Why is it that America does not see itself as a terrorist state, yet it not only possesses and proliferates the weapons for mass destruction, but also kills innocents regularly, in foreign lands?

The questions asks why doesn't think of itself as a terrorist state despite: Possession and proliferation of killing innocents regularly, in foreign lands Quite simply, those aren't the things that make a state a terrorist state. However, it seems that your real question is a bit different, which is essentially, "how can the US be so hypocritical?". I'll try to address that in more detail. First, your question details suggest a few pieces of misinformation I should correct: There is no national dialogue about the shock of seeing soldiers on the streets. There is no national sense of numbness to images of dead bodies. There is very little confusion that we look out for our own interests. For example, it was extremely common to hear about the role of oil in the s. At this point in time at least, the US is not at all casual about deploying troops. Generally, Americans are aware that "knowing what is best for " is not the point, and that our goal is the best outcome for the US. Second, when you evaluate the US, you really ought to disclose what you are comparing it to. Apparently, you are under the impression that our stated foreign policy is to make the world a better place by farting sunshine and rainbows to illuminate lesser peoples. I'm not sure why you think this. A typical high school history student knows that the US protects its own interests, just as any power would. So yes, compared to the United CareBear Alliance, the US is evil and selfish. For the sake of intellectually honesty though, we need to compare the US to other powerful nations pursuing their own interests. On this basis, Americans have good reasons to take pride in the role the US has played in many global scenarios (, , etc). This doesn't imply a denial of the role of weapons or violence, nor does it necessarily deny the darker parts of our history (like ). If comparing the US to the other major powers of history cannot soften the anger that inspires you to fantasize about our demise, no one can take it from you. Ultimately, we know that no nation can be the seat of power forever, so one day you will have US decline to celebrate, but you'll also have some other foreign power to lament, so wish carefully. Living in a simple world with simple heroes and villains begets an endless cycle. Epilogue: Every major news source in the US reports frequently on innocents killed by drone strikes. Here are 4 articles about the ongoing debate about the numbers of innocents killed: http://www.salon.com/2013/02/21/lindsey_graham_puts_drone_deaths_at_4700/singleton/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/08/fact_checking_feinstein_on_civilian_drones_deaths/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/lindsey-graham-drone-strikes_n_2734133.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/07/open-source-data-contradicts-feinstein-on-single-digit-civilian-drone-deaths/

I think a quick perusal of American popular media argues effectively that Americans not only are capable of considering their nation in a role of "bad guy" but that the idea is a common theme. Some people like to try to blur the difference between nations engaging in warfare and terrorism. It's a great way to rationalize atrocity on both ends - hawkish Americans can rationalize civilian deaths from drone strikes as necessary collateral damage in fighting terrorists, while terrorists and the nations which support terrorism can try to maintain that deliberately targeting civilians is legitimate and not unique to their side. Both extremes make me sick. But there is a big difference between a system which seeks to avoid civilian casualties and which has checks and balances in place to punish its representatives who do not take care to try to avoid civilian deaths, and a system built on trying to kill as many civilians as possible, in as horrific a manner as is feasible and which celebrates those successful in doing so. Possession of weapons of mass destruction is not what makes a terrorist state. Nor is engaging in warfare or deaths of civilians as a result. A terrorist state is one in which civilians are routinely targeted as a means to inspire fear, and which uses anonymous or unofficial proxies to avoid the condemnation and retaliation such tactics deserve. While no nation's hands are free of blood, the USA has overwhelmingly engaged in open warfare as we see in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at great cost. It also has a history of prosecuting those of its own who are caught violating rules of war, and even a casual perusal of the development of its arms and in the rules of engagement it has operated under shows unprecedented effort to avoid civilian casualties. Precision bombing has replaced carpet bombing, targeted drones have replaced mass incursions of troops or artillery strikes, special operators attempt at great risk to themselves to pinpoint targets specifically to limit unnecessary casualties, and so on. Show me any other nation which has gone to such lengths to limit the terrible cost of war. A very different mentality than that of a group of people flying passenger airliners into office buildings.

