There are some sweeping statements being made here that only seem to apply to Al Qaeda and its ilk, and fall down when applied to other terror groups, such as the IRA, just to take one instance.
The IRA had a strong chain of command, with a high degree of organisation. The IRA’s strategic goal - Brits out of Northern Ireland - was shared by a large minority of the NI population (and almost certainly a majority of the entire island of Ireland population) even if the majority of segment of the population did not agree with their tactics, and may have despised the organisation itself. The IRA considered itself an army, and engaged in “army”-to-army attacks (IEDs, snipers, mortaring military bases) in addition to blowing up civilians.
If you claim this to be an exception, feel free to try to apply your definitions to the Tamil Tigers as well, if you like.
Yes, but regardless of the support and organization the IRA might have had, it still wasn’t a state actor. It wasn’t an organized millitary or government the way that the British army and British government was/is.
On both sides? Probably not. On one side? Gulf War I was waged with a volunteer army, at least on the US side, and the US took steps to minimize collateral damage that were nearly unprecedented. If you mean those steps were not 100% successful, well, sure, but the distinction of intent remains.
One of the key distinctions of terrorism is that they strike at non-military targets by preference. If in time of war I attack a conglomeration of factories producing anti-aircraft guns, poison gas, and optical components for their war effort, that is a legitimate military tactic even if it kills the cleaning crew. If I set off a bomb in a market place, then that is a tactic designed to bring about terror. The idea of terrorism is to bring about terror, in hopes of implementing a political objective that I cannot produce militarily.
If you are arguing that there are no “pure” targets, well, that cuts both ways.
This is true, but it’s more of a legalistic issue rather than an ethical or moral one. It implies that there is a difference in the acceptability of an act if it is performed by agents of an established and recognized government versus by agents of an organization that is not widely recognized as a government, even if it conducts many of the activities and responsibilities of a government (the Irish Republican Army, Hezbollah). Making a distinction of legitimacy in terms of targeting only military targets or industrial targets that directly support the military (setting aside issues of unavoidable collateral damage) one still has to conclude that the actions of recognized military forces are often–and intentionally–just as immoral or unethical as that of terrorists; the firebombing of Dresden, Tokyo, et cetera, carpet bombing campaigns in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, and the indiscriminate scattering of mines and cluster bombs in Iraq are not intended to strike directly at military targets but to discourage or attack non-combatants that might either deliberately or inadvertently provide aid or cover to combatants, and in many cases, explicitly to demoralize the civilian populace and undermine what support exists for the government. The people who stand trial for war crimes are almost invariably members of the defeated forces, while victors (or those who collaborate with the victors) come away with impunity regardless of their actions.
And delving into the issue of “state-supported terrorism” is an even more uncomfortably nebulous situation; the United States is on-record in many times and places as providing funding, material support, weapons, protection, and training for many groups of partisans or insurgents that would, from a different perspective, be firmly and legitimately regarded as terrorists. Covert support via intelligence services or extra-legal efforts by contractors known through the executive level is doubtless even wider.
I don’t mean to defend terrorism, particularly the actions of militant religious fundamentalists whose primary goal is the suppression or reduction of cultural, religious, or personal freedoms, and the imposition of their belief system on the survivors. The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not attacks of military significance nor on occupying forces, but intended as a cultural affront; and one that, from a purely pragmatic point of view, was of ultimately questionable value. But the moral high ground often taken against terrorism isn’t the firmest foundation to build a house on, even if it does appeal to a sense of parochial justice.
Shodan, the firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Pforzheim, et cetera, as well as the firebombing of the majority of cities in Japan, weren’t just bombing campaigns of strategic targets that happened to have the side effect of creating a lot of collateral damage; they were specifically intended to kill a sizable portion of the civilian population and do damage to non-industrial areas. One can–and many did–argue that these were legitimate targets under the concept of “total war” insofar as these populations were instrumental in producing goods and providing logistical support that supported war efforts, but nonetheless the result was General LeMay counting is successes in terms of deaths per unit bombing flight or planes lost. These weren’t deaths of combatants; these were deaths of explicitly civilian populations. Aside from the fact that the campaigns were carried out by uniformed airmen under the direction of a legitimate government, there is nothing else that distinguishes this act from terrorism on a massive scale.
