Boom!

On the day of the World Trade Center bombing, New York felt like a city under siege. Radio and television stations were knocked off the air, and traffic patterns in and out of Manhattan were even more erratic than usual. It was the most dramatic bombing on U.S. soil since the FALN, a Puerto Rican nationalist organization, blew up Fraunces Tavern in the early 1970s--and the most lethal since the LaGuardia Airport explosion in 1976, which killed 11 people.

Still, the United States has not been a "terror target" by any stretch of the imagination. Acts of political violence here have been random, sporadic, and almost entirely indigenous--which is much more than can be said for the wholesale regime terror our govermnent has long supported throughout the world. How many millions have died since World War 11 as a result of small, hot wars fought with U.S. guns, money, and personnel?

Domestic terror has, over the last two decades, actually come from quarters often ignored by the press. NeoNazi, Christian Identity, and Ku Klux Klan groups have long engaged in wanton acts of brutality with barely a yawn from the New York Times or the wire services. For years, black inmates have been lynched by white supremacists in Mississippi's prison system. And in the 1970s, the FALN wasn't the only group planting or mailing bombs; the Jewish Defense League--the twisted child of the late Meir Kahane--oversaw a virtual bombing spree aimed at enemies both real and imagined.

The World Trade Center bombing allowed the media to engage in several days' worth of politically expedient speculation about international terrorism. Only hours after the explosion, there was Wolf Blitzer pontificating about potential international terror connections on New York television station WPIX. Just minutes later, Ed Barnes of Time magazine discounted the possibility of an internationally orchestrated effort, pointing out that no "signature," no claim of responsibility, had preceded the blast. (That came later, as the figure of groups and individuals willing to own the attack rose to an astonishing--and absurd-55.) The New York Post was characteristically restrained; its header for Saturday, February 27, blared: "SADDAM'S REVENGE."

Terrorology is an inexact science. Those who staff think tanks as "terrorism experts" are, in actuality, counter, insurgency specialists, themselves skilled in unconventional-warfare operations carried out against civilians in places like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Angola. Anyone acquainted with the likes of Frank Kitson, the British founding father of counterinsurgency theory, knows that it is imperative to label any rebel or dissenting group terrorist in nature and intent before setting out to exterminate it.

Those terrorism experts trotted out by the press after the World Trade Center bombing represented the hoariest holdovers from the era of Reagan "roll, back." RAND's Brian Jenkins was both an apologist for and one of the architects of the contra war against Nicaragua--a terror war aimed primarily at the civilian population and infrastructure. In the winter 1983-1984 issue of World Affairs, the ubiquitous Neil Livingstone chided El Salvador's paramilitary forces for dumping the bodies of their victims on the streets rather than in the ocean. And Robert Kupperman, repeatedly quoted by the New York Times, has long refused to acknowledge that the "Libyan hit squad" episode of 1981 was a fraud concocted by Washington to arouse the public. Instead, he claims it was a Libyan strategy to disrupt society, use the U.S. media, and force Ronald Reagan "to retreat into a 'steel cocoon"'--all patent nonsense.

But there they were, and many more. Some predicted waves of bombings to come or speculated about Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Somali, Iraqi, Iranian, Irish, Palestinian, or Peruvian ties" to a still-uninvestigated incident that had just occurred. Many of these experts work for security companies specializing in counterterrorism planning and design; still others are paid top dollar to provide related training to local law enforcement. These conflicts of interest were never pointed out, and threat inflation was the order of the day.

The facts of the bombing may be much more prosaic, and local, than the experts would have us believe. Mohammed Salameh, who allegedly rented the van which carried the explosives into the underground garage of the WTC, went back to Ryder to retrieve his $400 deposit. An international cabal could surely have reimbursed Salameh for his loss--perhaps out of the $8,000 allegedly wired from Europe into a Jersey-based bank account.

The FBI was soon flaunting its "strong suspicions" of an "international link" to the bombing, while the Clinton administration was prepping for an early round of saber-rattling, promising "retaliation" against those responsible. All the usual suspects found their way into the fray--Libya, Iran, Iraq, and scary Arab fundamentalists in general (revealingly, there was no mention of Syria, still a strong suspect in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, because Syria signed on as an ally during the Persian Gulf War).

In the midst of the retaliatory talk and threats against those who would indulge in acts of international terrorism, no one seemed willing to discuss our support for El Salvador's military and death squads in the same context. We only seem to shudder at the thought that someone may import, rather than export, wanton political violence.

Were there international connections to the bombing? Did a squad of professionals, as some have alleged, enter the country and use some local contacts to do the preliminary dirty work, only to leave them holding the bag? We may never know. But this won't stop hundreds of terrorologists and legislators from fanning the flames of fear and xenophobia for months to come.

