Kamikaze attacks 'not about terror'?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=chowder]
Ram a plane into an enemy warship, not terrorism IN TIME OF WAR
Firebomb a city to break the morale of and enemy, not terrorism, IN TIME OF WAR
Ram a plane into an office building, terrorism, if no war declared.
Blow up a factory to stop production, not terrorism, IN TIME OF WAR
Blow up a factory to stop production, terrorism, if no war declared
[/QUOTE]

I’m sure if you asked the IRA during the troubles if they were at war with Britain, or bin Ladin before the Cole bombing if Islam was at war with the US, they would answer in the affirmative. Even McVeigh viewed himself at war with the US. Of course these weren’t formally declared wars, but then neither was the Korean, Vietnam or Gulf wars. Indeed I suspect that your criteria would basically include almost none of the attacks we consider as terrorism.

42

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Most people differentiate between attacks on military targets and attacks on civilian targets. It’s hard for me to accept that an attack against a legitimate military target can be an act of terror.
[/QUOTE]
So the attack on World Trade Center was an act of terror but the attack on the Pentagon wasn’t?

43

[QUOTE=Kozmik]
So the attack on World Trade Center was an act of terror but the attack on the Pentagon wasn’t?
[/QUOTE]

Considering that, as part of the attack on the Pentagon, the weapon was specifically chosen to include ‘uninvolved’ civilians (i.e. the passengers and crew of the plane used in the attack.) I think it does count as a terrorist attack, even though the target was what would have otherwise been a legitimate military target.

44

[QUOTE=chowder]
Ram a plane into an enemy warship, not terrorism IN TIME OF WAR
Firebomb a city to break the morale of and enemy, not terrorism, IN TIME OF WAR
Ram a plane into an office building, terrorism, if no war declared.
Blow up a factory to stop production, not terrorism, IN TIME OF WAR
Blow up a factory to stop production, terrorism, if no war declared

Got that Der Trihs?
[/QUOTE]
Fighting is fighting. Declaring war is irrelevant.

And with “Firebomb a city to break the morale of and enemy, not terrorism, IN TIME OF WAR” you are using the classic, corrupt definition that terror by a state, “terror from above” is not terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism, in or out of war and no matter the of uniforms or lack thereof by the perpetrators.

[QUOTE=Kozmik]
So the attack on World Trade Center was an act of terror but the attack on the Pentagon wasn’t?
[/QUOTE]
I’d call that a grey area. The target was certainly military, but given the people involved I have my doubts that it was meant as an attack on the military. These people were thinking in terms of symbolism, not military damage or even causing casualties. I’d call it not terrorism by the letter of the rules but terrorist in spirit.

45

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And with “Firebomb a city to break the morale of and enemy, not terrorism, IN TIME OF WAR” you are using the classic, corrupt definition that terror by a state, “terror from above” is not terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism, in or out of war and no matter the of uniforms or lack thereof by the perpetrators.
[/QUOTE]

While you are comparing apples to oranges by looking through your modern lens at history…while hand waving aside the fact that these people aren’t doing their attacks in 1943…or even 1968…but today. Times have changed…except for the folks who strap bombs on their back and go for strolls at the mall or hijack planes full of civilians to ram into buildings full of civilians. Or guys like you who like to use historical examples by comparing them not to the actions of their contemporaries but to the attitudes prevalent NOW (thus losing all context)…while simultaneously NOT comparing acts happening today with the standards of the day. Curious, ehe?

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I’d call that a grey area. The target was certainly military, but given the people involved I have my doubts that it was meant as an attack on the military. These people were thinking in terms of symbolism, not military damage or even causing casualties. I’d call it not terrorism by the letter of the rules but terrorist in spirit.
[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes: No grey area there…it was terrorism, plain and simple. Oh, the TARGET was legitimate…but how do you figure its a grey area to deliberately use civilians as part of a weapon to attack any target at all? How do you figure that its NOT terrorism to do so? Had they used a rocket launcher or even a suicide bomber to attack the Pentagon you may have a point…but a plane full of civilians deliberately used? Where do you get this stuff…or do you never think things through?

