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US Terrorism is Far Bigger and Worse Than Al Qaida Terrorism in 9/11
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
10 September 2006
Five years have passed since 9/11. But the US has failed to get Osama bin Laden and destroy Al Qaida.
It took less time for the Allies to defeat the Axis powers headed by Nazi Germany in World War II. However,
the US has used 9/11 to carry out propaganda campaigns aimed at scaring and deceiving the American and
other peoples of the world. It has enacted repressive laws, stepped up military production, unleashed wars
of aggression and promoted state terrorism on a global scale.
The US has fallaciously magnified Al Qaida and the phenomenon of private religio-sectarian terrorism as far
bigger enemies than the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Making a false analogy
between the Cold War and the so-called war on terror, George W. Bush has proclaimed a permanent
global war of terror to justify US wars of aggression and state terrorism that can last long or last even
longer than the Cold War. Unwittingly, the Bush administration has also expanded the spawning ground
for religio-sectarian terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere, much to the satisfaction of Al Qaida.
The terrorism involved in the 9/11 attack on civilians or noncombatants in the twin towers of the World
Trade Center and in the highjacked planes is horrible, reprehensible and unforgiveable. But it is a desperate
reaction to the so many massacres and other colossal crimes committed by US imperialism and the Israeli
Zionists against the Palestinian and Arab peoples. It also pales in comparison to the subsequent far bigger
and far more destructive terrorism of US imperialism in waging wars of aggression against the peoples of Iraq
and Afghanistan and in whipping up repression and state terrorism against the people in the US and in the
whole world.
In its wars of aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has killed and caused the killing of more than
200,000 people, injured countless more people, devastated the infrastructure, the economy and social life
in general and caused the illnesses and death of millions of people, especially children. Bush has also caused
the death of 2700 US military personnel and serious injury to more than 20,000 other troops in Iraq alone.
The 2752 deaths in 9/11 number far less than the sum total of the aforesaid death casualties.
In seeking to make a "new Middle East" and a "new world order" in accordance with the neoconservative
Project for a New American Century, the US is arrogantly invoking the barbaric impulse of preemptive
strike and wantonly using its high-tech military weaponry against entire peoples and states that resist its
diktat. The monopoly impositions of the US in the name of "free market" globalization and the wars of
aggression and various forms of military intervention in the name of "war on terror" are rousing the resistance
of the people and stirring up its contradictions with other states.
The Bush regime has used the "terrorist" scare to curtail and violate the civil and political rights of the people
in the US in law and in fact and to push its imperialist allies as well as puppet states to do likewise. On a global
scale, the US is promoting and developing both the legal infrastructure and extralegal methods of repression,
state terrorism and fascism. Since the US-NATO aggression against Afghanistan in October 2001, the US
designated the Philippines as the "second front" of its global war of terror. It has conflated Al Qaida with
the small bandit gang Abu Sayyaf in order to push the Philippine puppet state to become more repressive
and to accept the escalation of US military intervention not only against Abu Sayyaf but more importantly
against the nationwide revolutionary movement of the people led by the Communist Party of the Philippines.
The standards of international law on human rights and humanitarian conduct have been brazenly violated
by US imperialists and their cohorts. The US line is to use White terror for an indefinitely long period of time
not only against the religio-sectarian terrorist groups of anti-communist and pro-imperialist provenance but
also against revolutionary parties and national liberation movements which the US misrepresents as terrorist.
Most of those blacklisted as terrorist are revolutionary parties, national liberation movements and Islamic
charitable organizations.
The US has used 9/11 as the pretext for arrogating imperial powers and adopting the USA PATRIOT Act
and other repressive laws and policies, for justifying big government spending on military production and on
wars of aggression and military intervention. Washington's policymakers consider the escalation of military
spending, foreign military adventures and the threat and actual use of weapons of mass destruction as the
way to stimulate the US and global economy and ensure all-round US hegemony over sources of oil and
other raw materials, markets and fields of investment.
But the US position has fatal flaws. The US cannot perpetually engage in high consumption by borrowing
funds from abroad and pouring resources into high tech military production that employ a few people.
There is a limit to manipulating money flows just to create the illusion of economic growth. The anti-terror
hysteria and high spending for the military and intelligence agencies drive US imperialism to higher levels of
repression and military adventurism and grosser misdirection of resources.
The American people do not get sufficient regular employment and are insecure about health insurance,
pension and social services. The housing bubble is now bursting and is further aggravating the misery
consequent to the bursting of the high-tech stock bubble. Jobless growth through high military spending
and the housing bubble is now compounded with the growing reality of failed wars of aggression and lopsided
attention to various aspects and parts of the world. The American people are disgusted that, at great economic,
social and political cost to them, the Bush regime has poured excessive amounts of resources on the military
and intelligence agencies and has invaded and occupied Iraq on false pretenses about weapons of mass destruction
and ties with Al Qaida.
The US continues to sink in a quagmire in Iraq. A quagmire is also developing for it and its NATO allies in
Afghanistan. The US imperialists and the Israeli Zionists are now facing fierce resistance in the Middle East
and Central Asia. The US is exposing its limits and its vulnerabilities. It has overreached and has actually thinned
out its attention and strength in various parts of the world. The anti-imperialist movements of the people in
East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America, Africa and in the imperialist countries themselves
are steadily growing in strength.
The US global war of terror has caused the intensification of various forms of resistance, including armed struggle
by the oppressed peoples and nations, as in Nepal, the Philippines, India, Turkey, Colombia and elsewhere. It
has generated varying types and degrees of contradictions between the imperialist states on the one hand and
the states that invoke and assert national independence against unjust imperialist impositions like China, North
Korea, Cuba and Venezuela on the other hand. The biggest wars since the last decade have been between the
US and recalcitrant client states like those of Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.
Using various international frameworks like the UN Security Council, NATO, bilateral military agreements, the Group
of 8, the IMF, World Bank and the WTO, the imperialist states still manage to collude and rule the world at the
expense of the proletariat and people of the world. But the crisis of the world capitalist system has become worse
from period to period. Thus, the contradictions among the imperialist states are growing.
The new world disorder has been running since the start of the 1990s. We are already in the midst of great disorder
and upheavals. These are bound to grow in scale and intensity as the imperialist powers struggle for a redivision of
the world and engage further in economic plunder and aggressive wars. By taking advantage of contradictions among
the imperialist powers and by fighting for their own rights and interests, the people of the world can strengthen
themselves and win greater victories. The anti-imperialist movement of the people for national liberation, democracy
and socialism is steadily growing and advancing. ###
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