Silent Leges Inter Arma
TERRORISM: A Definition
No one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. For the purposes of this report, however, we have chosen the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). That statute contains the following definitions:
* The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
* The term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.
* The term "terrorist group" means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.
The US Government has employed this definition of terrorism for statistical and analytical purposes since 1983.
Dresden, 1945
Kobe and Tokyo, 1945
"Tiger Force" in Vietnam
But for the fact that the US Government carried out these attacks, they qualify for the State Dept, and CIA's definitions for terrorism.
Apologists may argue that these bombings helped demoralize a population, and thus aided the war effort. (Al Qaeda could use the same defense in justifying its attacks) They may argue that it was during war time, and thus entirely different than 9/11.
Maybe so. We have declared war on "terror", and specifically on Al-Qaeda.
- Does this mean a repeat of 9/11 would now be a justified act of war?
- If not by Al-Qaeda, how about Saddam loyalists; surely we are at war with the old Baathist regime?
- If not, then oughtn't the people responsible for the above attacks be indicted for war crimes; there is no statute of limitations for crimes of this scale...
- Are the insurgents' attacks on "Coalition" forces terrorism?
- If a terrorist group "declares war" upon us, are they "allowed" to cause the same sort of damage to one of our cities that we caused in Kobe, Tokyo, Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
After a war is over, those soldiers that killed members of the other side are not punished. Even "acceptable collateral damage" is understood. We expect no retribution for our conduct in Iraq, from the new nation.
If we are not going to punish the people who were involved in the above events, are we saying the "right" to kill one thousand, ten thousand or one hundred thousand civilians and not be held responsible revolves simply on whether one has exclusive control over a piece of land? Al-Qaeda claims to be acting in defense of, and for the interests of, the Arab people. They are analogous to the United States except for having sovereignty over a territory.
Surely that is not the difference between a mass murderer and a hero?
posted by REDACTED @ 10:37:00 AM &uArr
6 comments
6 Comments:
From Kevin's post, if I may: "If we claim that war time is not it's own separate entity then every single missile and bomb and stray bullet that has killed a non-combatant during any war is an act of terrorism."
No Kevin, we may not, not as terrorism is defined by the State department definition Rahul provides. Terrorism is a sub national group perpetrating violence upon non-combatants with the purpose of conveying a political message. Remove the term "sub national", and this still does not account for stray bullets or bombs. Stray ammunition is not really in the business of conveying any message other than "die" or "surrender." Whereas conceivably one could string together an argument that "die" and "surrender" are political messages, it is clearly outside of the intent of the definiton provided.
This does, however, seem to beg the question that I believe Rahul was asking: What kind of message makes violence terrorism? If you remove the act from the actor (meaning that being a nation and being at war doesn't matter) have we not been and are we not terrorists by our own intentions? What really separates us from terrorists? Is it only that we have the means, resources, and power to consider ourselves an established government? Aren't we just playing word games and labeling "terrorist groups" as such for the very same logic that they are fighting against? Being that they are perhaps part of governments, communities, or simply places in world that are made up of the have-nots on the world stage in terms of power, influence, and the resources to keep their people in good health and good standing? Do we perhaps lash out at nations that harbor terrorist because we can and no one has told us of our own hypocrisy? It is worth considering, however offensive some might find even thinking about it. We are very good about having plenty of reasons why terrorist groups are bad. We are make strong attempts to condemn and enact retribution for their actions. It is worth considering such ideas as "we do not negotiate with terrorists" to suppress their poor behavior and show that such is not a legitimate form of speech. However, have we not taught them to speak this way? In a way we want to teach the world lessons of democracy as though they are children in terms of governance, but we als o reprimand them like dogs when they try to act they way we do.
Just a quick comment - over 100,000 died at Dresden, Kobe and Tokyo (each).
None of these targets had any strict military value. Dresden in particular was a hospital city with no garrisonned troops. The psychological value I concede, but the slaughter of non-combatants for "political" effect, well thats terrorism.
-RS
To clarify:
My point is that Terrorism seems to be equated to the intentional slaughter of civilians to achieve a political effect by sub-national groups. Leaving aside the obvious (that the State dept included the sub-national proviso just to exempt the US), it seems that the true moral hazard posed by committing terrorism has nothing to do with who does it, and entirely to do with what was done.
