2008 Woodie Awards
Class depiction of terrorism one-sided
Philip Paull
Issue date: 9/27/06 Section: Opinion
I am writing in regard to the lead story in the Empire News section of the Press Democrat (PD) on Sept. 15 entitled "SSU class seeks to dissect terrorism," taught by professor David McCuan. I am a graduate of San Francisco State University's International Relations Department. My M.A. thesis, prepared under the supervision of Marshall Windmiller, a specialist on covert political warfare and the role of intelligence agencies, and Dwight Simpson, whose specialty is the Middle East, is entitled "International Terrorism: the Propaganda War," completed in June 1982. The thesis is on reserve in SSU's library as a reference for Art H480: Independent Filmmakers and Artists Respond to War, taught by professor Susan Moulton.
Wikipedia's excellent introduction to the subject of "terrorism" states: "The definition of terrorism is inherently controversial. The use of violence for the achievement of political ends is common to state and non-state groups. The difficulty is in agreeing on a basis for determining when the use of violence (directed at whom, by whom, for what ends) is legitimate. The majority of definitions in use have been written by agencies directly associated to a government, and are systematically biased to exclude governments from the definition."
Because McCuan also excludes governments from his definition of "terrorism," unsuspecting students signing up for his course will be exposed, using Edward S. Herman's definition of terrorism, only to the study of retail killing of civilians but not the wholesale variety: state terrorism. The course focuses on the violence of the weak and ignores the violence of the powerful. It is "systematically biased" toward accepting the "official story" favored by government agencies, frequently themselves the perpetrators of massive terrorist crimes.
McCuan offers his students the al-Qaeda training manual, but not the CIA's El Salvador torture manual. They will study the Irish Republican Army but not the CIA-created Contra terrorist army which devastated Nicaragua during the 80s and for which the International Court of Justice declared the U.S. government guilty of war crimes. They will study the official 9/11 Commission Report, indeed a worthwhile endeavor, but not the many Amnesty International reports documenting state terrorism. They will read speeches by President Bush, whose credibility is perhaps the lowest of all heads of state internationally-a president who may one day be the subject of an international war crimes tribunal for initiating the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program. But his students will not read Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adolpho Pérez Esquivel's description of Argentina's experience during the 70s and 80s, in many ways the model for Bush's anti-terrorist "rendition" campaign. I refer to the "disappearances" campaign of the Argentine and Chilean military, the so-called "Operation Condor" whose victims number in the thousands.
Wikipedia's excellent introduction to the subject of "terrorism" states: "The definition of terrorism is inherently controversial. The use of violence for the achievement of political ends is common to state and non-state groups. The difficulty is in agreeing on a basis for determining when the use of violence (directed at whom, by whom, for what ends) is legitimate. The majority of definitions in use have been written by agencies directly associated to a government, and are systematically biased to exclude governments from the definition."
Because McCuan also excludes governments from his definition of "terrorism," unsuspecting students signing up for his course will be exposed, using Edward S. Herman's definition of terrorism, only to the study of retail killing of civilians but not the wholesale variety: state terrorism. The course focuses on the violence of the weak and ignores the violence of the powerful. It is "systematically biased" toward accepting the "official story" favored by government agencies, frequently themselves the perpetrators of massive terrorist crimes.
McCuan offers his students the al-Qaeda training manual, but not the CIA's El Salvador torture manual. They will study the Irish Republican Army but not the CIA-created Contra terrorist army which devastated Nicaragua during the 80s and for which the International Court of Justice declared the U.S. government guilty of war crimes. They will study the official 9/11 Commission Report, indeed a worthwhile endeavor, but not the many Amnesty International reports documenting state terrorism. They will read speeches by President Bush, whose credibility is perhaps the lowest of all heads of state internationally-a president who may one day be the subject of an international war crimes tribunal for initiating the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program. But his students will not read Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adolpho Pérez Esquivel's description of Argentina's experience during the 70s and 80s, in many ways the model for Bush's anti-terrorist "rendition" campaign. I refer to the "disappearances" campaign of the Argentine and Chilean military, the so-called "Operation Condor" whose victims number in the thousands.