On Terror Combatting A Violent Foreign Policy
CSC 1987
SUBJECT AREA General
On Terror
Combatting a Violent Foreign Policy
War in the Modern Era Research Paper
LCDR S. W. Deutermann, U.S. Navy
May, 1987
Introduction
Terrorism is rampant in our world. So it seems to anyone
opening a daily paper or viewing the nightly televised news
broadcasts. Bombs in Beirut, Paris, London, any major airport;
skyjackings, kidnapings, assassinations; all seem to occur with
numbing frequency and with glaring exposure. The annual toll of
this violent activity in terms of lives lost and property
destroyed has grown over time into the hundreds for lives and
billions of dollars for property worldwide. The modern terrorist
represents a movement, cause or ideology often foreign to the
American mind, and employs means repugnant to our concepts of
civilized behavior. He or she may represent the displaced, the
discontented, or the outraged whose motivations disappear into
the murk of shadow politics and underground criminal entities.
Yet terror is certainly nothing new. Its practice has continued
from the beginnings of written history and its methods have
paralleled the development of weapons and technologies which may
be of use to the practitioner.
The purpose of this paper is to examine terrorism today from
the perspective of the armed forces of the United States.
Specifically, this paper will review the subject of terrorism in
its historical setting, the development of selected terrorist
movements that exist today as potential threats to U.S. national
security, and those aspects of terrorism that are unique today in
contrast to history. Finally, it will examine policy options
available to the U.S. to combat this insidious threat.
The scope of the problem of modern terrorism is vast. As a
result, this effort will be limited in its depth and somewhat
parochial in its point of view. The armed forces of the U.S. are
in a unique position to confront terrorism, for we are targets
worldwide and are, at the same time, severely restricted in our
response to the threat of terrorism. As an instrument of foreign
policy, the American military now stands against another, and
growing, instrument of the foreign policy of others, and that
instrument is terrorism. The spectrum of violence encompassed by
modern terrorism spans a wide range - from manipulation of the
media to wholesale slaughter of innocent victims. The spectrum of
actions to counter terror is therefore also wide. What this paper
will address are those actions in the realm of military
responsibility most useful against the anticipated threat.
This paper will attempt to answer the following questions:
1. What has been the historical function of the terrorist?
2. What is the modern function, and what gave rise to modern
terrorist movements?
3. What is the validity of the notion of "State sponsored" terrorism?
4. What can be done about the problem, from the perspective
of a national pqolicy formulation?
Before examining the issues stated above, it is useful to
begin with a common understanding of what some terms mean. Some
key definitions follow:
Terrorism is the use or threat of violence to effect
political, social, or economic change. It is a phenomenon
occurring outside the law of war, and may be motivated by a wide
variety of idealogical, political, and/or religious beliefs.
At the same time, it is not a subset of conventional or even
of guerilla warfare. Its occurrence rarely, if ever, reflects the
accomplishment of a military objective.
Revolutionary is the term applied to indicate an individual
espousing a cause which seeks fundamental and significant change
within a given society or region. Generally indicative of someone
seeking destruction of a particular social order in order to
bring forth a new order; for the purposes of this work,
revolutionaries are considered in their most violent form.
Terrorists are those individuals willing, and sometimes
strongly desiring to violate law in order to further their aims.
These may be from virtually any political or idealogical
orientation; right, left, marxist, or religious fanatic. While
some are also revolutionaries, many are simply those who have no
use for the rule of law, and have opted for violence as the
means to accomplish their ends.
State sponsored terrorism is terrorism which is funded or
otherwise aided by the government of a sovereign state. Such
sponsorship is generally covert activity that is internationally
condemned.
It is hoped that these definitions may clarify very easily
confused and overlapping terms for the reader as he progresses
through the paper.
Chapter I
Terror in Historical Perspective
Origins
The typical view of "terrorists" held by many Americans of
the late 1980's is one of urban guerrillas or heavily armed
criminals run amok in airports and other crowded places, wreaking
indiscriminate violence upon innocent passers by. Their cause is
often obscure and confusing, their movements named for dates and
little known figures from the third world. There is a perception
that the phenomenon of terrorism is new, having evolved during the
turbulent years of the 1960's and 1970's out of the actions of a
relatively few unbalanced deviants. This is not, however, the
case.
We will examine the phenomenon of terrorism in several
guises. In antiquitythere was no parallel to what we know today
as terrorism. There were motivations for violence, however, that
perhaps lie at the roots of what the world is experiencing today.
It is possible to examine terrorism from ancient times, from
at least as far back as the classic Greek and Roman philosophers.
Plato and Aristotle both addressed "tyrannicide"- the elimination
of a tyrant- as an enobling act.
There are men who regard the killing of a tyrant as
simply an extraordinary action which will make them famous
in the world... He who would kill a tyrant must be pre-
pared to lose his life if he fail. But this is a temper
to which few can attain...(1)
Plutarch, Cicero, John of Salisbury, Thomas Aquinas and a host
of others, all have written of the fundamental wrong of tyranny
and of the justification, to varying degrees, of its elimination
by extreme means. Classical terror involved a variety of motives
and targets more limited than those addressed by the terrorists
of today, for both obvious and somewhat more obscure reasons. For
one thing, symbols of the state were more limited in number than
they are today; the symbol was embodied by the ruler and his
principal governors in ancient times. There were no media to
lionize the acts of those who might have been categorized as
"terrorists",therefore their notoriety was short lived. Also, the
motives for tyrrannicide were more limited, involving
retribution, fear, and contempt. Those are all certainly alive
and thriving in the modern scenario, but the most noteworthy of
these, and that which received the greatest press was hatred of
tyranny itself. A tyrant was representative of the source of
crisis, almost a criminal who abused the sanctity of high office.
Despotism was something morally foul, and those involved in it
elimination were heroes. Cicero noted that tyrants for the most
part all came to violent ends, and that Romans honored those who
killed them. This view of the honorable nature of tyrrannicide
persisted from the fall of Rome in A.D. 496 into the 17th
century. Edward Saxby wrote in 1646:
Let every man to whom God has given the spirit of wisdom
and courage be persuaded by his honor, his safety, his
own good and his country's and indeed the duty he owes to
his generation and to mankind to endeavor by all means to
rid the world of this pest. (2)
Insurrection, rebellion, even social revolution in
historical contexts before the emergence of modern Western
society may not always have included any form of what would today
be recognized as terrorism. There were occurrences of terror,
however, inflicted by both those who sought to effect change and
those who sought strongly to resist.
Beyond tyrannicide, the concept of terror "from below" was
first exemplified to the determination of historians by the
Judean Zealot sect known as the Sicarii (Jerusalem A.D. 66-73),
whose methods went beyond assassination, although this technique
remained in the forefront. They used crowded streets to conceal
their killers in the commission of their crimes, they burned
public archives in Jerusalem to affront the moneylenders,
sabotaged the city's water supply, and sacked granaries. They
were a political entity, violent, nationalistic and anti-Roman
whose victims were moderate citizens and whose inclination
towards martyrdom lent a frenzied edge to their acts. They were
suppressed and eventually exterminated by the Romans, as the
remainder of Jewish culture dispersed into the diaspora. (3)
Another sect was the Assassins of Persia who first appeared
in the eleventh century. These were also political and religious
fanatics who regarded murder as a sacramental act. Their founder
and leader, Hassan Sidai (hence the name) determined that a
prolonged, deliberate campaign of systematic terror would prove
more effective than direct confrontation against a numerically
superior foe. His enemies, the ruling Seljuqs, the invading
European crusaders and, finally the Mongol horde out of central
Asia, were victimized for approximately a century until the
Mongols destroyed the sect in the late twelfth century.(3)
Terror is, then, classically speaking, a technique of
violence applied within the framework of wreaking political
change. Its foundations lie in the perception by a segment of
or an individual within a population that there is not reasonable
recourse to achieve justice or redress wrongs afflicted on them
by a ruler or ruling class. Desperate means then surface, and
desperate acts then occur. Some of the precepts behind this
classical definition remain true throughout history to the
present time. What has changed has been the nature, structure,
and institutions of governments and societies, which have grown
ever more complex, liberal and bureaucratic. What has remained
constant has been the sense of desperation, the fanatic motivator
within the human spirit that gives rise to the phenomenon we call
terrorism.
