is really out of control.
The Austro-Hungarian government, in 1914, used an act carried out by a very radical petty-bourgeois nationalist group as a pretext for war against Serbia and Russia, because it chose to view that act as part of general nationalist agitation backed by these two governments.
portrays Qadhafi as the sponsor of "Terrorism" by all sorts of groups in an evident attempt to get a blank check for repression against many struggles. In this respect, the leader's braggadoccio wild threats, raising the specter of against southern targets, are politically useful to him. But in fact what this reflects is the narrow nationalism and military base of the regime.
Qadhafi's Libya is not a revolutionary regime, such as Nicaragua, which uses wholly different methods and through them has won important sympathies, not only in Europe, but in the United States
There is no way that the Qadhafi regime can build any kind of an international movement, or be a significant factor in an international movement against imperialism, exploitation, and oppression.
Just as clearly, the US imperialist government cannot be allowed to get away with any action on the pretext that it is interested in "punishing terrorism." Over the past decades, it has used all sorts of excuses for launwars against rebellious Third peoples, the most infamous incident. If it gets away with making terrorist acts a cause for war, it has a blank check for intervening any
It is essential to mobilize as much opposition as possible to US military threats against Libya. Far more than the Qadhafi regime, or even the rights of Libya, is at stake. The rights of all oppressed peoples International Viewpoint 21 April 1986
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
LIBYA