Just what IS terrorism?

I think I said before, jar, that if the intent was simply to destroy infrastructure conventional weapons could have been used. They weren't. Therefore it seems to me that the intent was to kill civilians for the sake of killing civilians, ergo it was terrorism.I don't see that the number of civilians killed has as much to do with it as the motive behind the attack that killed them. Am I wrong to try to consider the problem this way?

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Dog is my copilot.

I think that may be one of the big differences in approach.How was the destruction different than if conventional weapons were used? How is an atomic bomb different than a conventional bomb? Please try to look at this through the eyes of someone making the decision in 1945, not through today's somewhat colored point of view.IMHO, the biggest difference was in the exposure that the US faced. Instead of sending 200 B-29s there were two. The US risked two plane crew and infrastructure instead of 200 plane crew and infrastructure, but other than that, what were the differences?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'm going to have to give this more thought and get back to you later, jar. If nothing else, I think you've established that this question is an exceedingly complicated one.

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Dog is my copilot.

I'm too young to have known a world without atomic weapons, but I'll offer a few musings anyway.Although there are physical differences between the effects of the Hiroshima/Nakasagi bombs and what massive conventional bombing raids would have done (for example, the blast would be centred in a single place, caused local temperatures far higher than even those in the Dresden firestorms etc. and - of course - released significant amounts of radiation), I feel the key differences were political and psychological.Prior to 1945 I suspect only the political, scientific and military elite of the major powers would have had any idea that atomic bombs were possible even as a concept, let alone as a practical device. The vast majority of the population would have had no idea of the devastation that could be unleashed - and I would venture the opinion that even those who did know of the concept of atomic bombs couldn't truly comprehend what they could do until they were used. Even small bombs such as those used (around 15 and 20 Kilotons IIRC - not even in the multi-Megaton range of subsequent years) caused terrible destruction and death.I may be wrong but I've always felt there were two compelling reasons or goals for dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

• To force Japanese surrender without US forces having to invade the main islands
• To send an unmistakable message to Stalin that the USSR should not consider using military force to advance into Western Europe or Turkey and the Middle East

Apart from the obvious reason of saving the lives of potentially huge numbers of US servicemen, you could argue that the first goal also had a humanitarian element. During the invasion of Saipan many thousands of Japanese civilians killed themselves because they had been told the Americans would do terrible things to them. Many thousands more died as 'ordinary' casualties of war. The story on Okinawa was similar. The cost to the Japanese civilian population of an invasion of the home islands would almost certainly have been far, far worse than the effects of the two A-bombs.Ultimately though my feeling is that those making the decision, which at the end of the day came down to Truman, had to use the atomic bomb. Changing the reality of warfare was the only way to make the Japanese military surrender and by doing that the lives of untold numbers of Americans and Japanese were saved. For this reason I have never believed the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be regarded as a war crime (as many argue) or, as we are talking about here, an act of terrorism.Sorry if that all seems a bit rambling, but as berberry has observed, this is an exceedingly complicated question.

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Confused ? You will be...

So, we used the destruction of civilian lives and the psychological aspect of fear to affect Japanese policy? And you consider that different than terrorism?

The paragraph you quoted from was in reply to the following from jar : At that point I was trying to talk about the differences between atomic and conventional bombing rather than 'was it terrorism ?'. However it was late and I was probably rambing - just like now. I gotta try and find time to read EvC before the small hours of the morning...

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Confused ? You will be...

After reading back through all of this - and the topic linked upthread - I'm more convinced than ever that if an objective definition is possible (and I'm leaning toward saying that it isn't) it will have to take motive into account. I see your point about differences in exposure in different methods of attacking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but do you think those attacks could still be called terrorism? After all, might we not say that placing the lives of a relatively small number of Americans at greater risk in order to spare the lives of a relatively huge number of Japanese civilians would have been the right thing to do? Do you think you might feel differently if you were Japanese?And what about the interesting case of the King David Hotel bombing I mentioned earlier? Was that really terrorism in your opinion? We don't know for certain that civilians were specifically targeted since the British military maintained offices in the building. We DO know that the attack was carried out with virtually no regard for the lives of those civilians, but that much can be said of our own attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we shouldn't forget that the radical zionist political movement responsible for the bombing wanted as much as anything to destroy records that British investigators planned to use against its members and other Jews. Those records were stored at the King David Hotel.Holmes observed that the only reason Begin was able to earn a reputation as a man of peace was precisely because he had begun his successful political career by using terrorism as a tactic. One wants to say something like "once a terrorist, always a terrorist" but at the same time one feels compelled to recognize that same terrorist as a man who earnestly worked to make peace between Israel and Egypt.Do we credit Begin with helping to make peace and thus sparing the lives of countless people, or do we insist on remembering only the terrorism he was responsible for? I've heard it said that the hotel bombing is what gave the Palestinians the idea of targeting civilians. If that's true, it might be more reason for remembering Begin as a terrorist.