Note that this policy in war isn’t limited either to the United States or this time period; “scorched earth” has existed as long as mass armies, from the time that the Scythians attacked Persia through the Gallic Wars, the Norman Conquest of England, the Mongol invasions, the American Civil War, and countless other wars; indeed, it is more the rule than the except that war spills out and deliberately attacks noncombatants and destroys residential and non-warfare industry and agriculture. In that context, terrorism is distinguishable only in that the players are not officially sanctioned by a government in their actions, and that is usually occurs on a much less grand scale than is true of military warfare.
I think you are better at making the distinction between terrorism and war than you give yourself credit for. Your description of the 9/11 attacks seems to me to be a good basis for distinguishing the two. Because to contrast, say, 9/11 with Dresden identifies why the one is terrorism and the other war.
Because I would argue that much of the justification for the Dresden firestorm was apart from the doctrine of “total war”. As cited, Dresden was an important rail center, largely because it was only lightly damaged in the war. And the justifications for the attack were that they were producing munitions - even WMD. So you can make a justification for attacking Dresden that you can’t for the WTC. I doubt that even bin Laden would argue that the Twin Towers were legitimate military targets qua military - only that he was justified in attacking civilians because they were anti-Islam or engaged in gambling or trading at interest or cultural imperialism or whatever.
But that is a key distinction.
The attack on Dresden was not intended as a cultural affront; 9/11 was. Dresden could be justified for attack because it was producing military goods; the WTC was not. War is striking at warriors, and hitting civilians by accident. Terrorism is striking at civilians even if warriors are available.
Which is not to say that the US has never engaged in terrorism, or even that terrorism is always unjustified. But I don’t believe the concept of “total war” makes war indistinguishable from terrorism because [list=A][li]We don’t always engage in total war, as my Gulf War I example was meant to convey, and [*]the terrorists of 9/11 aren’t engaged in total war either. They have a different set of goals, and therefore a different set of tactics.[/list]It might be easier to justify calling Hiroshima an act of terror, and even that happened in time of war. Plus the fact that there were essentially no completely non-military targets in Japan in 1945. [/li]
Regards,
Shodan
I think there is some confusion here. Terrorist is a technical term, not just a word for anyone who uses fear as a tool. Everybody uses fear - corprate managers, legit armies, guerrillas - everybody.
But the rail center and marshalling yards were somewhat outside of the city center (Altstadt), and most of the industrial areas were well away from Altstadt. The Albertstadt garrison was several kilometers away and was barely touched by the attacks which were concentrated on the city center. In addition, the bombing attacks were intentionally formulated to create a firestorm, with concussive blockbusters (which shattered windows and heavy structures) followed by incendiaries which would set fire to the unsheltered interiors and the old wood frame buildings in Altstadt. The almost utter destruction of Dresden–a historic city with a population of over 600,000 and a major refugee area–wasn’t an incident of precision bombing with unintended mass collateral damage; it was a deliberate effort to level the city.
Whether this was done for logistical reasons, or as asserted by some, to demonstrate to the German High Command what would become of all of Germany should they continue to resist Allied advances, is unclear, although there is almost certainly an aspect of vengeance by the British who wanted to retaliate for German blitzes on Coventry and London, and no small amount of horror on the part of others who realized that the indiscriminate bombing of remaining German cities would have little impact on the progress of the war at that late date. By February 1945 the German industrial machine was slowly grinding to a halt due to a lack of fuel and resources, and in any case the bombing had little overall effect on the remaining industry.
