WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.379 So imagine it's 1965 and the United States allegedly 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:07.719 hands foreign military officials a literal list, 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:10.500 like a printed list of political dissidents to 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:13.660 be assassinated. Now today, if some shadow network 00:00:13.660 --> 00:00:16.120 did that, we would all universally just call 00:00:16.120 --> 00:00:18.760 it terrorism. Oh, absolutely. Without question. 00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:21.519 Right. But according to the strict literal letter 00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:25.120 of US law, it is legally impossible for the American 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.519 government itself to be a terrorist. Which is 00:00:27.519 --> 00:00:29.859 wild to think about. It really is. And it forces 00:00:29.859 --> 00:00:32.740 this pretty uncomfortable question for you as 00:00:32.740 --> 00:00:35.179 a listener, who actually gets to write the dictionary? 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:37.859 And who does that dictionary protect? Yeah. And 00:00:37.859 --> 00:00:40.259 that tension, the gap between what we see happening 00:00:40.259 --> 00:00:42.079 on the ground and what is officially codified 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:44.740 in law, that's the central conflict we're exploring 00:00:44.740 --> 00:00:47.590 today. Welcome to the deep dive, everybody. Today 00:00:47.590 --> 00:00:50.789 we have a really complex mission. We are unpacking 00:00:50.789 --> 00:00:53.549 a massive, highly detailed Wikipedia article 00:00:53.549 --> 00:00:56.609 that covers the historical and academic allegations 00:00:56.609 --> 00:00:59.429 of United States and state terrorism. It's a 00:00:59.429 --> 00:01:02.890 heavy topic. It is incredibly heavy. And actually, 00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:05.310 before we take a single step further, I need 00:01:05.310 --> 00:01:08.010 to establish a really hard boundary with you, 00:01:08.150 --> 00:01:09.930 the listener. Yeah, this is a critical boundary. 00:01:10.069 --> 00:01:12.629 Our goal today is absolutely not to take a political 00:01:12.629 --> 00:01:14.769 stance. We are not here to point fingers. We're 00:01:14.769 --> 00:01:17.290 not condemning anyone. And we are certainly not 00:01:17.290 --> 00:01:20.469 endorsing these highly charged academic and legal 00:01:20.469 --> 00:01:23.189 claims. Exactly. The source material here is 00:01:23.189 --> 00:01:26.090 dense. It's controversial. And it is deeply, 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:28.049 deeply contradictory, depending on who you ask. 00:01:28.150 --> 00:01:30.560 Right. Both left wing and and right -wing perspectives 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:34.560 are in here fighting it out. Exactly. So we are 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.120 simply acting as your guides. We're just mapping 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:39.560 out the arguments presented in the text, examining 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:42.659 the architecture of these ideas, completely neutral 00:01:42.659 --> 00:01:45.400 to the politics. And the architecture of this 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.939 specific debate, it really flips everything we 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:51.859 assume about global conflict completely on its 00:01:51.859 --> 00:01:53.939 head. How so? When you hear the word terrorism, 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:56.019 you almost certainly picture non -state actors, 00:01:56.060 --> 00:01:58.879 right? Yeah, like insurgencies, clandestine cells. 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:02.379 Exactly. Individuals building improvised explosives 00:02:02.379 --> 00:02:05.459 to attack a formal government. But what this 00:02:05.459 --> 00:02:08.759 material does is explore a controversial academic 00:02:08.759 --> 00:02:12.159 viewpoint. The idea that liberal democracies, 00:02:12.419 --> 00:02:15.319 and specifically the United States, utilized 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:18.800 state terror as a primary systematic mechanism 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:21.939 of foreign policy during the Cold War. And potentially 00:02:21.939 --> 00:02:24.400 beyond, right into the modern day. Yes, exactly. 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:26.719 OK, let's unpack this, because before we can 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:28.719 even touch those historical allegations, we have 00:02:28.719 --> 00:02:31.039 to look at the rule book. The definitions. Right. 