here is the FBI definition of terrorism.
"the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives".
By that definition George Washington was a terrorist, as was anyone who ever rebelled against established authority. You could argue that by that definition the American bombing of Iraq, which was undoubtedly “unlawful” in the jurisdiction in which it occurred, was an act of terrorism.
I would suggest that a terrorist attack is one directed at civilians or non-combatant forces in the furtherance of political or social objectives. Once forces are engaged in an existing armed conflict, whether declared or undeclared, it’s hard for me to define action that is part of that conflict as “terrorism”.
That’s semantics, of course. It was an ugly fight, and a lot of ugly things happened. The American mistake was in seeing the fight as one between bad guys on the left and good guys on the right, and acting accordingly. The reality was that we had bad guys on the left and equally bad guys on the right, with something approaching good guys in the center, walking a thin line between the communists and the people who wanted a return to fascist dictatorship.
We dove into that conflict in an appallingly chaotic way, without really understanding it, and to this day I think we did more harm than good. The Philippine government had a strategy for addressing the NPA; it was an intelligent strategy based on a realistic assessment of the internal dynamics of the left and of the relationship between the left and its mass base. We tried to undercut that strategy because to our people, who looked at it through the inappropriate lens of Vietnam, it looked wrong. Fortunately we failed: they held their course and the strategy worked, but it got much messier than it had to.
It’s hard to communicate just how weird it was. We had all kinds of freelance spooks: Singlaub was over on behalf of WACL, spending the reverend Moon’s money and promoting the formation of civilian “anti-communist” militias that ended up serving as little more than hit squads for the provincial autocrats, who weren’t exactly nice guys. (He was also convinced that he was going to find Yamashita’s treasure and use it to fund the Contras, but that’s another weird story). We had a certified psycho named David Berg, aka “Moses David” head of a sect called the Children of God, spending suspiciously large amounts of somebody’s money and openly trying to persuade military officers to stage a coup. The embassy was a nuthouse, more spooks than straight guys, most of them new on the scene and totally ignorant of local conditions. Everybody protecting their turf, clinging to their sources.
It’s not in any way surprising to me that people on our side became targets
Some other factors may also come into play, such as the Cuban and N Vietnamese influence and support of a communist takeover of the Philippines or at least Luzon.
There was no Cuban influence. None. There were rumours of Vietnamese activity, but it was never terribly effective and there was no significant impact. The Chinese had a hand in, but pulled it out back in the ‘70s, after NPA incompetence sank (literally, in one case) several attempts to provide arms. Even the most extreme anti-communist ideologues in the intel community never claimed any significant foreign influence on or support for the NPA.
The NPA grew to the extent it did not because of foreign support, but because the Marcos government, with it’s spectacular corruption and clumsy brutality, was bad enough to drive people to the communists and not efficient enough to fight them effectively. American support for Marcos did more to boost the Communist cause than anything any Communist country did.
The purpose of his murder was to intimidate the US Government and to coerce the Philippine Government to withdraw agents that had infiltrated the NPA.
The single greatest purpose was actually to gain status and recognition for the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB), the unit that pulled it off. There was a massive internal power struggle going on in the NPA at the time – a struggle that was eventually a major factor in the organization’s collapse – and the ABB was pulling out all the stops to demonstrate that it was the most aggressive and militarily capable of the competing factions. Certainly they wanted to have an impact on US policy, but there was no assumption that killing one man would intimidate the US government. The idea was to bring US involvement into the open and try to generate sentiment against that involvement within the US. US involvement in Nicaragua was a major domestic issue at the time, and they hoped that if the American exposure became public knowledge, it would have to be scaled back.
I don’t think “coercing the Philippine Government to withdraw agents” was ever an issue. Certainly there was no chance that the Americans would apply pressure for withdrawal in the wake of the killing. The opposite was more likely to be true.
Some believe that Rowe's assassination was part of a larger attempt to intimidate US Special Forces.
I have a very hard time buying into any kind of conspiracy theory on that. I don’t think anybody actually engaged in the fight believed that killing one Special Forces officer would intimidate the rest. That is not at all in line with the SF reputation: even their enemies respect them too much to believe that. It would also assume that the NPA people involved were under some kind of external control, and I really don't think that was the case - even internal control was pretty dubious by that point.
In the years after the fall of Marcos in ’86, large numbers of NPA leaders and followers walked away from the organization, leaving only the hard-core ideologues behind. I’ve been able to discuss these issues at length with many of them. Many stories there, many of them long ones and very sad ones. Much more complex than many Americans are willing to credit. |
