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pecuniumRecent reading (The Interrogators, by Chris Mackey... that will be a different post) had me pondering terror, as a tactic, and a question by antiquated_tory makes my thoughts on it more relevant.
What makes terrorism terrorism. This was addressed by some question and answer in my post about the mail with the device to make it ignite on opening (a whole new meaning to "flame wars").
And what of groups like the IRA?
Is there an acceptable use for terror?
Maybe.
When Michael Collins (to use the IRA as an example, because it's a subject near and dear to my Irish descended heart) was attacking the British he was using a form of terror. What the guerrillas in Spain did against the French when Napoleon invaded. It was more targeted than they were, but it was still aimed at those who were directly involved in the ruling of British Ireland.
As such, while unconventional, it was still war, and I could; had I been alive, have supported them with a clear conscience.
These days the Provos are in another kind of fight, one which is indiscriminate, and doesn't have such clear aims. They want the British out of N. Ireland, but they aren't trying to make a direct fight with the people running the show. In fact they don't always target those in N. Ireland (which isn't really required, they could make members of Parliament, who support the continuation of the status quo targets of assasination... I don't think I'd approve, but it would be a more legitimate fight... more akin to a war).
I'm a soldier, in the right context I am a legal target for some pretty indiscriminate lethal force (a 122mm rocket is not what anyone would call a precision weapon... neither is a hand grenade, it's just a matter of scale). If the Provos were attacking just soldiers, and administrators, and the government which supports and pays for it... it would be (in my mind) a form of legitimate struggle (none of this means I think such a thing is a good idea. The 80ish years since the founding of an independent south have changed the equation, as have the tactics of the Provos).
Which, I guess, defines what I mean by terrorism. I, as a soldier, have explicitly accepted that there are situations where killing people to gain my ends are acceptable. Some of those means are terrible, but those are the rules of the game.
Groups who try to sway an entire people without accepting a concomitant risk (and suicide as a tactic doesn't count... unless the target is of a military nature), people whose specific targets are the non-players (civilians in a war are different, one of the reasons I disagree with calling the struggle with bin Laden, et alia a war), that's terrorism.
And it's a thing to be eradicated, at its root if possible, but by its branches when they bear their bitter fruit.
antiquated_tory makes my thoughts on it more relevant.What makes terrorism terrorism. This was addressed by some question and answer in my post about the mail with the device to make it ignite on opening (a whole new meaning to "flame wars").
And what of groups like the IRA?
Is there an acceptable use for terror?
Maybe.
When Michael Collins (to use the IRA as an example, because it's a subject near and dear to my Irish descended heart) was attacking the British he was using a form of terror. What the guerrillas in Spain did against the French when Napoleon invaded. It was more targeted than they were, but it was still aimed at those who were directly involved in the ruling of British Ireland.
As such, while unconventional, it was still war, and I could; had I been alive, have supported them with a clear conscience.
These days the Provos are in another kind of fight, one which is indiscriminate, and doesn't have such clear aims. They want the British out of N. Ireland, but they aren't trying to make a direct fight with the people running the show. In fact they don't always target those in N. Ireland (which isn't really required, they could make members of Parliament, who support the continuation of the status quo targets of assasination... I don't think I'd approve, but it would be a more legitimate fight... more akin to a war).
I'm a soldier, in the right context I am a legal target for some pretty indiscriminate lethal force (a 122mm rocket is not what anyone would call a precision weapon... neither is a hand grenade, it's just a matter of scale). If the Provos were attacking just soldiers, and administrators, and the government which supports and pays for it... it would be (in my mind) a form of legitimate struggle (none of this means I think such a thing is a good idea. The 80ish years since the founding of an independent south have changed the equation, as have the tactics of the Provos).
Which, I guess, defines what I mean by terrorism. I, as a soldier, have explicitly accepted that there are situations where killing people to gain my ends are acceptable. Some of those means are terrible, but those are the rules of the game.
Groups who try to sway an entire people without accepting a concomitant risk (and suicide as a tactic doesn't count... unless the target is of a military nature), people whose specific targets are the non-players (civilians in a war are different, one of the reasons I disagree with calling the struggle with bin Laden, et alia a war), that's terrorism.