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:32.960 Reading through the legal definitions in the 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:35.719 source text, it struck me that defining terrorism 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:38.240 legally is basically like, well, it's like writing 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:40.419 the regulations for a sport in a way that ensures 00:02:40.419 --> 00:02:42.860 your own team is permanently exempt from getting 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:45.219 a penalty. That is a perfect analogy, because 00:02:45.219 --> 00:02:47.319 that structural exclusion is built right into 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:49.240 the foundation of the law. Give me an example 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:51.680 from the text. So look at U .S. law, specifically 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:56.680 Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656FD2. 00:02:56.860 --> 00:02:59.979 Rolls right off the tongue. Right. But the text 00:02:59.979 --> 00:03:03.280 notes that it defines terrorism as premeditated 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:06.699 politically motivated violence perpetrated against 00:03:06.699 --> 00:03:10.289 non -combatants by And this is the key phrase, 00:03:10.870 --> 00:03:13.750 subnational groups or clandestine agents. Wait, 00:03:14.169 --> 00:03:17.330 subnational? Yes. That single word does a massive 00:03:17.330 --> 00:03:19.610 amount of heavy lifting there. Oh, it changes 00:03:19.610 --> 00:03:21.590 everything. Because it means recognized state 00:03:21.590 --> 00:03:24.719 government with a formal military. literally 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:27.139 cannot meet the legal threshold for terrorism 00:03:27.139 --> 00:03:29.819 under this framework. Exactly. It creates an 00:03:29.819 --> 00:03:31.960 airtight definitional shield for state actors. 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:35.000 And the source actually brings in Dr. Myra Williamson's 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.439 research to point out what a massive historical 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:39.939 reversal this is. Oh, right. The part about the 00:03:39.939 --> 00:03:42.020 French Revolution. Yeah. If we go back to the 00:03:42.020 --> 00:03:43.719 origin of the term during the French Revolution, 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:47.370 the famous Reign of Terror. Terrorism was entirely 00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:49.169 an instrument of state governance. That's so 00:03:49.169 --> 00:03:51.389 counterintuitive to how we use it today. Right. 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:54.330 It was the newly established French state wielding 00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:56.629 systematic violence against perceived enemies 00:03:56.629 --> 00:04:00.090 of the Republic just to maintain order. So originally 00:04:00.090 --> 00:04:02.729 the concept of terrorism wasn't a rebellion against 00:04:02.729 --> 00:04:04.930 the government. It was the government crushing 00:04:04.930 --> 00:04:08.229 the rebellion. Precisely. The state was the primary 00:04:08.229 --> 00:04:11.240 architect of terror. The definition only flipped 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:14.740 in modern history to exclusively mean non -state 00:04:14.740 --> 00:04:18.420 entities attacking a state. Wow. What's fascinating 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:21.699 here is why this linguistic shift matters globally 00:04:21.699 --> 00:04:25.019 today. The text explains that the United Nations 00:04:25.019 --> 00:04:27.879 has completely failed to reach a consensus on 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:30.860 a universal legal definition of terrorism. Well, 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:32.879 yeah, because doing that would require states 00:04:32.879 --> 00:04:35.839 to agree on the exact line where, say, legitimate 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:38.439 military action crosses over into state terrorism. 00:04:38.519 --> 00:04:40.959 Or where a rebel group becomes a terrorist organization 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:43.180 rather than, you know, freedom fighters. Right. 00:04:43.379 --> 00:04:45.060 And no one wants to accidentally incriminate 00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:47.279 their own allies. Exactly. The international 00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:49.779 community is totally paralyzed by that exact 00:04:49.779 --> 00:04:52.800 political calculation. So because the U .N. leaves 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:55.540 that definitional vacuum wide open, American 00:04:55.540 --> 00:04:58.040 politicians and Western social scientists operate 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:00.360 within a framework that definitionally exempts 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:02.720 the U .S. and its allies. So if the rulebook 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:05.879 says a state cannot be a terrorist, then no matter 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:08.600 the scale of the violence, it legally has to 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:10.500 be categorized as something else. Collateral 00:05:10.500 --> 00:05:13.360 damage, counterinsurgency, foreign intervention. 