"Terrorism" Defined? Re: [Vision2020] {Longish] letter with facts of interest

[Ted Moffett]

All-

While many of the facts presented in this letter appear true, there is one
statement that suggests the bias of the writer was influencing their logic:

"To date, not a single terrorist has gotten to the US through Mexico..."

We cannot verify this is true, nor can the writer.  Perhaps he meant not a
single terrorist who it has been verified carried out terrorist attacks has
gotten into the US through Mexico.  There could be numerous "terrorists" who
crossed illegally into the US from Mexico who have not yet carried out the
attacks they intend.

Also, how do we define "terrorist?"

It seems this word has taken on a definition suiting the propaganda needs of
some in power.  While the US kills tens of thousands of "innocents"
in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are merely "collateral damage," ignoring the
fact that in military conflict impacting "innocents" is a powerful strategy
to weaken the enemy.  In Iraq, the US has deliberately targeted innocent
family members with imprisonment and violence to attempt to force their
relatives, who it is believed are members of the insurgency, to come to
ground.  Is this not terrorizing innocents for, at least in part, political
purposes, given that the US goals in Iraq are not purely military, but the
establishment of a new political/ideological system in Iraq?

Is someone crossing the Mexican/US border a "terrorist" if they smuggle
large quantities of illegal drugs and kill their competitors and some of
their "innocent" family members in the USA in gang warfare?  If so,
"terrorists" have crossed the Mexican/US border and carried out attacks.  I
suppose terrorists must deliberately kill "innocents" for political
purposes, which seems part of the current definition of "terrorist," so
perhaps gang war "hits" are not aimed at killing innocents for strictly
political purposes, but merely economic power purposes.  Nonetheless,
Mexican/US border violence does inspire "terror" in many people.  And could
not the World Trade Center attacks be reduced in theory to a kind of
international gang warfare "hit" against the economic power of the US,
as the US competes with other ideologies who perceive the US, with
its global economic hegemony, as undermining their power in the world?

When "terrorism" is understood from this perspective, the line between a
gang war "hit," and a terrorist coming into the US to kill to undermine the
economic power of the US, is perhaps not as precise as thought.  Some who
study Bin Laden's approach think (the CIA author who wrote the book
"Imperial Hubris" described the invasion of Iraq a "Christmas gift to Bin
Laden") that in fact his goal in the 9/11 attacks was to force the US to
overextend itself and deplete its economic and military power by invading
Islamic nation(s), bogging the US down in endless occupation and conflict,
and swelling the ranks of recruits for Bin Laden's "war," recruits who
witness the US invading Islamic nations in what could be viewed as a "war"
against Islam, exactly as Bin Laden warned.   This approach, if indeed it
was Bin Laden's intent, seems to be working to some extent...and it suggests
his goals in killing US innocents were more militarily oriented that just
political.

Consider that at one time President Reagan celebrated the Taliban as
"freedom fighters" in their war against the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan.  Later the Taliban were all lumped together as "terrorists,"
though most of them certainly had nothing to do with any attack against the
US.  It is interesting that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi
nationals, with significant funding for their operations coming from within
Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi human rights violating dictatorship blocking US
investigations into all the connections of these 15 terrorists inside Saudi
Arabia, while Afghanistan and Bin Laden took most of the blame for 9/11.
How often have we heard that Saudi's are "terrorists?"  As long as the US
has a stable cozy relationship with the Saudi Royal family maintaining the
flow of fossil fuels, we won't be hearing that the Saudi Royal family has
"terrorists" in their midst from President Bush, despite the fact they had
more connections to 9/11 than Saddam Hussein.

I now return you to your regular programming...

