Resolved: terrorism is sometimes justified

Great Debates
1

Let me state first that this is a rhetorical exercise. I ran this by the mods in ATMB and my take from their replies was that such arguments are OK as long as you state your intent beforehand. I’m going to try and make the best argument I can for terrorism. Please improve or demolish my arguments at will. I am certain that they can be improved as I am hopeful they can be demolished.

What is a concerned and serious young Muslim in the West to do to aid his family or co-religionists in places like Syria, Iraq, Yemen and especially Palestine? Every day he hears from people in the region of the murders and atrocities they are subject to from the massive powers arrayed against them: the US, the UK, France, Russia, Iran, the Iraqis, the brutal forces of Assad, the Israelis and the Saudi Arabians. The overwhelming odds against them makes the position of Islamic State and Hamas seem quite hopeless. And the young Muslim will know that the Daesh warriors and Hamas freedom fighters have been forced to take up arms and defend themselves from the terrible oppression they suffered from the Shia in Iraq and the Israelis in Palestine.

Perhaps our young Muslim friend will have tried to travel to the areas concerned to aid his brothers in their life-or-death struggle. Some of his brave friends may have been killed or terribly wounded in a similar attempt. Let us posit that he has been unsuccessful in his efforts to fight the oppressors in the Middle East. His only recourse if he remains in the US or Europe is to strike a blow for liberty in those countries. What other option does he have? He will not allow himself to do nothing, to leave his relatives or fellow Muslims abroad to suffer and die as the world sheds crocodile tears, utters meaningless condemnations, does absolutely nothing or enthusiastically aids in the slaughter.

Should he engage in politics, work to persuade his fellow Americans or whatever of the injustice of their position? To persuade them that Israel must be curbed in its aggression, must stop occupying Palestinian lands? To plead with them to help in the overthrow of the tyrannical Assad? To pressure the Iraqi government to accept Sunnis and the Saudis to accept Houthis as fellow-Muslims and people like themselves simply trying to live their lives free from persecution?

Our young Muslim is not a fool. He knows full well the futility of such advocacy. Nothing that he can say, even if he were backed by every Muslim in the country, will have the slightest effect on the course of the great powers. They will continue to kill, to torture, to mutilate his fellows abroad. Nothing will deflect them or even command any attention at all. Except perhaps …

And here our friend may pause and deliberate for a long time. He is not a violent man, he detests killing, he has no desire to act in the same fashion as the murderous powers of the West. And yet what else is there? He needs to attract the attention of the powers that be, he needs to force them to listen, to show them to what desperate measures they are driving him and others like him. They may not change their policies and in fact are very unlikely to change them but in the name of Allah they will not be able to ignore him. If innocent people suffer or die, even children, then be it so. Men, women and children are dying horrible deaths every day at the hands of the West and their allies. If he should balance the scale a little then he has achieved something and if he should die in the act he will proudly stand before God and justify himself and he firmly believes that God will approve. How could he not approve actions that defend his worshippers and glorify his name?

He has come to his decision. He declares himself on his Facebook page, bids a final farewell to his family and friends, packs the explosive device firmly in his backpack, checks that his weapons are fully loaded, gets into his car and drives off for his appointment with Destiny. The more people he kills, the more horrific the mutilations, the more the world will be unable to ignore his cause. As we sadly watch him drive away who can say he is wrong?

2

I am of a similar opinion - terrorism may not be ideal, and certainly can be wrong for many reasons, but for certain political causes, their adherents or supporters may very reasonably, and logically, feel that *they have no other viable alternative *to see their aims accomplished.

Those aims may be bad aims, those methods may be wrong methods, but oftentimes, given the circumstances, it may be impossible for them to get their goals enacted legally - they won’t win at the ballot box, the government won’t listen, the media coverage gives great reward to terrorism, etc.

3

Asymmetric warfare works to the degree that the more powerful side has empathy and restraint or isn’t too dependent on needing to keep the status quo in a state that is provocative to the terrorists. So yeah, terrorism can work. But it can also lead to near eradication if employed carelessly.

4

Here is the disconnect, besides muslims themselves being the overwhelming number of the victims of terrorism - religiously or tactically, killing random civilians does not defend Sunni muslims or glorify any deity. It does not translate to battlefield gains, cities won, or enemies (of the kind that are actually fighting) vanquished. All of the ISIL-related or inspired terrorism attacks across Europe and the U.S. have not caused any coalition partner to withdraw their military forces from the fight against ISIL. The suicide bombings in Damascus and Baghdad have caused tremendous casualties, but except for Damascus in the beginning of the armed rebellion, not many significant or key political leaders have been killed because of them.