Impact of the French Revolution
The event which many historians identify as the beginning of
the "Modern Era" is equally recognized by scholars of terror as the
first manifestation of modern terrorism. The French Revolution of
1789 is a historical watershed in many ways and for many
reasons, but its significance in relation to modern terrorism is
especially noteworthy and bears close examination; not of the
details of its chronology, nor of its main cast of characters,
far beyond the scope of this work. The focus of the succeeding
paragraphs will be on the formulation of a historical model, a
framework for the study of terrorism within this vast event that
will yield both an updated definition of terrorism and an useful
framework for the study of terrorism in more recent times.
If one examines pre- revolutionary France in the period
1700-1750, the following facts emerge:
-The society was largely agrarian. Urban populations were
small and consisted largely of merchants, craftsmen (guildsmen)
and those tied to the aristocracy, either in its service or in
its administration.
- There was no organized middle class. Those citizens of the
period who would today be categorized as being in the "middle
class", civil servants, educators, administrators and merchants
were a small portion of the population.
-From 1700-1730, the source of national financing, while
limited, was generally adequate. An internal taxation system, the
salt tax (gabelle), a local customs tax (traites) and excise
duties (aides), as well as a direct tax on landowners (taille)
were sufficient to support France at home abroad. (4)
In 1730, French society began a subtle but significant
movement toward the conditions which would set the stage for
revolution. Between 1733 and 1783, France waged four wars, among
them the Seven Years war and the war of American Independence.
Besides being a serious drain on the population in terms of
resources and manpower, these proved disastrous to the limited
and rigid financial system and proved eventually to be a major
source of revolutionary discontent.
The structure of the society itself also began to change.
This is reflected by the growth of a middle class, a change in
the role of the clergy, and rising discontent on the part of the
peasantry. The rise of a middle class was a natural outgrowth
of the increase in basic industrialization and trade.
Finally, there was growing agrarian distress in the
countryside. Because of significant improvements in agriculture
brought about by the English physiocrats and their concepts of
scientific agriculture, the very way of life of the peasant
population of France was threatened. The people wanted land.
These societal changes, crumbling financial structure,
changing societal roles of the citizens of the country, and the
birth of a middle class, occurred almost simultaneously and
therefore set the stage for revolutionary change on a scale never
before seen in history. In 1789, the revolution came.
It was a revolution far different from that in America, a
revolt initiated not by the "proletariat", but by the nobility. It
was carried out in four phases: revolt of the aristocracy,
followed by revolt of the bourgeoisie, followed revolt of the
urban populace, follower by revolt of the peasantry. It was
precipitated by the convening of the "Estates General", the
representative body composed of the aristocracy, clergy and
bourgeoisie. Its convocation was the first in three hundred
years, and it was called by Louis XVI due to that monarch's
inability to solve the growing financial crisis that had drained
the national coffers. Disorder grew into chaos as the revolt of
the urban populace blossomed into the events most thoroughly
chronicled in our history texts: the storming of the bastille, the
barricades, the guillotine, and the Reign of Terror.
Terror of the French Revolution is not the phenomenon we
associate with the term "terrorism" today, but there are parallels,
and there is a point to be examined in a discussion of the
Terror. It was initially the systematic use of violence and
mayhem to put into final effect the revolution of the Paris mobs.
One of its most vivid and grisly manifestations was the brutal
massacre of thousands of prisoners in September of 1792. The
infamous September massacres were a result of mob violence aimed
at the symbols of the vanquished monarchy. Unfortunately, the
revolutionary Tribunals, led by such figures as Jean Paul Marat,
which incited the mobs to their atrocities, accounted for very
few aristocratic victims in this incident. The prisons of Paris
at that time were filled with many types, most ordinary
criminals. The clergy and aristocrats within the prisons were
targeted for mob violence by the Tribunals, and the mob, acting on
such incitement, emptied several prisons and, citing the authority
of the Tribunals, bludgeoned, disembowelled and beheaded their
victims in an orgy of violence lasting four days. Nearly two
thousand prisoners were killed, among them, some thirty or so of
the blue-blooded aristocracy, about two hundred priests and
clergy, and the rest ordinary prisoners, guilty and innocent alike
massacres is that they appear to have been the result, at least to
some extent, of a well thought out and quite deliberate plan. An
English traveler, Dr. John Moore, writing in his hotel room in
Paris on the first night of the massacres recorded:
Is this the work of a furious and deluded mob? How is
it that the citizens of this populous metropolis remain
passive spectators of so dreadful an outrage? Is it
possible that this is the accomplishment of a plan con-
certed two or three weeks ago, that those arbitrary
arrests were ordered with this view, that rumours of
treason and intended insurrections and massacres were
spread about to exasperate the people, and that orders
have been issued for sounding the tocsin to increase
the alarm and terrify the populace into acquiescence;
while a band of selected ruffians were hired to
massacre those whom hatred, revenge or fear had
destined to destruction, but whom law and
justice could not destroy? (5)
And so we see one of the predominant effects of terror in
this chapter of history. It was terror "from above" in a sense;
the leaders of a progressively more violent revolution employed a
fearsome technique to eradicate any possibility of a resurgence
of monarchic loyalty in France. Thousands died in the Terror,
many by virtue of title placing them in too close a proximity to
the deposed monarch. Many were innocents, many were non-political
but representative of the ancient regime. But the revolution was
sustained, and only after the death of Marat and the overthrow of
the bloody Robespierre and his cohorts in summer of 1794
would the Great Terror come to an end.
What has this all to do with the study of Terrorism today?
What possible relationship to the events we are witnessing today
is there to the overthrow of a monarchy in Europe nearly two
hundred years ago? The answer lies in the fact that for the first
time in Western history,a revolutionary movement had employed
indiscriminate and wholesale violence to achieve its political
ends. A tradition of violence beyond tyrannicide was established.
This is important in building a model of revolution in which
terror is an ingredient,and also brings us to a second definition
of terrorism, one which will serve to describe terror in the
revolutionary sense: The application of indiscriminate and
public violence by leaders and members of a revolutionary cause
to effect the revolution. This definition, when coupled with a
descriptive model of revolution will serve to illuminate the role
of terrorism in revolutions throughout modern history. The intent
of this will be to provide consistency of method for the study of
terrorism through history and into modern times.
Revolutionary Historical Model of Terror
We may now proceed to the description of a historical model
of revolutionary terrorism derived from the example of the French
revolution and amplified by the experience of several revolutions
in Europe and elsewhere since. If one views the sequence of a
revolution as something akin to the carrying out of a complex
chemical reaction within a society, a progression driven by a
variety of factors and catalysts which move a society from one
composition to another, it can be seen that this process can be
put into a model. This model is a descriptive one, flowing from
an initial situation representing an "ancient regime" to a post-
revolutionary status. There are five stages in the model which
proceed as follow:
1. Pre-revolutionary social order, comprised of a political
structure (such as a monarchy), economy (agrarian), demographic
structure (nobility to peasantry stratification), that is
impacted by:
2.Economic or political change, such as an increase in urban
mass or industrialization, (the rise of a middle class), or the
collapse of the financial basis of an economy, which leads to:
3. Upheaval, manifested by civil disturbance, rioting, and
terror, to include the collapse of the ruling body. This leads
to:
4. Revolution, manifested by disappearance of the old order
and emergence, accompanied by more and possibly more violent
terror, of a radical new order, which, with time and moderating
influences evolves into:
5. Post-revolutionary social order, comprised of a new
political structure, economy, and demographic structure. (6)
What this model does is place terrorism in the perspective
of its role in revolution; that is , a catalyst in the process of
revolutionary change. Like thermal energy applied to a chemical
reaction, the amount of influence of terror in a political
revolution is related to the degree of change in a society to be
wrought by the revolution. If that change is great, such as the
elimination of an entire political structure in favor of a
completely different one, then the role of our catalyst may be
great indeed. This was true in France, in Russia, Germany, and
throughout Europe both in successful and failed revolutions over
the period 1789 - 1938. It was also true in revolutionary events
occurring in the anti-colonial movements from 1882 to the present.
Again, it is the progression of the model that is important in
placing terror in a framework for analysis: Old Order, Economic or
Political Change, Upheaval, Revolution, and New Order. (8) The
usefulness of a model to study historical change lies in its
adaptability to current situations in the world, to societies in
one of the stages of social change represented by phases 2,3, or 4
of the model. The Third World, where urbanization, economic chaos,
political discontent and rapid growth of a discontented middle
class are plentiful provides a variety of scenarios for
application of the model. Consider the nations with recent
petroleum wealth. Consider the nations posessing technological
opportunity with an exploited labor class, or nations of a
combination of both with out of control urbanization. These are
the regions of instability today, and hopes of maintenance of a
status quo are not firmly based in historical example. The next
section of this work will focus on the rise of modern terrorist
movements in the post World War II era. In these examples we will
see the applicability of the model to some degree in each case,
and from these, in subsequent sections, we will attempt to apply
policy options to these situations.
