Kenneth Katzman in a US congressional report defines terrorism as politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.' To understand terrorism, we need to understand the issues that arise from U.S foreign policy, argues Maxy Newton.
n the years 1989 to 2004, the rige of
terrorist activities against the United involvement in foreign affairs, and their desire to dominate as a world power. By dominating, America was able to increase the wealth of the US economy.
From the 1950s to the fall of the Berlin Wall the world saw the struggle for global dominance between the United States and the Soviet Union. One might ask how the fall of communism has an impact on the United States and how is it relevant in the issues that contributed to the rise of terrorism.
The fall of the Soviet Union on November 9 1989 represented the end of 'communism' and the birth of the United States as a single superpower, prompting George Bush Senior to talk about 'a new interests in the Middle East and Asia, and the rise of religious fundamentalism that developed through the 1990s. understood is that Washington's interest in the Gulf was due to the vast oil and petroleum reserves in the region, which are vital to the US economy.
After the Iranian revolution of 1979, Islamic ideas gained ground across the region for two main reasons. golden age of secular pan-arabism as represented by Egypt's Abdul Nasser was on the wane.
The second reason was the betrayal of the Stalinised communist parties, which had capitulated to many of the region's worst dictators, including taking posts in the government of Saddam Hussein, at that time a key ally of the US - before Saddam turned the tables and slaughtered the communist leaders, driving the party under ground.
Secular solutions to the problems of Sire Mad hence the scation od
failures, hence the attraction of Islam. The west took fright at the inspiration derived from the Iranian revolution, which, after all, had removed the Shah, States came as a direçt result of US • •••••••••••• founder of Al Qaeda, an organisation seen notion fills the vacuum left by the collapse of "communist" states, and has been used to justify the invasion of threats against Iran, of anothWhat must be er ally of the west, and there were fears of a the spread of fundamentalism in the Firstly, the Due to the US military and financial support (around $9l billion since 1949) for Israel's occupation of of Ariel Sharon and other regional 'allies'. Soviet Union (communism). we know it. today as a major threat to the US empire. Evil". ing Al Qaeda, by allowing Bin Laden to establish terrorist camps. hatred of Iran, as we have already shown, predates Al Qaeda by two decades.
The "Rogue State" notion fills the vacuum left by the collapse of "communist" states, and has been used to justify the invasior of Afghanistan and Iraq, and recent US threats against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba or whichever state tries to exercise a degree of independence.
The US's use of the term "terrorist"/ "communist" has been used for decades to justify the use of US state-sponsored torture and assassina. tion; from Honduras and Guatemala to