Terrorism - Criminal Act or Act of War?

Although this post is primarily a response to holmes' post #83 on the Don't worry, be happy thread, I hope that anyone who wishes to will feel free to jump in, comment, quibble, argue - or darwin forbid, agree - with what follows. Without further ado:Holmes,Before I begin addressing the points you raised in your post, and clarifying my own in the post to which you were responding, I would like to shortstop one potential area of misunderstanding. IOW, I want to begin by defining my terms. To avoid any possible definitional dispute, I’ll stipulate in advance that it is quite possible to find definitions that either partially or completely disagree with mine. However, in the context of this reply, the way I’m using the terms is consistent with the definitions I’ll provide. If any are still ambiguous, I’ll try and clarify in subsequent posts, if needed. The terms that I feel are germane to this discussion are: terrorism, domestic terrorism, transnational or international terrorism (which, since the difference is esoteric enough to be unnecessary for this discussion, I’ll henceforth simply refer to as international terrorism), counterterrorism, and antiterrorism.terrorism: There are probably as many definitions of this word as there are writers on the subject. My preferred definition is warfare deliberately waged against civilians with the purpose of destroying their will to support either leaders or their policies that the agents of such violence find objectionable (Carr 2002, pg 6). Some definitions are more ambiguous and broad — too broad for operational use. For example, violence — or equally important, the threat of violence — used and directed in pursuit of, and in service of, a political aim. (Hoffman 1998, pg. 15). This one, a fairly common version, has the unfortunate implication that all guerrilla and insurgent movements are terrorist. One of the subtexts of this post will be an attempt to show that, whereas a case can be made that all terrorists can be considered guerrillas, the converse is not true: not all guerrillas are terrorists. Note that both these definitions differ substantially from the official US government definition: ...the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85) This is a highly legalistic definition, and conflicts with both the military historian (Carr) and political analyst (Hoffman) definitions. It supports your contention that terrorist = criminal. I will attempt to clarify why I feel that Carr’s definition, warfare deliberately waged, is the most realistic from a strategic or counterterrorism and security policy standpoint.domestic terrorism: Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. (FBI 1999) Here, because it is a domestic issue, I feel the legalistic definition is quite appropriate, with all of its ramifications and implied constraints — again as hopefully will become clear.international terrorism: International terrorism involves violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that [] are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. International terrorist acts occur outside the United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which the perpetrators operate or seek asylum. (FBI 1999). In this case, the ellipse represents a deliberate omission on my part of the legal terminology used in the original. Again, I will attempt to make the case that this omission is justified. However, the key aspect here is the differentiation between domestic and international terrorism through emphasis on the origin, basis, and objective of the terrorist act.counterterrorism: I define counterterrorism as those measures and systems used to pre-empt, deter, mitigate, and investigate potential or actual terrorist activity. These measures may be proactive (preemption) or reactive (investigative/punitive).antiterrorism: Those measures designed to reduce the vulnerability of persons, systems, infrastructure, and institutions to terrorism. Antiterrorism is inherently defensive in nature.On to your post: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity for discussion. This is, I think, the heart of the disagreement. The particular qualification we use for a practitioner of violence has tremendous implications for the tactics and tools available to confront and prevent such violence. I refer you back to how the political analyst Hoffman describes terrorism, and the implications of that description. It can also determine how we treat the practitioners that through chance or design fall into the hands of law enforcement and the judicial system, or for that matter the military — a critical issue. I will examine both of these issues in this post.More and more often over the last half century or so, leaders around the world, especially Americans, have tried to identify international terrorism as a type of crime. I submit that this effort has more to do with attempting to stigmatize the practitioners and gain worldwide public opinion support and condemnation for their actions than from any practical or realistic assessment of either capability or actual threat. After all, we here in the West, and especially in the US, reserve a special respect for the term soldier. There seems to be a deep-rooted feeling that if we dignify a terrorist — a person who deliberately targets average citizens who have little or no influence over the policies or governments to which the terrorist is objecting - by the term combatant or soldier, that it somehow lends some kind of legitimacy to the act or the cause for which the act was conducted.Nothing could be further from the truth. The first rule of warfare is Know your enemy.. Coupled with this maxim is the necessity for — even if condemning the individual, his actions, or the cause for which he fights — respecting the nature and scope of the danger he poses. Classifying these individuals as criminals has the opposite effect — placing them in the same category as being on a par with smugglers, drug traffickers, common (or even uncommon) murderers, etc. is an inherently dangerous tendency that actually gives the terrorist more power by placing his