00:05:14.019 --> 00:05:16.310 Take your pick. which is just a wild loophole. 00:05:16.529 --> 00:05:19.029 It really is. And because that mainstream legal 00:05:19.029 --> 00:05:21.730 definition effectively gives state powers a free 00:05:21.730 --> 00:05:25.509 pass, dissident academics in the late 1970s decided 00:05:25.509 --> 00:05:28.269 to, well, just bypass the legal dictionary entirely. 00:05:28.389 --> 00:05:31.009 They had to. Yeah. They realized that if the 00:05:31.009 --> 00:05:33.370 official terminology couldn't capture the sheer 00:05:33.370 --> 00:05:35.509 scale of violence happening during the Cold War, 00:05:35.889 --> 00:05:38.290 they needed to build a brand new framework. And 00:05:38.290 --> 00:05:40.930 that leads us directly into some staggering claims 00:05:40.930 --> 00:05:43.790 made by scholars in the late 70s and 80s. The 00:05:43.790 --> 00:05:46.420 Chomsky numbers. Yes. The scale of the data they 00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:48.680 compiled forces a total recalibration of how 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:52.259 we view Cold War casualties. Beginning in 1979, 00:05:52.899 --> 00:05:55.800 scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman began 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.540 publishing this extensive research. And they 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:00.600 argued that global terror wasn't just a random 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:03.439 byproduct of the Cold War, but was heavily, heavily 00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:05.839 concentrated within the U .S. sphere of influence. 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:09.300 Which, the text notes, tracked with reports from 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:11.959 organizations like Amnesty International, who 00:06:11.959 --> 00:06:14.259 were suddenly sounding the alarm about a global 00:06:14.259 --> 00:06:16.980 epidemic of state torture. Yeah, the timing lined 00:06:16.980 --> 00:06:19.540 up perfectly. But let's be precise here, because 00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:21.879 the text uses a very specific term for this. 00:06:22.540 --> 00:06:25.959 Administrative torture. We aren't just talking 00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:29.079 about a rogue prison guard or a battlefield interrogation 00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:31.699 getting out of hand, are we? Oh, far from it. 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:34.819 Administrative torture refers to human rights 00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:38.019 abuses that are institutionalized. It's a bureaucratic 00:06:38.019 --> 00:06:39.920 function of the state. Like they have budgets 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:43.160 for it. Budgets. Standardized procedures. Dedicated 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:47.610 personnel. Their literal daily job is the systematic 00:06:47.610 --> 00:06:50.209 application of torture to suppress political 00:06:50.209 --> 00:06:52.750 opposition. It is torture as state administration. 00:06:52.949 --> 00:06:55.189 Exactly. And Chomsky and Herman's numbers on 00:06:55.189 --> 00:06:58.250 this are incredibly heavy. The text states they 00:06:58.250 --> 00:07:01.490 claim that 74 percent of regimes worldwide utilizing 00:07:01.490 --> 00:07:03.810 this kind of administrative torture were U .S. 00:07:04.089 --> 00:07:05.769 client states. Meaning they were governments 00:07:05.769 --> 00:07:08.430 actively receiving military, financial, or diplomatic 00:07:08.430 --> 00:07:10.519 support from Washington. Right, to remain in 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:13.279 power. And the regional concentration is even 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:15.540 more severe when you look at Latin America. This 00:07:15.540 --> 00:07:17.660 part blew my mind. Yeah, they found that out 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:20.500 of the 10 countries operating active state -sponsored 00:07:20.500 --> 00:07:23.860 death squads at that time, all 10 were U .S. 00:07:23.939 --> 00:07:27.720 client states. OK, but, and I have to play devil's 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:30.060 advocate here, correlation doesn't automatically 00:07:30.060 --> 00:07:33.480 equal causation. Just because a regime buys U 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:36.040 .S. weapons or gets foreign aid doesn't necessarily 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:38.139 mean the United States is ordering the death 00:07:38.139 --> 00:07:41.420 squads, right? How do these scholars bridge that 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:44.019 gap? They bridge it by looking at the sheer disparity 00:07:44.019 --> 00:07:47.500 in body counts and, crucially, the underlying 00:07:47.500 --> 00:07:49.959 economic motives. OK, lay that out for me. So 00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:52.339 the text cites Frederick Groh's research, which 00:07:52.339 --> 00:07:54.800 actually uses the CIA's own estimates. Oh, wow. 00:07:55.339 --> 00:07:58.300 Yeah. Between 1968 and 1980, the CIA estimated 00:07:58.300 --> 00:08:01.839 there were 3 ,668 deaths caused by non -state 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:04.620 terrorism worldwide. So a few thousand. Right. 00:08:04.899 --> 00:08:07.040 But Gereau contrasts that with the casualties 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:09.459 in U .S.-backed regimes. He points to the Guatemalan 00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:12.339 Civil War as an example. 150 ,000 people dead, 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:16.139 50 ,000 missing. And Gereau classifies 93 percent 00:08:16.139 --> 00:08:19.300 of those casualties as victims of state terrorism. 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.060 So the argument is that the obsession with non 00:08:22.060 --> 00:08:24.959 -state terrorism, the guys with improvised explosives, 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:28.100 is essentially a distraction from the vastly 00:08:28.100 --> 00:08:30.560 deadlier reality of state violence. That's the 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.210 core of their argument. but the source material. 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:36.200 provides a motive that goes beyond just the standard 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.720 containing communism narrative we usually hear. 00:08:38.899 --> 00:08:41.480 Right, the economic angle. Yes. Scholar Ruth 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:43.879 J. Blakely argues the core motive was actually 00:08:43.879 --> 00:08:46.539 economic. She contends state terror was deployed 00:08:46.539 --> 00:08:49.539 as a deliberate strategy to forcefully expand 00:08:49.539 --> 00:08:51.879 neoliberalism throughout the global south. OK, 00:08:51.980 --> 00:08:54.120 let me break down what neoliberalism means in 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:56.700 this specific violent context, because it's a 00:08:56.700 --> 00:08:59.039 bit of an academic buzzword, but here it's crucial. 00:08:59.179 --> 00:09:01.519 In this context, it means using state violence 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:04.860 to aggressively regulate markets, privatize national 00:09:04.860 --> 00:09:07.519 resources, and protect the interests of Western 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:10.460 corporate elites. So if a developing nation has, 00:09:10.460 --> 00:09:13.519 say, strong labor unions or socialist land reform 00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:16.820 movements... Exactly. If those things threaten 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:19.929 foreign investment... State terror becomes the 00:09:19.929 --> 00:09:22.990 mechanism to physically eradicate those barriers. 00:09:23.129 --> 00:09:25.190 You eliminate the organizers, you eliminate the 00:09:25.190 --> 00:09:27.669 threat to the market. That is a massive accusation. 00:09:27.830 --> 00:09:29.649 It really is. I mean, it's one thing to say the 00:09:29.649 --> 00:09:32.169 U .S. supported unsavory dictators to keep the 00:09:32.169 --> 00:09:34.610 Soviets out. That's standard Cold War history. 00:09:35.210 --> 00:09:38.929 It's entirely another to claim the U .S. utilized 00:09:38.929 --> 00:09:41.970 mass murder as a tool for market restructuring. 00:09:42.029 --> 00:09:44.669 Right. And obviously you can't throw around accusations 00:09:44.669 --> 00:09:47.639 like global sponsor of state terror. without 00:09:47.639 --> 00:09:50.340 intense pushback. The mainstream political science 00:09:50.340 --> 00:09:53.320 world absolutely revolted against Chomsky's framework, 00:09:53.500 --> 00:09:55.740 didn't they? Oh, the backlash was fierce. And 00:09:55.740 --> 00:09:57.539 it centered precisely on the distinction you 00:09:57.539 --> 00:09:59.659 raised earlier. The correlation versus causation 00:09:59.659 --> 00:10:01.399 thing. Yeah, the difference between funding a 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:04.279 regime and controlling a regime. Yale political 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:06.379 science professor James S. Fishkin delivered 00:10:06.379 --> 00:10:09.279 one of the sharpest critiques in the text. He 00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:11.940 called Chomsky and Herman's claims shockingly 00:10:11.940 --> 00:10:14.440 overstated. Because Fishkin argues that Chomsky 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:17.519 is creating this false illusion of American omnipotence, 00:10:17.519 --> 00:10:20.860 right? Like this idea that Washington is secretly 00:10:20.860 --> 00:10:23.500 pulling the strings of every single military 00:10:23.500 --> 00:10:26.580 dictator in the global south, like some flawless 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:29.539 global puppet master. That is his exact core 00:10:29.539 --> 00:10:32.370 argument. Fishkin points out that even if you 00:10:32.370 --> 00:10:34.950 accept all the evidence regarding U .S. military 00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:38.129 aid and funding, it only proves systematic support, 00:10:38.490 --> 00:10:41.110 not direct control. Okay. To illustrate this, 00:10:41.230 --> 00:10:43.470 he contrasts U .S. influence in Latin America 00:10:43.470 --> 00:10:45.909 with the Soviet Union's role in Eastern Europe. 