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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 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