To answer the question literally: If "America" means the government or national entity as represented by leadership, the U.S. doesn't publicly call itself a terrorist state because that would be absurdly bad PR. In addition, the U.S. doesn't consider its own actions to be equivalent to other examples of use of violence and threats of violence for terrorizing civilians and governments to achieve political ends, because the U.S. believes its own actions are inevitably justifiable and "right" regardless of whether they are identical in literal or moral terms to terrorism. The U.S. also holds itself to different standards, as do all nations, and is willing to condemn behavior by other people, governments, militias, etc that it will secretly or even openly engage in itself. So the U.S. doesn't see itself as a terrorist state because to do so would be unacceptable in political discourse and would either force those who "see it" that way to cease such behavior, to continue it while explicitly admitting they are engaged in state terrorism. If by "America" the question means the people who live in the U.S., then a lot of them in fact do consider the U.S. to be at the very least occasionally engaged in acts of state terrorism. A minority of citizens in the U.S. generally think the U.S. government is consistently and overall a terrorist state. Many more think that particular U.S. government actions are at least morally wrong or even evil. But for the most part, most citizens of the U.S. don't consider their country a terrorist state for a number of complicated reasons. First and foremost, most citizens generally think the U.S. is a good place that stands for good ideals regarding freedom, democracy, higher standards of living, and opportunity for people to do as they wish in pursuit of personal happiness. The contrast between those beliefs and those general personal day to day experiences living in the U.S., and the realities of U.S. policies around the world in general, is not something most people confront on a daily basis in their lives, and it's hard to overcome the discrepancy. People think the U.S. is mostly "good," and that therefore our actions are usually "good" or motivated by "good intentions" even when the outcomes are "bad." It's not much different than people who condemn certain behavior when someone they dislike does it, but then ignore or make excuses for -- or just are more willing to consider nuances and "lesser evilism" etc -- when the guilty party is someone they like and know a lot. And if they also depend on that person a lot, and perceive their own quality of life as dependent on the other person perhaps even continuing bad behavior sometimes, then the internal subconscious pressure to find excuses for the actions is even greater. Further, the media in the U.S. -- despite silly notions that it's a liberal "blame America first" press -- generally promotes the interests of the U.S. government and U.S. business around the world, and a large portion of the media (Fox News for example) consistently promote the idea of American Exceptionalism. There is also the simple fact that people's personal notion of "terrorism" differs a bit from perhaps the truest definitions of it, and the U.S. actions that might otherwise clearly fit the definitions of state terrorism don't seem to apply because people are willing to put the supposed justifications and "reason" ahead of the defining nature of the actions (importantly, thinking terrorism is defined more by type of action than motivation, and lacking a fundamental grasp of political impact and effect on populations as actually a defining characteristic of terrorism). Consider that the vast majority of the time, even when the media outlet strongly dislikes and disagrees with a president, if that president says something that's clearly demonstrably not only false but KNOWINGLY false, the media will still phrase it as "the president's assertions seem to contradict x and y" or "the president's words seem at odds with other evidence" etc. Never "the president lied." But if another world leader obviously, knowingly makes blatantly false statements, the press doesn't feel obliged to use weasel words to describe it or extend nearly the same level of deference. When our press finds out the government spent years lying to the public and media itself while carrying out vast domestic spying without any real legal authority, and that the president has a secret list of people -- including U.S. citizens -- that he orders be assassinated purely on his own say-so, the press STILL keeps it a secret for a long time and worries about "compromising national security" more than exposing a vast likely criminal gross abuse of power that goes to the very heart of our concepts of liberty and privacy. With that kind of general subservience by the media to the nation-state interests, U.S. citizens who are already predisposed to like their country and feel it's special and good and deserves defense even when it does wrong, are even less likely to perceive the nation as a terrorist state since every message they get is that it's not. However, the information is clearly out there, and whatever subconscious influences and media manipulations take place, at the end of the day we've all got the opportunity to be exposed to information