BTW, what ‘letter of the rules’ do you speak of…and what nation state DELIBERATELY uses civilians to kill other civilians or military personnel? Where is this kind of thing acceptable? Hell, I don’t even think the North Korean’s or the Iraqi’s under Saddam ever DELIBERATELY used civilians as part of their weapons system to attack someone else…

-XT

46

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Oh, the TARGET was legitimate…but how do you figure its a grey area to deliberately use civilians as part of a weapon to attack any target at all? How do you figure that its NOT terrorism to do so?
[/QUOTE]

Well, its not like their was a way for them to get jumbo jets without them being full of people, they could hardly stop mid-hijack and let everyone off.

I still think its a terrorist attack, but only because it was part of the 9/11 attacks, the rest of which were undoubtably aimed a civilian targets and meant to cause fear in the American public. If 9/11 had only contested only of the Pentagon bombing, I might have to agree with the “gray area” caveat.

47

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
Well, its not like their was a way for them to get jumbo jets without them being full of people, they could hardly stop mid-hijack and let everyone off.
[/QUOTE]

Whats your point? That they were forced to kill all those civilians on board because they couldn’t very well stop the attack mid-way through? That they didn’t realize that there would be civilians on board until after they got started?

-XT

48

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Whats your point? That they were forced to kill all those civilians on board because they couldn’t very well stop the attack mid-way through? That they didn’t realize that there would be civilians on board until after they got started?

-XT
[/QUOTE]

That they didn’t have a way to crash a jumbo jet into a building without involving civilians. That they didn’t choose a jumbo jet because it was full of civilians, but because it was the best weapon they felt they could access.

49

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Whats your point? That they were forced to kill all those civilians on board because they couldn’t very well stop the attack mid-way through? That they didn’t realize that there would be civilians on board until after they got started?
[/QUOTE]

No, that if they wanted to attack the pentagon, and we assume that the terrorists couldn’t come up with another effective way to do so (I can’t, though I probably wouldn’t have come up with crashing airliners into it either), then their choices were either to not attack at all or kill the passengers on the plane. The passengers were “collateral damage”, not the target of the attack but a consequence of the method by which the attacks were carried out.

Again, this is all hypothetical. As I said, I agree the attack on the pentagon was a terrorist attack because it was part of the 9/11 attacks, and their purpose was clearly to terrorize the US population. But since we’re debating what separates a terrorist attack from other types of military action, I thought it worth mentioning that if the attack on the pentagon was an isolated event, I think it would bump it into a gray area.

50

[QUOTE=Menocchio]
That they didn’t have a way to crash a jumbo jet into a building without involving civilians. That they didn’t choose a jumbo jet because it was full of civilians, but because it was the best weapon they felt they could access.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
The passengers were “collateral damage”, not the target of the attack but a consequence of the method by which the attacks were carried out.
[/QUOTE]

:dubious: … :rolleyes:

-XT

51

[QUOTE=xtisme]
:dubious: … :rolleyes:

-XT
[/QUOTE]

If you disagree, feel free to share why. If you think I’m so far beyond hope of logical argument or persuasion, feel free give up and move on. But spare me the cryptic smiley response, it doesn’t really do anything to advance the discussion.

I think that the mere fact that a method of attack necessarily involves the killing of civilians does not make it a terrorist attack. I’m open to other viewpoints, please tell us in a non-emoticon dialect if you disagree.

52

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
No, that if they wanted to attack the pentagon, and we assume that the terrorists couldn’t come up with another effective way to do so (I can’t, though I probably wouldn’t have come up with crashing airliners into it either), then their choices were either to not attack at all or kill the passengers on the plane.
[/QUOTE]

I can think of several ways one could attack the Pentagon (or any other government building, especially in the pre-9/11 days) without resorting to the deliberate use of an airliner full of civilian passengers. Where this idea comes from that the terrorists didn’t deliberately use the fact that civilians WOULD be on those planes comes from I have no idea…or that they were some how (with the implication that it was reluctantly) forced to use airliners full of civilians because that was the only thing they could come up with. But feel free to fight my ignorance and provide a cite backing up your claims…a quote from AQ or Bin Laden stating something along the lines you are claiming would be sufficient. Thanks in advance.

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
But spare me the cryptic smiley response, it doesn’t really do anything to advance the discussion.
[/QUOTE]

It wasn’t cryptic…I’m openly skeptical and I’m rolling my eyes at such stupid statements coming from two veteran board members. Let me put it another way…do either of you have a cite of some kind or do you wish to acknowledge its blatant speculation on your parts? Feel free to advance the discussion.

