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So, terrrorism - what's that, then?

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ONLY NICE THINGS

09:59 / 18.06.05

I will be glad to give my reasons once you explain to me what my definition of terrorism is.

From the "American Taliban" thread, Sim said:

All terrorists aren't Muslim but I think it's fair to say that Muslims make up an oddly large proportion of terrorists.

Spatula responded:

Possibly because of your - and the media's - understanding of the word 'terrorist'.

Slim replied:

I am confident that I have a far better understanding of "terrorism" than just about everyone on this board.

And thus inadvertently outed himself as Solid Snake.

I proposed:

You have an idea of what constitutes a terrorist that means an oddly large proportion of terrorists are muslim. You have yet to explain what you define as a terrorist, therefore all we know about your defininition is that within its terms there are many muslims. You could start with explaining what your definition of a terrorist is and therefore how, for example, it excludes the many South American catholics or atheists who have at various times been identified as terrorists by the US government.

So, what makes a terrorist? Some previous discussion on this here. Perhaps a jumping-off point might be:

If Kofi Anan says that the US violated internation law by invading Iraq, we can say that that war, and the subsequnet actions, are *illegal*. However, does that mean that they are terrorist actions, or simply illegal actions? Are the illegal actions of a state necessarily terrorising?

12:39 / 18.06.05

I would say no, because of the nature of the goal and the nature of the method.

The object of terror is terror, as somebody once said (possibly in a comic book). That is: terrorism is an indirect means of achieving a political goal. Blowing up civilians is essentially an unofficial form of what legitimate governments would call "sanctions"—applying pressure in one area in order to get the target state to take action in another. IRA blows up a pub in Birmingham, but the end goal is to get Her Majesty's gov't to withdraw from Northern Ireland: Al Quaeda blows up skyscrapers in New York with the end goal of US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia. Indirect action, indirect (i.e. indiscriminate) targeting. It's war by proxy.

Coalition actions, however deplorable one may find them, are direct actions with a direct foreign policy goal—as are anti-coalition actions, BTW. The coalition goal is to occupy and pacify Iraq: that's not terrorism, that's a military action. Just so, those who resist this effort are not terrorists, either, despite the efforts of conservative media to label them as such: they are, quite properly, insurgents. True, they're targeting civilians—but civilians whom they perceive as being collaborators with the occupying force, in a way that a working joe hoisting a pint down the pub, or a Twin Towers office drone, would not be perceived as a representative of the oppressing state.

unheimlich manoeuvre

13:10 / 18.06.05

Coalition actions, however deplorable one may find them, are direct actions with a direct foreign policy goal

That is debatable. Or rather there are indirect effects that the US coalition forces desire. The breaking up of OPEC, *shock and awe* to terrorise other states and possibly sickening Straussian perpetual war.

13:15 / 18.06.05

Interesting analysis Jack - how would you include the US-backed Contras and Mujahideen in your anaylisis? They would seem to have been used as an indirect means of achieving a political goal

I think there is a lot more to the whole question of terrorism than has, thus far, been alluded to here...

13:26 / 18.06.05

I also think statehood is important here and the percieved legitimacy statehood confers on 'military actions' (an imperfect phrase).

The idea being that currently in Iraq the US ARMY is overtly present executing US foreign policy. You may agree with that policy or not, but that does not change the fact that the will of the US state is directly and overtly being enforced by it's military wing.

17:16 / 18.06.05

Right—that's what I'm saying. But obviously military actions by legitimate state-entities can constitute terrorism—even actions undertaken in wartime.

For example, it could be argued that the firebombing of Dresden—even the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—were terrorist tactics. The military value of those targets was negligible: the function of those actions was primarily psychological—to terrify and demoralize the opposition and to force an endgame.

Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER

21:16 / 18.06.05

For example, it could be argued that the firebombing of Dresden—even the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—were terrorist tactics. The military value of those targets was negligible: the function of those actions was primarily psychological—to terrify and demoralize the opposition and to force an endgame.

