Terrorism Is \"Defined by Some

¶ … terrorism is "defined by some as violence upon a national population committed by national governments or their proxies." Additionally, states can "terrorize their own populations, to secure rule and suppress dissent, or foreign citizens, to support favored or destabilize unfavored foreign regimes."

As such, we may associate state terrorism with two different manifestations: internal state terrorism, where the terror mechanisms are directed towards the population of the respective national state, and external state terrorism, when terror is used on foreign citizens in order to destabilize foreign regimes. I have emphasized this difference as it may appear that the role of the leader is somewhat different in these two cases.

Indeed, if we refer to internal terrorism, the role of the leader is always central here. When we are referring to internal terrorism, we are generally referring to forms of dictatorship and suppression of democracy. Perhaps the most eloquent example in history is the Soviet Union. From the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 up to Stalin's death, which may be identified as the period of terror use at its highest levels, the Soviet political scene was dominated by two emblematic figures that were to remain in history as two of the most ruthless: Stalin and Lenin.

Lenin has been the icon of the Bolshevik Revolution throughout the Communist period in Russia. His cult that developed in the Soviet Union ever since 1917 helped him institute the law of terror and properly apply several of his ideas, as well as Marx's, including suppression of the middle class (the bourgeois) and the murder of the entire royal family, starting with Tsar Nicholas II. Further more, he was able to use his emblematic figure so as to crush some of the early anti-Soviet demonstrations in Saint Petersburg.

However, Stalin brought state terrorism to its utmost levels during his reign on the Soviet Union, between 1924 and 1953. The cult of the Soviet leader in Stalin's case is one of the best examples of the role of the leader in internal forms of state terrorism. Indeed, based only on his image, Stalin was able to eliminate most of his political adversaries, kill over 70% of all superior party members during his purges between 1935 and 1937, as well as most of the superior military and intellectuals. A more direct form of state terrorism in a country can hardly be achieved. All this was possible only because propaganda and terror had played their role well: it is said that even a small joke about Stalin was punishable by death.

One actual example still comes to mind when discussing state terrorism and the role of leaders in state terrorism: Cuba. One of the last true emblematic dictators in the world after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro has been using a ruthless internal dictatorship to control the people of Cuba. Adulated by many of the Cubans, Fidel Castro used his image as a leader to suppress any form of dissidence and, additionally, to increase repressive mechanisms in the last couple of years, mainly due to the growing numbers of emigrants to the United States.

These three leaders are key figures in what we would call state terrorism exercised on the country's own population. The examples can continue and they generally tend to cover most of the dictatorship in the world, past or present. North Korea, Indonesia, Myanmar would be several examples where state terrorism are still widely used on the local populations. However, we are now confronted with an even more dangerous for of state terrorism, when terror is forced upon other people, by leaders who either finance terrorist organizations or use their own force.

In the past, an excellent example in this sense would have been the Libyan ruler Gaddhafi, who was using his own trained Libyan terrorists to create havoc in the Western civilizations. The role of the leader here is obvious: external state terrorism from Libya would have only been possible if such a leader existed.

Iran is a somewhat different example in this sense. Indeed, although considered a terrorist state and identified as such through the finances it provides for different terrorist factions, however, except for Khomeini, there is really no central leader figure that we can identify.

If we look at these different examples presented here above, it is quite difficult to draw common characteristics of the countries where state terrorism is practiced, either internally or externally. Perhaps the most important common issue would be the fact that these countries created the premises for the leaders to take power and maintain it at all costs. In general, these countries were poor, at least at the time the leaders took power. The Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany are perhaps the best examples in this case. The fact that these leaders took advantage of the conditions in the country at the time allowed them to become respected and admired by their people.

In this sense, we may use practice as an argumentation to state that terror states eventually create a mythical figure, a leader and will later develop a leader cult. However, this does not actually seem to be a statement valid for all countries that practice, at a time or other, state terrorism. Indeed, often the central figure is the government or a state apparatus.

The technological society will not necessarily bring about too many changes in this sense. We will be expecting terrorist ideas and actions to develop around central, charismatic leaders who will use their influence on the masses to impose their ideas, both internally and externally.

2. Iraq is perhaps one of the most eloquent examples of how state terrorism evolved and developed under its leader, Saddam Hussein. State terrorism provide an ample panel of mechanisms, including chemical weapons attacks on the Iraqi population, most notably the Kurdish minority, purges of the political adversaries of the Saddam Hussein regime, removal of potential adversaries of the regime (of course, during the late 80s there were no more opponents practically and all opposition was orchestrated from the outside of the country rather than form the inside).

In my opinion, we should have a look at state terrorism in Iraq since the military coup that overthrew Abd al-Salam Arif from power and installed the Ba'thists as leaders, with al-Bakr president and Saddam Hussein second in command. October 1968 may be considered as the first example of state terrorism in Iraq. Indeed, under the accusations of spying for the Western powers and Israel (they were noted as Zionist spies), several adversaries were brought to trial, subsequently condemned to death and hanged in January 1969. The trials continued during 1969, with the obvious reason of eliminating any opposition from previous adversaries.

We may notice here one of the common mechanisms by which state terrorism was exercised, ever since the Soviet Union and Stalin's purges during the 30s: public trials. Indeed, the idea was pretty simply: several important adversaries were accused of most ignominious crimes, generally treason, spying for Western powers, betrayal of state ideals, etc. The trials were public, with the people joining in the opprobrium and thus legitimating the state terrorist action.

Saddam Hussein became president in June 1979 and this marked a new period of state terrorism and repressions. He proceeded to purge not only political adversaries from outside the party (there weren't many left at this time probably), but also important members of the Ba'th Party (here again I must make a note on the similitude with Stalin's regime and the purges of 1935-1937).

Following Saddam's dictate that the enemies were to be reached "wherever they are found," state terrorism extended beyond Iraqi borders and reached political adversaries in neighboring countries, in Israel or even the United States. The Estikhbarat, Iraq's military intelligence, was used to orchestrate and perform several terrorist actions outside Iraq, most notably the attempt on the life of the Israeli ambassador or the takeover of the Iranian embassy in London. We still do not have clear information about how Iraqi government or Saddam Hussein's regime has been financing several of the international terrorist factions in their attacks against the West, so we cannot make any allegations in this sense.

Finally, a description on the development of state terrorism in Iraq would not be complete had we not mentioned the attacks with chemical weapons against the Kurdish minority in 1991. In my opinion, this is perhaps one of the most terrible examples of state terror in history: using chemical weapons on your own population is something hard to conceive.

In terms of the world opinion and its impact on Iraqi governmental actions, we may assert that, at least up to 1990 and the Persian Gulf War, this wasn't strong enough to impose on Iraq. Even more so, some of the countries backed Iraq in many of its actions, while the countries who would have been natural adversaries had no initiatives in this sense.