What Makes a Terrorist?

[Al_U_Card]

Lets go back to the leaders that dealt with principles and ideals (there were some, right?)

 

So, what to do? A leader of character with strong moral fibre would just accept that help is at the behest of the requester. The US (like the peace corps and foreign aid) assistance of the best quality can be perverted and misdirected if those forces are in play and given the ability to do so. The US has one and only one hope. Openness. Throw the whole mess in the open. National security? Hogwash! Hidden agendas? More likely. With transparency and honesty, the government for the people, of the people and by the people would do the right thing.

[Winstonm]

One does not exclude the other, does it? PKK is both a liberation movement and a terrorist organization.  As is IRA.

Helene, from what I have read the Mujiheeden were recruited and trained by the C.I.A. to fight a guerilla style war in Afghanistan against the U.S.S.R. The irony it seems is our own training is now being used against us. Which brings us back to what I suspected and Richard confirmed - that terrorism is a political action.

 

Therefore, when we declare a War on Terror all we are doing is declaring a war on ideologies - those whose politics are radically different from our own.

 

Which is in itself irony, in that our own form of government is supposedly based on

free speech and freedom to disagree - so I guess it is all right to have democracy in Iraq as long as the Mujiheeden/al-Qaeda have no voice.

 

Doesn't this all have a familiar ring?

[mike777]

I note that the USSR war in Afghanistan was another example of the militaristic containment policy of the USA in it's cold war (often hot) with the USSR. Btw I recommend reading the Looming Tower and other books. To say we recruited and trained them is a bit of half truth at best. They were there and fighting with or without us.

 

My memory may be fuzzy but again this was a war fought over 40 years, with an ill defined, if possibly, non defined definition of what winning meant and what our post war policy was. It was a war fought at times to win, whatever the heck that meant and at times to prevent a bigger war and at times it seems we fought to lose.

 

It was a war that at times had millions of European/Canuks marching in the streets against the imperilistic(sp) policies of the USA. A war where the Arabs threatened to cut off oil supplies to the USA because of some of our policies. A war that despotic regimes in the middle east and around the world played politics with us to keep their populations illiterate and in poverty until they could go off in exile with their illgotten booty. A war where the USSR used surrogotes in the middle east that commited terriosts acts against USA citizens as well as European citizens.

 

It was a war where I learned to duck and cover under my desk at school to protect myself when the atom bomb would hit the midwest. Where a country (Cuba) had nukes and when we all came very close to a full blown nuclear exchange and we told them get rid of them or we attack.

 

Does any of this compare to now?

[pbleighton]

"It was a war where I learned to duck and cover under my desk at school to protect myself when the atom bomb would hit the midwest. Where a country (Cuba) had nukes and when we all came very close to a full blown nuclear exchange and we told them get rid of them or we attack."

 

GROSS distortion by omission. We put our nukes in Turkey first, Cuba was counterpoint, the (unpublicized) deal was that the USSR withdraws its nukes from Cuba, then we withdraw ours from Turkey, which we did.

 

We didn't win the Cold War, the USSR reformed itself, in spite of our (idiotic, largely unintentional) efforts to help the hardliners maintain control.

 

The Communists were bad, but the situation wasn't nearly as one-sided as right-wing mythology would have you believe. There were more people on our side who wanted a nuclear war than on theirs. Our (illegal, immoral) invasion of Vietnam killed far more people than their (illegal, immoral) invasion of Afghanistan.

 

"I note that the USSR war in Afghanistan was another example of the militaristic containment policy of the USA in it's cold war (often hot) with the USSR. Btw I recommend reading the Looming Tower and other books. To say we recruited and trained them is a bit of half truth at best. They were there and fighting with or without us."

 

A half truth at best. We armed and trained them, making them into a formidable opponent, first to the USSR, then to us. "Blowback".

 

"Does any of this compare to now?"

 

Sure, danger and chest-thumping, idiotic patriotism are a self-destructive combination. Far better to think before we talk, then talk before we act.

 

Peter

[hrothgar]

I note that the USSR war in Afghanistan was another example of the militaristic containment policy of the USA in it's cold war (often hot) with the USSR. Btw I recommend reading the Looming Tower and other books. To say we recruited and trained them is a bit of half truth at best. They were there and fighting with or without us.