behavior outside the realm of accurate assessment and understanding. Criminalizing terrorism both trivializes the threat and limits the range of effective available countermeasures.As an aside, I find it more than a little ironic that, in confronting the global international terrorist group Al Qaeda, and in spite of war on terrorism rhetoric after 9-11, the present US administration refused to take advantage of the rules that typically govern a state of war while at the same time acquiescing to international demands that America legally prove its case against the group before taking action. It’s as though the expectation was that this war could be fought in the sterile confines of a Perry Mason episode, rather than on the battlefields of New York and Washington. Moreover this reliance on legality led inexorably to the insane gamble of the Afghan invasion as the only method permitted by international law — which has caused untold suffering among the civilian population and has accomplished little other exchanging one set of ruthless ideological fanatics for an anarchic collection of mutually hostile warlords. Al Qaeda is still extant, still capable, and still a threat. What is even more ironic is that this same administration was quite willing to ignore and outright flout international law and legal norms in its invasion of Iraq — a war, but not on terror.The purposeful targeting of civilians is a heinous tactic as old as warfare. It did not derive from obscure, fringe cults on the margins of society. Some of the most vicious practitioners — from Augustus to Napoleon to Sherman to Eisenhower — have been hailed as great statesmen and/or military leaders. All these men have been quite readily accorded the term soldiers. The hijackers who turned civilian airliners into strategic ballistic missiles are also no less soldiers. Al Qaeda, for example, may not qualify under the Geneva Protocols as an army — but it is organized as an army and conducts operations as an army. It has sophisticated communications, finances, and an effective intelligence organization that is capable of planning actions against targets worldwide. The members follow orders to attack their enemies anywhere in the world with a variety of tactics that serve the overarching strategy of their leadership. The differences between an organization such as Al Qaeda — whose sole purpose is combat against an organized state through the targeting of its civilian population — and criminal organizations, even of international scope such as the narcotraficantes cartels of Medellin, are deep, abiding and fundamental. Treating these organizations as anything less than what they are in fact — and what they’ve proclaimed themselves to be for decades — means that we are likely to continue to use the most inappropriate or ineffective methods to confront them. I have several disagreements with the above. Leaving aside (for another thread, perhaps) the philosophical question of what might constitute an honest reason for war, the distinction you make between war and acts of violence is at best semantic and at worst terribly misleading. At the most fundamental level, war is merely a linked series of acts of violence writ large. However, that is obviously entirely too trite - albeit true - a response.Your definition of war as action by a collective against another for some specific purpose is certainly the classical definition of war, as best evinced by Clausewitz. It’s the foundation of the way most major conflicts were conducted in the West from the late 19th through almost all the 20th Centuries. It forms the basis of the rules of civilized warfare (and if that isn’t an oxymoron I don’t know what is) enshrined in the Hague and Geneva Conventions. It is, unfortunately, entirely too narrow a definition. It completely ignores, as did Clausewitz, the fact that for every major conflict fought in the West between large, identifiable collectives, there were dozens of lesser conflicts where one side or the other — and occasionally both — were indistinguishable from one another, or the civilian population caught in the middle. (See, for example, Callwell 2003; Asprey 1994; or Boot 2002). Clausewitz didn’t consider these types of conflicts, not primarily because he was unaware of the concept, but because he was so enamored of the successes wrought in Europe by the Napoleonic guerre a l’outrance that he based his entire assumption on the idea that no other form of armed conflict for political purposes was conceivable. He even ignored the tremendous success of the Spanish resistance against his main exemplar, Napoleon. This has had a profound — and often disastrous — effect on how war was both viewed and fought. (See, for example, Lidell-Hart 1991, or Weigley 1978). In the US, we have inherited an enduring legacy of what constitutes war based in large measure on what Clausewitz wrote over 160 years ago: the main kind of American strategy had remained the strategy of brute force, of using military power to take what we wanted: to seek out and destroy the enemy’s military force, to achieve a crushing victory over enemy armies. (Weigley 1978, pg 475). The problem is, Clausewitz was wrong, because he only understood one form of warfare. In any event, the nature of war has changed — drastically — over even the last half century (see, for example, Burkowitz 2003) . Being stuck in an obsolete paradigm can be disastrous where we strictly define war as something that is fought between armies without recognizing that a) it only takes one side to make war, and b) the color of the enemy’s uniform (or lack thereof) doesn’t mean they can’t defeat you.The second issue I have is with your implicit assumption that international terrorists are not fighting for a specific gain or objective, and that their actions don’t (or aren’t intended to) lead to the accomplishment of that objective. Al Qaeda and the other global Islamist fundamentalist groups firmly believe that they are defending the nation of Islam — a nation that THEY certainly consider to be at war with the United States, although even most Moslems disagree with them. I can’t phrase it any better than this:

