Title: International Terrorism - FPIF
Headings: International Terrorism
International Terrorism
Key Points
Problems with Current U.S. Policy
Key Problems
Toward a New Foreign Policy
Key Recommendations

Content: Successive U.S. administrations have been criticized for using an overly narrow definition of terrorism–the killing of noncombatants by individuals or small groups of irregulars–while ignoring the usually more widespread killings of equally innocent people by sanctioned organs of recognized states. Indeed, the U.S. has supported and continues to support governments that have engaged in widespread terrorism against their own populations. Furthermore, the U.S. has refused to cooperate fully in efforts to prosecute state terrorists–such as Chilean General Augusto Pinochet–when attempts are made to bring them to justice, and the Bush administration has opposed creation of the International Criminal Court. Even using the more restricted definition of the term, however, the U.S. has demonstrated a propensity to ignore its own role in encouraging terrorism both as a reaction to its foreign policies and even, at times, as a direct tool in the implementation of its policies. Related to this double-standard is the ongoing U.S. support of the governments of Colombia, Turkey, and various Middle Eastern allies guilty of terrorism on a large scale by military, intelligence, or paramilitary units. Indeed, as the largest supplier of arms to the third world, and to the Middle East in particular, the U.S. provides potential terrorists easy access to weapons. In recent decades, Washington has sponsored terrorist attacks and assassinations, either directly or through intermediaries. In the 1960s, right-wing Cuban exiles were organized by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct a series of attacks inside Cuba that resulted in widespread civilian casualties. During the 1980s, the U.S. similarly organized, armed, and trained right-wing Nicaraguan exiles into an armed force that engaged in widespread attacks against civilian targets inside Nicaragua, resulting in the deaths of thousands. Sometimes these U.S.-trained terrorists have subsequently used the skills and weapons they acquired against the interests of their trainers, as in the case of some supporters of the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance.