September 20, 2001 George W. Bush said “From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” (White House, 9/20/01) 

Perhaps we should start at home. In 1871 Congress passed the Anti-KKK Act of 1871 allowing authorities to declare martial law where the KKK was strongest. The civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 drove “home-grown terror” underground but it has not gone away. Christian extremist/white supremacist groups commit little noticed “hate crimes” against African-Americans, Jews, gays and lesbians, and Muslims. “The Justice Department says hate crimes are increasing and are a major category of their criminal prosecutions.” Since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Christian extremist Timothy McVeigh the radical right has produced more than 60 terrorist plans “to bomb or burn government buildings, banks, refineries, utilities, clinics, synagogues, mosques, memorials and bridges; to assassinate police officers, judges, politicians, civil rights figures and others; to rob banks, armored carsand other criminals; and to amass illegal machine guns, missiles, explosives, and biological and chemical weapons.” (Peninsula Peace & Justice Center 6/26/06)

Matthew Hale, leader of the World Church of the Creator, was arrested in Chicago on charges of soliciting the murder of a federal judge. Rafael Davila, a former Army National Guard intelligence officer from Washington State was arrested on suspicion that Davila and his former wife planned to distribute highly classified documents to white supremacists and antigovernment groups in North Carolina, Texas and Georgia. (NYTimes 12/23/03)

No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq but one was found in east Texas. The cache included a “fully functional sodium cyanide bomb capable of killing hundreds, neo-Nazi and antigovernment literature, illegal weapons, half a million rounds of ammunition, and more than 100 explosives, including bombs disguised as suitcases. Three people were arrested, more than 150 were subpoenaed and officials are searching for others that may have been involved. (NYTimes 12-13/03)

Yet the Bush administration has not announced a crusade on Christianity or Christian extremists and the media rarely identify such terrorists as “Christian.” Just as the British did not identify members of the IRA as “Catholic” terrorists. Unless charged with crimes, even neo-Nazi/Christian/white supremacist leaders are not identified as “terrorists” or “threats to national security.”

Harboring terrorists? Bush granted the US an exception. “Perhaps the most important taboo is the longevity of the United States as both a terrorist state and a haven for terrorists. That the US is the only state on record to have been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism and has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on governments to observe international law, is unmentionable...more terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants and assorted international criminals.” (Observer 7-14-02)

Reagan sold arms to Iranian terrorists, sold military hardware and agents necessary for the production of WMD to Saddam Hussein, and recruited, trained and equipped Islamic extremists, many of whom are now al-Qaida. He was declared guilty of international terrorism and found by the Kerry subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations to have, in its support of arms and drug smuggling, “abandoned the responsibility our government has for protecting our citizens from all threats to their security and well-being.” Reagan is dead but Bush1 is still alive and so are others involved in international terrorism and smuggling. Some are in the present administration, including Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, John Negroponte, Elliott Abrams, Colin Powell, Richard Armitage John Poindexter, Oliver North, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger,  Robert C. McFarlane, MichaelDeaver, E. Bob Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen, Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell, John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo, J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas and Charles Wick. (nsarchive.org)

General Jose Guillermo Garcia, head of El Salvador's military during the 1980s when death squads with ties to the army murdered thousands of people, has lived in Florida since the 1990s. (NYTimes 7/24/02) General Prosper Avril, the Haitian dictator, was flown to Florida by the US Government when he was overthrown. Thiounn Prasith, Pol Pot's henchman and apologist at the United Nations, lives in New York. (NYTimes 10/31/08) General Mansour Moharari, who ran the Shah of Iran's notorious prisons, lives in the US. (Observer 7-14-02) Former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, former Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain and another former minister, wanted for their roles in Bolivia’s Black February crackdown that killed 67 people and wounded more than 400 lives in the US. (Council on Hemispheric Affairs 09/08) 