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Such an enemy must be considered an army, whatever its failure to conform to the popular Western conception of such, or to recognize the regulations for the conduct of war [] Similarly, the undeclared state of hostilities in which we find ourselves must be considered a war. To think anything else is not only to deny the present reality, but to deny the entire course of military history. (Carr 2002, pg 228-229) (emphasis in original)

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If you are determined to defend yourself against a force armed, equipped and trained seeking your destruction, it is unlikely you will be able to arrest them for criminal acts.

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Military strategy can no longer be thought of, as it could be for some countries in some areas, as the science of military victory. It is now equally, if not more, the art of coercion, of intimidation and deterrence. (Schelling 1966 pg 34)

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Interestingly, Schelling was writing about the paradigm shift required by the advent of nuclear weapons, and how it changed the up-to-that point American military strategy of victory by destroying the enemy (Clausewitz’s total war). Another paradigm shift is required if we are to successfully confront terror as practiced by those organizations and agencies confronting us. While I agree that anyone can conduct a violent act, it is the matter of intent that makes the difference between terrorism and simply murder. The DC sniper, for instance, certainly created terror among the people of the Metro DC area. However, his intent was merely to kill because he thought he could get away with it. He had no other interest. He was not pursuing a political or ideological agenda. Contrast this with Al Qaeda, an organized group who has been carrying out a concerted campaign of violence against American military personnel and civilians for years, with the Ugandan and Kenyan Embassy bombings, the Khobar Towers bombing, and most recently the human-guided missiles that struck New York and Washington. Even if their purpose was no more than to punish the United States for some real or perceived slight, the fact that they consider themselves in a war, and are willing and able to use sophisticated and complex pre-operational and operational planning, are able to conduct military operations in the heart of their enemy’s nation with near-impunity, and then carry out a tightly-timed, complex operation that killed thousands, indicates that they are a force to be reckoned with — no matter what you call them. It doesn’t make any difference whatsoever whether or not you or I understand their motivation or ultimate goal. The fact that they were able to do all this in multiple countries around the world over the course of years means to me at least treating them as simple criminals — even multiple murderers — ignores the very grave danger they pose. I think we can be assured that they have an agenda. They have an ultimate goal. And they have a strategy of killing large numbers of American civilians to achieve it.Finally, your comment concerning the simplicity of their weapons — knives and boxcutters — as though it somehow renders them less dangerous strikes me as highly disingenuous. They didn’t kill 3000 people in New York with boxcutters. They killed them with offensive missiles. There is literally no difference between what they were able to achieve and what would have occurred if a Kirov class guided missile cruiser had launched SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles at the towers from somewhere out in the mid-Atlantic. In fact, it’s more worrying to me that they were able to accomplish so much with so little — think what they could do if they had real weapons. Absolutely correct. However, I would add that the key ingredient in terrorism that makes it terrorism rather than simple violence or intimidation — and that distinguishes it from guerrilla warfare per se (as per Mao, for instance) is that it is a deliberate attack against civilians. The USS Cole incident would not fall under the definition of terrorist act (even though it was so labeled by the government and media) even though it was carried out by an organization that has used terrorism as a tactic in other actions. Terrorists aren’t constrained to use ONLY terrorism — any other tactic that presents itself that accomplishes whatever the ultimate goal of the organization has is available for use. The Cole was certainly a military target. The Achille Lauro hijacking and the murder of Klinghoffer, however, IS pure terrorism. I’m unclear how this refutes what I wrote in my original post. Perhaps you can clarify. There are two questions here. Concerning elevating terrorism’s legitimacy, I think have already addressed most of this. Simply recognizing the nature and scope of a threat doesn’t afford that threat — or its tactics — any legitimacy. However, falsely calling it something that it isn’t — or something that is historically of a much lower threat (like crime) — will leave us highly vulnerable. The rules of war are, unfortunately, not designed to accommodate new forms of conflict, based as they are on the assumption of unlimited war as originally understood in the 19th Century. In fact, many of the codes are designed specifically to mitigate the effects of unlimited war on civilian non-combatants and property. Obviously, the narrow definition of war as outlined in the Hague and Geneva Conventions doesn’t much apply when civilians are the intended targets of one of the belligerents. As I noted previously, it only takes one protagonist to fight a war — or at least initiate hostilities. It’s ever so much better when the other protagonist doesn’t even realize it’s in a fight, or at least doesn’t recognize the nature of the enemy. I think this is an extension of the rules of war question. However, I will address it on its face.Bringing the military