It might be simplistic to suggest that terrorist actions are those that provoke fear in order to achieve a goal, but that certainly seems to me to be a good basic definition. Certainly, it seems that in that sense, the "Shock and Awe" tactics employed in Iraq are terrorism not only in the semantic sense (as loosely defined above), but also in the sense of association (Terrorists are people who get what they want by blowing shit up and making people, like, afraid and stuff). [Note: I'm aware that the above is a bit threadrotty and ranty. I think my point still stands, though]

It seems, however, that the popular consensus definition of terrorism (as crudely satirised above) contains the proviso that terrorist acts are committed by individuals rather than states - I haven't heard Iraq being described as a "terrorist state" or anything like that. Perhaps "rogue nation" is synonymous. Nevertheless, it appears that US/GB actions in Iraq could be described as "terrorist" (disregarding the justification/oneman'sterroristisanotherman'sfreedomfighter issue for a moment) regardless of one's viewpoint on their behaviour. Is there a correct formulation for this? - "The United States is a terrorist"?, "United States airmen participating in Operation Shock and Awe* were terrorists/committing terrorist acts"?. Please feel free to slap me if I've dived into meaningless semantics or am stating the bleeding obvious, though.

*Yes, I'm aware that's probably not what it's called.

10:11 / 19.06.05

perhaps not bleeding...
i totally agree, though.
at the time i wondered at the wisdom of the US in describing their tactics as shock and awe in a war against terror.
shock and awe seems top me quite clearly a sanitised description of, well, terror.
i was pretty shocked and awed by 11/9, for example, as i think most folk were.

14:17 / 19.06.05

This reminds me of something I was saying a while back in another thread, though buggered if I can find it. My idea was that actions have both a "physical" and a "terroristic" component, the former being designed to physically stop something occurring (killing police recruits stops them joining the police, so fewer policemen) and the latter being designed to influence other people to stop something occurring (killing police recruits scares off other potential recruits, so fewer policemen). Pretty much all military actions have a terroristic element - even in a pitched battle you don't expect to have to kill every last one of the enemy, many will surrender, defect, run away and so on, and even if you do set out to kill everyone, reports of the battle will have a psychological effect on others.

Therefore it's more sensible to talk in terms of the degree of terrorism of an act rather than a strict divide between terrorism and not-terrorism. You have to decide, as well, whether it's the intent or the effect or both that counts.

Seem to remember that that thread got rather sidetracked by whether we were trying to find some decent use for the word "terrorism" and in the process partially redefine it, or trying to set out what exactly it was that people were referring to when they used the term, which varies a lot and isn't the same discussion at all.

14:23 / 19.06.05

ah, I found the thread I was talking about, it was in the Head Shop

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:59 / 20.06.05

This probably doesn't advance the discussion any, but...

...I had a friend who was a terrorist. He was busted (years after I'd last seen him, I hasten to add- we may have agreed on our ideal world, but I wouldn't really have agreed with his methods, lovely bloke though he was/is, afaik) under the PTA for driving a van filled with explosives. He was going to blow up a meat packing plant in Somerset. (He got off on a technicality, unrepentant- a good day for the ALF, especially his triumphant courthouse steps appearenace on local TV). As far as I recall, he was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist.

22:01 / 20.06.05

what about deliberatly targeting non-combatants?
personally, this seems like an important part of terrorism.

terrorists kill innocent people on purpose, but soldiers kill innocent people by accident or indifference.

22:22 / 20.06.05

Yesss, but I'm not sure how valuable this becomes when the distinction between "deliberate" and "through indifference" blurs - as with carpet-bombing campaigns, when those in charge are well aware that there'll be a considerable (if uncounted) loss of civilian life, but go ahead anyway. Does the fact that they purportedly regret the loss of non-combatant life (and/or euphemise it as 'collateral damage') mean it's not terrorism?

22:41 / 20.06.05

Grime - I hope you don't really think that soldiers only ever kill civillians through 'accident' or 'indifference' because if so the holocaust would take a lot of explaining...

