[108179] in Cypherpunks
Cross America - Get Bombed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Cordian)
Sun Feb 7 19:52:27 1999
From: Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 18:37:07 -0600 (CST)
Reply-To: Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration now asserts the right to
bomb government facilities in nations that provide sanctuary to
international terrorists, a significant escalation of U.S. attempts to
thwart terrorism.
``We may not just go in a strike against a terrorist facility; we may
choose to retaliate against the facilities of the host country, if
that host country is a knowing, cooperative sanctuary,'' Richard
Clarke, President Clinton's coordinator for counterterrorism, told The
Associated Press.
In an interview last week, Clarke described the policy that marks a
departure from the tactics employed last August when U.S. cruise
missiles struck at alleged terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan and
Sudan.
Now the administration contends it could broaden such an attack to
include government buildings and assets in nations that knowingly
harbor terrorists.
The Clinton administration has repeatedly warned nations that protect
terrorist groups.
``Countries that persistently host terrorists have no right to be safe
havens,'' Clinton told the nation Aug. 20, the day the United States
launched scores of cruise missiles at suspected terrorist targets in
Afghanistan and Sudan.
But prior to Clarke's comments, no one in the administration had made
the leap from a general denunciation of harboring terrorists to an
explicit threat that governments may find their own facilities
attacked if they do so.
Had this tactic been employed in the Aug. 20 strikes, the United
States might have, for example, targeted Sudan's government buildings
or the Afghan Taliban headquarters.
In fact, the scores of cruise missiles used in that strike were
targeted carefully to avoid government facilities and were aimed at
the alleged terrorist assets of Osama bin Laden. The administration
alleges that the exiled Saudi millionaire was behind the bombings last
summer of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
In Afghanistan, U.S. official said their missiles struck a remote
``terrorist university.'' In Khartoum, Sudan, cruise missiles struck a
privately owned pharmaceutical plant suspected of producing a
precursor to the deadly nerve gas VX.
Administration officials emphasized at the time that the missile
strikes were not aimed at the governments of Sudan and Afghanistan.
``We did not go after those governments' facilities, but those
governments need to know that if they continue to be a sanctuary, that
they are now at risk, not just the terrorist facilities in those
countries,'' Clarke said in the interview.
Officials caution that a president seeking to use force against a
terrorist sanctuary government would face a high burden to show that
the target government willingly tolerated a terrorist presence. The
added risk of collateral damage or excessive casualties would add
political and moral complications.
Nonetheless, a senior administration official familiar with the policy
described it as a recent addition to the array of options Washington
could turn to in the war against terror.
White House officials say they don't consider it a change in U.S.
policy.
In any case, Clarke's comments appear to remove the distinction
between cases where a nation actively involved in terrorism is struck,
such as Iraq or Libya, and nations that merely allow terrorists to
operate within their borders.
A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the administration distinguishes between nations that ``willingly
abetted sanctuary as opposed to those that provided sanctuary because
they didn't control that piece of their backyard.''
Bin Laden is known to have terrorist camps in the Philippines, for
example. The difference, according to State Department spokesman James
Foley, is that the Philippines and other friendly governments
cooperate with the United States fighting terrorism. Sudan and
Afghanistan have refused to cooperate.
The United States had long complained that those two countries allowed
bin Laden to use their territory as safe haven. Then-U.N. Ambassador
Bill Richardson traveled to Islamabad in the weeks before the cruise
missile strike and failed to persuade the Taliban, the ruling party of
the Afghan government, to renounce and expel bin Laden.
Richardson, now Clinton's energy secretary, said he used diplomacy,
not threats of force.
Since then, it is unclear whether the threat of attack on government
facilities in a terrorist sanctuary nation has actually been leveled
against any nation.
In negotiations last week with the Taliban, U.S. envoy Rick Inderfurth
did not raise the specter of strikes on Taliban assets as part of the
discussion of bin Laden, who is still believed to be hiding in
Afghanistan, said a State Department official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
David Tucker, author of a classified report on terrorism while at the
Pentagon under Presidents Bush and Clinton, said the administration's
policy on terrorist sanctuaries has roots in international law on an
enemy that seeks sanctuary in a neutral country. This argument was
used to justify the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970. During the
1980s, the Reagan administration warned East Germany and other Soviet
Bloc countries that they would be held responsible for harboring
members of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, Tucker said.
--
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