into the picture doesn’t solve anything. What it does provide is an additional, and quite effective if used properly, tool to preempt terrorist acts by eliminating or disrupting terrorist networks and as a last resort, the limited punitive post-act reprisal. Please understand that when I speak of military force, I am not advocating the high-altitude bombing of remote targets so beloved of the Air Force, nor the clean stand-off systems so beloved of the Navy. Experience with that type of force has shown how ineffective it is — Clinton’s cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan were so ineffective as to be embarrassing. Bombing campaigns against terrorists — who more than likely are embedded in civilian populations - is highly counterproductive due to inevitable civilian casualties and lack of discrimination. As of now, the only other alternative has been massive use of conventional military force, as the invasion of Afghanistan so amply demonstrated. Effective deployment of military force in a counterterrorism situation requires either man-controlled remote means (the highly successful armed Predator attack in Yemen) or small teams of highly trained, specialist soldiers. Only these means have the tactical discrimination necessary to both eliminate a target and avoid what is euphemistically called collateral damage.The use of such forces would be only one of a continuum of possible responses running the gamut from diplomacy to invasion. Decision makers need to weigh a great deal of information before choosing which one is most appropriate. The most appropriate response will be context sensitive. Given the existence of organizations and even nations in the modern world that have no respect for US interests, or for that matter any norm of international society — and in the absence of international organizations with the ability or mandate to compel civilized behavior — the US and other nations confronting terrorism must be prepared to take direct action to protect their own interests. This cannot be done if the requirement is that target of such actions must be permitted a fair trial in a US court, or at a minimum have sufficient evidence amassed against them that they would be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law.Secondly, here is where we need to reinforce the distinction between domestic and international terrorism. In domestic terrorism situations, it is totally appropriate — and in fact required to maintain the norms of a democratic society — that law enforcement not only take the lead but investigate, collect intelligence, analyze and ultimately act within the geographical confines of the nation to disrupt and ultimately prosecute terrorists. However, even here there are problems. Law enforcement and intelligence operations, for instance, are fundamentally different. Successful intelligence agencies routinely violate foreign laws. Respect for due process is essential for law enforcement. Information collected by law enforcement is ultimately destined for its public use in a trial, whereas the end use for intelligence information is usually a classified report or operation. The more the intelligence function is like law enforcement, the less effective it will be; the more law enforcement operates like an intelligence agency, the greater the concern and the risk to fundamental civil liberties. Allowing law enforcement a bit more leeway in its data collection, while still maintaining civil liberties in a democratic society, is a very fine line indeed.In the international arena, however, the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies is open to question. Even in those countries with which we have close law enforcement relationships — say France and England — there are substantial differences in what constitutes legal process. Both these nations provide their internal security forces with significantly greater authority to investigate citizens than the US would ever countenance, bringing into question the legality (in a US sense) of information obtained in this fashion. In addition, even here, law enforcement cooperation is predicated on the state of diplomatic relations between the countries. The UK is rightly incensed that the US won’t — from a law enforcement standpoint — curb either US citizens’ support for the IRA, or halt IRA member free travel within the US. Germany has often allowed members of groups highly objectionable to the US to reside openly within its borders. And so on.Consider now the case of ANY of the main international terrorist groups. How many of them have headquarters or significant presence in countries where we have good relationships? Of those countries, how many have either the political will or capability to deliver one of their citizens for extradition to the US under terrorism laws? How many of those countries would be utterly insulted at even the suggestion that US law somehow took precedence over their own? And how many of those countries, even if provided with clear and convincing evidence, would prosecute one of their own citizens on the request of the US? Do you begin to see some of the dimensions of the problem faced by law enforcement in confronting international terrorism? Our realistic legal capability ends at the water’s edge — or at least at the 12 mile limit. Within the bounds of the United States and Canada, I completely agree. I am a firm believer in the posse comitatus act that forbids the use of federal troops in domestic law enforcement. You are absolutely correct that the law enforcement — whether the various federal or state and local — agencies have a capability for forensic investigation that is far superior to that of the armed forces. However, read again what you wrote: this is a reactive capability. Consider also that the vast majority of funds for counterterrorism during the Clinton and early Bush administrations went directly to law enforcement, especially the FBI. And yet their capability to analyze, process, and use data was so slack that