根据马克·塞尔登(英语:Mark Selden)教授的说法,在谈到恐怖主义时,“美国政治家和大多数社会科学家都明确地将美国及其盟友的行动和政策排除在外”。[14]历史学家亨利·康马杰写道:“即使恐怖主义的定义包含国家恐怖主义,国家在这一范畴内的行为也往往被认为是战争或国家自卫,而不是恐怖主义。”(Even when definitions of terrorism allow for state terrorism, state actions in this area tend to be seen through the prism of war or national self-defense, not terror.)[15]根据迈拉·威廉姆森(Myra Williamson)博士的说法,“恐怖主义”的含义已经发生了转变。在恐怖统治期间,恐怖主义政权或体系被用作治理工具,由最近成立的革命国家用来对抗人民的敌人。现在,“恐怖主义”一词通常用于描述非国家或次国家实体对国家实施的恐怖主义行为。[12]: 43
正如许多批评者指出的那样,恐怖主义不是敌人。这是一种手段。由于美国本身支持恐怖分子和使用恐怖手段的历史悠久,今天反恐战争的口号只会让美国在世界面前显得虚伪。(As many critics have pointed out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.)[18]
如果完全将“恐怖主义”用作道德和法律谴责的术语,那么它应该适用于所有蓄意针对平民的暴力行为,无论它是国家行为,还是由非国家的敌人所实施的。(If 'terrorism' as a term of moral and legal opprobrium is to be used at all, then it should apply to violence deliberately targeting civilians, whether committed by state actors or their non-state enemies.)[19][20]
丹尼尔·肖尔(英语:Daniel Schorr)在评论福尔克的《革命者与公职人员》(Revolutionaries and Functionaries)时表示,福尔克对恐怖主义的定义取决于一些对“允许”的未说明的定义;肖尔说,这使得对恐怖主义的判断本质上是“主观的”。他还进一步称,这导致福尔克将一些他认为不允许的行为标记为“恐怖主义”,而其它一些他认为允许的行为仅仅标记为“暴力主义”。[22]
在对乔姆斯基和赫尔曼的《人权政治经济学》的一篇评论中,耶鲁大学政治学教授詹姆斯·S·菲什金(英语:James S. Fishkin)认为,作者指责美国国家恐怖主义的理由“令人震惊地被夸大了”。菲什金这样评价乔姆斯基和赫尔曼:
他们暗示,美国的控制与协调可与苏联在东欧的作用(英语:Eastern Bloc politics)相提并论。……然而,即使采纳[作者]所有的证据……加在一起也不过是系统的支持,而非控制。因此,与东欧的比较看起来非常夸张。从我们向实施恐怖活动的国家提供援助这一事实来看,得出“华盛顿已成为世界酷刑和政治谋杀之都”的结论言过其实了。因此,乔姆斯基和赫尔曼指控的是美国的外交政策,与他们所批评的“美利坚治世”的论调相反:它建立在美国在世界上无所不能的错觉之上。而且,对于那些在某种意义上处于美国影响范围内的国家,他们拒绝承认其实质性的独立,因此只要不是共产主义世界的,所有政治罪行都可以完全归咎于华盛顿。(They infer an extent of American control and coordination comparable to the Soviet role in Eastern Europe. ... Yet even if all [the authors'] evidence were accepted ... it would add up to no more than systematic support, not control. Hence the comparison to Eastern Europe appears grossly overstated. And from the fact that we give assistance to countries that practice terror it is too much to conclude that "Washington has become the torture and political murder capital of the world." Chomsky's and Herman's indictment of US foreign policy is thus the mirror image of the Pax Americana rhetoric they criticize: it rests on the illusion of American omnipotence throughout the world. And because they refuse to attribute any substantial independence to countries that are, in some sense, within America's sphere of influence, the entire burden for all the political crimes of the non-communist world can be brought home to Washington.)[23]
乔姆斯基在书中说,美国是一个主要的恐怖主义国家。这个主张很荒谬,很可笑。……我们所做的是解放科威特(英语:Liberation of Kuwait campaign),帮助波斯尼亚(英语:NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina)和巴尔干。我们在美国为各种信仰的人提供了庇护所,包括信仰伊斯兰教的。我们试图帮助索马里。……我们犯错吗?不完美吗?当然。但如果就此认为我们是主要的恐怖主义国家,这种想法就很荒谬了。(Chomsky says in the book that the United States is a leading terrorist state. That's a preposterous and ridiculous claim. ... What we have done is liberated Kuwait, helped in Bosnia and the Balkans. We have provided sanctuary for people of all faiths, including Islam, in the United States. We tried to help in Somalia. ... Do we have faults and imperfections? Of course. The notion that we're a leading terrorist state is preposterous.)[24]
斯蒂芬·莫里斯(Stephen Morris)也批评了乔姆斯基的论点:
只有一个政权得到了美国的武器和援助,而且其残暴程度比波尔布特、伊迪·阿敏、毛泽东或河内政治局(英语:Communism in Vietnam)都要轻得多。那就是印度尼西亚的苏哈托政府。但是……当将军们夺取政权时,美国并不是印度尼西亚的主要外国支持者(也没有任何可信的证据表明美国参与了政变)。在美国援助印尼期间,特别是卡特政府(英语:Presidency of Jimmy Carter)时期,政治犯的人数有所下降。最后,苏哈托政权目前的暴行是针对东帝汶人民的,东帝汶是印度尼西亚试图以武力接管的前葡萄牙殖民地……而不是其正常国内统治的一部分。