America’s Transition to the “State Terrorist Model of Government”
By Robert Abele
Global Research
August 08, 2015
It has occurred almost without notice. While the U.S. continues to claim its foremost world status as a democracy, since 9/11 it has shifted its model of government to something far more concerning. This shift is instanced perfectly in a story that appeared in very few of the news media outlets during the last week of July: two animal rights activists were charged with “domestic terrorism” and jailed for freeing caged animals on a fur farm and for vandalizing the property of the corporation that ran it. Federal law now makes it a crime of terrorism to engage in acts that threaten the ability of a business or a corporation to make a profit.
This speaks directly to a shift that has occurred in the model of government on the federal level, from what the lawyer and philosopher David Luban calls “the war model” to an even more force-oriented model: what we will call “the terrorist model.” We will show the structures of such a model by first defining “terrorism.” Then we can apply that definition to U.S. actions and policies. This will allow us to see the shift in the governing model the U.S. now uses, both abroad and domestically.
Terrorism
Definitions of terrorism are nearly as numerous and varied as are the writers of them. The United States government alone has four official definitions of terrorism: Defense Department, FBI, State Department, and U.S. Code. They are all similar, but different. The most detailed definition, though, comes in the U.S. Code.
The official U.S. Code divides terrorism into two types: international and domestic. However, the definition of each is precisely the same. Thus, according to Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113B, “international terrorism” means activities that:
(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum. [with the obvious change in the definition of “domestic terrorism” to acts that “occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States”].
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