a number of quite legitimate leads from their own field offices were ignored prior to 9-11. There are quite a few improvements in the works in the ways the FBI, for instance, handles information. But they are already swamped with domestic law enforcement, counter- and antiterrorism initiatives. And it is unlikely they will (nor should they) be permitted to take pre-emptive action outside the constraints of constitutional and domestic laws. It might be nice if we didn’t have to wait to be blown up before law enforcement goes after a suicide bomber. Investigation of terrorist groups must go well beyond developing the information necessary for a successful prosecution — a type of investigation that is not the forte of law enforcement.OTOH, the military intelligence apparatus, including NSA, DIA and NRO, have highly trained, well-equipped analysts and foreign collection personnel. One of their existing mandates is to identify, and if possible track, international terrorist individuals, cells, and organizations. What they do not do is collect information that could, in any sense of the word, lead to a legal prosecution. They’re not set up for it, and that is not the basis of their collection priorities (see, for instance, Best 2001). They are also rightly prohibited from collecting against US citizens either within the US or abroad. All international terrorist organizations are outside of US law enforcement jurisdiction by definition. And you’re right that no domestic terrorist organization exists (to my knowledge) that is beyond domestic law enforcement capability of managing (are the Puerto Rican separatist macheteros still active?). I would say that if they are expected to be proactive, however, they need quite a bit of additional training (c.f., the Branch Davidian and Ruby Ridge debacles). I would also totally reject any use of federal troops inside the national boundaries of the US — at least in law enforcement - except in the case of territorial defense or massive insurgency. 1. I think you are asking an impossible-to-answer question, requiring as it does pure speculation. Hmm. Assuming the War Powers Act was invoked after the Africa embassy bombings (which is when the first war on terrorism rhetoric was invoked IIRC), and the president knew what to do with it once it was given, a case could be made that 9-11 could have been prevented by a full-court press in foreign intelligence tasking and direct, tactical discriminatory application of force. That is, of course, pure speculation. An obvious rebuttal to this is that so far, no president we’ve had seems to understand the concept of limited war and how the assets can be applied to counterterrorism. Bush has had a War Powers congressional resolution since 3 Jan 2001 (SJ Res 23), and the only thing he could think to do with it was invade Afghanistan. Again, it is because we need a paradigm shift both away from the obsolete concept of what constitutes war, AND a shift away from how America prosecutes war. Bush, in spite of Afghanistan, is STILL playing the terrorism is an illegal act thing, rather than focusing on what can potentially be accomplished under a more realistic war fighting paradigm.2. Given the fact that there is no extraterritorial legal body with coercive power to prosecute war crimes, what did you have in mind? The World Court, for example, is going to bring bin Laden to trial how, exactly? Who is going to make the determination of what constitutes a war crime in the first place? Is it anyone who orders the deliberate targeting of civilians? Does collateral damage count? Where does the line start forming? We going to start with every African leader since Jomo Kenyatta, or should we begin with every US president living or dead since Andrew Jackson? I’m only partially facetious — the game of war crimes is a very, very slippery and quite possibly ethically and pragmatically untenable position.3. Now you’re erecting something of a strawman. It does, of course derive from the two fatal assumptions that I’ve already addressed: a) that in some fashion calling a spade a spade legitimizes it, and b) that war is necessarily total war in the Clausewitzian sense. There’s also another flaw here that I haven’t addressed — primarily because this is the first time it has come up. Your implication appears that dealing with terrorists-as-combatants necessarily entails adopting their tactics in response. Not only does that instantly lead to escalation of atrocity — reprisal leading to counter reprisal leading to even further reprisal (observe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) - but it is a tactic that has NEVER worked in the entire history of war. Read up on Arminius and the result of the barbarization of the Roman Army some time. Simply because you must fight barbarians doesn’t require you to become one. However, ignoring the fact that the barbarians are at the gates isn’t very helpful, either. I agree with you about the necessity (or lack) of the USA PATRIOT Act. However, it DOES place the FBI as the lead organization on counterterrorism. Which was the only point of that part of the post.Cast of CharactersAsprey, Robert War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History 1994 (2d ed), William Morrow
Best, Richard Intelligence and Law Enforcement: Countering Transnational Threats to the US, 2001, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress
Boot, Max, The Savage Wars of Peace 2002, Best Books
Burkowitz, Bruce, The New Face of War, 2003, Free Press
Callwell, C.E., Small Wars: Their Principal and Practice, 2003 3d ed, Uni of Nebraska Press Carr, Caleb The Lessons of Terror, 2002, Random House
Hoffman, Bruce Inside Terrorism, 1998, Columbia University Press
FBI, Terrorism in the United States, 1996: A 30 Year Perspective, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington DC
Lidell-Hart, Basil Strategy, 1991 Meridian Books
Schelling, Thomas Arms and Influence, 1966 Yale Uni Press
Weigley, Russell, The American Way of War, 1978, Indiana Uni Press