-XT

53

[QUOTE=xtisme]
I can think of several ways one could attack the Pentagon (or any other government building, especially in the pre-9/11 days) without resorting to the deliberate use of an airliner full of civilian passengers.
[/quote]

Really? I can’t. I imagine that the Pentagon is well defended against any sort of ground based attack (car bombs and the like) that 5 men without access to military hardware could mount, they presumably didn’t have access to artillery or missiles. But as you say, I of course have no evidence that there isn’t a better way for men in a similar position to attack the pentagon. As I said in my earlier post, I was simply assuming that was the case. But I don’t think its that crazy an assumption, certainly I don’t need a cite to show the method they chose was effective.

Again, the 9/11 terrorists were no doubt happy to kill as many civilians and cause as much public fear as possible, their other actions on that day made that clear, and as such I’m sure they were happy to kill the plane passengers and disrupt air traffic. I’m just debating your statement that the “use civilians as part of a weapon to attack any target at all?” made it automatically a terrorist attack, with a hypothetical that if they had launched the airline attack on the pentagon without any other evidence of a desire to terrorize the US population, I wouldn’t necessarily count it as a terrorist attack. A pedantic point perhaps, but since this thread is in large part one about what make an attack a terrorist effort, I think it worth bringing up.

If its stupid tell me why. I make stupid statements all the time, but I usually at least put enough thought into them that a simple unadorned smiley will not immediately strip the ignorance from my eyes. I come here to engage in debate, after all, so lets debate.

54

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
Really? I can’t. I imagine that the Pentagon is well defended against any sort of ground based attack (car bombs and the like) that 5 men without access to military hardware could mount, they presumably didn’t have access to artillery or missiles.
[/QUOTE]

But one doesn’t need artillery nor missiles to attack a building that, prior to 9/11, had a relatively open* parking lot. After all, two men, in 1995 managed to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City quite handily.
*I don’t pretend that getting a truck full of ANFO slurry wouldn’t have been a challenge, but I am not convinced that it’s the sort of insurmountable challenge you’re presenting it as. Just for one potential solution - steal a truck that’s familiar to the guards, load it up, and only really attract attention once the truck starts driving on the lawn towards the building itself. This would work even better if the conspiricists work to get one of their own hired as a truck driver for the regular delivery company. Until 9/11, the impression I’d had of military security was that it was far, far more concerned about internal access, rather than keeping a clear zone around buildings.

And, I’d have to be convinced that this attack - for a group willing to embrace suicide to get the truck into position - wouldn’t work today. Even with the alleged upgrades in security.

55

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
But one doesn’t need artillery nor missiles to attack a building that, prior to 9/11, had a relatively open* parking lot. After all, two men, in 1995 managed to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City quite handily.
[/QUOTE]

How open was it? I have trouble believing that, especially after OK city, it would be easy (I know you didn’t say it would be easy, see below) for a bunch of foreign, Muslim men to obtain a large quantity of explosives and then drive up to the pentagon.

Indeed, of course hijacking airplanes with box-cutters also seems a challenging proposition. Happily, there isn’t any easy way to successfully blow up a chunk of the Pentagon with any sort of guarantee of success. But the point is that I don’t think its obvious that going the hijacked airliner route wasn’t at least conceivable the best way to go, regardless of whether any passengers were killed or not. In any case, it’s certainly inarguable that it was in fact successful, while how far the terrorists would’ve gotten with a car bomb will hopefully remain a matter of speculation.

56

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
Really? I can’t. I imagine that the Pentagon is well defended against any sort of ground based attack (car bombs and the like) that 5 men without access to military hardware could mount, they presumably didn’t have access to artillery or missiles. But as you say, I of course have no evidence that there isn’t a better way for men in a similar position to attack the pentagon. As I said in my earlier post, I was simply assuming that was the case. But I don’t think its that crazy an assumption, certainly I don’t need a cite to show the method they chose was effective.
[/QUOTE]

It wasn’t well defended from…well, anything. The main security at the Pentagon was getting INTO the building. I worked there for years and it was certainly possible pre-9/11 to attack the building effectively without a jumbo jet full of civilians.