 

My memory may be fuzzy but again this was a war fought over 40 years, with an ill defined, if possibly, non defined definition of what winning meant and what our post war policy was. It was a war fought at times to win, whatever the heck that meant and at times to prevent a bigger war and at times it seems we fought to lose.

Weird...

 

I thought we were discussing a relatively specific topic: The definition of terrorism

Somehow we seemed to have moved to generic platitudes about the cold war

[Winstonm]

Here is another question along the same lines assuming terrorism to be a political action - is there any part of al-Qaeda's political agenda that has validity?

 

Or as I would put it, does al-Qaeda have any legitimate claim to injustice - pre-Iraq/Afghanistan invasion?

[hrothgar]

This is a difficult question. In particular, there is a great deal of debate whether El Qaeda actually existed pre 9-11. I'm not claiming that there weren't a wide variety of radical Islamists, but rather they were no where near as monolithic as the US government has been claiming. The US government required a monolithic enemy to focus on, so it projected one on a disperse/decentralized group of nutjobs. For the purpose of this discussion, I'm going to substitute Osama bin Laden for El Qaeda. (He seems like the obvious choice)

 

Bin Laden's early missives focused on the presence of US military forces within Saudi Arabia. More specifically, he is highly critical of the fact that the Saudi government was forced to rely on infidels to defend Mecca and Medina from the Iraqis. To my knowledge, bin Laden never made specific claims whether the Saudi's should beef up their own military or, alternative, rely on the militia that bin Laden had used against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. On a more general basis, bin Laden's main complaint is that the (largely) pro-Western Saudi government isn't representative of the Saudi people. I think that there is some validity to this claim. The is an ugly militant Wahabbist element to the Saudi populace. Its no coincidence that the vast majority of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Nor does it come as any real surprise the much of El Qaeda's funding comes from Saudi Arabia.

 

Over time, bin Laden broadened his complaints to including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here once again, I think that there are some valid criticism of Israeli behaviour over the past 50 odd years.

 

Mind you, I don't think that any of this justifies bin Laden's actions. If anything, the mass murders that bin Laden perpetrated descredit his cause. However, he does have some legitimate complaints.

[pbleighton]

"Or as I would put it, does al-Qaeda have any legitimate claim to injustice - pre-Iraq/Afghanistan invasion?"

 

There is considerable validity to Arab claims of injustice.

 

However, Al Qaeda by its actions has forfeited any moral claim of its own to anything.

 

Peter

[Al_U_Card]

Well, we were discussing what makes a terrorist. All of these issues are germane. Even a terror-bull post.... ;)

[the hog]

"If you think comparing the Nazis is the same as comparing Bush and bombing afghanistan God help us. "

 

Mike, I would definitely argue that Bush is a war criminal and should be tried for war crimes. (as are Blair and Howard).

 

Further, you might have learned to duck and weave in your school to hide from nukes; don't you believe that kids in Eastern Bloc countries were taught the same? Remember that the US is THE ONLY country ever to have used Nukes in anger, and even then there is a very strong argument that the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering and the US used N weapons in an attempt to test them and to intimidate the Russians.

[helene_t]

Weird...

 

I thought we were discussing a relatively specific topic: The definition of terrorism

Somehow we seemed to have moved to generic platitudes about the cold war

Weird .. I thought we were discussing an interisting topic, namely how/why someone becomes a terrorist. Somehow we seem to have moved to a fruitless discussion about the semantics of "terrorist".

 

Basically, I think chrime (political or otherwise) is something hormonal. To reduce it we'll have to genetically engineer stable crops to produce androgen antagonists.

 

But, as Mike mentioned in one of the first posts to this thread, better integration of immigrants in Europe would be a good idea as well.

[pbleighton]

"Weird .. I thought we were discussing an interisting topic, namely how/why someone becomes a terrorist. Somehow we seem to have moved to a fruitless discussion about the semantics of "terrorist"."

 

"Fruitless" is a good description of a discussion of the why people become "bananas", before we have discussed which people are "bananas".