00:10:46.169 --> 00:10:49.509 Oh, interesting. Yeah, Moscow had direct, absolute 00:10:49.509 --> 00:10:51.789 structural control over its satellite states. 00:10:52.409 --> 00:10:54.710 But the U .S. influence in the global south was 00:10:54.710 --> 00:10:58.070 heavily mediated and honestly often pretty chaotic. 00:10:58.389 --> 00:11:00.490 So Fishkin is essentially saying we need to downgrade 00:11:00.490 --> 00:11:03.159 the charge. The U .S. wasn't the architect pulling 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:06.080 the trigger. The lesser, but maybe more historically 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:08.960 accurate moral failure is that the United States 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:11.120 had the leverage to potentially stop the torture, 00:11:11.419 --> 00:11:14.059 but just chose to look the other way for geopolitical 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:16.559 stability. Systematic support versus control. 00:11:16.799 --> 00:11:19.080 It's a vital legal and philosophical distinction. 00:11:19.340 --> 00:11:21.519 And other mainstream figures took the defense 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:24.019 much further. Right. Like William Bennett. Yes. 00:11:24.620 --> 00:11:27.059 The text highlights former U .S. Secretary of 00:11:27.059 --> 00:11:29.220 Education William Bennett, who dismissed the 00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:31.620 entire premise of the U .S. as a terrorist state 00:11:31.620 --> 00:11:34.840 and flat out preposterous. And Bennett's defense 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:37.639 relies on a broader historical trajectory, right? 00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:40.799 He reminds people of major military interventions 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:44.419 where the U .S. undeniably used its immense power 00:11:44.419 --> 00:11:47.139 to halt violence. He specifically cites the liberation 00:11:47.139 --> 00:11:49.600 of Kuwait and the humanitarian interventions 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:52.360 in Bosnia and Somalia. So Bennett's logic is 00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:54.559 that a nation fundamentally willing to expend 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:57.200 its own blood and treasure to stop ethnic cleansing 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:00.759 or repel invasions. cannot logically be categorized 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:03.559 alongside regimes whose primary function is terror. 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:06.700 Exactly. But if we are looking for the most rigorous 00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:09.139 academic defense of the U .S. against Chomsky's 00:12:09.139 --> 00:12:11.940 thesis, the text points us to scholar Stephen 00:12:11.940 --> 00:12:14.220 Morris. Morris takes a really interesting approach 00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:16.759 here. He essentially accepts Chomsky's challenge. 00:12:17.019 --> 00:12:19.779 He tries to find a right wing U .S. backed regime 00:12:19.779 --> 00:12:22.860 that actually rivaled the pure industrial scale 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.419 brutality of the worst communist dictatorships. 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:27.820 Right. And Morris concedes there is one historical 00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:31.159 example that meets that horrific threshold. Yes. 00:12:31.700 --> 00:12:34.320 So Harto's government in Indonesia during the 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:38.720 mid -1960s. However, Morris attempts to use Indonesia 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:42.100 as the ultimate defense of U .S. innocence regarding 00:12:42.100 --> 00:12:45.360 the actual mechanics of state terror. Which sounds 00:12:45.360 --> 00:12:47.860 completely paradoxical. How does a mass slaughter 00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:51.230 prove innocence? By analyzing the supply chain 00:12:51.230 --> 00:12:53.909 of the violence, Morris argued that when the 00:12:53.909 --> 00:12:56.129 Indonesian generals seized power and initiated 00:12:56.129 --> 00:12:58.450 the mass killings, the United States was not 00:12:58.450 --> 00:13:00.570 the principal foreign supplier of their military. 