As to the rest I think the assumption is fact free. I’ve read nothing from AQ or Bin Laden stating that they regret the civilian dead and wish there was a better way to attack our military, blah blah blah. Looking at the fact that they attacked several CIVILAN buildings (that they, well, sort of KNEW would be full of those pesky civilian types) sort of makes your assumption, well, sort of silly, ehe?

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
Again, the 9/11 terrorists were no doubt happy to kill as many civilians and cause as much public fear as possible, their other actions on that day made that clear, and as such I’m sure they were happy to kill the plane passengers and disrupt air traffic. I’m just debating your statement that the “use civilians as part of a weapon to attack any target at all?” made it automatically a terrorist attack, with a hypothetical that if they had launched the airline attack on the pentagon without any other evidence of a desire to terrorize the US population, I wouldn’t necessarily count it as a terrorist attack. A pedantic point perhaps, but since this thread is in large part one about what make an attack a terrorist effort, I think it worth bringing up.
[/QUOTE]

Suit yourself. I know of no nation state that uses civilians deliberately in attacks…or who would be hand waved away if they DID.

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
If its stupid tell me why. I make stupid statements all the time, but I usually at least put enough thought into them that a simple unadorned smiley will not immediately strip the ignorance from my eyes. I come here to engage in debate, after all, so lets debate.
[/QUOTE]

Because its wild speculation that really has no bearing on the facts. You said yourself in the previous paragraph that the terrorists WANTED to maximize CIVILIAN casualties. Today (as opposed to 20, 30, 50 or 100 years ago re: Der’s previous point) deliberately targetting civilians, especially (though not exclusively) by para-military forces is by definition ‘terrorism’.

"n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. "

I’d say that AQ was definitely using violence (unlawful as they are not a nation state, nor representitives of any nation state), definitely against both people AND property, definitely with the intention of intimidation or coercision, definitely for both political AND ideological (and religious of course) reasons.

If thats not terrorism, if this is a gray area, then I think the definition of what is or is not terrorism and who is or is not a terrorist loses all touch with reality and becomes some kind of nebulous and undefined (and therefore useless) term, with no meaning or context.

As I said earlier…attacks like those against the Cole, while I think ‘unlawful’, are not terrorist attacks. Attacks against valid military targets, even those carried out by para-military forces with no mandate or sanction of a nation state are not terrorism. Attacks against civilian targets, or attacks that deliberately use civilians as part of the attack (and to add their body count to the psychological impact) are most definitely terrorist attacks…and no gray area to hand wave aside. To use an extreme hyperbolic example…it would be like stuffing artillary shells with civilians and then firing them at enemy positions. Or like dropping bombs with women and children inside on an enemy bunker. Even for a nation state this would be terrorism today…and for a para-military group its practically the definition of what terrorism is.

-XT

-XT

57

Going back to the original question: WW2 kamikaze, to me, come in definitely under “not terrorists” – they were combatants, using an unconventional technique to achieve their legitimate combat mission (sink Allied ships). As has been mentioned before, psyching out your adversary has been a long-established component of warfare, and as conflicts have dragged on, seeking to break the spirit of the enemy population has also been accepted… though strategists will tell you,** that ** is a gamble, not something you can reliably count on.

But that does create something of a multi-level system, doesn’t it? There’s straight warfare between combatants – which may include unconventional, “guerilla”, or “partisan” scenarios – seeking to destroy or degrade each other’s ability and will to fight. There’s straight-out terrorism, in which a non-state organization targets the general population and civil institutions in order to create a climate of fear for political purposes. But then there’s straight warfare using “terror tactics” – piling up 30-foot-tall pyramids of severed enemies’ heads (and sending messengers to the next city to tell about it), lining up all the men and killing every 10th, or systematically firestorming cities from bombers. There’s “total” warfare in which the entire population is mobilized so if you seek to destroy the very socioeconomic structure of the other side in order to collapse their ability to go on, well, too bad the civilians are right there next to the factory, or will starve together with the army in the blockade/siege. And there are attacks against “military” targets that serve no real tactical purpose other than just demonstrate how much your organization is willing to kill, since the target is in no combat footing (Sabana Seca Naval Station, PR, 1979) and thus serves only to create distress in the population or try to provoke the power into doing something rash.