The point of terrorism is to inspire terror and fear in order to shape another government’s policies, likely to retreat from a current policy or to avoid a possible disfavored one (from the terrorist’s point of view). One unlikely goal is to push a foreign government’s policies towards an extreme overreaction and thus try to produce more converts to the terrorists’ cause, but this is extremely difficult to do and only likely from a very high casualty attack a la 9/11. And it is just as likely, if not more likely, to produce an unanticipated action such as the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Sunni muslims constitute the vast majority of the muslim population. The world is not ignoring their cause, since they do not have a single cause. ISIL and ISIL-inspired terrorists are not attacking European and U.S. targets because of any support for Israel. They are not attacking civilian targets because they want to try and whip up opinion against the Assad regime or to withdraw support for the current Shia majority government in Baghdad. ISIL and other radical Sunnis view Shias as heretics no better and in some cases worse than other infidels in the West because of their geographical proximity and concurrent claim to Islam. Al Queda-affiliated groups are fighting the Houthis in Yemen and ISIL certainly sheds no tears for the Iranian-backed Houthis or for the soldiers of Iranian-backed Hizbollah that they fight and kill.

5

For what it’s worth, ISIS released an issue of their propaganda magazine Dabiq called ‘Why We Hate You, and Why We Fight You’. It stated, clearly and unambiguously, that ISIS fight us because (in their words):

  1. You are disbelievers.
  2. You are liberal.
  3. Some of you are atheist.
  4. Crimes against Islam (by this they mean things like the Charlie Hebdo cartoons).
  5. Bombing Muslims.
  6. Invading Muslim holy lands.

The key point here is that four of these six reasons are explicitly religious and have absolutely nothing to do with foreign policy or anything else. Furthermore, the writers of the article state several times that these reasons are listed in order of importance. They conclude by saying that even if we withdrew from the Middle East entirely, they would still hate us because we’re not Muslims. It’s reasonable to presume that the shitbags who left the UK to fight for ISIS were broadly motivated by similar concerns, and probably prioritised them in a similar way.

6

You seem to be trying to make a pragmatic argument; that this is the only recourse your hypothetical young Muslim has. Yes, he will get attention. Then what? There’s no point in having the eyes of the world on you if you don’t to anything to change their minds and their actions. If he’s truly motivated to end suffering and injustice then a suicide bombing is a dead end. You say yourself it won’t change anything. I would argue that it can only, and has only, made things worse.

Meanwhile there are examples of getting positive attention and driving change. I remember the economic boycotts that pressured South Africa to end Apartheid. The world does wake up to injustices; not as fast as we should, but it happens.

7

What was Iraq if not terrorism by foreign states?

‘terrorism’ is a judgemental term - enemies are ‘terrorists’, friends are ‘freedom fighters’.

All of human history is filled with them.

8

Let me buttress my argument.

Terrorism has been used effectively by many of those states now decrying it. Israelis for example, used ruthless terrorism tactics against both the British and the Arabs. Are they now shunned for it? The Provisional IRA, whose members are now seated in positions of authority in Northern Ireland and are rightly treated with great respect, are the very men directly responsible for murdering innocent men, women and children. The American government itself has encouraged and financed terrorism in South America aimed at the governments it disliked.

Terrorism then on the evidence of these incidents (and many more could be cited) is clearly a legitimate tool of those who fight for justice or independence. How can Western leaders decry without hypocrisy the very terrorism that has been used by them so successfully in the past? If the nascent Israeli state had believed that it was vital for their cause to hijack airliners and fly them into skyscrapers does anyone think for one moment they would have hesitated?

What should a Muslim think when he studies history? When he sees that the very countries he is now fighting once used terrorism to further their ends yet are now feted and honoured by the rest of the world? Will he not draw the lesson that terrorism could work for his cause too and no matter what heinous acts he commits he too could end up as a world statesman welcomed by the nations that now would hunt him down and kill him?

The Western leaders may choose to ignore and forget the past, today’s terrorists will not. History has taught them that terrorism sometimes can and does work.

9

That is what he should think: that they are “the very countries he is now fighting”. Because here we are, acting as if he could be terrorized into refraining from attacks; and yet here he is, preparing to carry out attacks in response.

What should he think when he studies that? “If I kill some folks, hoping that others will be terrorized into refraining from attacks, then what’ll happen? Well, what has happened? I chose to respond with violence, like some kind of would-be terrorist; and I reckon the friends and relatives and countrymen of the people I attack will choose to respond with violence, like would-be terrorists.”

10

That might be true of ISIS, but I don’t think it was true of Al Qaeda. From what I recall, Bin Laden’s statements paid lip service to inviting us to “come to Islam” but mostly talked about foreign policy. For example:

Full text: Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’: Removed: document | Information | The Guardian

11

I’m not seeing arguments JUSTIFYING TERRORISM here. At least not in the sense that I take the title of the thread to be about. Not in a general way.

Everyone who commits acts of terror, justifies it to themselves, and many try to justify it to others, but no one has ever successfully argued that terror is GENERALLY justified. That in and of itself, it is the correct choice of action.