And it's a thing to be eradicated, at its root if possible, but by its branches when they bear their bitter fruit.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 04:11 am (UTC)Mmm... Attacking the government often entails attacking people who're no more than civil servants. I'm leery about that part of it.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 07:02 am (UTC)Depends on how one defines gov't. I suppose I ought to have used a magiscule "G". Government, as in those who set the policy, and vote for the funds to implement it. MPs, in the case of Ireland, Senators and Congressmen in the case of things like Iraq.
To target people who are merely looking for work to feed thier families (e.g. Nick Berg) is wrong. Capturing soldiers, and then killing them isn't. On the other hand, if one is to kill them, it can't be done with brutal means, because that steps outside the pale of war.
Call me complex (conflicted if you must) but the Game has rules.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 04:30 pm (UTC)Depends on how one defines gov't. I suppose I ought to have used a magiscule "G". Government, as in those who set the policy, and vote for the funds to implement it. MPs, in the case of Ireland, Senators and Congressmen in the case of things like Iraq.
Agreed. Of course, targeting them in such a way as to not kill everyone surrounding them is part of what you mentioned earlier.
To target people who are merely looking for work to feed their families (e.g. Nick Berg) is wrong. Capturing soldiers, and then killing them isn't.
Killing people after they've been captured just because they're enemies seems to me to be still wrong. After a fair trial, for actual crimes of war, fine. But not just because they're on the other side.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 06:34 pm (UTC)I suppose I can blame the late hour of my posting. Ambushes are the deliberate killing of semi-random soldiers. So too are things like roadside bombs and booby-traps. One might manage to disable a vehicle, and kill the occupants. That's legal. Dragging them out, and then killing them is gray. I was stretching that gray area a little further.
The target of the violence was the point of that. Soldiers have agreed to put their lives play, as stakes in the national interest. (What is owed to them, when those stakes are put in the pot is a different question, and at the root of no small amount of my, and some of my fellows; personal, reservations, about the venture in Iraq, but I digress).
War, as has been said by better writers than I, isn't about indiscriminate killing, but rather applied violence, meant to make the continuation of a policy (by the enemy) too dear to continue (and this is what I need to talk about in response to Tory's post below). Given that, the rules are important, but they are malleable, and there is a lot which goes on, in the heat (or at least the very warm) of the moment, which is questionable. The laws may say it's right, or not, but needs must when the Devil drives, and there are times to bend the rules, in either direction.
They can't (to abuse the metaphor) be allowed to be bent past the strain point, they have to be able to return to norm.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 05:37 am (UTC)And it's a thing to be eradicated, at its root if possible, but by its branches when they bear their bitter fruit.
And who is to say that the root is contained and easy to eliminate. The entire root system is pervasive and speads for quite a bit of space. I agree with you, but I think policy-wise we've failed to truly identify and define the problem.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 06:03 am (UTC)Oh, most certainly, and the desire for vengeance has hindered a lot of the chance to figure out the causes/sense of inabilty to remove the idea that only gross acts of indiscriminate violence can solve the problem.
Those who argued there was a sense of inequity which drove the attacks on That Tuesday were called traitors. I feel much as Churchill, that we have seen the light of civilisation snuffed and it may not be rekindled in our lifetime.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 06:16 am (UTC)Which brings up an interesting point on the place for intellectualism and careful analysis in our society and our decisions. It seems to me that still, even for all the analysts pondering this issue, that our decisions are still somehow guided only by impulse rather than careful analysis and debate.
And for all that I talk about passion on my own site, every decision I make is guided by a core passion to do the right thing. And to facilitate that, I need to take that passion and allow it to guide the search for the right action. Impulsive action guided by skewed principles serves only to cloud the issues and further perpetuate the problems.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 06:57 am (UTC)Is my truth best? God only knows, but it seems to me that more people will benefit, if only the powerful were to listen to my words of reason.