At that point we have committed terrorism. That we are a democracy only means that we are culpable, as we supported and installed the regime that perpetrated these crimes. Al-Qaeda also has supporters, people who fund it but don't pull triggers. Osama Bin-Ladin has a demos to give him legitimacy; he doesn't have international recognition and a certain amount of real-estate, but surely he is as legitimate as a despotic nation that does not listen to his people?
This brings up another point; we bombed Dresden; they couldn't control their government. Kobe, Tokyo, all of these cities had death tolls over 100,000, and all were civilians (these are people who had not militarized their status by taking up arms, even unofficially). They couldn't control their government. They have less moral culpability vis-avis their government and its actions than we do regarding ours and its behavior. In some senses, both body count and culpability, aren't the above worse crimes than the actual September 11, 2001 attacks?
And for a bit of levity perhaps:
Take a giant leap back, and imagine if you will, if we determined to take war into a completely new arena. Instead of death and firepower, all of the world agreed to a sort of dueling system for conflict resolution (without loss of life consequences). Now this proposition is both ridiculous and unrealistic. It would have to be allowed whenever requested. It would have to consider whether to be of equal or scaling difficulties depending on the base ideals. But if we were feeling properly Sci-Fi and Utopian, how would we structure such a thing to make the most fair system? (For Rahul's benefit and since he'll know the reference, consider Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity" series, and the great games mixes with strict societal levels.)
I suppose I am throwing a wrench in an otherwise particularly detailed discussion. Ignore it if you like.
Kevin, with regards to your example of a man in a village, lets just amend it thus (as we have no reliable prognosticators)
A man carrying some vital component of a horrible WMD device that is intended to blow up a major city goes through a village; we don't know who he is, only that at time T he will be in the village.
It is not terrorism to kill him. By involving himself with weapons, he has "militarized" his combatant status, and is thus a viable target. The rest of the people in the village are collateral damage.
I am not saying that is moral per se, just that it is not as immoral as killing 100,000 to demoralize.
That the ends are good CANNOT justify means in moral terms. Do nations have moral obligations to do immoral acts? No, insofar as you cannot have a moral obligation to be immoral.
Note that I am not laying out a suicide pact here. I'm not saying one cannot kill, to save more life. I'm only saying that that death has to be directly linked to the loss of life. You can't kill a lot of people, all unrelated, on the off-chance it might prevent a loss of life.
The Dresden example had Allied forces IGNORE a military target to bomb a civilian area. They paused for a few hours to get all the civilians to come back out of bomb shelters so that they could sweep in and finish the job.
The United States has committed state-sponsored terrorism, and the specific chain of command involved with those decisions have committed war crimes. This does not mean we can't point at other countries and condemn them for similar actions, it just means that our populace should be educated as such, to see that US atrocities did not end with the demise of the Native American nations, and to educate them about WHY people do horrible things, to humanize the war criminal and the terrorist, so that they can understand and react with more insight.
The definition of terrorism has always given policymakers fits. As Richard Clarke, former head of counterterrorism, puts it in his book, there was never an agreed upon definition within the Bush White House, and thus why, when the biggest 'terrorist' threat is Al-Qaida, we attacked Iraq. Dep. Def. Sec. Wolfowitz was convinced that 'state-sponsored terrorism' was a bigger threat and that no sub-national group could pull off a large attack without help from nation-states. This is where the justification of attacking Iraq as a part of the "Global War On Terror" or GWOT, as the Army is calling it. If you take out the states that sponsor terror, there will be less terror. Unfortunately, we have 12 year olds setting defense policy.
As we no longer officially declare war, haven't since 1941, it seems a little odd that we should be arguing over definitions for terms like terrorism, war, collateral damage, etc. I, for one, was quite appalled when the administration declared a "War on Terror", as it seemed like a justification for almost anything they wanted, like a modern-day Red Scare. This sort of thing has been seen before and will be again. As for how to define terrorism, and what is justified, it seems like arguing over what the definition of is, is.
I, for one, have been working in the Intelligence Community since 2000, and can tell you that there is little distinction made between threats from states and non-state actors, at least within the military. Threats are not divided up by terrorism versus non-terrorist, but rather by ability to inflict damage, and our ability to inflict damage on them. So, really, if we are to say that we will hold states as accountable as non-state terrorists(Bush doctrine)it does reflect our mindset in threat assessments, but it also makes whether an act is terrorist in nature of little difference. Also, remember one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, whether one is a terrorist really depends on one's point of view, however warped it may or may not be.
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