00:13:01.269 --> 00:13:03.169 And more importantly, Morris claimed there was 00:13:03.169 --> 00:13:06.090 absolutely no credible evidence of direct American 00:13:06.090 --> 00:13:08.669 involvement in orchestrating the coup or the 00:13:08.669 --> 00:13:12.129 subsequent massacres. He argued the US was essentially 00:13:12.129 --> 00:13:14.470 a bystander to a sovereign nation's internal 00:13:14.470 --> 00:13:16.710 bloodbath. And Morris's argument held weight 00:13:16.710 --> 00:13:19.190 for a really long time. It reinforced Fishkin's 00:13:19.190 --> 00:13:21.210 theory. The US might be standing in the room, 00:13:21.250 --> 00:13:23.669 but they aren't swinging the axe. But this is 00:13:23.669 --> 00:13:25.549 where the source material delivers a massive 00:13:25.549 --> 00:13:28.090 plot twist, because Morris staked his entire 00:13:28.090 --> 00:13:30.830 defense on a lack of credible evidence. So what 00:13:30.830 --> 00:13:33.450 happens when the actual highly classified receipts 00:13:33.450 --> 00:13:36.029 are released decades later? The mainstream narrative 00:13:36.029 --> 00:13:39.370 completely fractures. Because in 2017, the U 00:13:39.370 --> 00:13:42.110 .S. Embassy in Jakarta declassified a massive 00:13:42.110 --> 00:13:45.070 trove of internal telegrams and daily briefings 00:13:45.070 --> 00:13:50.070 from that exact 1965 to 1966 period. And just 00:13:50.070 --> 00:13:51.950 a year prior to that, right, an international 00:13:51.950 --> 00:13:54.350 tribunal in The Hague had already issued a major 00:13:54.350 --> 00:13:57.269 ruling based on emerging evidence. Yes. And the 00:13:57.269 --> 00:13:59.370 details in these declassified documents are chilling. 00:13:59.659 --> 00:14:02.820 They completely obliterate the passive bystander 00:14:02.820 --> 00:14:05.200 defense. The U .S. government wasn't just watching 00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:07.779 from the sidelines. Not at all. The text documents 00:14:07.779 --> 00:14:10.299 that they actively encouraged and facilitated 00:14:10.299 --> 00:14:13.340 the army -led massacres. The level of micromanagement 00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:15.500 is what really stood out to me. The United States 00:14:15.500 --> 00:14:17.740 literally provided the Indonesian armed forces 00:14:17.740 --> 00:14:20.139 with detailed lists of Communist Party officials 00:14:20.139 --> 00:14:22.639 and sympathizers who were to be targeted. The 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:24.639 kill lists we mentioned at the start. Exactly. 00:14:24.919 --> 00:14:27.679 And the text explicitly states U .S. officials 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:30.379 egged on the army. to conduct the massacres. 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:32.639 I mean, handing over a kill list is about as 00:14:32.639 --> 00:14:35.539 direct as it gets. It radically shifts the paradigm. 00:14:36.100 --> 00:14:38.919 The text brings in historian Brad Simpson, who 00:14:38.919 --> 00:14:41.080 reviewed these newly declassified cables. What 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:43.500 did he find? Simpson noted that U .S. officials 00:14:43.500 --> 00:14:45.700 weren't horrified by the violence. They were 00:14:45.700 --> 00:14:48.480 actually expressing internal anxiety that the 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:50.659 Indonesian military might not take the killing 00:14:50.659 --> 00:14:54.440 far enough. Wow. Yeah. Simpson coined the term 00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:57.139 efficacious terror to describe this. Efficacious 00:14:57.139 --> 00:15:00.190 terror. Meaning, the violence wasn't just chaotic 00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:03.250 bloodlust, it was highly efficient and goal -oriented. 00:15:03.590 --> 00:15:05.629 Precisely oriented toward the economic goals 00:15:05.629 --> 00:15:08.950 we discussed earlier. With Ruth Blakely's neoliberalism 00:15:08.950 --> 00:15:11.509 theory. Oh, right. Eradicating the Indonesian 00:15:11.509 --> 00:15:14.309 Communist Party wasn't just about winning a geopolitical 00:15:14.309 --> 00:15:16.990 chess match with the Soviets. It was an essential 00:15:16.990 --> 00:15:19.970 physical building block required to impose Western 00:15:19.970 --> 00:15:23.129 economic policies on Indonesia after ousting 00:15:23.129 --> 00:15:25.850 the previous leadership. So the terror literally 00:15:25.850 --> 00:15:28.009 cleared the political landscape for foreign capital. 00:15:28.009 --> 00:15:30.399 Exactly. Which brings us right back to James 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:33.240 S. Fishkin's defense. That idea that the U .S. 00:15:33.700 --> 00:15:37.059 only provided systematic support, but never control. 