Likening it to something more mundane…everyone who cheats on a spouse, justifies it to themselves in the same ways. But there is no such thing as a situation where cheating, in and of itself, changes from being a very negative act, to a positive one.

It seems to me that terrorism is inherently, perhaps by definition, unjustifiable.

12

To quote Sir John Harrington, “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? / Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” Terrorists who succeed in achieving a political goal are merely “freedom fighters”, particularly when they subsequently get to write the official record.

13

Terrorism is justified only to the extent that it works. The world has tended to coddle terrorists, as long as they don’t go too far. But that coddling led directly to Al Qaeda and ISIS, who have no moral limits. If they weren’t so hardwired to think that dogs are worthless according to their faith they’d be attacking puppy shelters just to shock our consciences.

However, it doesn’t REALLY work. No one has yet achieved any useful objective through terrorism. Palstine is still occupied. The caliphate hasn’t returned. Terrorism is not motivated by a lack of alternatives. That’s known as guerilla warfare. You attack the enemy with a little because you don’t have a lot. When you attack people because of their nationality or faith, especially when they have no relation to your problem, that’s just pure moral depravity. Hezbollah blew up a Jewish center in Argentina because they hate Jews. No other reason. There was no logical objective that could be achieved by attacking Argentina or even Jews in Argentina. Unless killing Jews is the objective, which for Hezbollah it is.

One can always justify killing innocents if there is a military objective to be obtained. We bombed civilians in Germany and Japan in part to keep them from being able to make armaments. What does killing Western civilians do? Nothing useful to them. The kind of terrorism we see today has no rational objective. They are taught to hate Jews and Westerners, so they kill Jews and Westerners. Even if they lose 3 guys and only kill 6, it’s a great victory, because even the lives of their brethren don’t really mean anything to them. Most of these guys would love to see the world burn, as long as it killed the Jews and Americans.

14

Then our young Muslim friend would totally understand why someone here would come after him, and his family and neighbors. This person would work to kill as many of them as possible as he goes out to his appointment with Destiny. The more people he kills, the more horrific the mutilations, the more the world will be unable to ignore his cause that Muslims are evil. Who can say he is wrong?

Evil works in both directions. It is totally wrong no matter the purpose and cause.

15

To those that say terrorism is the only option, I would point out the people who have succeeded using peaceful means while in the position of less power. People like Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and others like the them. Those are the people we remember as great leaders, not some bozo blowing himself up with a suicide vest.

The problem, of course, is that the terrorists are not interested in a peaceful resolution to their conflicts. What they want is to bully and oppress others, not just to themselves be free of oppression. If all they wanted was to be free of oppression, there are examples of other oppressed groups immigrating to the west whose example they could have followed (Vietnamese, Cubans, Indians, Bangladeshi, Nigerians, etc.). The problem is that their goal is to become the bully, not just to be free of the current person / group that is bullying them.

16

Well, I don’t blame them for violence, peaceful resistance only works on receptive opponents. It works when you can appeal to the conscience of the people you are trying to persuade. I do understand at least that much about why they do what they do. They’ve been taught that we are the Great Satan. How can there be any reasoning with us? But they should be limiting themselves to military targets, or at least economic targets if they must.

17

I think there’s a line to be drawn here between asymmetric warfare and terrorism. Yes, the standing army will dub both terrorists, but there’s a difference between a guerilla/partisan/resistant/saboteur and a terrorist. Terrorists kill whoever indiscriminately, partisans stick to targets that make sense and militarily justified objectives (which may include civilians, but only when those civilians are involved in helping the enemy in some way).
There’s a moral justification for blowing up the Pentagon or the White House. The twin towers ? Not so much.

[QUOTE=FlikTheBlue]
To those that say terrorism is the only option, I would point out the people who have succeeded using peaceful means while in the position of less power. People like Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and others like the them. Those are the people we remember as great leaders, not some bozo blowing himself up with a suicide vest.
[/QUOTE]

Mandela was engaged in military action, dude. That’s why he was sent to jail. And while people love to remember Gandhi’s non-violence, the truth is Indian independence was won a lot more with guns than with sit-ins.

18

I think the real lesson of Mandela and Gandhi is how they tried to pull their countries together after they had won. Most revolutionaries seek revenge once they get the upper hand.

19

What is the freedom they are fighting for? We have seen what they would do if they achieved power; set up a caliphate where people are enslaved, brutalized, and killed.

Terrorism could be justified is the end goal was a better, freer country, and if the terrorism is both likely to achieve the goal, and the least destructive way of achieving the goal.
Since the terrorists goal is evil, nothing done in the name of that evil can be justified.

20

Limit themselves to military targets? When those targets are the most powerful military forces on the planet? Who in their right mind would do that? Soft targets are ideal for the terrorist, the weaker and more vulnerable the better. You then hit your opponent where it really hurts. It’s the sensible thing to do.