I am of the opinion that Pentagon 9/11 would be terroristic in itself, absent WTC, due to it both (a) involving the seizure and immolation of the noncombatant aircraft and occupants and (b) realistically having no potential to adversely affect the “war footing” of the US.

58

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
How open was it? I have trouble believing that, especially after OK city, it would be easy (I know you didn’t say it would be easy, see below) for a bunch of foreign, Muslim men to obtain a large quantity of explosives and then drive up to the pentagon.
[/QUOTE]

That’s why I specified ANFO slurry as the explosive agent - it can be home mixed out of things that have other legitimate uses than as explosives: Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer, and Fuel Oil. There was talk, after OK City, about restricting purchases, and even putting in chemical tracers, but as far as I know nothing was ever done about either. For that matter, spread out one’s purchases across a couple of states, and one could accumulate a decent amount even if larger purchases are being tracked.

I can’t say I’ve ever had experience in getting into the Pentagon. (Merci de la bon Dieu!) But I do recall my experience in the military, and how access to bases were usually done - one needed to have a license and valid registration for the vehicle, and some legitimate reason to be entering the base. I may be mistaken, but my belief is that until 9/11 the military, and the politicians, both resisted any rational reassessment of risks that such a policy might entail - because, in part, effective security is (IMNSHO) effective in direct proportion to how awkward, or time consuming it might be.

And until it was proven that terrorist attacks by foreign nationals could succeed on US soil by the 9/11 attacks, the costs that such security would entail for things like getting office supplies, or cafeteria supplies into the Pentagon (or similar facilities) were judged too high for such a low-grade threat.

(If anyone has a cite to contradict this thinking on my part, I’ll be quite willing to eat my words.)
And while taking over the planes for 9/11 was relatively simple, being able to reliably fly said planes into specific targets took months of training. Given the accessibility of Ammonium Nitrate and diesel fuel, I suspect it would have been easier to simply get a car bomb into contact with the outer walls of the Pentagon than it was to steal the planes and hit their chosen targets.

So, to get back to what started this whole hijack - I don’t accept that, for the Pentagon attack, the use of airliners was the simplest, most easily available method for the 9/11 plotters. To make several strikes co-ordinated over several different regions, yes. But that means, for the sake of claiming whether the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was or was not a terrorist attack, you can’t ignore the other parts of the operation.

I think I’ve raised enough enough information to show that it’s at least conceivable that a ‘clean’ geurilla attack on the Pentagon would have been possible - i.e. with minimal civilian deaths.

59

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
How open was it? I have trouble believing that, especially after OK city, it would be easy (I know you didn’t say it would be easy, see below) for a bunch of foreign, Muslim men to obtain a large quantity of explosives and then drive up to the pentagon.
[/QUOTE]

Its not a fortress…even today. Its not even a military base. There are (or were) no fences around it. There was no barbed wire. No machine gun emplacements. No on call artillary. No guard towers with steeley eyed sentries ready to cut loose at the slightest provocation. Its in the middle of a friggin city for gods sake…with a metro stop in the basement! Part of the belt way runs, oh, right next too it…as do several other major roads. The biggest barrier to attacking it would probably be the traffic!

-XT

60

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Its not a fortress…even today. Its not even a military base. There are (or were) no fences around it. There was no barbed wire. No machine gun emplacements. No on call artillary.
[/quote]

Yea, I realize it wasn’t a fortress, but then we’re talking about whether it could repel an attack by 5 guys equipped with whatever they could scrounge without drawing suspicion to themselves, not a armored military division. That said, I was assuming there was at least a concrete barrier to prevent car bombs, one would think that after OK City they would’ve at least restricted cars from driving right up to the gov’t buildings that were obvious targets for paranoid anti-gov’t types (NSA, CIA, WH, Pentagon, etc). But if your certain there was no such thing prior to 9/11, I’ll take your word for it, and concede that the Pentagon was an easier target then I would’ve thought (or hoped). (But I wouldn’t have known that if you hadn’t returned to expand upon your emoticons).

Well, I said it was pedantic. But the word “terrorism” has been subject to some abuse lately, stretched to include things it shouldn’t (like Kamikaze pilots), so I think its worth looking at closely at what it means and the best way to do that is to examine hypotheticals that lie close to where we picture the line between terrorism and legitimate military action to be, even if those hypotheticals are “fact free”.