Editing Terrorism (section)

== State and state sponsored-terrorism ==

=== State terrorism ===
{{Main|State terrorism}}

{{blockquote|Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur it is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.|[[Derrick Jensen (activist)|Derrick Jensen]]<ref>''Endgame: Resistance'', by Derrick Jensen, Seven Stories Press, 2006, {{ISBN|1-58322-730-X}}, p. ix.</ref>}}
[[File:Bloody Saturday, Shanghai.jpg|thumb|Infant crying in Shanghai's South Station after the [[Strategic bombing during World War II|Japanese bombing]], August 28, 1937]]
As with "terrorism" the concept of "state terrorism" is controversial.<ref>{{cite web |title=Pds Sso |url=http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000137/01/Primorat.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512021205/https://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000137/01/Primorat.pdf |archive-date=May 12, 2008 |access-date=August 10, 2009 |publisher=Eprints.unimelb.edu.au}}</ref> The Chairman of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee has stated that the committee was conscious of 12 international conventions on the subject, and none of them referred to state terrorism, which was not an international legal concept. If states abused their power, they should be judged against international conventions dealing with [[war crime]]s, [[international human rights law]], and [[international humanitarian law]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Addressing Security Council, Secretary-General Calls on Counter-Terrorism Committee To Develop Long-Term Strategy To Defeat Terror |url=https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7276.doc.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305023524/http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7276.doc.htm |archive-date=March 5, 2009 |access-date=August 10, 2009 |publisher=United Nations}}</ref> Former United Nations [[Secretary-General]] [[Kofi Annan]] has said that it is "time to set aside debates on so-called 'state terrorism'. The [[Use of force in international law|use of force by states]] is already thoroughly regulated under international law".<ref>{{cite web |last=Lind |first=Michael |date=May 2, 2005 |title=The Legal Debate is Over: Terrorism is a War Crime &#124; The New America Foundation |url=http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2005/the_legal_debate_is_over_terrorism_is_a_war_crime |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221153711/http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2005/the_legal_debate_is_over_terrorism_is_a_war_crime |archive-date=February 21, 2009 |access-date=August 10, 2009 |publisher=Newamerica.net}}</ref> He made clear that, "regardless of the differences between governments on the question of the definition of terrorism, what is clear and what we can all agree on is that any deliberate attack on innocent civilians [or non-combatants], regardless of one's cause, is unacceptable and fits into the definition of terrorism."<ref>{{cite web |date=January 26, 2002 |title=Press conference with Kofi Annan & FM Kamal Kharrazi |url=https://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/afghan/sg-teheran26.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090321112534/http://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/afghan/sg-teheran26.htm |archive-date=March 21, 2009 |access-date=August 10, 2009 |publisher=United Nations}}</ref>

[[File:The USS Arizona (BB-39) burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - NARA 195617 - Edit.jpg|thumb|left|[[USS Arizona (BB-39)|USS ''Arizona'' (BB-39)]] burning during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941]]
State terrorism has been used to refer to terrorist acts committed by governmental agents or forces. This involves the use of state resources employed by a state's foreign policies, such as using its military to directly perform acts of terrorism. Professor of Political Science Michael Stohl cites the examples that include the German [[The Blitz|bombing of London]], the Japanese surprise [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] [[Bombing of Dresden in World War II|firebombing of Dresden]], and the U.S. [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] during [[World War II]]. He argues that "the use of terror tactics is common in international relations and the state has been and remains a more likely employer of terrorism within the international system than insurgents." He cites the [[Pre-emptive nuclear strike|first strike]] option as an example of the "terror of coercive diplomacy" as a form of this, which holds the world hostage with the implied threat of using [[nuclear weapon]]s in "crisis management" and he argues that the institutionalized form of terrorism has occurred as a result of changes that took place following World War II. In this analysis, state terrorism exhibited as a form of [[foreign policy]] was shaped by the presence and use of [[Weapon of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]], and the legitimizing of such violent behavior led to an increasingly accepted form of this behavior by the state.<ref name="tws11jangbhh">{{cite news |last=Stohl |first=Michael |date=April 1, 1984 |title=The Superpowers and International Terror |publisher=International Studies Association, Atlanta}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Stohl |first=Michael |year=1988 |title=Terrible beyond Endurance? The Foreign Policy of State Terrorism |publisher=International Studies Association, Atlanta}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Stohl |first=Michael |year=1984 |title=The State as Terrorist: The Dynamics of Governmental Violence and Repression |publisher=International Studies Association, Atlanta |page=49}}</ref>

