Socialist Viewpoint

Excerpted from Gangster Pimping in the Culture of Terrorism,”by Noam Chomsky, Guerrilla News Network, November 6, 2001

Take, say, a word like “terrorism,” for example. Like most terms of political discourse it has two meanings: there’s the literal meaning and if you want to know what it is you can look up the official U.S. code or army manuals, they’ll tell you what terrorism is. And it’s what you think, terrorism is “the calculated use of violence against civilians to intimidate, induce fear, often to kill, for some political, religious or other end.”

That’s terrorism, according to its official definition.

But that definition can’t be used. Because, if that definition is used, you get all the wrong consequences. For one thing, that definition turns out to be almost the same as the definition of official U.S. policy. Except, when it’s US policy, it’s called ‘counter-insurgency’ or ‘low-intensity conflict’ or some other name. But in fact, if you look at the definition, it’s essentially terrorism. In fact, it’s almost a paraphrase.

Furthermore, if you apply the literal definition, you conclude that the U.S. is a leading terrorist state because it engages in these practices all the time. It’s the only state, in fact, which has been condemned by the World Court and the Security Council for terrorism, in this sense. And the same is true of its allies.

So, right now, they’re putting together what they call a “coalition against terror,” for the “war on terror,” and if you run down the list, every one of them is a leading terrorist state. So obviously you can’t use that definition.