 

Peter

[helene_t]

"Fruitless" is a good description of a discussion of the why people become "bananas", before we have discussed which people are "bananas".

I would normaly agree with this. But in this particular case, I think it's pretty clear what it means. It's my feeling (correct me if I'm wrong) that your problem with the question "what makes a terrorist?" is not so much that you genuinely don't know what the question means, as it is an aversion against the Newspeak-like double meaning of the word "terrorist":

1) A bad monster

2) An enemy of the present U.S. government

Of course, that use of the word "terrorist" makes it a tautology that W. is a good guy.

 

But it was pretty clear to me (at least I thought so) that Winston's question was about suicide bombers with (anounced) political motives. Maybe the scope of his question was slightly broader. Anyway, it doesn't really interest me what the word "terrorist" should mean more generally. If you say that (say) Pinochet was a terrorist I won't disagree with you but it's quite clear that he isn't the kind of terrorist to whom Winston refered.

[pbleighton]

"But it was pretty clear to me (at least I thought so) that Winston's question was about suicide bombers with (anounced) political motives. Maybe the scope of his question was slightly broader. Anyway, it doesn't really interest me what the word "terrorist" should mean more generally. If you say that (say) Pinochet was a terrorist I won't disagree with you but it's quite clear that he isn't the kind of terrorist to whom Winston refered."

 

1. Terrorism is a collection of tactics used by the weaker side in a conflict against the stronger side. Pinochet was a brutal dictator, not a terrorist.

 

2. From Winston's first post in thi thread:

""Tommaso Palladini of Milan perhaps said it best as he marched with his

countrymen in Rome. "You fight terrorism," he said, "by creating more

justice in the world."

 

I recently read this quote and it made me stop and think - just what is a terrorist and how does one assume that role? It seems to me that the heart of the matter lies in the quote above, that a "terrorist" is one who feels desparately deprived of justice, to the point of killing or being killed in order to make a stand.

 

I am no historian, so those of you who are and wish to comment feel free to correct any errors I may make.

 

It seems to me that a terrorist is anyone so deemed as opposition to the status quo, one who feels so enraged by perceived injustices that terror is a last resort to alter or at least advertise his plight.

 

My memory is not what it once was, and my history lessons were never learned well anyway, but it appears that in a sense the American Revolutionaries could be deemed terrorists - to some the Boston Tea Party could be categorized as a terrorist action. The IRA certainly was considered a terrorist group, but they finally won amnesty and a voice, if memory serves. Menecham Begin helped orchestrate the bombing of the King David Hotel, a purely terrorist act, and later he became Prime Minister of Israel. Yassur Arafat at one time was almost as infamous as Osama bin Laden, but in later years was known as a leader of his people.

 

I'm sure there are many other examples, but doesn't it look like many terror organizations ended up being heard, that at their core there truly was an injustice to be righted or at least admitted?"

 

You could add Nelson Mandela and the ANC to this list.

 

This seems like a more general discussion to me.

 

Peter

[Winstonm]

First let me say that I appreciate any and all feedback on whichever way this thread meanders. It was my idea to define terrorists so I could better understand the responses and ideas.

 

Helene and Peter both make valid points - a discussion of what is decried by Bush and an enemy to the U.S. is not a good starting point for a 'terrorist' IMO.

 

The reason for the thread was in the first lines and the quote - basically is it injustice that causes or spurs terrorists to action and would increased justice then reduce terrrorism.

 

It was my own wonderings that led us into other dabates.

 

I do like Richard's definition of terror, though, as both a tactical and political means of expression. (I hope this paraphrase is accurate.)

 

There is probably no way to discuss terrorism without a broader view of the histories that led to terrorism, so from my point of view either avenue of discussion is fine.

 

Let me ask this question: How is it possible to have a "War on Terror"? This is an important question, I think, as I have read court rulings that supported Bush because of his "wartime" powers.

 

I'm not so sure that history suggests that being involoved in terrorism or terrorist actions nullifies one to future incorporation into mainstream - Yassur Arafat and Menachim Begen come to mind immediately in this regard. This would seem to indicate that at some point discussion and dialogue should be part of the equation of dealing with terrorism, if indeed it is perceived injustice at terrorism's heart. To have a "War on Terror" seems to rule out this type dialogue. I'm not saying that the perpetrators of terrorist actions go unpunished - what I am trying to say is that if creating a Palistinian nation would help alleviate terrorism then the U.S. should be actively involved in trying to make the occur.

