Ex-CIA Officer: US Is Hypocrite – Sponsors Terrorism

In an article in the National Interest, the former CIA officer explained that “Terrorism by states, or by groups as large and well-organized as Hezbollah, is usually a response to the actions – including violent actions – by some other state. Those actions may consist of overt military operations, as has been true of much of the ‘Israeli’ action in Lebanon to which Hezbollah has responded.”

“This dynamic exists today between ‘Israel’ and Iran,” Pillar added.

He further explained that the assassinations of Iranian scientists “has largely been one of ‘Israeli’ terrorism being the action” and “Iranian terrorism, or attempted terrorism, being the response”.

The officer stressed that “recognizing the nature and consequences of ‘Israeli’ terrorism is important for counterterrorism generally”. He shed light on the importance of such a recognition “in understanding how some terrorism is a response to someone else’s terrorism. If there is less stimulus, there will be less response.”

In a parallel notion, Pillar confirmed the necessity of the United states as being “free of hypocrisy on the subject” for garnering such cooperation.

Pillar concluded his article by saying that “If the approach of the United States is to condemn whatever a disfavored state does as the action of the ‘number one state sponsor of terrorism’ while looking the other way when a favored state [referring to the “Israeli” entity] engages in what is fully terrorism under one of the United States’ own definitions – politically motivated violence against noncombatants by a nonstate actor or clandestine agents of a state – others will see right through the hypocrisy.”