00:15:37.220 --> 00:15:39.820 Yeah, that distinction. The Indonesia case study 00:15:39.820 --> 00:15:43.320 shows how dangerously thin that distinction is 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:45.840 in practice. I mean, if you are literally handing 00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:49.240 the executioner a categorized list of targets 00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:52.919 and urging them to accelerate the pace, the philosophical 00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:55.039 debate between paying for the gun and pulling 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:57.299 the trigger feels completely irrelevant to the 00:15:57.299 --> 00:16:01.019 victim. Completely. And the Hague tribunal certainly 00:16:01.019 --> 00:16:04.129 saw no distinction. the text notes they ruled, 00:16:04.250 --> 00:16:06.129 the United States and other Western governments, 00:16:06.730 --> 00:16:10.009 were directly complicit in crimes against humanity. 00:16:10.190 --> 00:16:12.750 It just demonstrates the terrifying gray area 00:16:12.750 --> 00:16:15.070 of international relations. It really does. And 00:16:15.070 --> 00:16:18.190 it forces us to ask, if state terror is this 00:16:18.190 --> 00:16:21.090 heavily insulated by legal definitions and classified 00:16:21.090 --> 00:16:23.809 documents, how does this concept apply when we 00:16:23.809 --> 00:16:25.830 pull it out of the Cold War and bring it into 00:16:25.830 --> 00:16:28.330 the modern era? And that is the exact pivot the 00:16:28.330 --> 00:16:30.330 source material makes next. And it is a jarring 00:16:30.330 --> 00:16:32.789 one. Yeah. Whiplash. We've spent this entire 00:16:32.789 --> 00:16:34.870 time dissecting foreign policy in the global 00:16:34.870 --> 00:16:37.269 south during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Yeah. But 00:16:37.269 --> 00:16:39.610 the text suddenly drops us right into the present 00:16:39.610 --> 00:16:42.460 day. It takes this highly contested academic 00:16:42.460 --> 00:16:45.740 label of state terror and applies it domestically 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:48.500 inside the United States. The transition from 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:51.039 the jungles of Guatemala to the streets of America 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:54.200 is incredibly stark. The text highlights events 00:16:54.200 --> 00:16:57.159 specifically from the year 2026 during the second 00:16:57.159 --> 00:16:59.970 presidency of Donald Trump. Right. And to reiterate 00:16:59.970 --> 00:17:02.769 our strict neutrality here, we are simply reporting 00:17:02.769 --> 00:17:05.269 the events and rulings documented in our source 00:17:05.269 --> 00:17:08.609 text. Exactly. During this 2026 period, the text 00:17:08.609 --> 00:17:10.910 notes a significant shift in public and legal 00:17:10.910 --> 00:17:13.809 rhetoric. Media sources and politicians began 00:17:13.809 --> 00:17:16.069 explicitly describing the activities of U .S. 00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:19.349 immigration and customs enforcement. I see. Right. 00:17:19.809 --> 00:17:22.029 Specifically, a mass deportation initiative called 00:17:22.029 --> 00:17:25.190 Operation Metro Surge. They began describing 00:17:25.190 --> 00:17:27.049 this not just as strict law enforcement, but 00:17:27.049 --> 00:17:30.069 as terror. And what elevates this beyond mere 00:17:30.069 --> 00:17:32.230 political rhetoric, because politicians call 00:17:32.230 --> 00:17:35.049 each other terrorists all the time, is the institutional 00:17:35.049 --> 00:17:37.970 validation it received. Yes. The text cites a 00:17:37.970 --> 00:17:41.089 landmark judicial ruling from February 2026. 00:17:41.809 --> 00:17:44.390 A sitting federal judge, Judge Sunshine Sykes, 00:17:44.710 --> 00:17:46.990 presided over a major case regarding the executive 00:17:46.990 --> 00:17:49.549 branch's immigration policies. And the quote 00:17:49.549 --> 00:17:52.170 from her ruling is stunning. Let's hear it. She 00:17:52.170 --> 00:17:55.220 wrote, Beyond its terror against non -citizens, 00:17:55.759 --> 00:17:57.880 the executive branch has extended its violence 00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:00.799 on its own citizens. I mean, that ruling represents 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:04.900 a monumental legal leap. Absolutely. Judge Sykes 00:18:04.900 --> 00:18:07.920 essentially bypassed that Title 22 definition 00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:09.960 we discussed at the very beginning. The one requiring 00:18:09.960 --> 00:18:12.799 perpetrators to be subnational groups. Exactly. 00:18:13.140 --> 00:18:15.380 By applying the word terror to the executive 00:18:15.380 --> 00:18:18.240 branch, she utilized the legal theory that the 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:20.299 state's monopoly on violence had crossed the 00:18:20.299 --> 00:18:22.759 threshold from legitimate law enforcement into 00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.579 systematic terror impacting both non -citizens 00:18:25.579 --> 00:18:28.380 and citizens alike. I really want you, the listener, 00:18:28.539 --> 00:18:31.460 to absorb the magnitude of that shift. We started 00:18:31.460 --> 00:18:34.480 this deep dive looking at dissident radical academics 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.119 in the 1970s, right? Struggling to convince the 00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:39.420 mainstream that covert U .S. foreign policy in 00:18:39.420 --> 00:18:41.640 Latin America should be labeled state terror. 