 

It seems to me that even an occassional rebuke of Israel would make some headway - the invasion of Lebanon over 2 Israeli soldiers kidnapped seemed to me an overindulgence in retribution. Woud it really hurt the U.S./Israel alliance to say now and again to Israel, This time you went a too far?

 

And I also wonder why the U.S. allies in the Middle East seem to have ruling parties that don't reflect the population majority views, as in Saudi Arabia.

 

Where do these types of peoples, with no money and no political involvement, find a voice? It seems to me that terrorism is perhaps not such a minority opinion at all, that the political aspirations are possibly shared by the poor of that region, that terrosim is the radical minority of a majority opinion.

[luke warm]

very interesting thread... i see the difficulty in defining 'terrorist' because all definitions i've seen use words which themselves need further clarification... for example, winston seems to want to define a terrorist as one fighting against a perceived injustice... from my view, that won't do

 

for that definition to fly, we need to define 'justice'... do you see? what the terrorist (or freedom fighter, or rebel, or patriot) sees as injustice might be viewed differently by someone else... when subjective concepts are used as part(s) of a definition, there will be little if any agreement on matters... in that sense, richard's idea of terrorism as tactical in nature seems right; however, it is a tactic without a realizable strategy, without a realizable goal

 

my definition of a terrorist is simply a person who, while fighting an undeclared war, uses the most horrifying means possible to reach his desired end, without regard for the identity of his victims... the end will always be unattainable, since the terrorist will settle for no less than a life lived by his rules... therefore, terrorism (imo) is self-promulgating and never-ending... the ones who make up the movement, whatever it is, would need to die out or be destroyed

 

i disagree with winston concerning the necessity of "understanding" the terrorist, in an historical context, unless the aim is to use this understanding to annhilate the terrorist...

[hrothgar]

my definition of a terrorist is simply a person who, while fighting an undeclared war, uses the most horrifying means possible to reach his desired end, without regard for the identity of his victims... the end will always be unattainable, since the terrorist will settle for no less than a life lived by his rules... therefore, terrorism (imo) is self-propulgating and never-ending... the ones who make up the movement, whatever it is, would need to die out or be destroyed

Your definition is useless:. Its posturing, rather than a practical attempt to define a term.

 

Most people consider the IRA to be a protypical example of a terrorist organization. Hoowever, the IRA deliberately de-escalated its bombing campaigns in Britain. The political leadership of the IRA concluded that its bombing campaign would be just as effective if they focused on property damage and attempted to minimize casualties. Accordingly, the IRA began to issue warnings that it had placed bombs in a building and provided some time for evacuations.

 

The IRA clearly wasn't using the most horrifying means possible.

Do you consider the IRA a terrorist group or not?

[Winstonm]

Hi Jimmy. Good to see you. :P

 

You are right in that I am having trouble defining a terrorist. I am formulating the opinion though that terrorism is a tactic with political aim - that aim being as minimal as advertising the ideology or "cause".

 

If you consider 9-11, there was a percieved injustice by the orchestrators - U.S. involvement in the middle east and support of Israel are a couple that come to mind.

 

I am not of the opinion that you have a dialogue or compromise with the terrorists themselves, but if their grievance is valid wouldn't it in time reduce the threat of further terrorists acts if the grievance or "injustice" was addressed?

 

I wonder whether there would be reduced terror threats against the U.S. if the U.S. were actively advocating for a Palestinian state or encouraging Israel to accept U.N. nuclear inspectors? Would either action be wrong?

[mike777]

Weird...

 

I thought we were discussing a relatively specific topic:  The definition of terrorism

Somehow we seemed to have moved to generic platitudes about the cold war

Weird .. I thought we were discussing an interisting topic, namely how/why someone becomes a terrorist. Somehow we seem to have moved to a fruitless discussion about the semantics of "terrorist".

 

Basically, I think chrime (political or otherwise) is something hormonal. To reduce it we'll have to genetically engineer stable crops to produce androgen antagonists.

