Terrror, American-Style

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/15-10

Back in October 2003, when I posted Noam Chomsky’s “Cuba in the Crosshairs” at TomDispatch, I wrote: “Those of us of a certain age are unlikely to forget ‘the most dangerous moment in human history’ -- the Cuban missile crisis. I remember hearing John F. Kennedy's address that night -- I was 18 -- and wondering quite seriously if I wouldn't be toast by the next day. It was certainly the culmination of all those years when, as children, we ‘ducked and covered’ under our school desks like ‘Bert the turtle,’ while sirens screamed outside and everyone dreamed their own private dreams about how the world might end.”

But when the crisis passed for us, it didn’t for the Cubans. They were by then embroiled in an early version of an American War (not on but) of Terror. No one has written more powerfully or consistently on the subject of state violence and state terror or reminded us more powerfully or consistently that "terror" isn't primarily what small stateless bands of fanatics deliver to large and powerful states than Chomsky. History is, in a sense, a history of state terror, and the United States was a practitioner of the form, in the case of Cuba, with unrelenting perseverance and relish for nearly half a century.

In these dog days of summer 2011, I’m reposting the Chomsky piece more than a decade later. It seems to me that a little reminder of the history of American-style terror might indeed be just what the doctor ordered, especially at a moment when the SEALs who went down in that helicopter in Afghanistan last week are being nationally eulogized as superhuman, the embodiment of everything good and right in this country, as well as (in the president’s words) part of “literally, the finest small-fighting force that has ever existed in the world."

To the Afghans who have experienced thousands of U.S. special operations night raids in the last couple of years, to Pakistanis in the tribal borderlands who are regularly terrorized by the CIA’s drone war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban (including at least 164 children who have died in these strikes), to Iraqis who have had and continue to have similar experiences -- to those, that is, who can’t descend destructively from the heavens, the U.S. global war on terror remains terror itself, as it was to Cubans for decades after Fidel Castro took power in that country. (On this subject, Chomsky recommends a new book by Kelth Bolander in which he had a hand, Voices from the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba.)

More at the link --

In the Hollywood version, the Star Wars version of war, the guys using drones to fire down on rebels are rarely the good guys.

Drones are too cold, faceless, lethal to win the crowd. But around the world, drones –- for reconnaissance and for lethal attack –- are increasingly the face of the U.S. military.

In half a dozen countries now, they can and do rain down sudden, devastating violence. They’re cheaper than “boots on the ground.” They’re easier and quieter to deploy. They’re the future, experts say.

And very busy right now. But where does drone war go?

This hour On Point: Drone war.

-Tom Ashbrook

http://www.wbur.org/media-player?url=http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/07/11/global-drone-war&title=The+Drone+War+Goes+Global?du