Loftwings and Demons

'Terrorist' is a word people use to justify the war crimes of imperial and colonial interests. It doesn't help in understanding people's political motivations. It doesn't help in describing the amount of violence someone uses. It is applied to the political enemies of empire, regardless of the strategies or level of violence used. It is frequently a racist dogwhistle.

Stop calling Hamas terrorists. Not only does it serve to equate the actions of Hamas with the Israeli military (and therefore devalue Palestinian lives by giving the implication that Israel was at all justified in committing genocide), it decontextualizes the actions of both Hamas and Israel. 

And I want to be clear, calling them both terrorists also equates them! The solution is not to expand the usage of this word, but eliminate it.

We need to be descriptive and specific when we describe people or groups in a political context, in a military context. Obfuscation of specifics is the enemy of finding solutions and it is the enemy of creating the conditions for peace.

And I'm mentioning Hamas specifically because Palestine is very much at the forefront of my attention right now, but this applies to all other groups too, whether they're environmental activists or Hamas or animal activists or Al Qaeda or the KKK. These are all very different groups--calling them by the same term obfuscates that fact. Not only that, but given how racialized the term has become, it's practically a racial slur against arabs, and people who aren't part of the affected group shouldn't be trying to repurpose or 'reclaim' slurs that have been applied to that group.

The FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Program Has a New Target: Animal Rights Activists


The FBI has been collaborating with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, according to agency records recently obtained by the nonprofit Animal Partisan through Freedom of Information Act litigation. The records also show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under federal criminal statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison — including for the “attempted use” of WMD — while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists to its WMD program.

Animal rights lawyers and advocates view this new frontier for WMD allegations as a pretense, a fictive way to legitimize the criminal prosecution of animal rights activists. 

The FBI declined to comment on these plans or clarify whether it is still actively considering charging activists under statutes for WMD. 

“This kind of escalation in charging or threats of charges is textbook escalation by government actors against successful efforts by social movements that they disagree with or find subversive,” said Justin Marceau, a law professor who runs a legal clinic for animal activists at the University of Denver. “The very framing of civil disobedience against factory farms as terrorism is a form of government repression.”

I'm used to the government labelling animal rights activists as terrorists, but the WMD accusation is a new one for me. I guess they figured the WMD lie worked for Iraq, so why not branch out?

September 11, 1973: The Chilean military launches a coup. The Junta, headed by commander in chief of the army, General Augusto Pinochet, declares itself the government, proclaims a State of Internal War, imposes martial law and carries out a brutal campaign to destroy areas of resistance. At least 10,000 Chileans and foreigners are held in the national stadium. (In 2011, the Chilean government acknowledged that more than 40,000 people had been murdered, disappeared, or tortured by the Pinochet dictatorship.) Allende and his aides die defending the national palace — they had refused to surrender. (Some were killed, Allende committed suicide.) In his last radio address, Allende says,

Probably Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal of my voice will not reach you: It does not matter. You will continue to hear me, I will always be beside you or at least my memory will be that of a dignified man, that of a man who is loyal.

The country is closed to the outside world for a week. No one is allowed out or in; all borders and international airports are closed; international communications are cut.
Marxist political parties are outlawed, leftist newspapers, radio and TV stations closed. Congress is closed. The constitution is abolished. All mayors and locally elected representatives are removed and replaced by active or retired military officers. The largest labor union, with 800,000 members, is outlawed.
The Junta makes an effort to erase all traces of the popular culture of the Allende years: public burning of books, posters, newspapers; all murals and wall paintings obliterated; the leftist poet Pablo Neruda’s home is ransacked and his manuscripts disappear; use of the term compañero to address one another is outlawed, certain musical instruments associated with the “New Song” movement are banned. The heads of all universities are replaced with military appointees.
The Junta returns control of more than 350 factories nationalized by the Popular Unity government to previous owners; worker participation and management is abolished; wage increases are canceled. U.S. companies announce interest in reinvesting in Chile. The U.S.-dominated InterAmerican Development Bank grants Chile a $65 million loan. U.S. banks begin lending millions of dollars to the Pinochet regime.
October 5, 1973: The Nixon administration grants $24.5 million in wheat credits to the Junta in Chile.
“It is clear,” said a U.S. Senate committee report, “the CIA received intelligence reports on the coup planning of the group which carried out the successful September 11th coup throughout the months of July, August, and September 1973.”
September 17, 1974: President Gerald Ford: What the United States did in Chile was “in the best interest of the people in Chile and certainly in our own best interests.”