23:20 / 20.06.05

True, although the concepts of collatoral damage and extreme interrogation methods, and the role of these euphemisms play is probably an interesting topic all to itself. Like what Ganesh said.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:41 / 21.06.05

Posted by Grime

"what about deliberatly targeting non-combatants?"

Also some terrorist organisations have at the least gone through phases of only targeting combatants, like the IRA. Though I believe their definition of non-combatants included politicians and of course loyalists. And there's an interiesting one, republicans=terrorists, loyalist=paramilitiries.

Are we getting hung up on fear tactics (which it has been displayed can be used by "legitimate" states? Isn't a terrorist group an organisation that seeks to achieve it's political aims through violence but lacks a conventional military force and a recognised/sanctioned/legitimate statehood? This definition would sidestep the our friends=freedom fighters, our enemies=terrorists arguments.

Was America a state born of terrorism?

All Acting Regiment

07:44 / 21.06.05

Was America born of terrorism?,

According to several definitions of terrorism, yes. Definitely it was born of insurrection. I'm willing to hear a counter argument but I haven't heard a beleivable one yet.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

08:11 / 21.06.05

Does this mean that terrorism is purely subjective and that we're wasting our time trying to define it? Except for Slim because he has a special relationship with presumably because he's the Umibomber or Homeland Security sniffing for treason on Barbelith or something?

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

12:20 / 21.06.05

Sin can you tell me what you mean by Straussian perpetual war? I am unfamiliar with the term.

13:03 / 21.06.05

its a bit like 1984.

have a read about strauss and the neocons, and then read a bit more that mentions the concept of perpetual war.

hit ctrl+f if yer feeling lazy.

13:16 / 21.06.05

and from another piece on strauss and the neocon agenda;

For Strauss, the rule of the wise is not about classic conservative values like order, stability, justice, or respect for authority. The rule of the wise is intended as an antidote to modernity. Modernity is the age in which the vulgar many have triumphed. It is the age in which they have come closest to having exactly what their hearts desire – wealth, pleasure, and endless entertainment. But in getting just what they desire, they have unwittingly been reduced to beasts.

Nowhere is this state of affairs more advanced than in America. And the global reach of American culture threatens to trivialise life and turn it into entertainment. This was as terrifying a spectre for Strauss as it was for Alexandre Kojève and Carl Schmitt.

...

[strauss was] convinced that liberal economics would turn life into entertainment and destroy politics; [he, schmidt and kojeve] understood politics as a conflict between mutually hostile groups willing to fight each other to the death. In short, they all thought that man’s humanity depended on his willingness to rush naked into battle and headlong to his death. Only perpetual war can overturn the modern project, with its emphasis on self-preservation and “creature comforts.” Life can be politicised once more, and man’s humanity can be restored.

...

The philosophers, wanting to secure the nation against its external enemies as well as its internal decadence, sloth, pleasure, and consumption, encourage a strong patriotic fervour among the honour-loving gentlemen who wield the reins of power. That strong nationalistic spirit consists in the belief that their nation and its values are the best in the world, and that all other cultures and their values are inferior in comparison.

...

if America fails to achieve her “national destiny”, and is mired in perpetual war, then all is well. Man’s humanity, defined in terms of struggle to the death, is rescued from extinction.

does that help?

15:30 / 21.06.05

Does this mean that terrorism is purely subjective and that we're wasting our time trying to define it?

Well, that was one of the things that made me lose interest in that last thread. There are a lot of different definitions of the word around, and it's an emotive one with a lot of baggage, so I don't use it, to avoid confusion. If somebody else uses it in a discussion I try to subtly steer things towards the use of some more precise term that doesn't need a whole thread about what it actually means. If somebody insists in using it again and again and won't explain what they mean so that I can use alternate terminology, I assume that they aren't worth bothering with and are just some incoherent ideology-troll.

I've played about with taking some of the assumptions behind the word and trying to form some sort of coherent term out of them which could be of use, but given that even if we at Barbelith come up with the Best Definition Of "Terrorist" Ever, the word's use will likely still lead to confusion when talking to anyone else, it seems a bit pointless really, unless one only ever discusses these matters on Barbelith.