Ted Moffett



On 4/11/06, melynda at moscow.com <melynda at moscow.com> wrote:
>
> I didn't write this letter, but I can confirm some of its facts, which
> makes it at least as useful a contribution as my unvarnished opinion.
> I've substituted new links for a couple of broken ones in the original.
> It's circulating widely, which is good reason to be cautious--but the
> little bit of research I've done on it checks out so far.  I highly
> recommend the Pew website, by the way; it's incredibly informative.
>
> Melynda Huskey
>
> P.S.  Mekt, was Stalin's government ordained by God? More to the point,
> was George Bush flying in the face of Providence when he ousted God's
> choice for Iraqi President-for-Life, Saddam Hussein?
>
> **************************************************************
>
> Open letter to CNN and other mainstream US media outlets:
>
> 1. The vast majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S. (75 percent of us)
> were born and raised here, including many of us who have roots here that
> predate the arrival of the pilgrims.
>
> 2. "Immigrant" is not synonymous with "Latino" and the media should stop
> pretending they mean the same thing.
>
> 3. The CNN analyst who said today "Keep in mind, Latino voters are LEGAL
> immigrants, not illegal immigrants" should be FIRED for sloppy thinking.
> MOST LATINOS ARE NOT IMMIGRANTS AT ALL, PINCHE CABRON.
>
> 4. Immigrants to contemporary USA come from EVERYWHERE. There are, for
> instance, 100,000 Nigerians in Houston
>
> http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?
> article_id=2300a08eade42c71d2e7979e29ab8ff2
>
> and tens of thousands of ILLEGAL Irish in Boston
>
> http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/09/irish_immigrants_pre
> ss_for_visa_reform/
>
> and other parts of the nation. If this debate is truly about immigration,
> as opposed to racist portrayals of Latinos, please curb your coverage to
> be more responsible.
>
> 5. Just because someone waves a Mexican or Colombian flag at a peaceful
> demonstration does not mean the demonstration is a "riot" or the people
> unAmerican. Lou Dobbs should get his panties out of a knot and realize it
> is no different than someone waving an Irish flag in Southie or an
> Italian flag on Columbus Day. These flags are not waved as proof of
> national allegiance; they are waved in solidarity with a person's
> cultural heritage.
>
> 6. You can be a Mexican American and never have had an ancestor come over
> the US border; vast portions of the United States of today USED TO BE
> MEXICO or SPAIN. If you failed to learn this in high school, your
> teachers should be fired.
>
> 7. The vast majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the US speak English as a
> first language. The Pew Center for Hispanic research
> <http://pewhispanic.org/> shows that by the third generation, all Latin
> American immigrant descendents - 100 percent of them - are English-first,
> English dominant. Zero percent speak Spanish as a first or primary
> language by the third generation.
>
> 8. The US has TWO international borders, not ONE. To date, not a single
> terrorist has gotten to the US through Mexico; to date, at least two
> suspected terrorists have arrived here through Canada. In fact, I would
> not be surprised if, while the media and xenophobes are focused on the
> Mexican border, terrorists figure out that it might be a good idea to
> walk over from Vancouver to Seattle for a latte. Oh, and all
> international anti-American terrorists who have come to the U.S. so far
> have been *smart* enough to come with passports and other documents
> supplied to them by the deep pockets of their organizations. Do you
> really think a terrorist from Saudi Arabia is going to think it's a good
> idea to swim over the border to Texas or Arizona with a bunch of
> Mexicans? How stupid is that?!? Finally, please remember that the anti-
> American terrorist Timothy McVeigh was not a foreigner, not brown, and
> not an illegal immigrant.
>
> 9. Not all Hispanics/Latinos are Mexican or of Mexican origin in the
> U.S., and most people of Mexican extraction in the US were born in the
> UNITED STATES.
>
> 10. Please check for plans to give Haliburton the contract to build a
> wall along the Mexican border before caving in to the right-wing
> propaganda about a "crisis" in immigration from Mexico.
>
> 11. Please be careful when you discuss these issues not to stereotype or
> overgeneralize. The anti-Latino frenzy you're creating is leading to a
> racist backlash against tens of millions of native-born Americans who
> happen to have Spanish names.
>
> 12. The following are also Spanish names: California, Arizona, Florida,
> Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Las Vegas. Why does CNN allow states,
> cities and rivers with Spanish names to be American, while disallowing
> American people with Spanish names the same right...? Mister Dobbs, you
> may no longer say the names of most states in the United States, because
> only thirteen U.S. states have English names; the rest are Spanish,
> French, or Native American. English-only, sir. Your rule, eh? Make up new
> names, change your ridiculous rhetoric, or stop talking about Los Angeles
> altogether.
>
> 13. Please tell us what the problems are that are caused by illegal
> immigrants. Don't just say there is a "debate". Tell us in concrete terms
> what the risks and dangers are being brought to the US by "illegal"
> immigrants. Now tell us how these problems, if any, differ from the
> problems caused by U.S. citizens of all other backgrounds. Be precise.
> Control for economics and educational background. Can't find any? Thought
> so.
>
> 14. Please remember that the least legal and least assimilable of
> American immigrants were...the English. And the only people who can claim
> to be true "Americans" are Native Americans.
>
> 15. Most Mexicans are Native Americans.
>
> 16. Shut up about this non-issue and get back to BEING JOURNALISTS,
> covering the REAL issues, like the illegal war in Iraq and the lies that
> got us there; the record-setting trade deficit; Bush's bankrupting of
> America; NSA's illegal wiretapping of American citizens; the fact that
> our public schools are MORE segregated than they were before Brown vs.
> the Board of Education; the fact that we as a nation have now slipped to
> having only the 27th freest press in the world; the Plame leak and the
> consequences of it being that Americans are much less safe than we were
> before Cheney and his friends played "revenge"; the disappearance of the
> American middle class and unions; the sorry state of the FAA; the rapid
> devaluation of the American dollar on the world market thanks to idiot
> leaders; the dismantling of the endangered species act by our
> administration; the rapid and unprecedented rise of a white underclass
> (the fastest rise in poor whites in American history has occurred under
> Bush); the enormous and growing gap between rich and poor in America.
>
> All best,
>
> Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------
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