 

But, as Mike mentioned in one of the first posts to this thread, better integration of immigrants in Europe would be a good idea as well.

It concerns me that a response to my first post was almost nil. Helene suggests the phrase "better integration". At least that was a response but even that sounds somewhat sexist or racist or worse in some sense.

 

I just wonder if giving full and complete citizenship rights to any baby born in a country automatically would go aways toward reducing terrorists, however it is defined.

 

Otherwise you are defining a citizen in various countries by blood, religion, sex or some other category that excludes many to be born into a country as second class peoples(female) or worse thought of as subhuman or slaves.

 

Japan comes to mind, not just the middle east or Europe.

[luke warm]

Your definition is useless:. Its posturing, rather than a practical attempt to define a term.

well i obviously disagree... i thought it was a very practical attempt at a definition, but let's look at it closer... we'll use your ira example as a test case... i said:

 

"my definition of a terrorist is simply a person who, while fighting an undeclared war, uses the most horrifying means possible to reach his desired end, without regard for the identity of his victims... the end will always be unattainable, since the terrorist will settle for no less than a life lived by his rules..."

 

you said:

 

"The political leadership of the IRA concluded that its bombing campaign would be just as effective if they focused on property damage and attempted to minimize casualties. Accordingly, the IRA began to issue warnings that it had placed bombs in a building and provided some time for evacuations."

 

therefore, according to my definition, *this* incarnation of the ira is not a terrorist organization... easy, eh? now i'm not sure whether the tactics used by the ira at this time will result in any satisfying end (assuming they have one in mind)...

 

by the way, richard, your statement quoted above sounds authoritative... should we accept on your authority that i was just posturing, that my definition is useless? or that your opinions are less posturing, less useless?

 

hi winston :P ... you said

If you consider 9-11, there was a percieved injustice by the orchestrators - U.S. involvement in the middle east and support of Israel are a couple that come to mind.

and herein lies the problem (again, from my view only)... the perceived injustice felt by the terrorists is just that - perceived... was there an *actual* injustice? something they could point to as being *objectively* unjust? i don't think so, i think the term itself can't be used in the definition unless you first define that term... see? but i know we don't want to go down that road, as evidenced by richard's very quick rebuttal when someone mentioned 'morality' in an earlier post... by no means do we want to introduce metaphysical concepts such as justice and morality into this... it makes too many people uncomfortable

 

I wonder whether there would be reduced terror threats against the U.S. if the U.S. were actively advocating for a Palestinian state or encouraging Israel to accept U.N. nuclear inspectors? Would either action be wrong?

if so, not for long... that's because any stated short-term goal of a terrorist organization is an illusion... at best it is just a step toward "...life lived by his (the terrorist's) rules.."

[hrothgar]

It concerns me that a response to my first post was almost nil.  Helene suggests the phrase "better integration". At least that was a response but even that sounds somewhat sexist or racist or worse in some sense.

 

I just wonder if giving full and complete citizenship rights to any baby born in a country automatically would go aways toward reducing terrorists, however it is defined.

I didn't bother to comment on your initial posting because I don't necessarily see a linkage between Europe's immigrant population and terrorism.

 

I readily admit that Europe has a large number of immigrants. Furthermore, I don't think that the European countries have the same experience assimilating large number of foreign nationals as does the United States. This is none-too-surprising... For a long time Europe suffered from severe population pressures. Folks were emigrating out of Europe, not moving in. More recently, we've seen some extreme demographic shifts and large numbers of people are moving in to Europe. In many cases, this is creating some very real tensions.

 

However, I haven't seen many incidents that I would characterize as terrorist attacks. I've seen riots like the ones that swept France last summer. I've seen murders like the one involving van Gogh in the Netherlands. I've seen a lot of fights over different legal traditions related to family law. But not many terrorist attacks.