 In 1985 French government agents blew up the Rainbow Warrior off the coast of New Zealand killing a member of Greenpeace who was protesting French nuclear testing in the Pacific. Thirteen French agents were identified as being involved in the bombing, two were convicted. The commander of the unit, Louis-Pierre Dillais, lives in Virginia and is president of an arms company with US government contracts. (Democracy Now 5/20/07) 

Former CIA operative and indicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who blew up a civilian airliner and four sites in the Caribbean including the Guyanese Embassy in Trinidad lives in the US despite three separate extradition treaties signed, ratified and used by the Bush administration in other cases in its war on terror. (nsarchive.org)

Those are a few of the terrorists “harbored” by the US, but what of those who support terrorism? Does passive support count? On February 13, 2001, George W. Bush issued a Presidential Directive reorganizing national security. Policy Coordination Committees were organized by region--Near East, North Africa, Europe, Eurasia--with no committee for the US or North America. The directive stated, “The existing system of Interagency Working Groups is abolished.” All information had to pass through Condolezza Rice. However, after 9/11 the FBI and CIA were criticized for not cooperating when that failure seemed to come from the top. (nsarchive@org)

9/10/01 Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed cutting aid to state and local counterterrorism efforts. (NYTimes 2/27/02)

Immediately after 9/11, Bush “cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI. (Washington Post 3/22/04) Later he tried to eliminate a $12 million request by the IRS that said it needed the money to increase by 50% the number of investigators necessary to do its part in the fight against terrorism. (NYTimes 3/31/04)

Bush included North Korea in the “axis of evil” but Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB that sold nuclear reactor equipment to North Korea. According to Defense Intelligence Agency documents Republican and Bush benefactor Rev. Sun Myung Moon gave billions to North Korea's military leaders. And Bush extended for 5 more years the authority of Westinghouse to transfer “documents related to nuclear technology” to North Korea. (Boston Globe 3/7/03) (Consortiumnews.com 3/9/03)

September 15, 2005 Ambassador to the UN John Bolton successfully lobbied to have the following section stripped from a final document: “We believe that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, and the possibility that terrorists might acquire such weapons, remain the greatest threats to international peace and security.” (New York Review of Books 3/6/08)

Perhaps the scariest terrorist is Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. Khan sold nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. The Saudi defense minister has visited Dr. Khan's laboratories and perhaps Syrian officials have also. We don’t know what nations or terrorists Khan may have assisted because Khan is a Pakistani hero and the Bush administration is afraid to interrogate him because of a possible backlash. (NYTimes 9/25/04)

Such policy decisions can always be criticized but in the words of Baghdad Bush actively supporting terrorism would make the administration “a hostile regime.” Yet, after declaring Abu Sayeff “global terrorists” Bush gave the Filipino Communist guerrillas $300,000. (ABC News 4/02)

MEK (Mujahedeen-e-Khalq) an Iranian group labeled a terrorist organization by the US State Department gets US military escort for its supply convoys in Iraq. (NY Post 5/20/03) Iran offered to hand over three senior al Qaeda leaders and might provide another three top terrorists if the US shut down the terrorist group. http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0308iran.html

“Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea,” Bush allowed North Korea to sell arms to Ethiopia. (NYTimes 4/7/07)

According to Seymour Hersh, the US supports Fatah (labeled a terrorist organization) to counter Hezbollah in Lebanon. (Democracy Now 5/24/07)

The Bush administration posted Iraq’s pre-1991 method of making nerve gas on a public website until UN arms-control officials asked that it be removed to prevent terrorists from using it. However, the administration left Iraq’s pre-1991 method of making nuclear weapons until the New York Times asked why they were making that information available. Hours after the advanced plans were posted Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt informed the UN they would begin nuclear programs. (Times UK 11/4/06)

Al Hurra television, Bush’s $63 million-a-year effort at propaganda broadcasting in the Middle East, has broadcast terrorist messages, including an hour-long tirade on the importance of anti-Jewish violence. (ABC News 5/22/07)

In Bush’s own words, his administration has made itself “a hostile regime” to its own citizens.

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