and evidence and draw our own conclusions. And in that context, the truth is that U.S. citizens don't want to think of their government as guilty of state terrorism, because we all know on some level how much our own higher standard of living and comfort and ability to consume vastly more than our fair share of resources etc is all at least partially dependent on the government exploiting other nations. Citizens also realize that we vote for our leaders, and usually reelect incumbents, and so we all carry a large portion of responsibility for the dirty things they do to other people and other countries. Our own culpability and the degree to which we perceive our comfort as tied to the actions of our government, leads to U.S. citizens internalizing the excuse that it's okay for "us" -- the nation as a whole, people and government together -- to engage in those bad things elsewhere because we're mostly "good" at heart and have good intentions and anyway we're better than everybody else so it's not as bad when we do bad things (and, as an unspoken part of that equation, if we're better then other people are lesser, so whatever we do to them isn't as bad as if they do bad things to us or to people like us). Finally, in assessing why citizens of the U.S. don't consider the nation a terrorist state, remember that admitting such a thing requires either taking action to put a stop to it, or openly admitting that we know it and are fine with it and thus even more guilty and -- by our own particular definition of terrorism as always evil -- "bad guys." The public in general doesn't want to be in a position of having to face that choice, and so it's always easier to let all the other excuses and justifications lead us to denial, so we can keep living our lives as we do and enjoy the comforts and feel happy about being good and exceptional, and treat each individual instance of bad action as an unfortunate mistake that can be opposed and dealt with in a narrow singular context instead of as a broader issue that requires fundamental change (which in turn requires fundamental action by the population to bring about that change, something nationwide and vastly larger even than the Civil Rights Movement & Anti-War Movement of the 1960s and 1970s). Now, to some other key points -- I see a lot of angry outbursts in other answers, engaged in insulting the questioner and providing illogical, unfounded assertions that don't remotely actually address the question or existing realities in the world. Let's try to inject more seriousness and informed, factual consideration into the discussion and demonstrate why, regardless of your political ideology or how much one might want to yell and ignore the truth about these matters, the fact is that yes the U.S. government has carried out actions many times -- enough to be called consistent behavior -- that fits the definitions of terrorism. When you commit political violence in order to terrorize people and to bring about a particular condition and outcome that serves political goals, that's terrorism. And I'll give you the single easiest and most undeniable example from modern U.S. behavior -- "Shock and Awe" in the Iraq war of the early 2000's was obviously state terrorism, so obviously in fact that it's absurd for anyone to even attempt to make excuses denying it. The government of the U.S. publicly admitted that the goal was to use vast military bombing and attack in order to cause widespread destruction of the entire national infrastructure including food and water for the public, and the doctrine literally states that the shock and awe "must cause  ... the threat and fear of action that may shut down all or part of the  adversary's society or render his ability to fight useless short of  complete physical destruction."  That's terrorism, the use of physical violence to terrorize a population into capitulation, including directly targeting civilian infrastructure and openly publicly admitting it will include civilian casualties and will be carried out in the midst of densely populated civilian cities. The shock and awe bombings at the start of the invasion of Iraq killed thousands of civilians, estimated by very thorough investigations as being at least twice as many civilian deaths as the 9-11 attacks. Another perfect example that fits 100% in line with the U.S.'s very own definitions of applying the term "state terrorism" to other nations, is the U.S. providing arms and supplies and money etc to terrorists in other countries. Remember when a big nation invaded Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden and a bunch of other nationalists and religious fanatics took up arms and carried out terrorist attacks to try to drive the invading occupying army out? And remember how the U.S. gave bin Laden and his terrorist fighters weapons and training and support for years because the invader was the U.S.S.R. instead of us? Likewise, the U.S. support for other insurgencies around the world often is no different than the support other nations -- like Iran, or North Korea, for example -- supply to similar such groups while the U.S. calls it "state support for terrorism" or "state-sponsored terrorism" etc. The U.S. has provided support for the MEK in Iran, for another overt example of the U.S. providing material support (including