That said, I fear having power of mine own... with limits I can do good things, when none are there to check me I can be very impulsive, and yes men would lead me to disaster.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 09:15 am (UTC)The soft gloves of humanity are long-since off on this one, and all those who aid and abet the coalition are valid targets. If people like Berg are the ones who find themselves attacked, it is primarily because they were soft targets. If Iraqi resistance use remotely detonated (and rather indiscriminate) IEDs instead of bullets, it is because the chance of surviving such an attack while accomplishing the goal is far higher.
I don't think that the resistance could really fight a war like you envision with such limited targets successfully. Keep in mind that Michael Collins' brilliantly executed attacks against those British who were in charge of the Irish occupation only could occur because the British were foolish enough to let the opposition work directly in their midst without adequate vetting. They knew these people's home addresses, and were thoroughly a part of their system, largely because the Irish resistance has always been a struggle between pro-republican and pro-British Irish, backed by the British government. It's a lot easier to infiltrate that kind of structure.
Iraqis, however, could not achieve the kinds of successes that were seen with Michael Collins. Even wannnabe modern Irish revolutionaries couldn't do this, because the same high-level targets of opportunity just aren't easily touchable anymore.
The heart and soul of *ANY* resistance effort that allows it to function is that individual, local cells need something local they can do which will feel like they're accomplishing a goal. These goals must, by definition, be local and simple, because there are incredible vulnerabilities to any plan that requires trusting larger circles of people, that requires transportation, that requires communication between resistance cells, etc.
Sometimes, local and simple means killing a local shopkeeper who has been keeping the opposition informed of your actions, or otherwise cowing the locals from opposing you. (Certainly, the French resistance to the Germans did this routinely.) Sometimes it means targeting the police, or planting bombs that may kill civilians too.
Not enough is done to point out how much more effective the methods are nowadays for occupying forces to infiltrate insurrectionist's organizations. If the equation of resistance is going to work, acts of resistance must be locally based, at least to start. Attacks can become more brazen later, once weaknesses of the enemy have become more obvious, and once relatively "safe", trusted lines of inter-organizational communication have been established.
Resistance is a very tough learning game. Not many will go on to "the next level" where attacks get more organized and more of a direct threat to the occupation...but in order for it to be possible at all, soft targets need to be exploited first.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 10:23 am (UTC)1: They are part, and parcel, of the non-resistant population (Mao's comment on revolutionaries swimming like fish in the pond of the populace) and
2: Infiltration of the resistance requires people who are part of that population being willing to pose as members of the resistance, while working for the occupation. In the best of times this is hard to do (and soliciting such people was part of what I was involved with when I was in Iraq). If it looks as though the occupiers are not going to win/stick around it gets even harder.
As for Collins' methods, the amount of non-vetting we do for linguists, contract labor, vendors etc., is colossal. Were I to plan an insurgency against the US I could find the doctrinal templates (on the web, in the public domain) get some of my sympathizers (not active participants, and not related to any; at least not in obvious ways) to scout things out, and then I would spread rumors of what will happen to, "Collaborators" when the occupation ends.
With just those simple things (and some access to weapons) a cell structure would allow me to plan attacks, see to it they were carried out, and learn from those which failed.
If I had as small an opponent as Collins had (i.e. actual Brits engaged in the rule of Ireland), his style of warfare would be easy, and like him I might be willing to negotiate a settlement, if I knew the enemy was tiring of the damage I could do, and that more would bring overwhelming force.
The reason so many, in places like Chechnya, Iraq and Palestine, are resorting to terror is 1: they feel they can't win by other means (the ballot box is closed, the world seems not to care, and the states they fight could wipe them off the map [well, this isn't really true for Israel, but there are other problems there]). In short, Collins targetted war is already lost.
They also have outside funds, and soldiers, in number Collins couldn't manage (and Ireland's island status is only part of that... there just weren't so many people who were willing to shell out the money, much less risk their actual lives in the cause of Irish liberation, as there are those who will do that to free Chechnya, or liberate Bosnia).
Are we doing a clumsy job of fighting in Iraq? I think so. Is the targeting of locations insurgent leaders might be foolish? I think so (because the collateral damage isn't worth the payoff, even if the target gets killed).