I would suggest that there are some nuances which need to be considered.One point. The term "terrorist" is often reserved for groups which are not the armed forces of any recognised nation. Viewing them as civilians and therefore by civilian standards - especially for internal groups - is not clearly incorrect. You might protest that a uniform and accountability to a govenremnt makes no real difference (and BOTH are needed to be legally regarded as a soldier!). But equally it is hard to say that a political motivation makes a difference - so why treat a terrorist as different from any other murderer.And a more specific point - reports I've heard from Northern Ireland indicate that both Republican and Loyalist Paramilitaries acted in ways that arguably resemble organised crime rather than military activity. Running protection rackets - within their "own" communities, for instance.So in the end I think that trying to draw a clear line is futile - there really is no clear divide.

Brilliant. Since I don't want to sound like a broken record at the start of my responses I will not comment on the quality of your posts anymore. Just assume that I always think so until I say otherwise.As I was reading your post, I was thinking "we are both calling for paradigm shifts" before you used the term.I disagree with your definitions and dislike every quote from carr. But I think this is because we have both recognized the NECESSITY of a paradigm shift and approached paradigm construction from different vantage points.I recognize what you are saying and see how it has a logical consistency which can work. Unfortunately I don't think it is a practical paradigm (mine is... of course).To properly address your post, give me a day or two. I might have something by tonight, but I don't want to make a promise I can't keep.What I find fantastic (and why I realized we are simply shifting to different paradigms) is that we have such similar views regarding what individual acts mean regarding warfare. You are the first person I have read that not only acknowledged our lobbing missiles into Afghanistan (under Clinton) was ridiculous, but that the Cole was a legitimate military target.Perhaps we will find a third paradigm with definitions and response mechanisms both of us can agree on. And then we can write a book that'll outsell carr's.------------------
holmes

Thread moved here from the Miscellaneous Topics forum.Added by edit: A rather trivial point, but I look upon the "Miscellaneous Topics" forum as being a place for creation/evolution stuff.Since I'm about to edit in a link at the October posts of the month topic, to this topic, I thought I'd make the move now.Cheers,
Adminnemooseus[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 10-09-2003]

What? You mean you didn't just fall on the floor and abjectly beg for forgiveness? Kidding aside, thank you for your comments, and the kind words in the POM thread. I'm very much looking forward to your response. Take your time. This is a topical area that I find endlessly fascinating, and it will be interesting to see if we can arrive at some points of congruence in our views.Hmm, outselling Carr could be a valid objective, IMO.

Hi Paul, I agree that the term terrorist is often misused in this fashion. The problem is that this conceptualization lumps all insurgent and guerrilla groups into the terrorist classification. As I noted in my post, it is the tactic of terror - the deliberate targeting of civilians - that makes a group "terrorist". Even Mao, one of the best practitioners and philosophers of guerrilla warfare, cautions against targeting civilians, as those are the folks that are needed to support the revolt/rebellion/insurgency/whatever. There is also a distinction that needs to be made between strictly domestic groups - whether terrorist or not - and the international variety. With the former, law enforcement or the equivalent is the appropriate group to deal with them. It's in the latter case, the international terrorist organizations, where the combatant/criminal difference comes into play.OTOH, viewing terrorists as civilians, even civilian criminals - which is a requirement if you are going to use judicial means to confront them - means that any force used against the terrorist can be considered legally as excessive, and in fact no better than an act of terrorism itself. You are, after all, targeting civilians - one of the key elements in the definition of a terrorist act. Which ultimately means that recourse to military force is ruled out a priori, a dangerously limiting factor.As to the legal definition of "soldier", I addressed that in the post. Exactly the point that many bring up in support of labelling terrorism a criminal - vice military - act. Terrorist and guerrilla groups quite often engage in strictly criminal behavior - theft, extortion, drug trafficking, etc - usually in order to finance their other operations. It is one of the hallmarks of unconventional war (see, for example, Carlos Marigheilla's treatise on guerrilla warfare, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla"). I don't know of any cases where a purely terrorist organization has abandoned terrorism for a life of crime, but there are numerous cases where guerrilla groups have done so - either because they've been reduced to banditry through the action of government security forces, or because they've simply found it a more lucrative (and healthy) lifestyle.I have no problem treating any group as criminal right up until the point they cross the thin but quite evident line of targeting civilians for political or ideological purposes.

