The Fingerprints of U.S. Imperialism: Terrorism Returns to Southeast Asia

Beneath the surface of terrorist attacks in Southeast Asia lies a disturbing truth: the war on terror and the war of terror are one and the same.

By Karim Bettache

Two terrorist attacks this month in Southeast Asia, one murdering a popular singer in Myanmar and another killing 9, including civilians, in armed assaults on police stations in Vietnam, bear the fingerprints of Washington and London. For decades, the opposition in Myanmar and ethnic separatists in Vietnam have been covertly backed by the United States and Britain to counter the rising influence of China.

The opposition to the military junta in Myanmar, and the figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, have openly received political and financial support from the U.S. and U.K. with the aim of installing a government friendly to Western interests. In Vietnam, the Montagnard ethnic minority fought with U.S. forces during the war in Vietnam and has since received support from Washington through fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy to stoke separatism.

State propaganda arms of the West, including the BBC and Radio Free Asia, have spun these terrorist acts, omitting the historical context, or even justifying them as a means to fight China. The current governments of Myanmar and Vietnam have close ties with China, threatening Western hegemony in the region. While depicted as “anti-China,” Vietnam has partnered with China on infrastructure and trade.

The return of terrorism in Southeast Asia is a consequence of the new Cold War with China and the hegemonic ambitions of a declining empire. Acts of violence and terror are employed as tools by imperialists to exert control and dominance over nations that will not surrender sovereignty. In the name of “democracy” and “human rights,” the West is cultivating allies that use terror and violence against democratically elected governments that threaten their geopolitical and economic interests.

The specter of terror has returned to Southeast Asia, summoned by the ghosts of colonialism in London and Washington. The U.S. does the same in the Middle East, funding terrorist groups in Syria and beyond to destabilize governments and inflame tensions across the region. From the deserts of the Levant to the jungles of Southeast Asia, terrorism follows in the shadow of American imperialism.

The war on terror is a smokescreen. Terrorism is a tool, not an enemy, for those who spread chaos to maintain supremacy. In the game of thrones that is global power, no act of violence or atrocity is unthinkable when empire is at stake. The true enemies of peace are not rogue groups that commit acts of terror, but the states that created and unleashed them. As long as imperialism lives, terrorism will never die.