Terrorism at Home

“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them,” President George W. Bush explained in his Sept. 11, 2001 address to the nation. Last Sunday, with 50 cruise missiles and dozens of bombing sorties, the U.S. began its assault against terrorism in Afghanistan. But before the U.S. put all its resources into destroying terrorist groups and nations that harbor them, America should have decided what makes a terrorist, and what it means to harbor one.

Confused people and moral relativists tell us that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. But there should be no ambiguity regarding the term. A terrorist is anyone who uses violence to target civilians. If freedom fighters target civilians then they are terrorists. Social action groups that also engage in acts of violence against civilians are terrorists as well. Hamas, for example, has offered many humanitarian services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, it is responsible for dozens of suicide bombings, which makes it a terrorist group despite its large social action component.

Deciding what constitutes a nation’s harboring terrorists is a more difficult question. The U.S. government has pledged to wage war militarily and financially against terrorists and the countries that give them shelter. That means countries like Afghanistan, that allow terrorists to operate or seek refuge within their borders or that give aid to terrorists, will be considered enemies of America. Our allies in the United Kingdom have responded by pledging to fight alongside us in the war on terrorism. Other European and Asian countries have consented to freeze the assets of terrorist groups and humanitarian aid groups suspected of helping terrorists. Charity organizations thought to be aiding terrorists—whether knowingly or unknowingly—have had their assets frozen as part of an American-led crackdown on terrorism.

But while America is prodding the other nations of the world to clamp down on their terrorists, it harbors many terrorist groups of its own. The best example of America’s harboring of terrorists is the government’s tolerance of the violent fringe of the anti-abortion movement. There is a website which lists personal information about abortion workers to make it easier to assassinate them. This website posts private details about abortion workers, including their physical appearance, home address, home phone number, license plate number and educational history and the names of family members. Each abortion worker listed falls into one of three categories: “working,” “wounded” or “fatality.” The site operator puts a strike through the names of all the abortion workers who have been murdered.

The U.S. court system has allowed this website to remain operative and, in doing so, it aids in terrorist attacks against abortion workers. In the past decade, more than one hundred physicians paid the price of America harboring anti-abortion terrorists. Although this number hardly compares to the 6,000 Americans killed on Sept. 11, these murders are no less criminal.

And still some people deny that the U.S. is harboring terrorists.

Imagine another website: created by a terrorist group rather than an anti-abortion group, this website contains information about important American buildings rather than abortion providers. Instead of home phone numbers of physicians, the site posts structural information about buildings, along with directions for where the structures are most vulnerable, and how to strike them without being caught. And imagine that on Sept. 12, the website operator put a strike through the names of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

I would like to think that an instruction manual directing terrorists on how to commit their next act of violence would be taken off the web by the U.S. government. For letting this website remain online is the same thing as harboring terrorists—something the U.S. government has sworn not to do.

It is not just anti-abortion terrorists that the U.S. government harbors. Throughout America there are hundreds of militias in training for an apocalyptic war against the Federal government, or for a war that will “cleanse” America of its racial diversity. These groups have plans, albeit amorphous ones, to direct violence against civilians—thus, they are terrorists. Yet they are tolerated because the American justice system says that a person becomes a criminal only after committing a crime. Some people will argue that the U.S. government couldn’t possibly prevent all these groups from training, and that even if it could, it shouldn’t because the Bill of Rights permits militias to assemble and train. But that is exactly the point. Maybe the governments of Afghanistan and Sudan can’t control the terrorists groups within their borders, or maybe these governments believe that the terrorist groups have a right to operate. How can we expect some of the world’s weakest governments in Afghanistan, Sudan and Libya to abide by a standard that the most powerful government in the world is neither willing nor able to keep?

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks America has been overcome by fear, sorrow and anger. In the midst of these emotions, what we need most is clarity. America must ask itself whether it is reasonable to ask every other country in the world to crack down on its terrorists when we won’t do it ourselves. The country needs to come to a consensus about the balance between civil liberties and national security. Are we willing to tolerate organizations that facilitate the murder of abortion workers? Will we allow armed militias to exist? Will we hold domestic terrorist organizations to different standards than foreign ones? If we decide to permit all this terrorist behavior in our country, then it is ridiculous to punish foreign governments for allowing similar behavior in theirs. The start of America’s military campaign against terrorism makes this national introspection all the more urgent.

Jonathan P. Abel ’05 is a first-year living in Stoughton Hall.