Is the United States a terrorist state?

[Unperson]

I say it is. Assassinations, propping up fascist dictatorships, high altitude bombing campaigns against civilian targets, "regime change" in democratically elected governments.

[PDJane]

1. Yep.

It is. And it supports terrorist states.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Well, when you go around forcing political change through wars,

assassinations, underground groups, and arming those who are opposed to the government you want changed...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorist

[Sir Jeffrey]

3. We are a force for good AND evil in the world...

Hegel would be impressed.

[ContraCommando]

4. Some of the things we’ve done

are both embarrassing and, simply put, evil. I could see how other peoples around the world might think that. Regardless, we need a better a foreign policy and a better leader for this country. Hopefully, one day in the future, the answer to that question can be an emphatic “no” from most individuals in other parts of the world. But the way things are going now makes me think that this may not be likely anytime soon.

[Amonester]

5. And a 24/7 increase of greenhouse effect substances & toxic...

waste that threatens the survival of (almost) all living species on this "fragile" planet.

Terra-Rist$, indeed.

[BestCenter]

6. However

Aren't all Great Powers, whether from the West or from the East, guilty of the same sins, if not more? We must condemn crime when we see it, but it would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater to label a nation a terrorist state simply because there have been abuses that came with the power.

[irislake]

12. I read somewhere

that America is at the crossroads. It can be like The British Empire and surrender its empire and its evil ways to become a Democracy or it can self-destruct like Rome. Seems to be doing the Rome thing. Good Luck!

[BestCenter]

14. Hey, don't forget

The Eastern Roman Empire survived to 1453.

Food for thought.

[The2ndWheel]

7. What state hasn't been?

The only reason states exist is through force.

Why do we keep paying taxes that fund a war nobody seems to like? Not because we also get(or should get) an infrastructure, it's because nobody wants to go to jail.

The US has been a terrorist state from day 1. America wouldn't exist without having done it that way.

[Wizard777]

8. We would be if we weren't a hypocritic state. Alas it's only evil when Saddam and Bin Laden do that.

[melissinha]

9. This country has terrorized 3rd and 2nd world nations for years

how many local communities have been strong-armed to hand over natural resources, how many democratic leaders have been killed or how many anti-democratic regimes have been supported by this country?

[leftofthedial]

10. the biggest in history

[irislake]

11. Yep

from day one. The official history is a complete fairytale. Starry-eyed sentimental balderdash. Hyperpatriotism and excess fervor about one's country is always a bad sign.

[Mr Rabble]

13. It depends really.

It depends on your definition of terrorist state. It also depends on how willing a person is to be honest.

If we simply go by standard definitions offered by the Bush administration and media pundits, then the answer is clearly yes.

In fact, one could easily argue that the US is the largest and deadliest terrorist state of the last 50 years.

Since WW2 there have been 72 known "interventions" without a single declaration of war.

Think it through.

[Jcrowley]

15. More than 160 wars and other military ventures

This is the story of a nation—the United States—that has conducted more than 160 wars and other military ventures while insisting that it loves peace.

In the process, the U.S. has forged a world empire while maintaining its innocence of imperialistic designs.

From Mexico to Lebanon, from China to the Dominican Republic, from Nicaragua to Vietnam, the U.S. has intervened regularly in the affairs of other nations.

Yet the myth that Americans are benevolent, peace-loving people who will fight only to defend the rights of others lingers on.

Excesses and cruelties, though sometimes admitted, usually are regarded as momentary aberrations.

In this comprehensive history of American imperialism, Sidney Lens punctures the myth once and for all by showing how the U.S., from the time it gained its own independence, has used every available means—political, economic, and military—to dominate other peoples.


In early 2003, Michael Ignatieff, a Harvard professor, wrote in the New York Times:

America’s empire is not like empires of times past, built on colonies, conquest and the white man’s burden. We are no longer in the era of the United Fruit Company, when American corporations needed the Marines to secure their investments overseas. The 21st century imperium is a new invention in the annals of political science, an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy.

Only someone blind to the history of the United States, its obsessive drive for control of oil, its endless expansion of military bases around the world, its domination of other countries through its enormous economic power, its violations of the human rights of millions of people, whether directly or through proxy governments, could make that statement.

What Sidney Lens wrote around 1970 about ‘the myth of morality’ encircling American imperialism was clearly still in evidence in 2003. His history of the American empire is essential for understanding what still goes on in our time.

—From the foreword by Howard Zinn