Chapter Notes
1. Aristotle, "Tyrrannicide", quoted from The Terrorism Reader,
W. Laquer,ed., Little, Brown Co., N.Y.1976.
2. Edward Saxby, "Killing No Murder", n.p., London, 1646.
3. The summary of the origins of terrorism in antiquity is taken
largely from the "Origins" chapter of W. Laquer "Terrorism",
Little, Brown, Boston, 1977
4. Chronology of events in the French revolution are taken from
George LeFebvre "The Coming of the French Revoltion",Hutchinson
University Press, London, 1965.
5. From S. Loomis, "Paris in the Terror", Lippencott Press,
Philadelphia, 1964, p 247.
6. The classical historical revolutionary model of terror and
revolution is an approximation of a model of
revolutionary actions that was developed as part of a graduate
course in National Security Affairs taught at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, California entitled "Modern
Political Revolution and Terrorism". The course was taught by
Professor R.H. Stolfi of the NPS NSA faculty.
Chapter II
II Foundations of Modern Terrorism
Politics of Imposition: Palestine
One great value of clear hindsight in the study of history
lies in its contribution to the understanding of the present. We
must remember that terrorism is not a free-standing phenomenon;
it is a symptom, the manifestation of a deeper and fundamental
problem arising out of a grievance with often no apparent
solution. A problem with "models" such as the one developed in
the preceding section is that they tend to be used too rigidly;
if the situation does not fit the model, we tend to throw the
model out or reach erroneous conclusions based on intellectual
situations make to conform. However, if the general conditions of
the model fit a situation, understanding of the situation may be
enhanced by applying the model to determine cause and/or effect
of unrest, upheaval, or terrorism.
The situation which faces the Western world, and
particularly the United States today is the result of both simple
and complex events occurring in the post- World War II era.
Unfortunately, recent history for most Americans is largely
unknown beyond the chronology of events within our borders as
presented by national mass media. We seem to be traditionally
isolationist or, at the very least parochial in our outlook and
this clouds our historical hindsight, so that when an American
sailor on a hijacked airliner is singled out, tortured, shot
and thrown to the tarmac in a distant, troubled land we are
shocked and surprised.(1) Who are these criminals? What did we ever
do to them? What do they want? If we examine certain global
situations in recent history, we may find some answers.
The situation of the Palestinian Arab people is one which
has resulted in some considerable grief and political turmoil for
Western Europe and the United States. It had arisen out of a
dispute over a homeland for the Palestinians which is viewed by
many Palestinian and other Arabs as having been illegally usurped
by the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the State of
Israel in 1948. This was the watershed event which has since seen
visited upon the Middle East and the world at large a tragic
succession of war, terrorism, and unrest.
Palestine has never existed as a nation in the traditional
sense; there has never been a Palestinian national political
body, or foreign policy, or identity. An Arab region, it has been
a land of transitory occupations and imperial domains. In the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Palestine was
occupied by the Turkish Ottoman empire (as were Syria, Lebanon,
and the Transjordan). After World War I, the region was ceded to
British rule under a League of Nations Mandate, which continued
through World War II and until the United Nations directed
partitioning to create a Jewish state. Though never a part of the
British empire, Palestinian Arabs came to regard the British
presence in their land much the same as did the Egyptians, that
is, as an occupying military power.(2) Between the Turkish
occupation and the creation of Israel, there was a growing sense
of Arab nationalism and movements were begun to create a
Palestinian Arab state. (Interestingly, there was a provision in
the U.N. mandate for the partition of Palestine for creation of
just such a state. It was thwarted, as shall be discussed.) A
combination of factors served to combine and defeat these
movements early. First, there was the very transitory nature of
the region itself. Palestine was (and is ) a homeland to many a
different type of people from a variety of cultures and regions.
Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, there was the
steady, but not significantly large influx of Jews into the
region, many displaced by Russian pogroms and increasing European
hostility toward their insular lifestyle and culture. There was
also a substantial number of Asian and Middle Eastern displaced
groups in the region. After the nazi holocaust of World War II,
the Jewish migration into Palestine increased dramatically.
Despite the strict British attempts to restrict this movement by
blockades of the coast and establishment of displaced persons
internment camps on Cyprus and elsewhere, there was widespread
international support for the establishment of a sanctuary for the
Jews in Palestine. There was also a growing Zionist movement that
had the impetus of centuries of mistreatment behind it. The
British had long officially supported the establishment of a
Jewish state in the region as well. As early as 1917, Britain had
stated in the Balfour declaration:
His Majesty's Government view with favour the
establishment in Palestine of a national homes for the
Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to
facilitate the achievement of this object, it being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done to
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
now-Jewish communities in Palestine.(3)
This was quite contrary to the growing sense of nationalism
in the region, inarticulate though it was. The Jewish claim to the
ancient homeland was well received internationally, and its
articulation was quite well done, as exemplified by the founder of
the Zionist movement, Theodore Hertzl who stated in 1896 that
founding a Jewish state in Palestine would fulfill a dream of
"transporting a people without a nation to a nation without a
people." (4) The indigenous population had no such spokesman.
They lived obscurely and quietly, for the most part unknown in the
grand scheme of international relations.
The burgeoning Jewish population in Palestine in the early
post-war years was not peaceably received. Their influx was from
Europe, for the most part, and this was a culture with which the
Arabs were not comfortable. It was a European culture, not a
semi-nomadic one, and an urban, vice rural lifestyle. The
creation of Israel, when it came, was accompanied with violence
and terror. In the first place, there was the terrorist campaign
waged by the Zionist groups against the British, culminating in
the bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem in May, 1948.(5)
There was also terror waged against the Zionists by Arab
nationalist groups and neighboring Arab states which blossomed
into the first Arab - Israeli war.
During its conduct, the roots of "the Palestinian problem"
were established. The indigenous Arab population began a large-
scale exodus from all urban areas and townships. They left from
Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Haifa, even Jerusalem, not yet within Israeli
borders. They left for a number of reasons, some of which are
disputed by the belligerent parties. Some point to the fact that
it is quite normal for unarmed civilians to leave a battle area.
The Israeli position is thatthese people left on the exhortation
or Arab leaders to get out of the way of advancing Arab forces to
avoid hindrance of the total annihilation if the new Jewish
state.(6) The Palestinian Arab version of the exodus is that the
Palestinian inhabitants of the region were subjected to brutal
terrorist acts on the part of Israeli armed forces and fled in
order to prevent their own massacre.(7) There is substantive
factual documentation for all three causal effects of 1948. It is
indisputable that the Palestinians did leave, and left en masse,
with estimates ranging between one-half and one and one-half
millions fleeing to the cities of Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The Israelis, largely for their own protection and survival,
established tough border security and movement control of Arabs
within the borders of Israel. Whole families of Palestinian Arabs
were separated and unable to re-establish contact. The
Palestinians who had left found themselves cast adrift as refugees
in countries which did not want them, as they were an economic
burden. Expelled from Jordan into Lebanon because of negative
Jordanian reaction to militant Palestinian factions, they became a
deprived and desperate class of urban poor. Those that remained in
Israel, over the course of two more Arab - Israeli wars, found
themselves as a conquered and subjugated people in their own land.
Fawaz Turki was one of these refugees and became an eloquent
speaker for the Palestinian Arab cause. He writes:
I am aware that I have been stateless for nearly all
my 29 years;I have lived in refugee camps on the edge
of the desert; that except for those...bureaucrats in
the West who from time to time endorsed a shipment of
food and warm blankets to me, I did not, (for all men
and for all they knew) exist on the face of this
globe; that I was robbed of my sense of purpose and
my sense of worth as a human being... (8)
The rage toward Israel felt by many Palestinian Arabs
expanded to include the whole Western world, this primarily
because of the sense of continued abandonment of their people,
and continued and increasing support for Israel. Turki explains:
My generation of Palestinians, growing up alienated
excluded and forgotten, rejected this legacy, yet
when we looked around us we could see either the
desert to shed our tears in or the whole world to hit
back at. Having nothing and with nothing to lose, we
proceeded to do the latter." (9)
The situation fermented for decades, and while most of the
Western world moved through the late 1950's and into the 1960'
with problems of its own (such as Indochina, Algeria, Berlin and the
growing threat of Communism), there was little awareness of the
"Palestinian problem", other than the understanding that Israel
faced a terrorist threat, which it seemed able to deal with. The
Palestinians were waiting for their Arab brothers to rectify the
problem through some form of unified regional action to restore
their homeland. Such action was not forthcoming. What was
occurring was the continuing growth of Arab nationalism, as
witnesses by such events as nationalization of the Suez canal by
Egypt in 1956, the Lebanon crisis of 1958, and the growing and
increasingly hostile Arab rhetoric in favor of the notion of
exterminating Israel. The focus of European and American action
during this time was on stabilization of the region, prevention
of Soviet advances in the region, and , most visible to the
Palestinian people, the overriding concern of the United States to
guarantee the security of Israel, apparently at any cost. This
gave rise to the foundation of a number of "revolutionary"
movements in the Palestinian cause in the early 1960's, which are
with us to this day, and which have become regular and notorious
visitors to morning headlines. These include the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO), the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fatah, and Black September.
