Sunday, September 30, 2007

Will The Real Terrorists Please Stand Up

By Tim Swanson
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
AntiWar

While not entirely surprising, over the weekend, the Iranian parliament “voted to designate the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Army as terrorist organizations.”

In part they claim that the clandestine unconventional warfare tactics that the CIA and Special Forces use to infiltrate and subjugate areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan is tantamount to terrorism. In addition, they would like the UN to “intervene in the global problem of U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret jails in other countries.”

As a result, the popular cliche “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” will undoubtedly be thrown into the echo chamber over the next several weeks.

However is this not merely another case of the pot calling the kettle black?

The initiation of force is arguably unjustifiable by any organizaiton, whether it is the nation-state or religious cult.

Thus, the bigger issue is that war itself is terrorism with a bigger budget.

And as Robert Higgs has noted with the ratchet effect, war is the health of the state (as observed by Randolph Bourne) – therefore the only victors in future invasions, “police actions,” or terroristic acts are members of the political class and military-industrial complex (i.e., the state).

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