training and funding) for terrorist groups. There's no point arguing why that's all excusable and doesn't fit the definition of terrorism, but then claiming insurgents setting off bombs at military bases in occupied territories does fit the definition. Terrorism isn't defined by how big the bombs are or the color of the attacker's skin or their religion, it's defined by the combination of tactics and goals both immediate and longer term. Indeed, most people reading this might not realize or appreciate the fact that terrorism has not even been an inherently negative term, as it was frankly used in a much more honest and objective manner prior to the 1960s and 1970s when the increased reliance on terrorist attacks and methods became more commonly associated with specific ideologies and nations. The U.S. government defines "state terrorism" so broadly as to be ridiculous -- it now covers even computer hacking for stealing data or disrupting online services, and it certainly is applied to just about any military action (or external projection of support for allies) carried out by nations the U.S. dislikes. This isn't to defend those particular nations, since most of them are indeed pretty bad and do engage in state terrorism. But the point is that the U.S. even applies the accusation when it seems dubious, and when such broad application would -- if consistent everywhere -- likewise implicate the U.S. and most other nations in the accusation of "state terrorism." But the simple truth is, we don't even need an overly broad definition in order to point to a large amount of consistent behavior by the U.S. that fits the actual regular definition of terrorism and that is easily comparable to overt terrorist acts carried out by other groups and nations. People will often say "but the 9-11 attacks directly targeted innocent people!" as if that is the defining characteristic of terrorism and state terrorism etc. Well, it's not, and the resort to simplistic arguments of that illogical sort just bring into even clearly focus how much some people are willing to engage in extreme examples of denial and excuse-making in order to treat any act by the U.S., however heinous or overtly terrorist, as justifiable or "different" than the same acts carried out by anybody else. The 9-11 attacks are not the only terrorist act ever committed, nor the only instance where the term "terrorism" is applied. Most terrorist attacks against the U.S. and U.S. interests are not attacks against civilians, but rather attacks against government or military personnel and installations. Do people angrily complain when those attacks are called "terrorism," or pretend to be offended that a bombing targeting military and government people is being referred to with the same term (terrorism) as is used to describe the 9-11 attacks? Of course not, because that complaint is really just a reactionary, emotional appeal used in specific instance ignoring broader evidence and truth, in order to try to silence the comparison by implying on some level that the person making the comparison is insensitive to suffering on 9-11 and to make other listeners/readers have a negative gut-level reaction to the comparison. It's mud-slinging in a subtle way, really. But it's not rational, and it's certainly not remotely accurate as an honest comparison that tells us anything about the definition of terrorism or whether the U.S. has engaged in terrorism. Moreover, if and when the U.S. carries out violence against some supposedly justifiable target -- military or government, for example, as if we don't use the term "terrorism" when terrorists target our own military or government -- and the assessment includes accepting that there will be some inevitable civilian casualties, the pretense of trying to "limit" the number of civilian casualties doesn't erase the fact that the strike was carried out with advance assumption that it will include killing civilians. Sometimes, the attacks are made when targets are in open public places, and the choice of public locations full of civilians is explicitly planned to make it easier to strike and to send a message that our enemies aren't safe anywhere. Sometimes the public demonstration of power is also meant to send the message that anyone letting our enemies live among them are taking a risk, because that we won't shy away from attacks in civilian populations if those civilians welcome our enemies or refuse to drive our enemies away. Some other times, as noted earlier with the "shock and awe" example, civilian casualties are not only anticipated but in fact part of the broad plan for terrorizing the population into putting up no resistance and making them afraid to help anyone who does try to resist. So ask yourself these simple questions -- Was the attack on the Pentagon on 9-11 not a terrorist attack because it didn't strike an overtly civilian location? And if in theory the hijackers who struck the WTC had tried to time the attack to take place before most workers arrived, in order to "reduce civilian casualties" but claimed to be striking the WTC as part of the economic infrastructure of the U.S. and thus were not directly intending to just cause mass casualties of civilians, would that suddenly make the attacks not terrorism all of a sudden? Nobody in their right mind