One of the founders of the PFLP, Bassam Abu Sharif,
explains the origins of his group, and how it evolved:
The armed struggle began in 1965, but the
Palestinian people have not stopped fighting since
1948. That was when we were first driven out. You
can say there have been three stages since then:
armed fighting in small groups-commando style
attacks on Israelis in Palestine. The pan-Arab
campaign of the fifties and first half of the
sixties, (which the Palestine supported,
believing it would take them back to Palestine).
Then, latterly the realization of the Palestinians
in 1964-65, that the program of the nationalist
Arab regimes fell short meeting the necessities of
their struggle,... when the Palestinians put into
effect new conditions. 1964 was the year organized
Palestinian resistance began... both the PFLP and
Fatah began then. (10)
This brings us to the situation confronting the world today. The
Palestinian groups, "terrorist" in our perceptions because of
their violence and the sordid nature of their crimes, are, in
their own eyes, revolutionary vanguards in the struggle to right
an egregious historical wrong.
We can apply our model here, and examine its usefulness in
determining the status of this situation. The old order has been
described: old Palestine, occupied, nomadic, rural, and non-
belligerent. The change element was the sudden partitioning of the
region and the imposition of a new state with an unfamiliar and
unwelcome cultural, religious and political composition. The
upheaval is prolonged and ongoing, apparently the state of things
as of this time. As this paper is in its final stage of
generation, the PLO is reasserting itself in Lebanon, with Syrian
backing. Israel is poised for another incursion into Lebanon,
should conditions appear threatening. The last two stages of the
model have not yet occurred, Revolution and the imposition of a
new or post-revolutionary order, in this case regional. What
appears to be needed for the resolution of the situation is
solution for the problem of a permanent homeland of the
Palestinian people. The United States has proposed various options
for this involving the west bank of the Jordan river, once the
territory of Jordan and now occupied by Israel. Without a
solution, we appear to be caught in the dilemma for the short term
at the very least. There are several schools of thought on the
eventual resolution of the Palestinian situation in the Middle
East. One view is expressed by Soraya Antonius, daughter of a
Palestinian nationalist and leader of an Arab women's
revolutionary movement:
I think things will get worse. The struggle has to be
resolved by violence because in twenty five formative
years of the so-called state of Israel non-violence
has only bred violence. Until it started, nobody could
have accused the Palestinians of having even a stick
in their hands. Now they know that resistance has to
be fought for. I have never heard of a country being
given its independence without a struggle." (11)
There is one other aspect of the Palestinian situation that
is unique and bears examining, and that is the incredible degree
of international exportation of their terrorism. While there have
been a number of examples of revolutionary causes being exported
from the scene of the revolution to foreign shores in history, in
no other case until this one has there been such a wide dispersion
of terrorist acts. To date, Palestinian terrorists have claimed
responsibility for various actions, including bombings, airline
hijackings, kidnapings, and assassinations in some fourteen
countries on four continents. This reflects an appreciation for
applying the instrument of terrorism as a means of bringing
awareness of the cause to the world. They do this because it can
be done, and because it brings their cause to the forum of world
public attention and a position of influence in international
decision making. Each time a Palestinian terrorist is apprehended
by the authorities of a state, prosecution of the case is
influenced by the consideration of repercussions and retaliation
by increased terrorist acts. This is an insidious aspect of the
problem and confronts the world with the dilemma of how to deal
with this group of "criminals" without increasing the hazard to
public safety they pose. The recent delay of the extradition of
one of the members of the notorious Abu Nidal sect from West
Germany to the U.S. to face murder charges in the Achille Lauro
hijacking is but one example. The threat made by terrorist cells
in thew Middle East is that German interests worlwide are at risk
should the German government extradite the terrorist. The fact of
the delay proves the credibility of the terrorist threat beyond
any doubt.
Politics of Repression: Northern Ireland
One of the most vivid examples of ongoing terrorist activity
today is the situation in Northern Ireland. This area is the scene
of such continuous violence that it has driven scars into the
psyche of entire generations and left a legacy of hatred and
bitterness that no reconciliation seems possible. It is a regional
issue, yet it has, like Palestine, a global impact, for many of
the same techniques are being employed as are seen in the Middle
East. It has a longer historical tradition, some seven hundred
years. In fact, history is the framework for this situation more so
than any other. A patch of graffitti on an Ulster wall sums it up:
To hell with the future and long live the past,
May God in His Heaven look down on Belfast (12)
The history of "the Irish Question" is perhaps the most
depressing chronology an individual might choose to pursue. It is
a story of ancient hatred and bitter disputes, with the full
spectrum of violence having been exercised, from civil unrest to
sectarian warfare. For the student of terrorism, Northern Ireland
represents the full fruition of the practitioners art.
Ireland was first invaded by Britain in the twelfth century,
during the rei9gn of Henry II. It was finally conquered in 1603,
with the surrender of the O'Neill and the dissolution of the
ancient system of Celtic tribal rule. The conquest of Ireland and
subsequent occupation by Britain resulted in the seeds of violence
being sown. The British, in a policy eventually termed "making
Ireland pay for itself", siezed Irish lands and sold them to
private parties of Scots and Englishmen to pay for the garrisoning
of troops to subdue repeated Irish uprisings. Hostilities began in
the 1600's and continue to this day.
It is nearly impossible to establish a sound perspective on
the situation as pertains to terrorism in Northern Ireland today
because of the complexity of the historical background and the
great fragmentation between and among the warring groups. In fact,
if our model is employed here, it can be effectively argued that
Northern Ireland represents a case of "arrested development" in a
revolutionary situation. There has been no victory for those
attempting to evict the British, neither has there been effective
dissolution of the separist movements. Although the southern half
of Ireland did achieve independence from Britain after a
relatively violent revolution, it took four hundred years, and
the British hold on Ulster is not strictly colonial, it is
strongly supported by the indiginous Protestant population, who
consider themselves British subjects and true Irishmen. Perhaps
the best indication of the depth and complexity of the problem is
to be found in the attitudes of the children.
A Catholic children's poem:
On Saint Patrick's day, jolly and gay
We'll kick every Protestant out of the way
And if that won't do, we'll cut them in two
And send them to hell with their red, white and blue
A Protestant children's poem:
Sleuter, slaughter, holy water
Harry the Papishers, every one
Drive them under and bate them asunder
The Protestant boys will carry the drum (13)
This legacy of backward looking warfare promises nothing but
continued violence and decline of a region. The role of terrorism
here is one typically carried out in a revolution, that of de-
stabilization, of ensuring the establishment that it cannot rest.
It also ensures that the British authorities are seen in the worst
light possible. In a recent analysis of "The Troubles", Paul
Warwick notes:
The British... are accoutered in flak jackets and
armed as if for the D-day landings,and the only
hearts and minds one can imagine them winnigng would
have to belong to members of the National Rifle
Association. There have been 1500 civilian deaths
during what the British call "the Emergency", and one
has to wonder how many of these people were killed by
promiscuous firing from soldiers armed with automatic
rifles.(14)
Although there is no significant threat posed to U.S.
national security by the problem of Northern Ireland, there are
aspects of this long tragedy that do impact this country. A gro-
wing portion of the separatist movement is marxist , and the
damage to British prestige is a small victory for Marxist
terrorism; and, since Britain is one of out oldest and strongest
European allies, it serves to damage U.S. image as well. In sum,
the problem of the unrest in northern Ireland is long term,
serious, and fits into the global scheme of international
terrorism in its own way. It contributes to those movements
advocating worldwide application of the technique of revolutionary
terrorism by providing a fertile ground for the harvest of
anarchy.