Well there's quite a lot to say.Firstly rather than writing off the usual understanding of "terrorist" as wrong, I suggest you reconsider because it may well be the most useful for the purposes of this discussion. While there certainly are situations where your preferred definition may be better I do not think that this is one - I do not think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki belogn in this discussion even though they are clearly terrorist acts by the definition you prefer.I do not agree that considering terrorists civilians is as dangerous as you suggest. The force deployed against the Branch Davidians at Waco included AFVs (and at least one tank). They were civilians. Moreover suspected terrorists must be considered civilians - what if they are innocent ?I also have a problem with the idea that the objectives should play such a major role in the legal classification. While the objectives of terrorist organisations certainly should not be ignored I question whether it is that important to this issue. Certainly I wobject very strongly to the idea that IRA members should be given he status of political prisoners as if they were in prison for thir views rather than for killing and maiming.I am also less than convinced that the cultural shift and linguistic shif around the concept of soldier that your argument demands is either desirable or possible. A soldier who acted as many terrorists do - even when targetting military bases would be legally considered a spy rather than a soldier. Now maybe that is not a bad categorisation for terrorists operating in a foreign country. Of course it is not entirely correct, but the connotations of "spy" and "saboteur" are certainly closer to the terrorists actual actions than "soldier".

What happened the other day in the near east, which you've all probably heard about, is a way of describing the difference between terrorism and a military attack.A Palestinian entered a restaurant in Haifa, disguised an everyday normal person, and without warning blew up herself and 18 others in an unexpected surprise bombing. Probably most of the victims were civilians who happened to be there eating and having a good time. There's terrorism for you.In response to that attack, the Israeli airforce conducted a raid on a Syrian airbase which was suspected of training terrorists. Being an airbase, I should think that was a military target, attacked by undisguised military forces who were clearly marked as being Israeli. There's a military attack for you.

So, just so we're clear, by your reasoning Bin Laden's attack on the USS Cole was not, in fact, terrorism? Despite being labeled as such almost universally by the media?

So do you think that a suicide bombing should be retaliated by a military raid to another country's territory? The suicide bomber was not Syrian.

Hi Paul, Precisely. Hiroshima, Tokyo, Dresden, Nanking, Kiev, Coventry, Leningradthe bombardment of Paris (1871), Sherman’s campaign (1864), Sheridan’s Valley campaign (1864)General Chao Hui’s Ili Valley campaign (1755-1757)etc. The list is literally endless — and extends throughout the history of war in every part of the globe. The sack of Constantinople by the Seljuks and the destruction of Carthage in the 2d Punic War were such acts. On all of these occasions, the primary target of the belligerents was the civilian population, to demoralize it and reduce its political support for the enemy, or in the case of Carthage and all too many other cases in history, to eliminate it completely - not the destruction of the enemy’s armies or the reduction of its capability to wage war. In each case, the chosen tactic was terror. And in each case, the tactics were carried out by duly constituted, recognized states and formal armies. It is my contention that our consistent failure to recognize the facts that terrorism is a) not a new phenomenon and b) not relegated to fanatical fringe groups on the margins of society, will continue to hamper our ability to deal effectively with its modern practitioners. Moreover, and possibly even worse to my mind, our failure to recognize this tendency within our own strategic values will serve only to perpetuate the use of this vicious and ultimately counterproductive tactic in our own conflicts.However, my entire point is that we need to get out of the trap of substituting moral outrage and a misleading sense of what constitutes legal vice illegal behavior — with all that appears to entail for our response capability — for a recognition of both the scope and nature of the threat. I firmly believe that how we characterize (and stigmatize) the modern practitioners of international terrorism has had a great impact on this recognition. If by changing the definition — by a simple acknowledgement of the actual historical nature and practice of terrorism — we can accomplish this goal, then we will have taken a first, major step in developing a truly effective response. In addition, adopting the definition I gave will have the salutary effect of forcing us to examine our own uses of terror as a tool of war — and hopefully forcing us to change the way we wage war. You are again conflating international and domestic terrorism. My focus has been on how we characterize and treat the former. As I noted in my post, the judicial system is absolutely the most appropriate avenue for dealing with domestic terrorists — law enforcement agencies have the capability, the resources, the access, and more importantly, the mandate to do so. Under both criminal and constitutional law, domestic terrorism is most effectively countered by law enforcement. Law enforcement is the only organization capable of making the determination of guilt or innocence in a legal context. Which is again why treating modern international terrorists from a law enforcement standpoint is problematic.I’m surprised you bring up the Branch Davidians as an example of law enforcement work against terrorism. Although they were apparently a repellent cult of fanatic religious nutjobs who violated several Federal statutes (at least those concerned with firearms, and possibly — at least as claimed - kidnapping), by no stretch of the imagination would they be considered terrorists. Certainly not by my definition. Whether or not the level of force employed against them was appropriate is beyond the scope of my argument. I only mentioned them at all in the context of an example of why law enforcement needed additional training, not to claim they were terrorists. However, I would argue that the IRA constitutes a domestic terrorist threat, at least from the standpoint of the UK, and in spite of the fact that at least some of their training and financing comes from without. They remain based inside the country, and all of their actions are within the domestic boundaries of the UK — and are directed at UK targets, either civilian or military. They are, as the UK recognizes, an internal threat. As such, the internal security forces of the UK are the ones most appropriate to deal with them — including law enforcement. They do not conduct military operations from bases in the UK against Chinese interests in Hong Kong, for instance. However, soldiers in the current sense of a member of a state’s armed forces, are at least theoretically bound by the rules of war, and at the very least bound by the internal rules governing the conduct of that state’s military. Obviously, terrorists under no stretching of the definition can be considered soldiers in that sense. I see where I mispoke in my first reply to you in this thread. If you’ll refer back to the post that generated this thread, my stance is that international terrorists should be considered combatants vice noncombatants — the only choice under the old paradigm. You can only deal with noncombatants in a legal sense — i.e., as criminals. Combatants, on the other hand, are fighters in a military conflict, whether they are bound under the laws of war governing states, or whether they fall wholly outside the bounds of civilized warfare. I’m quite willing to stipulate that we reserve the formal term soldier for members of a state’s armed forces. In this case, the somewhat simplistic formulation would be: soldiers are combatants, but combatants may include soldiers, terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, etc. It is a much broader category. Again, this is based on the recognition of the scope of the threat and capability of the practitioner, and takes into consideration the availability of responses more appropriate to a military conflict that are constrained from use against noncombatants.Murderer is a much closer approximation of terrorist than either spy or saboteur. I submit that if an organization restricts its actions to military targets, then there is no question that they are not terrorists. They remain, however, combatants.

