TERRORISM AND STATECRAFT - 21st CENTURY

The dividing line between terrorists and statesmen has been eroding over the past few decades, unless the rise of Nazism is included in the definition of terrorism.

Iran, whose political leader, with the acquiescence of its religious - and more powerful leaders - has called for the destruction of another nation, Israel. Iraq's Saddam Hussein attacked neighboring Kuwait in a clear terrorist attempt to gain hegemony over that state. Syria's previous president, Hafiz Assad, killed 10,000 citizens in what can only be described as a terrorist attack. Libya's president Qaddafi sent terrorist minions to place a bomb on board a Pan Am airliner that resulted in the deaths of over two hundred passengers and crew.

Terrorists are supported, trained, and sent on missions by nations. They are not sent out to hold up banks. They are sent to kill innocent civilians in what the statesmen consider an act of retribution, a political act. The New York City World Trade Center twin towers were destroyed by terrorists from Saudi Arabia. It is difficult to believe that this cadre of killers was unknown to the leaders of that country.

Terrorism as statecraft has spread to oppressive regimes and to the regimes' internal opponents as the most effective means of retaining and obtaining power. War craft and statecraft were, and in many countries are, the means of settling conflicting claims to power. The difference between terrorism and war craft is found in the targets of the killing and destruction that takes place. Thus, Saddam Hussein's attack on Kuwait's civilian population might be classified as terrorist until other nations' armies engaged Iraq's armed forces.

The killings of Sunnis by Shiites and vice verse are terrorist, by definition. However, with both religious groups in the Iraqi government, and with the killing of each other by civilian bombers, we see 21st century terrorism as statecraft and statecraft as terrorism. This condition is a harbinger of a new way of electing political leaders and political parties.

President Mugabe of Zimbabwe has shown that the next step in this march to political expression is voting machines that blow up, along with the voter, when the wrong button is pushed.