The Current of Discontentment
The two examples of terrorist foundations examined above,
Palestine and Northern Ireland, are not the only situations of
violent upheaval in the world today, although they are arguably
the most visible and recognizable to Americans. There are many
others, some of which, like those flourishing in Central and South
America, arguably pose more direct threats to our interests and to
American forces in the region. There are splinter groups of
Marxists and anarchists in Central Europe and on the northern
Mediterranean coast, in Italy and in Greece, which take advantage
of any opportunity to strike at targets of NATO and American
interest. But in each case, there is a common thread, the element
of violent action to draw attention to an internationally weak
cause of opposition to Western or American ideas, institutions, or
alliance and to attack in the name of revolution. There is also
the common element of the spectacular; the idea that while in the
aggregate sense there is no major impact or significant damage
done to the owners of the targets, the unease created in the minds
of the larger populace and the precautions that are taken to
prevent recurrence of their acts make the existence of the
terrorists a fait accompli, they are now players on the world
stage.
The motivations for these disparate groups are as varied as
are their circumstances. We may read in the papers of massacres of
innocent villagers in Central America by right wing death squads
in order to convince the agrarian populace of the inadvisability
of providing any support, however unwilling it may be, to a rebel
movement.
Similarly, we may learn of the assasination of a prominent
politician or businessman of the same country by a rebel group
whose declared motivation for the murder is one of swaying the
populace away from the social goals of the status quo. Generation
of fear is the tactical objective in each case.
The presence of United States military bases, facilities, and
personnel in the many parts of the world troubled by unrest and
subject to the ministrations of terrorists offers a new twist to
the problem altogether. The United States' military presence in
most cases around the globe is a result of alliance or treaty
agreement. Such presence is therefore generally low key, at the
very least it is an aim of the U.S. to maintain positive relations
with the populations of host countries. The military presence
becomes an attractive target for terrorism because of the symbol
it represents of the host nation's ties to a superpower. Although
most terrorist attacks overseas to date have been against non-
military targets; largely corporate facilities and civilian
interests, the propaganda value of an attack on a base or other
military facility is great. What better way to show the
vulnerability of the "paper tiger" ally of the incumbent
government than to bomb or sabotage a U.S. military facility?
The tactic most frequently employed against a military
facility so far has been one of exploiting any feature of the
facility that is not accompanied by some form of security: the
bus carrying servicemen to or from work, the unguarded access to
an "open" base, the night spot frequented by American servicemen.
In an attempt to tighten security, many bases overseas now curtail
the access to and from the installations, and have reduced the
activities of servicemembers that would normally occur off-base.
The next section of this work will examine some attempts at
control of terrorist activity, both successful and unsuccessful
examples from history,and proposals brought forth in the current
scene.
Chapter Notes
1. This is a reference to the infamous hijacking of TWA airlines
flight 847 which occurred in 1985. The sailor referred to was
Petty Officer David Steadham, killed by the hijackers because of
his status as a serviceman.
2. The description of the evolution of the Palestinian situation
is drawn from S Katz, "Battleground, Fact and Fantasy in
Palestine", and the British Office of Naval Intelligence study of
Palestine and Transjordan published as a special study in 1937;
references in bibliography.
3. The Balfour Declaration quote is included in the British ONI
study, p.17.
4. Katz, "Battleground...", p.7.
5. Katz, "Battleground...", p.107.
6. Katz, "Battleground...", p.112.
7. The account of the departure of Palestinian refugees from
their homes is taken from F. Turki "The Disinhereted" , published
by the Monthly Review Press, included in the bibliography.
8. Turki, "The Disinhereted",p.3.
9. Turki "The Disinhereted", p. 9.
10. The evolution of the various PLO organizations and sub-units
is described by Bassam Abu Sharif in the work by G. McKnight "The
Terrorist Mind", published by Bobbs-Merrill Co., included in
bibliography.
11. Mcknight "The Terrorist Mind", p.78.
12, 13, 14. All information on "the Irish Question" and "The
Troubles" are taken from the collection "Northern Ireland", a
study included in volume 54 of The Reference Shelf, edited by J.
Bartlett, H.W. Wilson Co., included in bibliography.
Chapter III
Ways, Means, and Counteractions
Ways and Means - Enter State Sponsorship
In May, 1972, there occured a particularly grisly event in the
annals of modern terrorism, the attack on Lod airport in Israel.
This attack was unique in that it highlighted the international
nature of modern terrorism. In this incident, members of a Marxist
movement, the Japanese United Red Army, opened fire on a crowd of
mostly Puerto Rican tourists in the central terminal of the
airport. Twenty-seven civilian travelers were killed, forty-two
were injured. Two of thethree terrorists were also killed in the
attack, one by Israeli security forces, the other by the blast of
a grenade which he had detonated.
The lone survivor remains incarcerated and incoherent in an
Israeli prison. What makes this incident unique was the genuinely
international nature of the well planned effort that put this
deranged group in Tel Aviv.Openly Marxist, the United Red Army
heretofore had been a problem primarily to the Japanese
government. What could possibly motivate this senseless attack
against a state against whom the perpetrators held no stated
greivance?
What emerges in the search for an answer to this disturbing
question is the more disturbing conclusion that terrorism has
become a more well articulated effort on the part of a network of
states and movements and had grown accordingly. Terrorism has
become recognized, and as an instrument of the furtherance of
selected national aims, it has proven itself valuable.
There has also entered into the arena an increase in the
degree of sophistication of modern terrorist movements, which are
able to take advantage of readily available improvements in
communications, transportation, and weapons and munitions
availability that have occurred in recent years.
In the case of the Lod airport massacre, and in the case of
the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympic
games, two of the most widely recognized instances of terrorism in
the decade, the acts were commissioned by a terrorist group for
accomplishment in an international arena. The intent was to
inflict spectacular damage with wide press coverage in furtherance
of the cause of Palestinian establishment of a state on the ruins
of the "illegitemate" state of Israel. What these occurrences and
others like them represent is a trend that appeared in the 1970's
of forcing regional disputes into the international arena. By
employing Japanese fanatics, by desecrating the Olympics, and by
other acts such as the Entebbe hostage drama and the OPEC hostage
drama, the radical sects of the PLO are the aknowledged masters of
"transnational" terrorist tactics. But the technique may easily
be employed in a variety of disputes, such as Puerto Rican
nationalist bombings in New York, or Molluccan train hijac4kings
in the Netherlands. Why not elsewhere?
Because of the relationship of instability in certain Western
governments to the furtherance of the aims of the Soviet Union
toward world socialism and the ultimate destruction of America
capitalism, the tool of "state sponsored" terrorism is most
attractive. It is also cost effective, when compared to the much
greater cost of payments in arms, consumer goods and tools of
production for regimes that the soviets support, notably Cuba,
Nicaragua, and Libya. In fact it may be argued quite effectively
that all terrorism is "state sponsored", particularly since
stateless movements employing terrorism, such as the Palestinian
Arabs, are attempting to attain a state. Even so strange an act as
the attempted assasination of the Roman Catholic Pope by a vagrant
Turkish malcontent; trained, armed and bought by Bulgarian
officials, fits into the scheme of furtherance of a state
supported aim. Though not obvious to the reader at first, there is
a method to this act that defines the logic of employing terrorism
to further national objectives.
The Pope is, after all, a significant threat to the stability
of the Jaruszelski regime in Poland. This regime is vital to the
overall stability of the East European security belt of the Soviet
Union; therefore any threat posed by the leader of the Catholic
Church represents a direct threat to Soviet security interests,
and is therefore targetted for elimination. Ridiculous? Possibly,
but the fact of the gunfire in St. Peter's square must give pause
to thoughts of dismissal of the linkage of this act to the Soviet
Union. The Bulgarian connection of Mehmet Ali Agca (1) was proved,
and though emphatically denied by the Bulgarian regime, no
explanation was offered to solve the riddle of why this gunman
held Bulgarian passports and had met with Bulgarian diplomats.
There is no reasonable threat posed by the Pope to Bulgaria, after
all...
Incidents such as the Lod massacre and the assasination
attempt on the Pope are not isolated. A disturbing trend is
emerging as the litany of terrorism progresses. While recent
examples abound in the periodicals, it may be useful to examine a
hypothetical instance of the terror linkage which terminates in
the western sphere.
A terrorist group, targetting the west in furtherance of a
revolutionary cause, finds a sympathetic sponsor in an East
European embassy in a Middle Eastern capital. The groups 'terrorist
faction is trained and given documents in the sympathizer's
homeland. They are armed from a third country's arsenal with
funding from the sympathizer. They are employed in a terror attack
against a Western target, such as an airliner or a train in yet
another third country to confuse the jurisdiction of the event
and, upon its completion, are ferried from the scene on still
another country's airplane to disappear at some destination not
disclosed to authorities. The connections are numerous, the
network is large, the acts are expanding.