16:37 / 21.06.05

But, Fridge surely you have just highlight one of the main reasons why we NEED to constantly challenge inaccurate and oversimplistic portrayal of complex concepts such as 'terrorism'...

17:34 / 21.06.05

Yes, but that's not accomplished by threads trying to define "terrorism", since they have a limited audience (and in any case people don't agree on them). That's accomplished by challenging the word each time it is used and saying "who exactly do you mean by 'terrorists' here?" or "so you mean anyone who disagrees with Michelle Malkin should be shot?" Perhaps threads pointing out the problems with the word are a useful resources on such occasions but there's not much more they're going to achieve.

And Barbelith is not the only place I argue by any means; there's no point saying to someone in a pub "well there's this really good thing on the internet where we talk about how what you just said is wrong".

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:55 / 21.06.05

Dude, wi-fi.

18:12 / 21.06.05

I'm not letting some sweaty pro-war oik get his hands on my nice clean iBook...

Maybe I should carry printouts around.

18:46 / 21.06.05

sleazenation:

"Grime - I hope you don't really think that soldiers only ever kill civillians through 'accident' or 'indifference' because if so the holocaust would take a lot of explaining... "

thanks for the concern, but i don't. however, perhaps those that do deliberatly kill non-combatants aren't soldiers anymore, but terrorists.

I think it's important to distinguish between attacks that have an immeadiate strategic value and those just meant to kill a bunch of people. the difference between blowing up an airbase and blowing up a civilian cafe.

19:10 / 21.06.05

I think it's important to distinguish between attacks that have an immeadiate strategic value and those just meant to kill a bunch of people. the difference between blowing up an airbase and blowing up a civilian cafe.

What about attacks whose "strategic value" is more nebulous than blowing up a specific target? The aforementioned carpet-bombing, Shock & Awe, etc. No particularly well-defined targets, but morale-lowering for one's enemy - and not without a degree of uncounted 'collateral damage'.

What makes those attacks different from terrorism?

The flipside: what about those IRA bombings where a telephone warning was provided shortly beforehand, suggesting the objective was not specifically to kill or injure civilians? Does that mean they're not terrorism?

22:24 / 21.06.05

If the whole point of an attack is to affect your enemy's morale, or to affect them psychologically, then what can it be but terrorism?

To me an attack of immeadiate strategic value would be that which would materially affect your enemy's ability to wage war, such as military or infrastructure targets.

of course this leads into the issue of non-combatants who work in munitions factories. are they actually civillians if they work in support of the enemy's war machine? these balloning definitions seem like a slippery slope that ends in killing whoever you want and rationalizing it later.

as for phoning it in, i'd say it dosen't matter. it's all about the target, and the objective.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:45 / 21.06.05

Dresden and Hiroshima were (although partly strategic- the train lines through Dresden, for example) largely attacks designed to fuck enemy morale, as far as I can tell.

Phoning 'em in? Yes, I'd say that's still terrorism, but terrorism designed to kill less people, and have the terror as the main weapon.

Dunno about anyone else, but I'd rather have been evacuated from a shopping centre before it blew up than standing underneath a nuke or a firestorm.

Just the threat can be a terrorist act, legally, anyhow. The bomb goes off, nobody dies, you've STILL scared the shit out of everyone but have no deaths on your conscience... if terror's the aim, then you've got it right there.

22:49 / 21.06.05

Okay, so the Cambodian carpet-bombinb would be terrorism, then. Shock & Awe? Was it supposed to take out strategic targets, or to shock and awe (demoralise) the enemy?