would argue that the Pentagon attack wasn't terrorism, or that the WTC attack would suddenly not be terrorism if the main intention were merely to destroy the buildings and not to kill as many people as possible. Because the acts and their intentions were still clearly terrorism, by the definition of the term. Meaning of course that whatever attempts are made to excuse U.S. actions based on who we target and our motivations etc are weak if we are honest about the specifics, and if we apply the term "terrorism" objectively and consistently regardless of who is doing it. Not all acts of violence or military attacks are terrorism, but if and when they are, we should not disingenuously attempt to ignore and defend those actions simply because in some instances we might happen to like the flag flying over the people responsible. This all raises the important point that it is probably generally a bad idea to just call an entire nation a "terrorist state," and that instead we should point to specific acts or series of actions and apply the term terrorism when it makes sense to do so. Groups like Al Qaeda require membership, people must actively seek them out and then go through training and embrace the ideology and methods etc, in order to be part of the group. So it makes sense to label it a "terrorist group." A nation-state however is a place where you are born, and many people simply lack the ability to pack up and move every time they find out the nation they live in has carried out this or that terrorist action. The membership to the nation is not one we seek out, we aren't trained beforehand and we don't have to embrace every aspect of it and support its violent actions -- indeed, we can and often do stand up and oppose its actions, speak out against it, and try to change it into something better. So it's unrealistic to label entire countries "terrorists," and the practice of doing so should frankly stop. Also, purely as a matter of practicality, if we applied the term to behavior and not labeling whole countries, it would be much easier to get people to consider these issues more seriously, intelligently, and consistently, I bet. Because, just to use the U.S. example since that's our context in this discussion, I bet a lot of people who react angrily to the claim "the U.S. is a terrorist state" would at least have a less intense negative reaction to the more accurate claim "the U.S. government has at times committed actions that are defined as terrorism or supporting of terrorism." They might still argue how justifiable it was or wasn't, in any given instance, but the fact is it would also depend a lot on whether they agreed with the people running the government at that particular time and how long ago it was etc, and it allows a lot more accurate and engaged discussion than you'll likely get when you tell people their entire country is a terrorist state. ...And that's a point the U.S. government and U.S. citizens should take to heart when it comes to labeling other countries as terrorist states, too. If you dislike everybody in this entire country being condemned for actions taken by a few government people at a given point in  history, just imagine how annoying it might be for citizens of other countries to be lumped in with their government when they live in a dictatorial or otherwise internally violent and oppressive state. But that's what happens when we call a place a "terrorist state," including places we all know are oppressive and dictatorial and brainwash their citizens etc.

I once heard the following, and I believe it's a profound insight to the American psyche... "Americans view the world through the lens of world war two.  Europeans view the world through the lens of colonialism." These two viewpoints are opposed almost 180 degrees.  World war two is a lesson on the evil that happens when you don't interfere...  When you say "Peace in our time" etc.  Colonialism is a lesson in the evil that happens when you do interfere... Neither statement is wrong.  But neither statement is always right.  Americans look at Iraq in 2003 and see a people being oppressed by an evil dictator, just as Hitler was oppressing Europe. Americans don't just look at Korea and see a crazy guy with nukes (which is scary enough), they see a crazy guy that's kept his people in abject poverty for three generations.  And that offends us.

The illogic of this question literally made me facepalm. America is a terrorist state because it has nuclear weapons? In what Bizarro-universe does that make any sense? A cop has a handgun. Does that make him a murderer? Should he see himself as a murderer? America proliferates nuclear weapons? America goes to great lengths to prevent nuclear proliferation. America threatens other nations with nuclear weapons? What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Smoking? Name me one nation, other than the Soviet Union and Imperial Japan (neither of which exist today), that America has threatened with nuclear weapons. Just one. I dare you. The American military kills innocents, American soldiers rape, American soldiers abuse people on foreign soil? Wow. That's terrible. Really, that's an awful thing. It sure is a good thing that no other military in the world has ever killed an innocent, abused a foreigner, or raped a woman. OH WAIT.