Throwing Stones

The March 1993 edition of the American Spectator featured Michael Ledeen's spasmodic assault on the Iran-contra special prosecutor, entitled "Lawrence Walsh, Grand Inquisitor." With Bush's Christmas reprieve of the White House basement bandits, right-wing pundits like Ledeen have gone Walsh-hunting, hoping that an investigation of the investigator may delay a closer look at both Reagan and Bush's roles in the case.

Ledeen is hardly the one to be throwing stones, however; if sleaze were platinum, he'd be the Hunt brothers. Back in 1972, Ledeen was denied tenure at Washington University in St. Louis for, among other reasons, plagiarism--this according to both the Washington Post (February 2, 1987) and Regardie's magazine (April 1987). Undaunted, Ledeen sought refuge with the doyens of Italy's intelligence services, among them Francesco Pazienza, a member of Licio Gelli's pro-fascist Masonic lodge, Propaganda Due.

According to the Italian judiciary, Ledeen worked with his new-found friend Pazienza to lure Jimmy Carter's obtuse brother Billy into a compromising business relationship with Muammar Qaddafi, thus creating the so-called Billygate scandal during the 1980 presidential campaign. Ledeen was rewarded for his work; during the early years of the Reagan administration, when the Iran-contra operations were just getting off the ground, Ledeen served as then-Secretary of State Al Haig's agent in Italy, where he played a significant role in both manufacturing and disseminating the now-discredited "Bulgarian plot" theory about the attempt on the life of the pope.

In articles written for magazines like Commentary and the New Republic, Ledeen has extolled the virtues of right-wing, U.S.-backed terrorists, encouraging them to assassinate various leaders--in Cuba, Nicaragua, the West Bank, and elsewhere--in the name of "counter-terrorism." Indeed, Ledeen was a long, time supporter of the contra cause and an apologist for the operations today collectively known as Iran-contra.

Now infected with Weinberger-it is (the tendency of former criminals to be, come loudly self-righteous after having been presidentially pardoned), Ledeen--himself knee-deep in Iran-contra doo-doo--calls the office of the special prosecutor "a monstrous thing" which should have a stake driven through its heart and be buried in a lead casket." Such high tones from someone so well acquainted with the stench of whited sepulchers.

Male Fraud

Bobby London, "Popeye's" stripwriter since 1986, was recently fired by King Features when Olive Oyl became em, broiled in the battle for abortion rights. London had penned an episode (still unpublished) in which Olive was sent an unwanted Baby Bluto doll in the mail. When Popeye's lanky paramour tried to return the unwelcome object, a priest rallied a gaggle of rightists to force her to keep it. "Unwanted babies in the mail," cried Olive. "That's male fraud!"

London later told reporters that he would even have changed the pro-choice piece had he been asked--but he wasn't. Instead, he was quickly and unceremoniously sacked by the cartoon syndicate.

One source told Marcy Sheiner of On Our Backs that London's dismissal was intended to appease the anti-choice owner of the Popeye's Fried Chicken chain, who threatened to cut off ad dollars to the Hearst Corporation unless the chain's cartoon namesake conformed to the grease baron's ideological standards. Remember that the next time you find yourself with a hankering for an order of "dirty rice" in a little styrofoam cup.

Whittled Away

Did you catch Chris Whittle on "Prime, Time Live"? Why, he seemed almost human--kids and all. But anyone acquainted with Channel One and the rightly maligned Edison Project under, stands that Whittle aims at nothing less than the undermining of public education and the evisceration of our schools. Just ask Jonathan Kozol, who has been warning against the Whittle plan ever since it was first announced.

Channel One is bad enough. With its free installations of monitors, VCRs, and cable hookups, many districts have flocked to give Whittle exactly what he wants: a captive audience for advertisers who want to pitch their wares during school hours.

Whittle has long argued that the educational value of Channel One is enough to sell the demon box on its own merits. But when Whittle Communications commissioned a University of Michigan study to evaluate the impact of the programming, the results were less than stellar: the researchers noted a titanic 3.3 percent increase in the knowledge of current events among students forced to watch 600 commercials a year.

The Edison Project promises to have 1,300 corporate-run, for-profit elementary schools up and running by 1996--undoubtedly with a corporate, approved curriculum in place. Corporations are already busy "placing" their materials in classrooms across the country with the help of firms like Modern, Inc., which produces corporate-sponsored videos. The National Energy Foundation, a front group for the utilities industries, publishes a six-volume "Energy Study Plan" for use by teachers and students; the word pollution doesn't appear once therein. And Exxon's "educational materials," widely used in science classrooms, repeatedly call gasoline a form of "solar energy."

Whittle's textbooks, study aids, and audiovisual materials promise to be just as objective in their presentation of science and history--Big Business's answer to fundamentalist schools that teach special creation instead of evolution in biology classrooms. Perhaps the Edison Project would be more aptly named "Groupthink, Inc."

Gerry O'Sullivan is the senior editor of The Humanist, a book-review editor for Z Magazine, and the author, with Edward S. Herman, of the "Terrorism" Industry.