Is such an action against the rules? No. Not since Giulio Douhet posited the principle of strategic bombing. Under that doctrine leveling An Najaf to get Sadr would have been perfectly justified, both in the short term, and in the longer goal of encourager les autres. We didn't do that.
Nor did we take a very hard middle course (such as the one I advocated at the time of the siege of the Mosque of the Imam Ali). If we are willing to stay for 15 years, and take the casualties (both in Iraq, and here, in the states; which a real war demands) that reluctance to use the force at our disposal will pay off (as does following the Geneva Conventions in interrogation) but I doubt we have the resolve, nor the patience for such a war. We want the Dominican Republic, or Panama, not the Campaign of the Pacific, and the occupation of Japan.
We bought a pig in a poke, and have discovered he is lean, ill-tempered and not amenable to gentling or fattening up.
And we're not willing to let him go (to "root, Hog, or die") nor to kill him.
Which means we have to deal with the tusks.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 01:44 pm (UTC)Let's define our enemy here. We are fighting against militant Islamicism. It's defined as a war on terror because terrorism is one of their main tactics and after 9/11 everyone understands it. It's not defined as a war on Islamicism because that sounds too much like a war on Islam. The Islamicists would love to define it as such and some people on our own side would as well, so it's safer to leave Islam out of it altogether. But in truth we don't give a damn about the Tamil Tigers or those wack jobs in Cuba or the IRA because either they are no threat to us or they're people we could quietly come to some sort of agreement with. Islamicism wants our withdrawl from the Mid-East, and that's not going to happen. The bin-Laden brand thereof wants it so they can overthrow their corrupt regional governments and recreate a Caliphate that would marry Gulf oil money with Levantine technically trained elites, all beneath an inflexible version of early Islam that never really existed. Minus the last part, I can see where that could indeed produce a new superpower (and I admit stealing a lot of this from Juan Cole).
One side effect is that many purely local ethnic disputes are now Battlegrounds in the Global War on Terror. Places like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, where Islam was for the most part about as radical as Episcopalianism, have seen an influx of Wah'habist money into local ethnic groups struggling against the center as well as into regional Islamic political organizations, with the result of radicalizing and Arabizing these groups. Meanwhile, just like in the cold war, those governments can now ask the US for aid in putting down their local insurgents/opponents without fear of pesky human rights objections being raised.
But if we stopped thinking about this as a War on Terror/Terrorists and started thinking about a struggle, not necessarily a war, between radical and dare I say Arab Islamicism and everyone who doesn't want to live under it, I think our energies could be focused a lot more effectively. To wit:
1) Get the Saudis to stop funding the spread of radical Wah'habism
2) Fund secular education in places like Pakistan (and excuse the irony over the inadequate public education most of our own poor get) as a direct competition to the religious schools
3) Quietly start funding our own madrassas to produce imams with a broad liberal background. Both in the States and abroad. The ever-pragmatic Dutch have started a faculty for training imams in one of their Universities and the Brits are thinking about similar measures.
Well, I said I'd try not to ramble and I failed miserably. I don't normally post anything this long in my own blog. Sorry, TK.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 06:26 pm (UTC)Tory: No need to apologise... the space is here to be used... and the rules are pretty simple; Play nice (and I am the only arbiter of nice... my sandbox, my rules). Other than that, this is Libert Hall, where you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.
I have things which I ought to be doing, so I'll defer detailed comment on content until I can take the time to do more than rip of comments (which is what I did last night).
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 09:05 pm (UTC)This form of unorthodox combat is hardly new.
Traditionally their actions will progress, becoming more extreme until either their conditions are changed, like in India, a peace of sorts is negotiated like northern Ireland or they are neutralized.
I don't see that the US forces are doing much to change their actions
Susan in St. Paul
no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 04:12 am (UTC)For all the claims that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, that's nonsense.
Yes, the people who want to keep a status quo, who are being beset with guerrillas will call them terrorists, but that doesn't make them such.
