Is The United States of America a Terrorist Organization?

The State Department defines three terms in the opening of their (publicly available) reports on terrorism:

I.                   “international terrorism” - terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country;

II.                “terrorism” -  premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents;

III.             “terrorist group” - any group practicing, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism.

The United States government has declared war on terror, but their tactic is more “fight fire with fire” than anything else. They are not treating terrorism as if it were any other threat in history. The government is using a “rhetoric of terror,” as one contributor to the New York Times put it, that is inflaming the public against its enemies. By making the “terrorists” our enemies, telling us that they are coming to kill us, that they hate us and all we love and all we live for, is inciting anger in the precise manner that the officially recognized terror groups do.

In Washington, aging white males in black suits with badges clipped to their clothes tell us to hate the enemy. In Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, among others, men clad in black with ammunition on their hip tell their neighbors to do the same. The Islamic State (IS) releases videos enticing the youth into joining their organization, as the United States Army, Marine Corps, and Navy do the same.

The State department’s definition of terrorism states that it is simply politically motivated violence against civilians. IS is surely guilty of this, beheading journalists and raiding peaceful towns in hopes of creating a new state, run under strict Islamic law. The United States of America grinds buildings to dust with explosives with the intention of setting up a democracy, with United States sympathies, in the Middle East.

How can the citizens of America hate a group of people fighting for what they believe in, while we do the same? How can we condemn them for beheading our journalists while we force liquefied food down the throats of their friends and family members who were unlucky enough to be caught? American exceptionalism, the view that America is inherently different (or better) than any other nation, is rampant in this country, and while the acts of other terrorist groups are heinous, we must acknowledge that our own government is a terrorist organization. We must decide, just as Middle Easterners do, to align ourselves with the actions of a group of people that is, for lack of a better term, above our heads. We may justify our actions, but let us not forget that those terrorists, them in the Middle East, can and will justify their actions and continue to recruit believers.