The anti-terrorism line the dominant capitalist states push has the same purpose as the anti-communist line pushed by previous bourgeois governments, namely, ideological cover under which imperialism and the police state are expanded and entrenched. The US government has no real commitment to fighting terrorism. If it did, things would look a lot different than they do today. The current policy is either designed or at least functions to increase terrorism—as defined by this government.
Indeed, a threat of terrorism is desirable, as more terrorism perpetuates the useful state of fear and the oppression that fear justifies. Exposing the lies imperialists use to construct anti-terrorism today serves the same purpose that exposing the lies of anti-communism served.
However, such practices are not central to the struggle against imperialism and war. What is central to anti-imperialism/anti-war struggles is the moral argument—specifically, the principle of universality. This holds that, if it is not okay when the official enemy of the state does it, then it is not okay when the state does it. Advancing the universality principle depends on making people aware of the illegality of US foreign policy.
There’s a danger in taking up a line that makes deconstructing anti-terror ideology central to the anti-imperialist/anti-war movement. This is the error of questioning the official story in a way that denies the immoral actions of the official enemy or portrays the official enemy as nothing more than the government’s conspiratorial construction. If this line becomes pronounced, then the anti-imperialism/anti-war struggle loses credibility.
Solidarity with oppressed peoples is always contingent on the qualified observation of the principle of universality. Violence practiced by oppressed peoples should be criticized in terms of how these populations have been forced into responding to oppression by their oppressors.
We recognize that violence is sometimes necessary to repel invaders and drive occupiers off one’s land. For example, the Lebanese people have the right to organize into armed groups to force Israel off their land and to remain prepared to prevent Israeli invasion. Moreover, defensive strikes against the instruments of aggressive war may be necessary to prevent further invasions and to weaken occupations. However, the harming of civilians should be avoided, and violence must be rooted in defense and resistance, not motivated by conquest.
Violence is sometimes necessary to throw off the yolk of an oppressive system. A people should, of course, exhaust the means of peaceful change; but resort to violence should nevertheless remain the basic collective human right of all oppressed people.
In situations of class and caste struggle, violence is sometimes the only means of achieving the ends of social justice. As with national and territorial struggle, the harming of civilians should be avoided, and violence must be rooted in liberation, not motivated by domination.
In both cases, movements that seek to extend political and economic systems must be judged based on their emancipatory character. Any movement that seeks to impose an ethnic ideology and practice is suspect and always wrong in the religious case.
freedom and reason 