The partisans in German occuplied France, the guerrillas in Spain, they may have done terrible things to Germans and Frenchmen but (by and large) they limited the targets of their attacks.
They didn't perform the equivalent of bombing delis, or postboxes.
That distinction is the one I'm trying to draw.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 12:14 am (UTC)I'm not. One doesn't wage war against things (be they drugs, poverty, or terrorism) one wage wars against a nations. Against individiuals, and non-nation groups one engages in law-enforcement. The British still haven't really figured this out in N. Ireland and the successes we've let terrorists have (to include, sort of, the Provos) has merely convinced them that such things work.
re the IRA:"I would say that Americans funding such a group so they can set off bombs in the capital of our staunchest ally is, well, peculiar at the least."
Not at all. Given the history, the cause of most of the Irish who came to the States being a sense that they could stay in their country to die (or to live on the sufferance of the British) and a long (mostly ill-timed, though always viciously repressed, even when basically peaceful, e.g. Wolf Tone and the Rising of '98) history of active resistance to the British (the story round the dinner table is that my Mother's Grandfather had to leave because he was far too similar in name and appearance to someone wanted for killing a rent-collector. If this was the case, or he was actually on the lam for murder, well I never got to ask him, he having died in the 1920s) it's no surprise they kept that animosity.
More amusing to me are the Nationalist friends I have, who are also anglophiles... a more confused lot you never saw.
Let's define our enemy here. We are fighting against militant Islamicism.
I dislike that formulation. In part because it becomes self-filfilling. The Chechens are becoming militant "islamicists" {which I dislike because it implies an urge to proslytise which I see more in the militant, "christiantics" than I ever have among the Muslims I've dealt with... even the ones on the other side of the table from me}, not so much because they are Islamic, but because only the most devout (and not all are radical, one of the americans who went to Chechnya on jihad, offered his services to the FBI/CIA in the effort to get to Al Qaeda, before That Tuesday) are willing to live the lifestyle of a rebel soldier.
Would attention to the plight of Iraqis, and continued engagement in the difficulties of the Palestinian question (created by Arabs, and worsened by Isrealis) have prevented bin Laden from attacking us? No. But it might have kept the run of the mill Arab from thinking it justified.
And that is the root at which the evil needs to be dug up, the branch which rises from that despair is twisted, warped and bent to ends most would rather not see.
More importantly than the training of our own imams (and founding madrasses here would be beyond the pale. Seperation of Church and state, to say nothing of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth the Religious Right would make... It would be seen as an attempt to subvert Islam, and suffer from a slew of unintended consequences, of the worst sort) would be an active effort to show the mass of americans that Islam is not, inherently, the source of maddened fanatics who want to kill us all.
Paying more attention to the terrorists in our midst might help too. Pointing out that fanatacism, not Islam, is at the root of that evil.
TK
Ireland
Date: 2004-09-23 03:19 pm (UTC)...one wage wars against a nations. Against individiuals, and non-nation groups one engages in law-enforcement. The British still haven't really figured this out in N. Ireland...
But I thought the Brits had always insisted that they were engaged in law enforcement. A couple British friends of mine went through the roof over the War on Terror for exactly this reason--their government had been trying for years to deny any sort of military status to IRA fighters, insisting they were criminals pure and simple. Of course, using the army to suppress them does rather belie that...
More amusing to me are the Nationalist friends I have, who are also anglophiles
They'd be less confused over here. Or maybe more so. British and Irish expats naturally socialize. There are generally more British expats but more and better Irish pubs so the former gather in the latter, which usually have a mixed Irish, British and local staff. Since they drink the same beer, watch the same sports, grew up with the same TV programmes etc. it's not that surprising. Oh, not to mention most Irish I know have lived in Britain. I swear, during the World Cup I saw almost as many Irish flags as Union Jacks in London. Well, there were also the couple drunk lads at Earl's Court singing "We hate Roman Catholics" to celebrate the recent English victory...over Denmark(?!)...but being drunk, stupid and English, they were probably only looking for a fight.
