The 2004 Elections: War, Terrorism and the Need for Regime Change
By Carl Davidson

How do we unite a majority of Americans around a plan to get out of Iraq? Noam Chomsky, writing in the May 6 issue of the Nation, summed up the “US Out, UN In!” perspective as clearly as anyone:

“A large majority of Americans believe that the UN, not the United States, should take the lead in working with Iraqis to transfer authentic sovereignty as well as in economic reconstruction and maintaining civic order. That is a sensible stand if Iraqis agree, as seems likely, though the General Assembly, less directly controlled by the invaders, is preferable to the Security Council as the responsible transitional authority. Reconstruction should be in the hands of Iraqis, not delayed as a means of controlling them, as Washington has indicated. Reparations--not just aid--should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions; and--together with other criminal states--for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.”

Next we have to take a deeper look at the issue of terrorism. Terror has been a tactic deployed by both progressive and reactionary movements in various times, place and circumstances. There is both state-sponsored terror and the terror of non-state, insurgent movements. There is the terrorist violence described by Franz Fanon in the Algerian war of liberation. On the other hand, there is the terrorism in the classic definition of fascism, put forth by Georgi Dimitrov in the 1930s, where he describes Germany and Italy as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinist sections of finance capital.”

As for state-sponsored terrorism, if we are honest, we have to say that the U.S government, at least over the past 50 years, has been the chief terrorist and sponsor of terrorism in the world. We can never forget that our government has the blood of a million Vietnamese on its hands. Most Americans do not even know that ours is the only country actually convicted of terrorism in a world court, for the atrocities of the U.S. sponsored Contras in Nicaragua.

War Combined with Racism

Bush and Rumsfeld have gone to great lengths to claim that the abuse and torture prisoners in Iraq are not part of the America character. Really? Not all of America, to be sure, but organized terror, especially again those with darker skin, is a deep strain in our history. As Tim Wise pointed out May 13 on ZNet:

“The images from Fallujah were not unique to Iraqis, and those from Abu Ghraib [prison] are not exceptional in the least. It wasn't that long ago, after all, that literally thousands of white Christians in this country would regularly engage in weekend lynch parties, or at least observe as spectators, giving the events all the spectacle of a three-ring circus. The lynch mobs would, with full approval of the demented white Christian crowds that gathered to cheer them on, drag blacks to death behind cars, torture them with blowtorches and burn them to death in what were advertised as "Negro Barbecues." More >>