The attacks on Japanese cities are even more morally ambiguous. It is true that the Japanese distributed industrial production to individual homes, making it far more difficult to target legitimate military targets, but by the time that serious strategic bombing effort began in Japan–delivered by LeMay’s XXI Bombing Command–the ability of the Imperial Japanese Navy, devastated early in the war at the Battle of Midway, to conduct offensive operations was extremely limited, and long range air attacks were almost impossible. Certainly the U.S. wanted to avoid a costly and bloody invasion of Honshu, but the character of the strategic bombing of Japanese cities quickly went from necessary but regrettable casualties to decisively end the war to duck shoots resulting in the deaths of unprecedented numbers of civilians and the gross destruction of major cities. Bombing planners had to be held back from attacking and Hiroshima, Nagasaki just so there would be some relatively undamaged areas left by which to measure the effectiveness of planned atomic bomb attacks.
In short, strategic attacks on non-military targets were the ultimate extension of “total war” philosophy used to rationalize such attacks; no more was it just a matter of the unfortunate but unavoidable deaths of non-combatants, but attacks that were actually measured in the number of deaths and amount of overall destruction, and on scales previously not possible and virtually incomprehensible. The stated intent–aside from whatever military/industrial impact it might have–was to demoralize the population, and in the case of the Japanese bombings, it almost certainly helped to do so, convincing Hirohito that the assertions of his military advisers of continued victory and protection of the Home Islands were as hollow as the propaganda fed to the masses. The objective of the firebombing campaigns of WWII–and to some extent, the bombing campaigns (legal and illegal) in Southeast Asia–is to create a terror of supporting the opposing forces, and to deny those forces an area of safe haven; even if they were to embed themselves into the midst of non-combatants they’ll still be attacked.
Regarding the 9/11 attacks, in a real sense it is an expression of “total war”, albeit on a scale limited by the abilities of the group to render harm; it was a significant (if temporary) financial blow to the US economy, and an indication that neither the premier symbols of capitalism nor of its military might (the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon) were vulnerable, even to a small group of fanatics with limited resources and little in the way of professional skill. Ultimately it did more harm than good for al-Quida, putting them on the run and incapable of launching another attack of similar scope on US soil, though their real objectives have nothing to do with conventional rationality or winning a conflict, but rather stimulating anti-Islamic response (making it easier to recruit more members) and highlighting a formerly marginalized group as a major cultural touchstone. It was both good publicity for fundamentalist Islam and (as it turns out) an effective feint for getting “The Greater Satan” embroiled in unwinnable conflict in the Middle East.
The problem is that we are also equating the tactics to the group. Both 9/11 and Dresden could be considered “terror tactics”. The purpose of both is to demoralize and intimidate your enemy into capitulation. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were clearly terror weapons, regardless of the military significance of the cities.
The use of terror is not immoral per se. War is not a duel fought in a sandbox between two teams. It is the context that terrorists use their terror tactics that make it so abhorant. Unlike Dresden, which was an enemy city in a declared war, who was America with on 9/11? And who was America at war with afterwards? Everyone who disagrees with our foreign policy?
Declaring war / attacking those groups who attack us. Declare war on the Taleban, sure. Declare war on Al Queda, sure. But declaring war on a tactic, just because you’ve decided that it represents a style of warfare you don’t like, is moronic and ultimately will fail.
It’s a simple way of dehumanizing the enemy and part of the propaganda war, along with keeping us scared - they’re not like us, they’re Terrorists ™ therefore don’t have rights, don’t have to be treated as combatants, and certainly have no valid grudge against us.
Fight them - yes, absolutely. but that doesn’t mean you have to dehumanize your enemy. It makes it damn hard to make friends when the war is over.
But that is my point - Dresden was a military target, attacked in time of war, and (at least partly) attacked in furtherance of military ends. It was attacked, IOW, in spite of the fact that many civilians would be killed - not because.