This confused scenario itself serves to enhance the agenda
of terrorists; while there can be no quick determination of
ultimate responsibility for the act, there can be no
international outcry or prosecution of the perpetrators. The net
result is a sense of unease among the population of the victim
nations,( a terrorist objective), and a glaring press incident in
the west (another objective achieved).
The gain to the sponsor state, assuming an affiliation with
Marxist interests, is threefold. First, credibility within the
third world is enhanced. Those movements/states espousing Marxist
doctrine and the demise of Western values find solidarity with
their supporters through the enactment of terrorism (2). Second,
there is enhanced justification for the providing of arms and
advisors to a supporting state, as is frequently found in
Nicaragua, Cuba and Libya (3). Such support is intended to
bolster these regimes against the perceived threat of retaliation
by the U.S. and its allies in response to terrorist acts by
military means. The retaliatory raid against Libya by U.S. naval
and air forces in the spring of 1986 lends credence to the need
for increased security for these states. They are sympathetically
perceived as being the victims of imperialist aggression of the
armed forces of the U.S. Finally, sponsorship of "revolutionary"
terrorism enlarges the role that an otherwise third- or fourth-
rate power plays in international affairs. After all, who can
argue that Libya or Nicaragua are really minor sores on the face
of the earth after they have been publicly identified by a
superpower state as being a threat to hemispheric stability? The
medium of terrorism is their means to being in the "major
leagues" of international affairs. This, then is the crux of
the problem which has resulted in terrorism becoming an
internationally institutionalized tool of foreign policy. Lacking
economic leverage through natural resources or geographic
position, and lacking genuine military power, a Marxist state may
turn to the sponsorship of terrorism as a method of conducting
its affairs. If the U.S. or its allies are able to prove
conclusively that such sponsorship exists, then actions to
counter terrorism may be employed effectively, including the use
of military force. This was largely the case in the April 1986
raid on Libya, although the conclusiveness of the proof of Libyan
sponsorship of terrorist acts has been called into question in
Europe and elsewhere.
Lacking this proof places a burden of doubt on a nation
responding to terrorism through military means. Such response may
then serve to portray the state which is on the receiving end of a
military action as being the victim of aggression, as is the claim
of Muammar Khadaffy, the Libyan strongman. More will be discussed
in this area in a later section.
The ways and means of terrorism on a smaller scale than the
international one are similar to those of any criminal activity.
The primary difference between a terrorist network and an
operation of a more conventional criminal nature lie in the
objectives of the activity. The objectives of conventional
criminal organizations are primarily profit motivated. The
machinations of such organizations are familiar to most Americans.
What differentiates the terrorist in his motives are the higher
stakes placed on mission accomplishment for the terrorist.
This is a very fine line, since often the results of both
entities is violence and death. But the motivation for the
terrorist is idealogical as opposed to profit motive, and this
usually means that the risk such an organization will take is
greater, the planning possibly better, and the results sometimes
more spectacular.
Historical Countermeasures
There are several illustrative examples in the post - WW II
era which are useful in the analysis of counteractions in
response to the threat of terrorism. Two examples involve
successful policies adopted to counter terrorism, although the
terrorism in both instances originated from and was largely
carried out within the borders of the victim state. The first
example is Algeria. The second is Uruguay. These examples do not
correspond to the current scenario except in a very general
sense; both are revolutionary examples, however they are useful
to examine the effects of terrorism and counter-terrorism in their
most extreme manifestations.
The nationalist movement in Algeria broke into a violent
revolutionary pattern in 1945, with the massacre of French
colonials in the town of Setif. For the next sixteen years
Algeria was torn by violence which covered the entire available
spectrum, from street demonstrations to full-scale guerilla war.
The Setif massacre was a planned attack by local Berber villagers
against the French police garrison and colonial residents of the
town of Setif, near the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. Several
dozens of the colonials were killed, and there were atrocities
committed by the attackers.
At the time of the outbreak of violence in the Algerian
movement for independence from France in 1945, the colonial
populace represented a distinct minority of the total population
of the country, which was primarily Arab. The Setif massacre
triggered a backlash on the part of the colonials which left many
Arabs dead, and which drove the seed of revolutionary fervor deep
into the Arab indigents. What followed was a campaign of bombings
and retaliations, terrorism and fierce reaction from the French
authorities; a period culminating in the famous "battle of
Algiers" in the Autumn of 1957.(4)
In this episode, French reaction to the growing waves of
terror directed at the colonial population was marked by brutal
military efficiency on the part of the French Army paratroopers
in the district and city of Algiers under the command of then Col.
Massu. Massu initiated a series of measures, including
"guadrillage", the subdividing of territory down into block-sized
units; rigid curfew, infiltration of rebel cells every level,
and random and intensive interrogation tactics of the urban
populace. These repressive measures effectively crushed the rebel
resistance. The cells were compromised, rampant distrust was sown
among the leaders of the revolutionary movement, and the mobility
of the revolutionary terrorists was denied.
Although the battle of Algiers is widely popularized in story
and film as being a bright moment in the revolutionary struggle of
the Algerian people to achieve independence, in reality the
campaign itself was a total victory for the French. It was an
extremely unconventional military campaign, however it was
brilliantly effective. The unfortunate side of the battle for the
French lies in the fact that the paras adopted tactics contrary to
the ideals of their service. Along with the tactics of counter-
revolutionary urban warfare, they resorted to the employment of
torture and indiscriminate violation of the most basic civil and
cultural rights of the Algerian people. It was this that
eventually proved to be undoing of French efforts to hold on
to the country, for the metropolitan population of continental
France was revolted by the facts of the repression of the Algerian
resistance movement.
This example serves to support the idea that at its most
rampant, an internal terrorist threat can be effectively defeated
by a conventional military force operating unconventionally. It
also serves to support the idea that the greater good may not be
served no matter how effective, for the methods employed proven to
be destructive in the long run.
Another example of effective response to terrorism is the
case of the Tupamaros of Uruguay in the period 1965-75. Uruguay
at the beginning if the 1960's was regarded as one of the most
politically enlightened states in South America, sometimes
referred to as the "Switzerland of South America". She was
governed by a democratically elected president, was largely self-
sufficient economically, and was a favored tourist country of the
continent. (5)
The Tupamaros were a Marxist revolutionary sect that arose
to prominence after the failed efforts of Che Guevara to create a
revolution in Bolivia. Guevara was captured and executed by
Bolivian authorities in 1968. The Tupamaros began as a labor
movement in 1962 when their founder, Raul Sendic, began organizing
sugarcane workers in Montevideo in order to strike against the
corporate entity that controlled the workers lives. As in many
revolutionary movements, the real roots were economic. Since the
late 1950's, Uruguay's predominantly agricultural economy had
begun to show signs of stagnation. Her exports of beef and other
farm goods to neighboring nations had fallen off due to the
emergence of more productive and efficient national economies.
Inefficiencies in distribution within Uruguay, soaring inflation,
popular agrarian labor unrest all contributed to the rise of a
number of revolutionary movements, by far the most violent and
openly terrorist were the Tupamaros. Exposure of growing
corruption within the government, depiction of the U.S. as a
sponsor of the worst elements in Uruguayan society, and
furtherance of the notion that true prosperity for the workers
could only be found in a Marxist state were all tactical aims of
the Tupamaros.
The tactics of the sect included assassination of government
officials, bombing attacks on institutional facilities, murder of
police officials to indicate powerlessness, and selected attacks
on military officials to "dissuade" the autonomous military from
becoming involved in counter terrorist actions.
What evolved was indeed revolutionary in scope, thought it
was nothing like what the Tupamaros had in mind. The military
elite of the country consolidated its internal powers behind a
set of "emergency measures" legislated by the Uruguayan
government. These included suspension of the writ of habeus
corpus, strict press censorship, and greatly expanded police
powers for both civil and military authorities. The growing
political crisis, enabled and facilitated by acts of terrorism on
the part of the Tupamaros, became a full-scale guerilla war.
Repression and torture, along with many other tactics
employed in a similar manner as had been seen in Algeria resulted
in two outcomes for the Uruguayan situation. First was the utter
eradication of the Tupamaros. By 1972, no functioning
revolutionary cells remained. All known rebel leaders, including
the founder, Raul Sendic, were dead or imprisoned. Additionally,
the established democratic tradition of the country had been
destroyed. With the earlier exposure of official corruption and
the weakened political position of the president and other
elected leaders had come a void in leadership of the country. The
military elite, with consolidated and highly effective powers,
filled the void. The national assembly was dissolved in 1973, and
all elected officials from then on were sponsored by the
military. (6)
The lessons from the example of Uruguay are twofold.