Hi Crash,I'm not defender, but it is my contention from the OP that - in fact - the Cole incident was NOT a terrorist act. It was an act of war against a valid military target. It was carried out by a group that has quite rightly been labeled an international terrorist organization, but that particular act was not terrorism. Of course, to accept that, you have to accept my definition of terrorist as combatant. Criminal civilians are incapable - by definition - of conducting "acts of war". So in that case the Predator attack that took out one of the perpetrators was as "illegal" as the Cole attack itself. Blowing an Al Qaeda lieutenant to kingdom come could be considered "excessive use of force by the arresting officer", to say the least.

I don't have tome for a full response now but I want to clear up one important misunderstanding.I brought up the Branch Davidians as an example of the degree of force that could be used against civilians if it was considered necessary. I made no suggestion that they were terrorists. And that is certainly relevant to your contention that labelling terrorists as civilians would hamper operations against them, by restircitng the degree of force that could be deployed..

Apolgies. I misread the context of what you wrote inre the Branch Davidians. Looking forward to your full reply.

Firstly I would contend that the distinction between overt military action directed against civilians and the covert operations more typically called "terrorist" is worth making. Regardless of the history it seems to me that we are beginning to get some sort of handle on the former - and the guilty party is obvious and easily found. In the past direct retaliation would have been the only option but now the U.N. and the International Court can get involved - at least in principle. I do recognise that these processes have many problems but they are there.The distinction between international and domestic terrorism is less useful. Domestic terorrist organisations often have international connections and sometimes a significant infrastructure in other countries. This may be less true for the U.S. specifically, but if we want a true view it will be necessary to consider the global situation.
On the other hand intenrational organisations can and do carry out "domestic" operations - notably the destruction of the Twin Towers, which involved hijacking internal flights.The fundamental problem I see in your suggestions is that you seem to be replacing one restrictive framework with another. Drawing a hard lien between "domestic" and "international" terrorism, for instance would be foolish since many cases overlap and require cooperation between the agencies involved in opposing terrorism. For small groups some sort of classification may be useful, but for larger groups like Al Qaeda I feel that we must take them as they are and beware of forcing an assessment into any straitjacket.Just one point to ponder. Where would you draw the line between combatant and murderer from this list ? and why ?The Washington snipers
Baruch Goldstein
A Hamas suicide bomber.