I agree that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are much closer to an implementation of “total war”. But still not a terrorist attack, because the victims were not chosen primarily because they were non-combatants. But in an odd sort of way, Hiroshima was more like terrorism even though another, more directly military target - Tokyo and the palace of the emperor - was not chosen for the attacks. That would have been easier to justify as a military action, and more psychologically defeating for the Empire of Japan. But we chose another city instead.
I think you are touching on one of my arguments - the targets of 9/11 were not chosen for their military value, nor as part of a campaign of “total war”. Even the one military target, the Pentagon, was chosen for its symbolic rather than its strategic value as a target.
But it was about as far from “total war” as you can get. It was not part of a campaign of military conquest - just an act of terror. Of course that was because they had nowhere close to the resources to wage an actual war. But therefore, they chose non-military targets. That’s what made it terrorism rather than war.
No one that I know of hesitated to call it terrorism when suicide bombers hit the U.S.S. Cole, or when a bombing killed 284 Marines in Beirut in 1984, or any of the other instances where Muslim groups attacked outposts of the U.S. military in the Middle East. In our current discourse, thus, terrorism isn’t defined by hitting civilian targets exclusively or preferentially.
Also, it isn’t defined by actions intended to inspire fear and provoke a certain response, as opposed to actions with a tactical goal related to military operations. Consider, for example, American actions in El Salvador in the late 80’s, when death squads backed by the CIA hit countless civilian targets. Without doubt the purpose of that campaign was to terrify the population of El Salvador into submission. Yet our pundits don’t call it terrorism (in the rare instances where they mention it at all.)
The area of Dresden that was specifically targeted by the bombing campaign of 13-15 Feb was not a military target. The Altstadt area that was targeted was not an industrial area, did not serve to house garrisons or ammunition depots, and was not otherwise a legitimate military target. Furthermore, the firebombing campaign was clearly intended to destroy the entire city, routing the residents (a portion of whom were employed in war material industry) and refugees. It was also symbolic; that the Allies would destroy any and all German cities in order to achieve victory against Germany. It was not an effective strike in terms of military value.
The firebombing of Japanese cities and the use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki are even less credible in terms of specific military objectives. The cities were essentially indefensible and the IJN and Japanese air force were critically hobbled. At this point, Japan was not a significant military threat, and the greatest concern is that a long siege war would wear on the patience of the American public creating a three cornered standoff between the Soviet Union, China (locked in a battle between the KMT and Mao’s Communists), and the United States. The US wanted a definitive stronghold in the East Pacific, and the surrender of Japan to the US was paramount to avoiding the kind of division that was already the apparent result in Europe. To that end, the firebombing campaigns were used to threaten Japan with utter annihilation–not just of their military capability, but of their entire civilization. Again, LeMay measured the effectiveness of the bombing campaign in terms of civilian deaths and the percentage of total destruction of cities versus bombs dropped and planes lost. This wasn’t accidental and unavoidable loss of civilian life; this was intentional warmaking against non-combatants. The nation was admittedly at war with the United States, but the populations of these cities were neither armed to resist attack nor did they participate in the decision to go to war.
As I understand it, your definition of terrorism is that the attacking force lacks the capability to engage in a conventional confrontation, either pitched battle or strategic-type saturation bombing. That is a legitimate definition, but it carries with it the connotation of criminal action, which begs the question: what is criminal (i.e. immoral or unethical) about “terrorism” that is not criminal about larger scale war efforts which target or result in excessive destruction of non-combatant populations or regions? This is a very sticky question to approach logically because it forces you to start defining things in terms of relative ethics and arbitrary distinctions; it’s okay if an established government drops bombs but not okay for insurgents to do it. msmith537 says, “The use of terror is not immoral per se,” and argues that it is context that defines what is or is not terrorism; again, a credible argument (although leading back into the relative debates of appropriate context) but the underlying assumption–that terror and mass killing of noncombatants is sometimes appropriate–is questionable (or at least should be questioned). It may be pragmatically unavoidable, at least in terms of attaining a specific objective, but the act or the objective often turn out to be unnecessary, at least in hindsight.