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:44.119 It was a total fringe theory. Yes. Yeah. Yet 00:18:44.119 --> 00:18:47.380 you follow the timeline to 2026 and a sitting 00:18:47.380 --> 00:18:49.640 United States federal judge is applying that 00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:52.319 exact same framework using that exact same word 00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:55.319 to describe highly visible domestic executive 00:18:55.319 --> 00:18:58.180 branch operations. It just proves that the language 00:18:58.180 --> 00:19:01.440 of conflict is never static. The vocabulary built 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:03.980 to describe the covert horrors of the Cold War 00:19:03.980 --> 00:19:07.289 has mutated. And it's now being weaponized within 00:19:07.289 --> 00:19:10.089 the domestic legal system to challenge the boundaries 00:19:10.089 --> 00:19:13.450 of state power at home. It's incredible. So let's 00:19:13.450 --> 00:19:15.450 zoom out and trace the arc we've just traveled. 00:19:15.970 --> 00:19:18.250 We began with the dictionary problem, exploring 00:19:18.250 --> 00:19:20.670 how the U .S. legally engineered its own exemption 00:19:20.670 --> 00:19:23.289 from the definition of terrorism by requiring 00:19:23.289 --> 00:19:26.029 actors to be subnational. Which naturally led 00:19:26.029 --> 00:19:28.450 dissident scholars to bypass the law entirely. 00:19:28.750 --> 00:19:31.250 They compiled staggering statistics to argue 00:19:31.250 --> 00:19:34.029 that U .S. client states were actually the primary 00:19:34.029 --> 00:19:36.750 drivers of global administrative torture during 00:19:36.750 --> 00:19:39.210 the Cold War. And then we examine the intense 00:19:39.210 --> 00:19:41.750 mainstream pushback from scholars like Fishkin 00:19:41.750 --> 00:19:43.809 and Morris. who argued the U .S. only offered 00:19:43.809 --> 00:19:46.809 support, not absolute control, pointing to a 00:19:46.809 --> 00:19:48.789 lack of direct evidence. Until, of course, we 00:19:48.789 --> 00:19:50.890 hit the declassified cables from Indonesia in 00:19:50.890 --> 00:19:53.930 2017, proving the U .S. directly provided kill 00:19:53.930 --> 00:19:56.690 lists to military dictators, engaging what historians 00:19:56.690 --> 00:19:59.869 termed efficacious terror to clear the way for 00:19:59.869 --> 00:20:02.650 Western economic interests. And finally, we followed 00:20:02.650 --> 00:20:06.289 the text to 2026, watching this massive, devastating 00:20:06.289 --> 00:20:09.170 label of state terror cross the border, being 00:20:09.170 --> 00:20:11.829 applied by federal judges to domestic law enforcement 00:20:11.829 --> 00:20:14.529 agencies like ICE. And, you know, if you are 00:20:14.529 --> 00:20:17.250 wondering how this dense historical debate practically 00:20:17.250 --> 00:20:20.150 impacts your life, it fundamentally rewires how 00:20:20.150 --> 00:20:22.809 you consume information. Oh, absolutely. The 00:20:22.809 --> 00:20:25.309 next time you hear a politician, a pundit or 00:20:25.309 --> 00:20:28.690 a judge use the word terrorist on TV, you won't 00:20:28.690 --> 00:20:31.250 just passively accept it as an objective. No. 00:20:31.650 --> 00:20:34.470 You will immediately ask, who is actively defining 00:20:34.470 --> 00:20:36.950 this word right now? What are the mechanisms 00:20:36.950 --> 00:20:39.509 of violence they're describing? And most importantly, 00:20:39.589 --> 00:20:42.109 who does their definition protect? Which leaves 00:20:42.109 --> 00:20:44.529 us with a final provocative thought for you to 00:20:44.529 --> 00:20:47.509 consider. The definition of terrorism has mutated 00:20:47.509 --> 00:20:50.450 drastically over the centuries. It began in France 00:20:50.450 --> 00:20:52.950 as state -led violence against the people. It 00:20:52.950 --> 00:20:55.210 eventually flipped to mean non -state actors 00:20:55.210 --> 00:20:58.859 attacking the government. And now in 2026, we 00:20:58.859 --> 00:21:01.380 see it circling back, potentially being used 00:21:01.380 --> 00:21:03.700 by the judiciary to describe domestic law enforcement. 00:21:04.329 --> 00:21:06.750 So if the meaning of the word can shift that 00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:09.309 radically based on the era, who will hold the 00:21:09.309 --> 00:21:11.650 power to define terrorism 50 years from now? 00:21:11.750 --> 00:21:14.329 And if the definition is that malleable, does 00:21:14.329 --> 00:21:17.309 the label eventually lose all objective meaning? 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:19.630 Exactly. Because if the dictionary is written 00:21:19.630 --> 00:21:22.650 in pencil, then terrorist ceases to be a description 00:21:22.650 --> 00:21:24.930 of an act and simply becomes the ultimate weapon 00:21:24.930 --> 00:21:26.950 of whoever happens to hold political power at 00:21:26.950 --> 00:21:29.069 the time. It all comes back to the rule book. 00:21:29.250 --> 00:21:31.569 Whoever writes the rules gets to decide who is 00:21:31.569 --> 00:21:33.970 committing a foul. Keep an eye on the referees.