(There is only one regime which has received arms and aid from the United States, and which has a record of brutality that is even a noticeable fraction of the brutality of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao, or the Hanoi Politburo. That is the Suharto government in Indonesia. But ... the United States was not the principal foreign supplier of Indonesia when the generals seized power (nor is there any credible evidence of American involvement in the coup). Within the period of American assistance to Indonesia, and in particular during the period of the Carter administration, the number of political prisoners has declined. Finally, the current brutality of the Suharto regime is being directed against the people of East Timor, a former colony of Portugal that Indonesia is attempting to take over by force ... not as part of its normal process of domestic rule.)[25]
2017年,美国驻雅加达大使馆的解密文件证实,美国政府从一开始,就深度参与了苏哈托上台后的大屠杀活动。[26][27][28]没有美国及其西方盟友的支持,屠杀就不会发生。[29]2016年,海牙的一个国际法庭裁定这起屠杀已构成危害人类罪,并裁定美国和其它西方国家政府是这些罪行的同谋。[30][31]印度历史学家维杰·普拉沙德表示,美国及其西方盟友在大屠杀中的同谋身份“毋庸置疑”(is beyond doubt),因为他们“向印度尼西亚武装部队提供了要暗杀的共产党人名单”(provided the Indonesian armed forces with lists of Communists who were to be assassinated),并“怂恿军队进行屠杀”(egged on the Army to conduct these massacres)。他补充说,他们掩盖了这种“绝对暴行”(absolute atrocity),美国特别拒绝了对其在此期间的记录进行完全解密。[32]根据文森特·贝文斯(英语:Vincent Bevins)的说法,印度尼西亚的大屠杀并非反常现象,而是冷战期间美国支持的一系列全球南方反共大屠杀运动的高潮。[33]根据历史学家布拉德·辛普森(Brad Simpson)的说法:
华盛顿竭尽全力鼓励和推动了军队领导的对所谓印共党员的屠杀,而美国官员只是担心杀害该党手无寸铁的支持者可能还不够,允许苏加诺重新掌权并挫败[约翰逊]政府为后苏加诺时代的印度尼西亚制定的新计划。这是一种有效的恐怖,是西方在苏加诺下台后试图强加给印度尼西亚的新自由主义政策的重要组成部分。(Washington did everything in its power to encourage and facilitate the army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S. officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for a post-Sukarno Indonesia. This was efficacious terror, an essential building block of the neoliberal policies that the West would attempt to impose on Indonesia after Sukarno's ouster.)[34]
^Gareau, Frederick H. State terrorism and the United States : from counterinsurgency to the war on terrorism [国家恐怖主义与美国:从反叛乱到反恐战争]. 亚特兰大: Clarity Press. 2004: 14. ISBN 978-0-932863-39-3(英语).
^托马斯·C·赖特(英语:Thomas C. Wright). State Terrorism in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and International Human Rights [拉丁美洲的国家恐怖主义:智利、阿根廷与国际人权]. 罗曼和利特菲尔德. 2007-02-28: 11. ISBN 978-0-7425-3721-7(英语).
^ 23.023.1詹姆斯·S·菲什金(英语:James S. Fishkin). American Dream/Global Nightmare: The Dilemma of U.S. Human Rights Policy by Sandy Vogelgesang (W. W. Norton) The Political Economy of Human Rights Volume I: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism Volume II: After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (South End Press) [美国美梦/全球噩梦:美国人权政策的困境,桑迪·沃格格桑(W·W·诺顿公司) 人权政治经济学第一卷:华盛顿的联系与第三世界法西斯主义 第二卷:大灾之后 :战后印度支那与帝国意识形态重建,诺姆·乔姆斯基和爱德华·S·赫尔曼(南端出版社)]. 新共和. Vol. 183 no. 10/11. 1980-09-06~13: 37–38 (英语).请检查|date=中的日期值 (帮助)
^Melvin, Jess. Telegrams confirm scale of US complicity in 1965 genocide [电报证实了美国在1965年种族灭绝中的同谋程度]. Indonesia at Melbourne. 墨尔本大学. 2017-10-20 [2018-07-27]. (原始内容存档于2019-04-10) (英语). The new telegrams confirm the US actively encouraged and facilitated genocide in Indonesia to pursue its own political interests in the region, while propagating an explanation of the killings it knew to be untrue.[新的电报证实,美国积极鼓励和推动印度尼西亚的种族灭绝,以追求其在该地区的政治利益,同时宣传其明知不实的杀戮解释。]
^Scott, Margaret. Uncovering Indonesia's Act of Killing [揭露印度尼西亚的杀戮行为]. 纽约书评. 2017-10-26 [2018-07-27]. (原始内容存档于2018-06-25) (英语). According to Simpson, these previously unseen cables, telegrams, letters, and reports "contain damning details that the U.S. was willfully and gleefully pushing for the mass murder of innocent people."[根据辛普森的说法,这些以前看不见的电传、电报、信件和报告“包含了美国故意并乐于推动对无辜人民进行大屠杀的该死的细节。”]
^维杰·普拉沙德. Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations [华盛顿的子弹:中情局、政变和暗杀的历史]. 每月评论出版社. 2020: 85. ISBN 978-1583679067(英语).
^文森特·贝文斯(英语:Vincent Bevins). The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World [雅加达方案:重塑世界的华盛顿反共运动和大屠杀计划]. 公共事务. 2020: 238–243. ISBN 978-1541742406(英语).