Regarding “total war”, this isn’t just a style of warmaking, but an overarching rationale that argues that it is justifiable to target any and all people and properties which may now or in the future contribute to the ability of an opponent to wage war, and specifically targeting fiscal, industrial, and logistical resources. From our standpoint, what was done was explicitly criminal–the hijacking of aircraft, murder of air crews and passengers, use of false identification, et cetera–but not qualitatively different from many covert operations that all major nations have participated in. From the the standpoint of fundamentalist Muslims, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Capitol, and civilian populations that occupy them are all legitimate targets as unbelievers against which they are participating in a declared jihad. The fact that their jihad is based on a repressive, atavistic philosophy that is opposed to the basic founding principles of the United States makes it criminal to us, but from their standpoint it is merely achieving a particular objective.
The WTC was probably viewed as a legitimate military target in the long run for the war against The Great Satan.
For as long as warfare has been recorded, opposing forces have always concentrated on taking down important symbols of the other side. It’s demoralizing, often crippling, and incredibly uplifting for your own bedraggled army.
Now I don’t want to sound like I’m legitimizing “terrorist activities” or tactics, but for an armed force like al queda that is severely outnumbered and out gunned it would be ludicrous to attack the US military. Jokes of ‘suicide bombers’ aside, their overall cause would obviously not be served by successfully destroying a single barrack or even battleship only to suffer unimaginable losses in turn.
“terror and mass killing of noncombatants is sometimes appropriate”
the 2001.9.11 attacks were in fact an expression of “total war”
the methods employed to carry out the attacks were “not qualitatively different from many covert operations that all major nations have participated in”
then does anything remain which might morally distinguish the attacks from more conventional warfare? All I can think of at the moment is that Al-Qaeda, by attacking a nation foreign to their point of origin while not answering to any chain of command with a ministry of state at the top, essentially prevented the U.S. from even attempting a diplomatic response while forcing the U.S. to violate another sovereign in order to attempt retaliation. That’s really more of a crime against the Afghani people than the U.S., but there you go.
I guess I’m harking back to msmith537’s post; if we try thinking about individual terrorist groups as ‘legitimate’ (if tiny) nations, then how do their actions look? I’m thinking they look like cruddy little nations, but there’s probably more to this.
I think this is the one discrete distinction one can make between legitimate military forces controlled by some form of recognized government, and a terrorist organization; between the former the opportunity for negotiation (both of the ground rules for warfare and terms of surrender or armistice) exists; with the latter, the leadership and organization has no governmental authority and serves more as a clearinghouse for information, direction, and provision for armed action by individual, semi-autonomous cells.
Even by this definition, though, many organizations firmly classified as “terrorist groups” don’t really fit. The Irish Republican Army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Hezbollah, and many other terrorist groups have (at times at least) had political arms, constitutions and bylaws, democratic or pseudo-democratic representation among populations, and have otherwise provided for many functions of legitimate governance. A broad reading of the definition would have the Maoist government as “terrorist” prior to 1970 (at least from a Western point of view), while the present un-nation status of Republic of China questions the legitimacy of any military actions it might take, even in defense of Taiwan and the Pescadores.
Ultimately, the definition of terrorist is largely a political one, and the application of the label is relativist. Yesterday’s terrorists are today’s Founding Fathers, and today’s “modern secular government” may become tomorrow’s Axis of Evil.
I think “destroying the entire city” would include the factories producing optical components and anti-aircraft weaponry by definition.
As I mentioned earlier, there are relatively few “pure” targets, which I guess goes to your point about total war. I guess I would say that, to the extent that the firebombing was intended to destroy Dresden as a military center, it was war. To the extent that it was deliberately aimed at civilians because they were civilians, it could be considered terrorism.