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Dog is my copilot.

Ok, well, you did say this, though:

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Changing the reality of warfare was the only way to make the Japanese military surrender and by doing that the lives of untold numbers of Americans and Japanese were saved. For this reason I have never believed the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be regarded as a war crime (as many argue) or, as we are talking about here, an act of terrorism.

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Which is what I meant. By your own admission, we slaughtered Japanese civilians in a way so horrible that the use of these weapons again, in any situation, is a worldwide nightmare to this day. (I mean, now we even measure atomic detonations, colloquially, in "Hiroshimas.") And we did that to get them to change their minds about something.I mean, that's the exact definition of terrorism - the use of shocking brutality to change the policy of another country. The fact that we had soldiers do it makes it a war crime. Ends don't justify means.

Can you explain that? I really don't understand what you're trying to say there. No. I never thought that they were acts of terrorism. There is no doubt in my mind that that attack was terrorism.Let me toss out a few things that can be objectively identified that might help with any definition.First, which organization carried out the attack at the King David Hotel?That organization was an official arm of which Nation State?At the time of the attack, a declared state of war was in effect between which Nation States?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I wonder if US actions during the build-up to war in Iraq qualify as terrorism by the official US definition?

What the Germans did to Coventry and what the British did to Dresden were both inexcusable, as far as I've heard. Two historical centres totally levelled.

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After all, might we not say that placing the lives of a relatively small number of Americans at greater risk in order to spare the lives of a relatively huge number of Japanese civilians would have been the right thing to do?

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Thing is, one of the main reasons or justifications for using nuclear weapons in this way was that there was no way you *could* defeat a whole nation, using soldiers, and get a relatively small number of dead people.A direct invasion would be messy, to say the least, and would result in dead Japanese soldiers, dead American soldiers AND dead Japanese civilians.

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At the time of the attack, a declared state of war was in effect between which Nation States?

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Did we ever get a declaration of war for the activities in the Iraq?

jar asks:

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Can you explain that? I really don't understand what you're trying to say there.

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To be bluntly honest, I'm not certain what I was saying. I had a bit to drink last night and I can't quite remember what my thinking was. Wish I'd waited.But I think I must have meant that using conventional weapons to destroy the infrastructure of the cities would, as you said earlier, have increased American exposure and likely have driven up American deaths and casualties. Some people feel, though, that more civilian lives might have been spared. I think that's what I was getting at.

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First, which organization carried out the attack at the King David Hotel?

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A radical zionist organization called Irgun, but it was ultimately Manachem Begin who made the decision to carry out the bombing after his superior, exiled in either Europe or the US (David Ben Gurion was the man's name; I've heard various accounts of where he was at the time) had tried to call it off for fear of civilian casualties. Begin tried to deflect criticism of his actions by pointing out that he (or someone in his command) had issued telephone warnings of the bombing beforehand in order to allow time to evacuate. That defense seemed rather hollow when you consider the precise timing of the blast (the bomb was detonated at midday, when the hotel and its restaurant would have been most crowded).As to which nation-state, you must mean Israel since this and other zionist groups evolved into the Israeli government. I don't remember all of the facts about these organizations and the article at wikipedia doesn't go into much detail. At the time of the bombing, the area was still ruled by Britian under the mandate. I think the bombing helped to hasten the end of the mandate, which of course would show that this particular terrorist bombing was successful in its aims.The declared state of war you mention has me confused (and it may be due to my spotty memory). It would seem you mean the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, but that came after the hotel bombing and indeed after the establishment of the state of Israel. It did involve other acts of terror, though, including a brutal massacre of civilians in a town whose name escapes me and a reference to which I can't seem to find at the moment.EDITED the second sentence of the last paragraph; it was slightly misleading as originally worded.This message has been edited by berberry, 11-16-2004 12:29 PM

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Dog is my copilot.

I regard the dropping of the bombs as the lesser of two evils. The only viable options I have ever heard were using the atomic bomb or an invasion of the Home Islands. The experience of Saipan and Okinowa strongly suggested the cost of invasion was going to be horrific for both sides.I am interested as to what course of action you would have followed rather than using the atomic bomb ?

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Confused ? You will be...