First, as in the Algerian case, adoption of ruthless counter
terrorist measures, while effective, may lead to destruction of
basic social concepts and ideals. The dangers of this occurrence
are obvious. Second, the catalytic effect of terrorism in a
situation of economic and/or political instability are
exponential to the same effects in a stable social environment.
In this case there are some closer parallels to the present
scenario in a number of regions, Southern Africa being most
visible among them. Again, the growing power of internal and
military authorities may bring forth a changed society unforseen
by the principals in the current struggle.
Chapter Notes
1. Mehmet Ali Agca was convicted by an Italian court of assault
upon the Pope in a tumultuous trial in 1983. An account of the
investigation and chronology of the incident was provided by P.
Brinton's "Attack on thePope", Blackledge Press, London, 1984.
2. The application of terrorism in the furtherance of Soviet aims
is discussed in E. Goodman's "The Soviet Design for a World
State", Columbia University Press, N.Y. 1960. Lenin's writings
quoted in this work endorse the notion of terrorism to weaken a
capitalist society, although he renounced "indiscriminate" terror.
3. The connection of Libya, Cuba and Nicaragua to Soviet foreign
policy and the advancement of Marxist ideaology is stated in the
President's "National Security Policy of the United States",
included in the bibliogranphy.
4. The history of the Algerian revolution istaken from the
riveting book by Alistair Horne "A Savage War of Peace", Viking
Press, N.Y., included *in the bibliography.
5. An analysis of the Uruguayan crisis is concisely told by E.
Kaufman in "Uruguay in Transition, From Civilian to Military
Rule", Transaction Books, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1979.
6. Raul Sendic was released from prison in 1986, after almost 14
years in prison. When asked if he would attempt to resurrect the
Tupamaros' revolutionary banner he stated: "Why should we go back?
We were the marshalls of defeat. "Uruguay is currently undergoing
a resurgence of democracy,as are Brazil and Argentina.
Chapter IV
Policy Options for the United States
The Current Stance
The present position of the United States with respect to
the problem of international terrorsism is thought to be well
know among the populace. Yet beyond the statement that "we will
not deal with terrorists" there is a policy void wherein there
exists a need for greater articulation of a national front
against the threat.
In his 1987 publication of National Security goals (1),
President Reagan has restated and somewhat expanded the notion
that we will not deal with or tolerate terrorists and their
activities. His expansion lies mainly in the concept that the
nation will pursue whatever legal means at its disposal to
determine the origin of any terrorist act directed against U.S.
citizens and/or property, and, having determined the source, will
take appropriate action. The April 1986 attack on Libya is
frequently cited as an appropriate response to terrorism.
The difficulty with this posture as the entirety of the
national policy on terrorism is that it does not adequately
address the problem; there is not sufficient content to the
statement of policy.
A recently aired Public Broadcasting Service program
entitled "In the Face of Terror" illustrates the difficulties of
attaining and articulating a consensus policy to counter
terrorism. The program was a panel discussion among a group of
national security experts, military representatives, and media
representatives wherein a hypothetical terrorist scenario was
posed by the panel moderator and the responses of the group to
each disclosure of the scenario was elicited. The scenario was
set in the Middle East and involved a hostage incident in which
U.S. citizens were a majority of the hostages. (2)
One of the most interesting aspects of the broadcast was the
diversity of responses emerging from each disclosure. A
particularly enlightening example was the response by members of
the press to the question of what action they would take should
they receive knowledge of the location of the terrorist
ringleaders as a result of terrorist attempts to broaden media
coverage of the event. One well known network correspondent
stated that he would most emphatically safeguard such information
as a matter of priveleged information from a safeguarded source.
Another correspondent stated that her decision about whether or
not to pass on the location of the terrorists to the authorities
would have to be made on the basis of whether or not lives were
at stake. Still another stated that he would have no qualms about
immediately notifying authorities as soon as he could.
While such hypothetical responses may have been based upon
professional considerations regarding journalistic credibility,
thle example of the well known correspondents serves to
illustrate an advantage held by terrorists in the commission of
their acts; the advantage an underdog has over a divided foe.
While the impact of public opinion in a free society is
significant to say the least, the advantage held by the terrorist
in the face of such variety of response is greater than that of
mere manipulation of the media.
There was another illustrative example of the impact of a
lack of consensus in counter-terrorist strategy that emerged from
the program. Included among the panel members was a former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a State department
legal adviser, a former Chief of Staff of the Army, and a former
White House Chief of Staff. Each of these was asked a question
about the response appropriate to the terrorist act assuming the
situation had been resolved with some loss of life and that there
had been a determination of sponsorship of the act attributed to
a well known radical Middle Eastern state leader. Again, there
was a diversity of response to the proposition.
The CIA chief recommended assasination of the responsible
dictator, terming it an "imposed change of leadership". The
lawyer expressed concerns about international law and
jurisdiction beyond our borders. The former Army Chief
recommended the employment of special forces to extract the
dictator and hand him over for prosecution. The former White
House Chief of Staff recommended a retaliatory conventional
military strike as was done against Libya.
This again serves to illustrate the diversity of opinion
within the high levels of our government when faced with the
increasing threat of terrorism. Again, the terrorist perceives a
divided foe and an advantageous position from which to direct his
actions.
The question of a consensus policy to counter an increasing
terrorist threat is further complicated by other factors. One of
these is the transitory nature of U.S. politics. Without a
legislative or constitutional provision, counterterrorism as a
foreign policy suffers the same vagaries as any other foreign
policy. It is subject to immediate situational executive change;
that is, policy is set as a funtion of the party in office at the
time, it becomes a function of the political goals of individual
office holders of a particular administration.
Another complicating factor is the uniqueness of the United
States situation as a target nation. There is no international
historical precedent to draw upon. It is fundamentally difficult
to adopt a policy within the framework of a constitutional
democracy to address effective measures against a threat which
appears to be increasingly an exported product.There is no
specific threat posed in the United States of significant
political violence from an internal revolutionary entity.
Recent legislation enacted in Congress has increased the
penalties for terrorist acts.(3) Among the increased powers of
the federal government enacted since 1984 are:
Prosecution of any person who commits an act of violence on
any government or civilian aircraft.
Prosecution of any person who commits an act of violence
against the immediate family members of the President, Vice
President, Members of Congress, all federal judges, the heads of
executive agencies, the Director of the CIA and federal law
enforcement officials. (State jurisdiction still supercedes
federal unless the offense is committed on federal property.)
Prosecution of anyone who travels or uses transportation or
communications facilities in interstate or foreign commerce with
the intent to murder for compensation.
These enactments seem to recognize the need for a better and
more coherent policy to counter terrorism, but they are not
adequate to overcome the growing threat. A broader base of action
and a greater effort is required.
A Perspective for Policy Formulation
There is a method of addressing terrorism that proceeds
beyond the current framework of policy formulation. In order to
advance into a more effective method of addressing this growing
and insidious threat, there are four points which may assist in
setting a new framework and a more effective strategy in the
changing environment.
The first of these points is acceptance. This means acceptance
of the fact that intmernational terrorism is becoming a more
normalized methodology for advancing a variety of idealogical
causes and revolutionary aims. This means acceptance also of the
notion that terrorism is becoming more widely distributed in the
world as improvements in transportation and increases in the
availability of arms and munitions expands. Acceptance does not
mean accepting any portion of the notion that terror is
legitimate. But, like any physiological epidemic, the expansion of
terrorism as a means of accomplishing political ends must be
recognized as a growing and virulent problem before it can be
further treated.
Additionally, acceptance in this context means increasing
public awareness of the root causes of contemporary terrorism and
the most likely vectors by which the problem may advance.
Education in public schools is an example of how this particular
definition of acceptance may be applied.
The second point in developing a revised framework for
policy formulation is in the concept of minimization. This means a
concerted effort at presenting the events of terrorism in a less
sensational and a more lucid method. Minimization is an
orientation of the public coverage of these events which is
intended to minimize the accomplishment of the terrorist
objective of spectacular media coverage.