That’s a lot more problematic. I grant you that Imperial Japan was not a democracy, but I don’t know that Hiroshima or Nagasaki would have vetoed the attack on Pearl Harbor even if they could. Is that what you were talking about earlier about the all-volunteer force? It would make sense, if you are arguing that volunteers for the military are suitable subjects for attack in a war. But it is literally impossible to not include conscientious objectors (so to speak) in any war, any more than you can shoot only the volunteers in a conventional military attack on your position. IYSWIM. And the notion that an attack is illegitimate only because your target is not armed against you also seems wrong to me. If there are no anti-aircraft guns on top of a munitions factory (for example), that does not mean I can’t bomb it. Extend that to a whole city, and you see what I am saying. Whether or not you can fight back, if you are at war with me, I can bomb you.
That’s part of it. Much of it is something else.
Clausewitz said that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”. Terrorism is the continuation of politics by means other than war. Those means being the preferential targeting of civilians because they are civilian rather than military. The hope being that you can create enough terror in other civilians that they will concede defeat even though their military has not been defeated.
Certainly terrorism is mostly engaged in by those whose military has no chance of victory. But it is not limited to them. Witness your description of the bombing of Nagasaki.
Depends on what they intend. It’s war for insurgents to bomb cities, in time of war. It’s terrorism for governments to bomb civilians deliberately.
Certainly it should be questioned.
But for the most part, I agree with msmith537. It is sometimes justifiable to attacks civilians to cow the others into surrender. Such things would be justified mostly on utilitarian grounds - it is OK (or at least, better) to bomb Nagasaki and force a surrender than to stage an invasion that would cost more lives than were lost in the atomic attack.
And I don’t think you can argue based on hindsight.
Right, but I think that is somewhat different from terrorism - mostly because it is part of war, and thus includes attacks on military targets as well as attacks on civilians so as to cripple the ability to wage war.
If I firebomb farmland to starve out the army, that’s total war. If I bomb Hiroshima to eliminate it as a military resource, that’s total war. If I bomb Hiroshima to scare the rest of Japan into surrender and thus shorten the war, that’s total war, too, although it can be seen as terrorism.
Yes, I think you are correct - the 9/11 attacks were justified in their view, just as the bombing of Hiroshima was justified in mine. And if I accepted their view of the ends, no doubt I would accept the means as well.
But that is the point. I don’t believe that the ends justify the means. So this would be an instance of unjustifiable terrorism.
It is much like the doctrine of just war. ISTM that the same rationale can usefully be applied to terrorism.
Thank you for your thoughts, which are interesting and well-stated. I am going out of town shortly, so please do not take it amiss if I don’t respond further, at least for a while.
I guess you don’t know me, but I always sorta wondered why people were all het up over these attacks, or considered them “terrorism.” To my mind, and in my limited understanding of international law, it is far preferable that hostile attacks be made on military - rather than civilian - targets.
I don’t think we are going to be able to agree upon an objective distinction between the terms terrorism vs warfare/military tactics, because those terms exist entirely within each specific context. The old “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” conundrum.
And how do we deal with civil wars, or popular insugencies? Is the generally accepted administration of a state the only group entitled to use violence to achieve its objectives? Does control of a state’s armed forces by whatever means legitimize an actor/party/position?
I’m also not convinced that all acts of “terrorism” are necessarily equally “wrong,” or necessarily more reprehensible than all acts of military violence. It is a little disingenuous for the US, as possessors of the world’s strongest military, to insist that all legitimate acts of violence occur within the context that we dominate. Simply because a different actor views matters from their perspective, and decide they can be more effective and achieve greater impact in ways other than throwing rocks at tanks, does not in my mind make those actions worse than all examples of military violence.
It seems pretty clear to me that it is far more preferable for an indigenous group to carry out an act of violence against a clearly military target located in their region, than, say, for a country to travel 1/2 way around the world to overthrow a sovereign simply because we wish to do so.
You’re right, it was a deliberate effort to destroy as much of the city as possible. “Area bombing” was practiced in part because of a strategy of dehousing worked out by British strategists. It was a deliberate and consicious attack on civilians; one proponent envisioned the masses rising in maddened frenzy against the Nazis.