I don't know if you're on IM but I have tons of rambling nonsense like this which is best transmitted through that medium so if you are REALLY BORED I'd be pleased to chat anytime, time zone differences permitting.
Re: Ireland
Date: 2004-09-23 05:09 pm (UTC)They'd be less confused over here. Or maybe more so. British and Irish expats naturally socialize.
These aren't expats, they are American citizens.
But I thought the Brits had always insisted that they were engaged in law enforcement. A couple British friends of mine went through the roof over the War on Terror for exactly this reason--their government had been trying for years to deny any sort of military status to IRA fighters, insisting they were criminals pure and simple. Of course, using the army to suppress them does rather belie that...
I have friends who've served in N. Ireland. The British made a point that it was "law enforcement" but then passed laws which were meant to get around the way they were using the Army, and waging a war. A low key sort of thing.
The way they are doing/did it was such that all of the not obviously loyal were suspect, and made to feel second class citizens. Miscarriages of justice did nothing to prevent the perception. If they'd been serious about it being a police matter, the army wouldn't have been there, and cops would have done the heavy lifting.
On the other hand, as you point out, we've made terrorists legitmate soldiers (and then tried to fix it by creating, out of whole cloth, a new term, "unlawful combatants" which Geneva doesn't have, and by which we try to say Geneva doesn't apply. Having our cake, and eating it) which is a poor precedent.
The result is a host of secondary places, where the islamic portions of society weren't radical, and are now becoming so.
TK
Terrorism
Date: 2004-09-23 03:36 pm (UTC)I dislike that formulation. In part because it becomes self-fulfilling.
This is kind of what I meant when I complained about the 'War on Terror' pulling in a bunch of non-related conflicts that are local in nature. Unfortunately I didn't think through that a 'struggle with Islamicism' does exactly the same thing. Chechnya, as you say, is a prime example; it's been going on for ages and was never about religion, or never primarily so.
Here I'm going to cheat and post a link to a BB post by a friend of mine who's very much a Russia wonk, because pretty much everything I know about Chechnya I know from her. (Also it's a great excuse to plug my home-away-from-home Board.)
However, I will say this--there is a brand of Saudi-funded radicalism that has been trying for years to increase its influence by subverting local struggles to their own global framework. By saying this I am not in the least disagreeing with your point that:
Would attention to the plight of Iraqis, and continued engagement in the difficulties of the Palestinian question (created by Arabs, and worsened by Isrealis) have prevented bin Laden from attacking us? No. But it might have kept the run of the mill Arab from thinking it justified.
And that is the root at which the evil needs to be dug up, the branch which rises from that despair is twisted, warped and bent to ends most would rather not see.
To wit, there is a heck of a lot of suffering in most of the Islamic world, it fuels desperation and we are seen as either not caring or actively contributing to it.
What to do about this is a heck of a question. Alleviating the plight of the Iraqis by invading their country may not have been the best idea, though the American Enterprise Institute evidently thought it would work. Could it if we'd committed a lot more resources (in the broadest sense) at the beginning? I expect you have a much better idea of that than I do.
Re: training imams. This is more something the Dutch started for internal reasons, as they were a bit tired of imams from Morocco who can't speak Dutch coming over and denouncing Dutch society. The Brits are considering something similar. Of course, they have state-sponsored religious training and we don't. So maybe wasn't that appropriate.
Re: showing the mass of Americans that Islam is not inherently a source of bloodthirsty fanatics. Couldn't agree more, but that might be part of the bigger problem that Americans tend to be dead poorly educated about the rest of the world. Of course, there has been a fairly effective campaign to educate against racism for years; no reason not to have a similar campaign on religions.
And our home grown-fanatics are definitely an underrated problem, though again I think they might be in part produced by a widespread parochialism, as is fanaticism in general, come to think of it (my friend Shahida complaining about her 'village idiot cousins' back in Pakistan who went to fight the Americans...).
Mind like a steel colander
Date: 2004-09-23 03:39 pm (UTC)Re: Terrorism
Date: 2004-09-23 05:11 pm (UTC)TK
Re: Terrorism
Date: 2004-09-27 10:57 pm (UTC)