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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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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.