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A new specter is haunting the West. It is evasive, invisible and deadly when it strikes. It's political motivation is unclear, and often seems to be wrapped up more in religious idealism than with dialectical materialist opposition. The government, media and intellectuals of Western Society have dubbed this new enemy terrorism. The question then remains: what is terrorism, and what qualifies a persyn as a terrorist? And more importantly: what does terrorism mean for the working classes?

1.What is Terrorism?

Since the term terrorist has been used so often by the government, media and intellectuals, it is hard to find a clear definition of it. Who defines terms is always a political issue, since control of language is also control of the arena of discussion. But it is safe to say that the commonly understood meaning of the term terrorism is the use of terror (i.e. violence and fear) to achieve political ends. Whether or not this political end is clear or not is beside the point. If the masses of people affected by terrorism never hear the reasyns behind the action all the better for the Imperialists. An irrational, sadistic image is always projected onto terrorism in order to portray it as something "radically evil", in Bush's terminology, as if it was something different than any of the other forms of violence used by all societies throughout history.

2. Who are the major Terrorists?

If there is to be a war on Terrorism (i.e. a war on the use of violence to achieve political ends), then a thorough analysis of the major culprits behind political violence in our times is a necessity. The US government points the finger at Osama Bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda as the most dangerous terrorists in the world at this moment. But any look at the history of this century will show quite a different story. It has been the Western Imperialists who brutally colonized Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, then instigated and prolonged two World Wars. After Europe destroyed itself in WWII, the US had built itself into a superpower with a economy based off of war machines (the defense industry). With the invention of Atomic weapons, which were dropped on two cities populated with civilians, the US emerged as the top military power. This position of power was soon challenged by the Soviet Union, which after turning Social Imperialist in the early 50s, soon began challenging the emerging US empire with its own ambitions for power. The prosperity of the US in the recent half century is a result of its military power. The Cold War was filled with crushed revolutionary movement by US funded military dictators, right wing death squads, secret wars against civilian populations. Some of the most horrendous terror campaigns against civilians—meant to suppress political opposition to foreign and local capital—were trained, funded, and kept alive by the US military, often without honestly consulting the Amerikan public. Examples of such atrocities include: the Contra war against the Nicaraguan people under the revolutionary Sandinista government as well as the campaigns waged into surrounding countries like Honduras; the carpet bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, using napalm on children and agent orange to deplete the vegetation, destroying the landscape for the farmers who lived there; fire bombing Panama city days before Christmas; bombing Iraq to punish an old ally for the weapons the US gave him, bombing civilian automobiles as they fled the carnage, machine gunning those on foot down from helicopters. (See Killing Hope: US Military and CIA interventions since WWII, William Blum)

All of this terror was waged in the name of preserving political values—freedom, democracy, capitalism, private property. If terrorism is using violence to achieve political ends, then the United States government can stop boasting about being the last remaining superpower, and claim its real title as super-terrorist.

3. Terrorism and Terrorists—products and projections of dialectical struggle

If the US can, in its own terms, be defined as the world's leading terrorist, then the entire definition of terrorist comes into question once again. If the US wants to wage a war to eradicate terrorism, it does not really mean that it wants to end political violence. What Bush really means is that he wants to end political violence in opposition to the United States. The US will still be free to impose starvation and routine bombings on Iraq, to fund the state of Israel in its occupation of Palestinian land, to wage war in general. Terrorism is not the United States—terrorism is opposition to the United States.

Terrorism is a projection of an idea onto an opponent in a dialectical struggle. The "terrorists" the US will retaliate against will see the US as the terrorist. This is because whenever two or more opposing forces come into conflict with each other, the conceptions of either side, determined by their material environment, will lead them to see the other not as they really are, but as they appear to them as adversary.

Whenever one group attempts to play the superpower and crush any opposition to itself—no matter how it excuses itself with its ideals—there will be a dialectical opposition to this power. Repression and revolt work together. Each sees the other as its enemy. This relationship goes back thousands of years. The opposition is reduced to a form of "evil". Even the word Satan, the name given to the devil in Christian society, finds its origins in the old Hebrew word for "adversary" or "accuser". Terrorism is the new terminology used to demonize and obscure the political agenda of the opposition by reducing it to an irrational, unreasynable opposition.

4. The War on Terrorism as a politically degenerate vague war against any opposition to a dying empire

The Cold war had a real enemy—the international communist movement—although the way the US perceived that enemy was often deluded and misguided. Communism was never orchestrated from Moscow as the monolithic theory of communism envisioned it. Nor were people such as Jacobo Arbenz who was ousted from Guatemala in 1954 a communist, as the Eisenhower administration claimed. The whole of Cold War propaganda was describing imperialism and calling it communism. This was a play on perceptions.

When the Cold War ended, the US still needed a way to suppress guerilla movements that threatened its client governments around the world. To protect the interests of first world banks and businesses it created the War on Drugs, which justified increases in military spending. The War on Drugs was/is political, since Amerikan power is political, but its façade was a moral crusade. The Puritan ascetic character of Amerika justified its continued assault on third world peoples.

After the September 11 attacks, a new enemy has been erected. Terrorism is an invisible enemy, and when held to the truth of history, does not hold for a real enemy. Enemies exist for any system based off of oppression of peoples, theft of foreign labor and natural resources, domination of foreign capital, etc. There is no way that Amerikan imperialism can continue to grow without creating more bitter opponents—its creates a dialectical struggle, and calls its opponents terrorists. This new war against terrorism is a result of the continual oppression of the world's people as the US military overextends its power across the globe. Its enemy is vague, and its goal very unstable. The degeneration from a highly politicized to a moral crusade, now to a vague attack on any reaction to US imperialism is a sign of a weakening intellectual culture, as well as an increasing desperation from the US imperialists to hold onto their foreign investments by using military force. The War on Terrorism is a sign of weakness. The US empire has possibly already hit its apex, and is now on the permanent decline. Whether this will mean recession or recovery after the long growth ended is yet to be seen.

5. The cyclical nature of terrorism and the stupidity of a war on it.

If terrorism is the product of a dialectical struggle, then it will move in cycles. All war is dialectical. Severe repression produces sever responses. For the Amerikan government to play the victim is hypocritical. It was the Amerikan government that endangered its people by bombing the world for the free flow of capital. Now that Amerikans have seen what an attack on "strategic military targets" (both the WTC towers and the Pentagon were highly strategic in a geo-political sense) means for civilians, they should open their eyes to what their government is doing. Just like Jews should be rallied against the militarism of Israel for their own self preservation, so should Amerikans stand against their government to put an end to militarism—the source of all terrorism. A War on Terrorism will be like an antibiotic, it will simply breed a stronger virus and endanger more lives.

6. Imperialism—the cause of militarism and terrorism

Imperialism is the control of finance and monopoly capital over the international market of food, land and labor. The heightened concentration into the hands of ever more powerful corporations and banks creates this world where the masses are powerless to determine the conditions of their own lives. Capitalism's internal drive to expand once a market is saturated will lead to more militarization and war, since new regions must be converted into a capitalist economy (read: "On the So-called primitive Accumulation" from Capital, vol.1, Karl Marx, and Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, V.I.Lenin). To put an end to terrorism and political violence, we must put an end to the private control of resources and the oppression of the third world peoples everywhere. This means national liberation for all colonized peoples, and the creation of a new society where production and wealth is governed communally. Imperialism is the cause of war in this age. Fight to end Terrorism: End Imperialism!