 

The only real example of a terrorist attack involving immigrants that i can think of off hand were the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the July 2005 attacks on the mass transit system in Britain. However, even here its debatable whether this was an inevitable response to integration problems in Spain/Britain or blowback arising from these country's participation in the invasion of Iraq. Regardless of the underying causes of these attacks, immigrant based terrorist attacks are dwarfed by homegrown groups such as

 

1. The IRA

2. ETA

3. The PKK

3. The Red Army Faction / Bader-Meinhof gang

[Winstonm]

Mike, I didn't respond to that comment for the simple reason that I am ignorant on the subject and had no intelligent (not that I ever do have) input to make.

 

I am not aware of Europe being a target other than Brittain.

[hrothgar]

you said:

 

"The political leadership of the IRA concluded that its bombing campaign would be just as effective if they focused on property damage and attempted to minimize casualties. Accordingly, the IRA began to issue warnings that it had placed bombs in a building and provided some time for evacuations."

 

therefore, according to my definition, *this* incarnation of the ira is not a terrorist organization... easy, eh? now i'm not sure whether the tactics used by the ira at this time will result in any satisfying end (assuming they have one in mind)...

OK

 

We've excluded the IRA from the set of terrorist organizations.

 

Lets move on to ETA. ETA could easily have built/deployed chemical munitions. Hell, I know enough chemistry to make hydrogen cyanide gas. All you to do is mix NaCN + HCL... It ain't rocket science.

 

Looks like ETA isn't a terrorist organization either using your definition.

 

More generally, I don't think that you can find many groups out there that don't possess the capacity to ratchet up the atrocities that they commit.

[Winstonm]

QUOTE 

If you consider 9-11, there was a percieved injustice by the orchestrators - U.S. involvement in the middle east and support of Israel are a couple that come to mind. 

 

 

and herein lies the problem (again, from my view only)... the perceived injustice felt by the terrorists is just that - perceived... was there an *actual* injustice? something they could point to as being *objectively* unjust? i don't think so, i think the term itself can't be used in the definition unless you first define that term... see? but i know we don't want to go down that road, as evidenced by richard's very quick rebuttal when someone mentioned 'morality' in an earlier post... by no means do we want to introduce metaphysical concepts such as justice and morality into this... it makes too many people uncomfortable

 

I think you are right in that morality shouldn't be the issue as I doubt anyone here condones a terrorist act no matter how it is defined (I certainly don't condone it.)

 

However, exteme actions of this nature are typically driven by extreme beliefs, and whether or not the beliefs have some basis seems important to me. I can't sepcify all of al-Qaeda's core complaints, but "They hate us because of our freedom" I'm positive is total BS. I know they have a problem with U.S. military in Saudi Arabia. They have a problem with the U.S. support of Israel. Other complaints I am not sure of - but I do not believe them to be nothing more than madmen intent on killing U.S. citizens for the thrill of it. There must be a purpose to the actions - even if they believe it to be a "holy" war.

 

If their perceived injustice is a perceived threat to fundamental Islam that is indeed a difficult injustice to understand or do much about. If, on the other hand, the perceived injustice is over Palestine or Saudi Arabia having U.S. bases or the U.S. unwillingness to chastise Israel, those are considerations that may have some merit and it seems are areas where the U.S. could help diffuse the anger by being more reaonable about the political claims - not reasonable with the terrorists themselves but acknowledging the claims as having some merit.

 

Seems to me if you can diffuse the original anger you leave the terrorists with no support - and with no support they must wither and eventually die out.

[luke warm]

We've excluded the IRA from the set of terrorist organizations.

well, we excluded the ira you posited, and we did so from within the framework of my definition (which is simply my opinion - i don't claim it to be the only or even correct definition)... the ira i remember would indeed fall within my definition, i think

 

as for the eta, i don't know much about them so you'll have to tell me whether or not they are terrorists according to my definition... are they fighting an undeclared war by using the most horrifying means possible to reach their desired end, without regard for the identity of their victims?

 

More generally, I don't think that you can find many groups out there that don't possess the capacity to ratchet up the atrocities that they commit.

i don't know what that ability has to do with it... whether it's a 747 into a building or a dirty bomb, it either fits or doesn't fit the definition

 

winston:

However, exteme [ie, terrorist] actions of this nature are typically driven by extreme beliefs, and whether or not the beliefs have some basis seems important to me.

why? strictly as an intellectual pursuit? or so you can "understand" them in order to open some sort of dialog?