re: nexus I

"In November 1989, Father Ignacio Martín-Baró, a social psychologist, delivered a speech in California on "The Psychological Consequences of Political Terror". In his speech, Martín-Baró gave a much more precise definition of terrorism, one that is ignored only at great peril. Noam Chomsky provides a synopsis of this speech (p. 386):

He [Martín-Baró] stressed several relevant points. First, the most significant form of terrorism, by a large measure, is state terrorism--that is, "terrorizing the whole population through systematic actions carried out by the forces of the state". Second, such terrorism is an essential part of a "government-imposed sociopolitical project" designed for the needs of the privileged.

Disturbing though it may be, Martín-Baró's definition is one validated by history. The majority of terrorism throughout history has found its sponsors in the hallowed halls of officialdom, in the entity known as government. Terrorism is surrogate warfare, a manufactured crisis designed to induce social change. Its combatants consciously or unconsciously wage the war on behalf of higher powers with higher agendas. Whether its adherents are aware of it or not, terrorism always serves the ambitions of another."

this is an absurd misunderstanding of chomsky's speech- this "point" made in passing has a crucial impact on the rest of the argument. the phrase "systematic actions carried out by the forces of the state" is a reference to to the high prevalence of direct interventionism abroad- whether it be use of the u.s. military or selective exporting/giving away of the more advanced weaponry. this goes hand in hand with the increasing use of paramilitary force in proxy warfare- columbia is a beautiful example. chomsky is reappropriating the term terrorism- the sexiness being due to the inverted symmetry he uses here. this is essentially linguistic reconstruction of the thouroughly idologically tainted word "terrorism", popularly used to denote desperate suicide attacks (anti-power), which no doubt exist very much independently of systemic violence. at the end of chomsky's essay the reader should feel aware that violent death is more likely to be caused by "systematic", i.e. large-scale, pro-systemic action, with the linguistic distortion cleansed. Chomsky is talking vietnam here.

with afghanistan and the bin ladin the plot gets a bit more complicated than the author recognises. although u.s.-trained forces have turned against foreign policy motives at various points (panama- noriega; iraq- saddam) this is not an example of a self-conscious policy of sponsoring terrorist force against the u.s. populous, but is easily attributed to the dilletantish efforts ("we don't speak arabic") of the u.s. beaurocratic apparatus- or the famous principle of short-terminism in a decision-making frame guided by capitalist imperatives (namely the famous military-industrial complex). as with any "theory" around the jfk incident, the identification of "shady characters" involved in essentially anti-systemic ploys with "interests... [being] unclear" [nexus], with outcomes being supposedly incidential to the guiding principles, will just hinder historical interpretation of the causal links involved. discovering truth re: "what's actually going on" does not require exposing some sort of hidden agenda, but rather the reinterpretation of factual information that is already widely available, if in distorted form. conspiracy theory means being naive about the principles underlying systemic outcomes.