If it is discovered that a state harbored or backed them, then a declaration of war against that state would be appropriate. Now we must identify, apprehend and convict their accomplices. Like the anarchism of the 19th century, terrorism is propaganda by deed. By attacking the innocent, terrorists intend to draw attention to the sins of the invulnerable. Terrorists attack the vulnerable because their intended targets (the military might of a rich country) are inaccessible. But neither would our killing innocent people in retaliation be justifiable. 11 of thousands of innocent people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. No political cause can justify the killing on Sept. Franco-Algerian relations are still strained today. Charles de Gaulle back to power as the savior of the nation and caused a French withdrawal from Algeria. This chain of events ultimately provoked a French army mutiny, brought Gen. The French crackdown eliminated most of the moderates on the Muslim side and caused influential French citizens back home to turn against their country’s policies. It also converted a leading French reformer (Jacques Soustelle, then governor-general of Algeria) into an advocate of suppression.

A conscious act of terrorism carried out by revolutionaries who until then had enjoyed only slight popular backing, the Philippeville massacre led to a massive and bloody retaliation by the French. 20, 1955, in which Algerian revolutionaries killed 123 French colonials.

Perhaps the prime example of terrorism succeeding is the Philippeville massacre of Aug. Moderate governments throughout the Islamic world, especially in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, would almost certainly face growing internal dissent and could even be overthrown. Vacillating supporters of the terrorists might be drawn into committing terrorist acts. The overreaction doesn’t necessarily have to alienate only domestic “masses.” If we inflict great misery on innocent people in the Middle East, there will almost certainly be what the CIA refers to as “blowback”–unintended negative consequences of our actions. If the government can be provoked into a military response to terrorism, he wrote, this will alienate the masses, causing them to “revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things.” Who does this ultimately benefit? The terrorists.Ĭarlos Marighella, the Brazilian guerrilla leader whose writings influenced political terrorists in the 1960s and 1970s, explained why. When it works, as it has in Israel over the past year, the results can be devastating for all sides. One of the objectives of terrorism is to provoke the ruling elites of a target regime into disastrous overreaction. Common Dreams originally published this Chalmers Johnson article on September 30, 2001, just 3 weeks after the 9/11 attacks.

Blowback by Chalmers Johnson