If target and objective are what separate terrorism from legitimate combat, then how does one adjudge the validity of target/objective? Do the individuals giving the orders actually have to believe they're doing what they're doing for strategic/not-wanting-to-harm-civilians reasons, or is a paper rationale sufficient to make an attack not-terrorism? For example, if one were to repeatedly bomb the fuck out of those bits of South East Asia that border Vietnam and say it's because the Vietnamese have chemical/biological workshops hidden in those rural villages, is that okay? There are specific targets (concealed chemical plants) and objectives (destroy all chemical capability), and any other effect (civilian deaths, terrorised populations) can be written off as an unfortunate side-effect of those specific targets/objectives. Does there have to be actual evidence that those specific targets exist, or is a vague belief that they're somewhere thereabouts enough?

Would this hypothetical example be legitimate warfare or terrorism?

02:56 / 22.06.05

I thought I'd post some useful links to definitions of the term "terrorist":

US Code of Law: TITLE 18—CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
Wikipedia - Terrorist (disputed)
Wikipedia - Definition of terrorism (disputed)
Wikipedia - Definitions of terrorism (not the same as previous)

and for those of you who claim that "most terrorists are muslim," here's an incomplete list of well kown non-muslim terrorist organizations throughout the world:

Ku-Klux-Klan (KKK)
Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Aum Supreme Truth (responsible for the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway)
Front de libération du Québec (Quebec Liberation Front)
Black Panthers
Animal Liberation Front (ALF)
Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
Weathermen aka The Weather Underground Organization
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) (Basque seperatist group)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (Islamic, but secular/Marxist)
Red Army Faction (RAF)
Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N or N17)
Boeremag (racist South African group)
numerous white supremecist and neo-nazi groups
Contras
and arguably... the COINTELPRO/CIA

04:28 / 22.06.05

ganesh,

tough one. To destroy weapons facilities in cambodia would be a pretty straight forward military objective. however it gets murkier when the local commander decides exactly how to do this. bombing the shit out of the entire area, including whatever civilian population, would theoretically do the job. it's probably the laziest, most callous and inhumane and possibly criminal way to get the job done. of course many officers might make the argument that using vast amounts of expensive ordinance and massive "collateral damage" are worth the soldiers who would be lost on a more surgical and thorough operation.

though this sort of attack is the worst type of cowardly and inneffective warfare, i don't think it's terrorism. the fear is incidental.

now, if the scanty data on weapons facilities was just and excuse to bomb the shit out of the jungle and scare the locals, then it would definately be terrorism . . . just on a flimsy pretext.

if there was no evidence of the weapons plants then i'm not sure what to call it . . . insanity? war crimes? to carry out all that bombing on no evidence seems like madness to me, that or the flimsy pretext i mentioned above.

ten:

cool list, i now know more terrorist organizations than i learnt from die hard!

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:52 / 22.06.05

Ten could you tell me what terrorist acts the Black Panthers commited?

Posted by Grime

"though this sort of attack is the worst type of cowardly and inneffective warfare, i don't think it's terrorism. the fear is incidental."

I'm afraid I disagree with this. I don't think it is a case so much of cowardice as the hypothetical commander's responsibility to those under his command. When given an objective the commander has to decide the most effective way to achieve that objective whilst minimising the threat to those who are his responsibility, it's a lot safer to bomb people than to put troops on the ground. I suspect labeling it cowardice is something that those of us who disagree with such actions would like it to be. However it does lead us into the rather queasy area of wartime morality.

Toksik, thanks for the links I am going to have a good luck at them when I have a bit of time.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:20 / 22.06.05

Ten could you tell me what terrorist acts the Black Panthers commited?

You know, as soon as I read that I knew it would cause problems - we're back to Fridge and the idea that "terrorist" simply means "group whose methods I do not like", or even "name on list of terrorist groups I have found elsewhere" - that is, the information it contains does not actually function for classification.

Mabe the most useful function of the word "terrorist" is to create clear conceptual distinctions, but these distinctions are almost always in the interest of the user. So, as has been mentioned, "shock and awe" are conceptually quite close to "terror", and the way modern warfare is waged is far more civilian casualty intensive than the good old days of battlefields, but it is still possible to distinguish between the actions of a state, which even if illegal in terms of international law nonehtheless have the weight of statehood behind them, and simple "terrorism".

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