Introduction
Page 2
United States government
Page 4
European Union
Page 5
Islamic states
Page 6
Terrorist statements
Page 7
State terrorism
Page 8
Aerial bombardment
Page 9
Commercial mass media
Page 10
The contradictions
Page 11
Culture of war
Page 12
Nuclear terrorism is an extension of the 20th Century military practice of aerial bombardment. As mentioned above, the aerial bombardments of Guernica, London, Milan, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki set a precedent in World War II of mass violence against noncombatant populations as a means of intimidation, coercion and propaganda. In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is evidence that the bombing were intended to send a message to Joseph Stalin that the United States was prepared to destroy the Soviet Union, if necessary, in the case of a military confrontation. And, needless to say, the terrorist threat increased when the Soviet Union put a priority on the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.
In the sixty years since World War II we have seen continued use of aerial bombardment which can be considered, in at least some cases, as a form of state terrorism. This includes the bombing with agent orange, napalm and fragmentation bombs against civilian as well as military targets by the Americans in Vietnam, the bombing of civilian areas in Panama by the United States, the bombing of Kosovo by NATO, the bombing of Iraq during the first Gulf War and on a continuing basis in subsequent years.
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