After reading Alien’s post regarding Terrorism and freedom fighters, I wanted to post this question.
Why are terrorists considered to be intrinsically evil, and yet, conventional warfare is considered to be somehow a more noble pursuit.
I think there are two main reasons for this. The first is that terrorists have a reputation of attacking civilian rather than military targets. I don’t think this holds up though. During Gulf War II, the coalition forces happily targetted power stations and water processing plants. Surely these are civilian targets? We don’t seem to have any problem with this. Although I doubt they deliberately bombed those iraqi children we saw in the papers, they did consider them acceptable collateral damage. I’m sure to the civilians who did get bombed, it feels like much the same thing. Also, did anyone think on Sept 11th that the WTC was a tragedy, but the pentagon was a legitimate target because it was military?
The second reason is that terrorists are more underhanded, relying on surprise attacks. Conventional war on the other hand is fairly upfront about its intentions. I doubt Saddam failed to notice the thousands of troops on his border. On the other hand, America has the largest army in the world. No nation can face it in in battle and expect to win. The only way that anyone who disagrees with america can make a point is through terrorism. If anything, by having such a large military, America makes itself more of a target for terrorists.
Technically I suppose they may have been. Taking them out also helped to crippled the Iraqi military though. We bombed factories in WWII that supported the war effort even though they were owned and operated by civilians.
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I didn’t like either one but at least the Pentagon was a military target.
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The United States armed forces have all sorts of unconventional tactics they use. It isn’t the element of surprise that makes terrorist hated it is their targets. Targets like pizza parlours, the subway, or weddings are what make terrorist despised.
The United States does not have the largest army in the world. Maybe we spend more then anybody else but I think Iraq at some point had a much larger army then we did and CHina most certainly does. There are plenty of ways you can disagree with the United States without resorting to terrorism. I don’t recall any Frenchmen or Germans bombing US targets recently.
According to this , China claims it spends $20bn on defence. The pentagon disagrees, and thinks that the true figure is more like $65bn.
According to this the US spends $379bn on defence. If you haven’t got a bigger army than china after all that spending, then someone is seriously ripping you off.
Good point regarding the bombing of pizza parlours and wedding etc. except didn’t we bomb a wedding during the Afghan war? I’m sure we didn’t know it was a wedding, but I doubt that was much consolation to the people who died.
I think it’s the fact that terrorists usually strike first, and “unprovoked,” whereas a conventional power always researches diplomatic solutions first. Imagine what would happen if the US Army just rose up one day and decided to attack, say, Canada, with no rationalization whatsoever. The fact that it’s a conventional army means nothing - it’s the fact that we go through diplomatic channels first, rationalize our actions, and spend months or years rallying public support for an attack.
No one considers anykind of warfare to be a “nobel” pursuit except in the movies. Conventional warefare is considered more legitimate because it is the actions of a legitimate government. The government uses soldiers and vehicles with uniforms and markings that designate the country of origin. War is generally declared, or at least announced. The objective of conventional war is to implement foreign policy or to force or prevent some kind of action. The destruction is incidental to the objective ie- the trend has been away from WMD to smart precision weapons since the objective is not obliteration.
Terrorism lacks legitimacy often because they only represent a narrow group with narrow interests. Even if you do not agree with Bush’s foreign policy, you recognize the legitimacy of the process that allows him to make those decisions. Hamas has no legitimate claim to repesent all of Palestine any more than Al Quada represents all of Islam or Ted Kazinski represents…whatever he was in to.
Terrorist tactics inspire hatred because the people they target often have little or nothing to do with their politics and have no idea they are at war. Their tactics are designed to intimidate by threatening those who can’t fight back. At least the Iraqis have their own tanks and guns(even if they suck).
The US spends more than any other country, but China has the largest army. The technological differences and the amount of money the US spends on equipment accounts for the difference. For example, the US has more aircraft carriers than China and they are of a higher quality. However, in terms of sheer numbers of men in the military, China comes out on top.
I doubt it is, too. But the difference in classification, according to some people, is intent. It’s possible for me to kill you accidentally, but it isn’t murder. Your family will still be very sad, though.
That said, I’m not convinced that’s a good definition of terrorism. When the US Marine barracks were bombed it was called terrorism, even though it was a military target. Same with Khobar Towers in Saudi, or the USS Cole. No civilians were targetted there, but they are still considered terrorism.
What makes terrorism less approved of or more evil is that actors without a state do it. Conventional war is conducted between nations, and is considered to be a legitimate act, or at least a more legitimate act.
This isn’t entirely accurate. The civilian population itself was at times the target of bombing. In Europe, the target of British strategic bombing was the city itself. The target of US bombers in Europe was usually a declared target of some sort or the other, be it factories, railyards or such, but that was just where it was hoped a good part of the bombs would end up. In the firebombing of Japan, the target was the city.
Marketing. One man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter.” Hey, if Ronald Reagan could equate the contras as the equivalent to the Founding Fathers of the United States, anything goes.
Another important distinction i think is that TERRORism is intented to inspire terror. It is violence designed to cause fear and panic as an instrument of social or government change. War can cause fear and panic, but that is not its main goal. That said i see no way that a war that 9/11 was worse then say, the battle of stalingrad, in which more civillians and soldiers died, simply because it was war.
Size isn’t everything. Don’t forget that the US soldier is much better equipped then his Chinese counterpart. The United States also has a very expensive Navy and Air Force. We may not be as large as the Red Army but we can project power like nobody’s business.
Accidentally hitting a wedding isn’t the same as specifically targetting it. I’m sure it wasn’t a cosolation to those who died but it is the truth.
I might be wrong, but actually, I don’t think that China has any carrier a all. I believe the only countries operating carriers are the US, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil and India.
I agree with other sentiments, but was actually going to say some of the same things as Tallayan.
Terrorism is the act of intentionally targeting a weak target (civilians, etc.) and destroying them in what amounts to a temper-tantrum against a ruling body. It is intended to cut at the very heart of a people, to make the average Joe afraid to leave his home for fear of being obliterated for a reason he doesn’t understand.
In normal warfare, the established (or hoping to be established) leadership of a country/nation has done something greviously wrong to another, and if they can’t work it out diplomatically, their trained soldiers duke it out as quickly as efficiently as they can. Not to say they can do it, but they try.
It should also be noted that with terrorism there is only destruction and no reponsibility. We trash all those installations and power stations, etc. in a (albeit confusingly) ligitimate war in Iraq, and now we are fixing them so the population doesn’t suffer. Terrorists blow up and wipe out those they disagree with and hope they rot in hell, enjoying a job well done and knowing they don’t actually have to pay a damn thing for it.
This is why terrorists themselved don’t actually rule their people: They can cause fear and destruction, but they cannot support and build. They do not think of the future of any peoples, only the immediate effects of the pain they cause.
In international law terms, There are “legal” ways in which to conduct warfare and there are Illegal ways.
Basically, the Geneva conventions govern how warfare should be conducted and soldiers of any army (belonging to a nation or not) that abide by the conventions are what they call a “legal combatant”.
I can start my own private army and attack whatever I want, and as long as I abide by the Geneva conventions in the manner that I conduct warfare, I cannot be deemed a terrorist. Therefore, I think that any organization that conducts any form of warfare but does not follow the conventions, can be deemed a terrorist organization.
This I would think is the legal defenition.