[[Charles Stewart Parnell]] described [[William Ewart Gladstone]]'s [[Irish Coercion Act]] as terrorism in his "no-Rent manifesto" in 1881, during the [[Irish Land War]].<ref>{{cite news |date=August 2, 2009 |title=The 'No Rent' Manifesto.; Text of the Document Issued by the Land League |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E6DF113CEE3ABC4951DFB667838A699FDE |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304040201/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E6DF113CEE3ABC4951DFB667838A699FDE |archive-date=March 4, 2012 |access-date=August 10, 2009 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> The concept is used to describe [[political repression]]s by governments against their own civilian populations with the purpose of inciting fear. For example, taking and executing civilian [[hostage]]s or [[extrajudicial killing|extrajudicial elimination]] campaigns are commonly considered "terror" or terrorism, for example during the [[Red Terror]] or the [[Great Purge|Great Terror]].<ref name="Black">Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, [[Stéphane Courtois]], ''The [[Black Book of Communism]]: Crimes, Terror, Repression'', Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pp., {{ISBN|0-674-07608-7}}</ref> Such actions are often described as [[democide]] or [[genocide]], which have been argued to be equivalent to state terrorism.<ref name="Kisangani2007">{{cite journal |author=Kisangani, E. |last2=Nafziger |first2=E. Wayne |year=2007 |title=The Political Economy of State Terror |journal=Defence and Peace Economics |volume=18 |issue=5 |pages=405–414 |citeseerx=10.1.1.579.1472 |doi=10.1080/10242690701455433 |s2cid=155020309}}</ref> Empirical studies on this have found that democracies have little democide.<ref>''Death by Government'' by R.J. Rummel New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Online links: [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190118212828/http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM|date=January 18, 2019}} [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.FIG23.4.GIF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090301053804/http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.FIG23.4.GIF|date=March 1, 2009}} [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POWER.FIG2.GIF] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090301053755/http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POWER.FIG2.GIF|date=March 1, 2009}}</ref><ref>''[http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/genocide/ No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust?]'', Barbara Harff, 2003. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030201259/http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/genocide/|date=October 30, 2007}}</ref> Western democracies, [[United States and state terrorism|including the United States]], have supported state terrorism<ref>{{cite book |last=Blakeley |first=Ruth |url=http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415462402/ |title=State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South |date=2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-68617-4 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 4], [https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 20–23], [https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA88 88] |access-date=July 22, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150614055306/http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415462402/ |archive-date=June 14, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> and mass killings,<ref>{{cite book |last=Valentino |first=Benjamin A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZNy55BHupsoC&pg=PA27 |title=Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century |date=2005 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-7273-2 |page=27 |access-date=October 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329133000/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZNy55BHupsoC&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=March 29, 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bevins |first1=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Bevins |title=[[The Jakarta Method|The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World]] |date=2020 |publisher=[[PublicAffairs]] |isbn=978-1541742406 |page=238}}</ref> with some examples being the [[Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66]] and [[Operation Condor]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Simpson |first=Bradley |url=https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=7853 |title=Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968 |date=2010 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-7182-5 |page=193 |quote="Washington did everything in its power to encourage and facilitate the army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S. officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for a post-Sukarno Indonesia. This was efficacious terror, an essential building block of the [[neoliberal]] policies that the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia after Sukarno's ouster" |access-date=July 7, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180625213245/https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=7853 |archive-date=June 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="BlumenthalMcCormack">Mark Aarons (2007). "[https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA69 Justice Betrayed: Post-1945 Responses to Genocide] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240105010004/https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA69#v=onepage&q&f=false|date=January 5, 2024}}." In David A. Blumenthal and Timothy L.H. McCormack (eds). ''[http://www.brill.com/legacy-nuremberg-civilising-influence-or-institutionalised-vengeance The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Influence or Institutionalised Vengeance? (International Humanitarian Law).] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105053952/http://www.brill.com/legacy-nuremberg-civilising-influence-or-institutionalised-vengeance|date=January 5, 2016}}'' [[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]]. {{ISBN|90-04-15691-7}} pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA71 71] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164759/https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA71|date=March 26, 2023}} & [https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA81 80–81] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329133001/https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0hWswKgTIC&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false|date=March 29, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=McSherry |first1=J. Patrice |author-link1=J. Patrice McSherry |title=State Violence and Genocide in Latin America: The Cold War Years (Critical Terrorism Studies) |publisher=Routledge |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-415-66457-8 |editor1=Esparza, Marcia |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=acGNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA107 107] |chapter=Chapter 5: "Industrial repression" and Operation Condor in Latin America |access-date=January 30, 2017 |editor-last2=Huttenbach |editor-first2=Henry R. |editor-last3=Feierstein |editor-first3=Daniel |chapter-url=https://www.routledge.com/State-Violence-and-Genocide-in-Latin-America-The-Cold-War-Years/Esparza-Huttenbach-Feierstein/p/book/9780415496377 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719232658/https://www.routledge.com/State-Violence-and-Genocide-in-Latin-America-The-Cold-War-Years/Esparza-Huttenbach-Feierstein/p/book/9780415496377 |archive-date=July 19, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== State-sponsored terrorism ===
{{Main|State-sponsored terrorism}}

[[Image:Posada.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Luis Posada Carriles|Luis Posada]] and [[Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations|CORU]] are widely considered responsible for the [[Cubana de Aviación Flight 455|1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner]] that killed 73 people.<ref>Bardach, Ann Louis; Rohter, Larry (July 13, 1998). [https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/13/world/bomber-s-tale-decades-intrigue-life-shadows-trying-bring-down-castro.html "A Bomber's Tale: Decades of Intrigue"]. ''The New York Times''.</ref>]]
A state can sponsor terrorism by funding or harboring a terrorist group. Opinions as to which acts of violence by states consist of state-sponsored terrorism vary widely. When states provide funding for groups considered by some to be terrorist, they rarely acknowledge them as such.<ref>{{cite news |title=State Sponsored Terrorism |url=https://www.trackingterrorism.org/article/state-sponsored-terrorism |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823072823/https://www.trackingterrorism.org/article/state-sponsored-terrorism |archive-date=August 23, 2017 |access-date=May 28, 2017 |newspaper=Trac |publisher=trackingterrorism.org}}</ref>{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}