This smacks of censorship, however what it really means is a
concerted effort to have an informed press do their job with a
more professional outlook and function. As was stated by a senior
journalist, editor of a daily newspaper during a recent "media day"
at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College: "I work for my
editor, not the reading American public; he's the guy who writes
my paycheck." (4)
There is a precedent for attempting to define and enforce
standards of press coverage. During the late 1970's, an American
Editorial Review Board was established with senior, highly
credentialed journalists of various media participating. The
intent was specifically to reduce sensationalist reporting and to
upgrade the priorities of current journalism practices. The
effort failed, largely because of two factors. First, the board
had no enforcement powers other than written censure of anyone
whom it deemed to be under its influence. Second, the efforts of
the board were usurped by the overpowering influence of ratings
and ratings share of television news broadcasts.
All network news organizations claim to exist as a public
information arm of the networks themselves. Recent hearings
before the Interstate Communications Commission into the budget
practices of the three major networks in funding their news
divisions revealed that, while the networks in funding their news
divisions as a profit center for aodvertising revenue, they do
depend heavily on the ratings to determine the "quality" of news
production.
This cannot but influence the format and content of
televised news; what drives ratings is what some would argue
attracts fans to the circus, they want to see the lions win.
"Sensationalism" is an oft-abused term when applied to the media
in general and the television media in particular. Military
people tend to distrust the press, the reverse is also true. This
distrust has evolved into an adversarial relationship harmful to
all concerned, especially in the face of a terrorist threat.
Minimization as an element of a policy formulating framework
would include a publicly declared editorial policy which would be
aimed at resticting visual media from the coverage of a terrorist
event. Such restriction would include film, still photo, and
television. Live coverage would be allowed, but only from a
separate location, such as an operations center. If this policy
were backed by force of law, and were couched in legal
terminology that such editorial constraints were aimed at
preservation of public interests, the media would still enjoy
its traditional freedom to report whatever it saw fit, but
without the added element of the live spectacle. The hijacking
of TWA flight 847 in 1985 is a glaring example of television
media run amok in the hands of a terrorist sponsored tragedy.
One additional aspect of the concept of minimization is the
adversarial relationship that now exists between press and
military in American society. David Gergen, editor of U.S.News
and World Report stated that "Too few govrnment-media
relationships are built on trust, credibility and
professionalism."(4) While there is a perfectly natural human
tendency to be distrustful of an entity which might expose the
embarassing or the distorted about an agency or an individual,
and while such a tendency is even healthy to protect journalistic
independence, it would be helpful if this tendency were
professionally molded. If aspiring journalists and junior
military officers were trained to deal with each other on a
professional basis, there might be a better product emerging from
newsrooms and editorial offices than there is presently. For the
armed forces, recognition of the press as a potentially valuable
asset in the projection of the military image, as was done during
World War II, would be helpful in the combat against a terrorist
threat. For the press, realization of the growing dimension of
the terrorist threat, and understanding of the unique position of
the military in dealing with the threat would go a long way in
getting a true story and a less hostile reception from the object
of their inquiry.
The third point in the construct of a framework for policy
formulation, after acceptance and minimization, is articulation;
that is, the articulation of a legislative agenda for the combat
against terrorism. As was mentioned earlier, there have been
sporadic attempts and recent successes at passing anti-terrorist
legislation. However, there needs to be a greater effort at
articulating a national posture to stand against this growing and
difficult threat. As an example, we presently have serious gaps
at standardizing and upgrading of security at airports and other
points of entry. While measures have been approved to better
enable the law enforcement efforts, no federal statutes currently
mandate development of measures to protect ports, vessels,
passengers, or crew. (6)
In addition to a need to improve physical security in the
face of a terrorist threat, potentially compromising information
is available freely under the Freedom of Information Act to any
who might ask. This could quite easily result in people and in
facilities becoming targets of a terrorist attack. The FOIA has
proven to be of great value in determining people, places and
activities in the areas of law enforcement, military operations,
and government proceedings. This is a windfall to potential and
existing terrorist organizations.
Other items worthy of articulation into policy include:
Congressional oversight of proposed counter terrorist
operations; currently this is the exclusive realm of the
Executive branch, because of the employment of military options
in hostage rescue and other situations.
Jurisdiction over terrorist acts committed against federal
officials and property as well as against foreign officials and
facilities within the United State. Presently, unless such
violations occur on federal property, or in conjunction with
violations of otyer federal statutes, state jurisdiction
prevails.
Formation of a Joint Committee on Intelligence, an issue
raised by the Report of the Vice President's Commission on
Terrorism. This would serve to streamline procedures for
intelligence oversight and reduce access of numbers of people to
sensitive information.
Revision of extradition treaties to permit a more efficient
processing of perpetrators to and from the U.S. Recent decisions
of the federal courts have blocked extradition of suspected
terrorists to seeking countries on the grounds that their
offenses were political crimes, therefore these people were
protected against extradition. There should be revisions to
extradition treaties to preclude exclusion of political offenses
when the offenses include violent crime.
American law sides heavily on the assumption of innocence,
the protection of individual rights against anything remotely
defined as unreasonable, and the protection of our constitutional
freedoms. It is a magnificent tradition of law, however,
revision a3t its loose seams would significantly enhance the
prospects of reducing the ever more clear and present danger of
terrorism.
The final of the four points in building the framework is
alliance. With the growing polarization of the terrorist threat
against Western targets, the U.S., its European allies and its
industrial trading partners, there is great value in alliance.
One specific application of improving an alliance, the revision
of extradition treaties, has been made. Others largely include
the idea of articulation of international cooperation against
terrorism. From the Vice President's Commission report:
International cooperation offers the best hope for long
term success. More and more states recognize that
unilateral programs for combatting terrorism are not
sufficient. ...terrorists will benefit from the
uncoordinated actions of their victims. International
cooperation can complicate the terrorists tasks, deter
their efforts, and save lives. Numerous actual or
planned attacks against U.S. or foreign targets have
failed or were circumvented...
The report goes on to highlight action agreed to by the
"Summit Seven", (U.S.,U.K.,Canada, West Germany, France, Italy and
Japan) that seems to recognize the value of such alliance in
facing the threat. With activation of counterterrorist policies
in existing international trade, transportation, and
communications agencies, the results could be more positive still.
This is the framework: acceptance, minimization,
articulation, and alliance, within which may be built a foreign
policy in response to the growing threat of the terrorist.
The Model Revisited
In the revolutionary historical model to terror we observed
five distinct phase of revolution, and saw how terrorism, acting
as a catalyst, was most prevalent in three of them. In each of the
several situations of the world today that acts as a host and
breeding ground for terrorism; from Northern Ireland to South
Africa, from the Middle East to Central America can be found some
stage of the historical model. Upheaval and revolution are
permanent realities of political life in our time. As such, the
catalyst of the terrorist will be ever present in their midst.
What has served to exacerbate the problem of terrorism for the
United States has been the increasing commitment that this country
has economically to many countries worldwide, the unending
requirement to maintain a military and political presence to
support the commitment, and the increased use of the terrorist as
an instrument of violent foreign policy. When these factors are
combined with the growing lethality and availability of weapons
and the ease of movement about a shrinking world, it is apparent
that any attempt to forestall the terrorist threat must be made
through the medium of foreign and internal policy formulation. As
long as the terrorist threat is perceived as being disparate,
random and inarticulate we have no means of effectively addressing
the threat. Through acceptance, minimization, articulation and
alliance we have the framework within which can be built a tough
and effective policy to combat a dedicated, often fanatic foe.
In a sense, the problem is a simple one, in that terrorism is
like any other crime of violence. We have laws, we have deterrents
to the commission of violence; all we need do is enforce them. But
on the other hand, terrorism is a vastly more complex problem, in
that what it attacks are -the foundations of a way of life, of our
way of life. It is virtually impossible to retain a free society
and at the same time enact measures to preclude occurrence of
terrorist acts. We must formullate policies in conjunction with
our allies and those states we recognize as being in favor of
democratic ideals to educate our people, to minimize the
effectiveness of the terrorist, and to use the best of our
abilities to ensure continued progress in international and human
affairs. Terrorism will not go away. We must ensure it is
contained as much as possible.
1. Extracted from the Presidents "National Security Policy for the
United States", Washington, D.C. 1987.
2. The program discussed, "In the Face of Terror", a production of
WETA, Washington, D.C., 1987
3. Legislative initiatives with respect to terrorism were
summarized in the "Report of the Vice President's Task Force on
Terrorism", Washington D.C., 1986.
4. The remarks on military - press relationships were made at the
U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College Media day, March, 1987,
and were by Mr. Pat Fergurson, of the Washington bureau of "The
Baltimore Sun".
5. Remarks made during an address by Mr. David Gergen durine an
Erskine series lecture at Quantico, Va., March, 1987.
6. From the Report of the Vice President's Task Force.
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