So we're back to people not understanding the legitimate difference between guerilla warfare and terrorism?

I mean, I expect this kind of "mistake" from the moral equivalence screechers on the left, not from a government agency ostensibly tasked with the job of discerning between the two on a case-by-case basis.

It is an issue that well trascends this particular case.

Good luck for Ahmad.

What equivalence?

Supporting US interests = terrorism.

Opposing US interests = freedom fighter.

Duh.

Independent George, that is being far too simplistic. It also depends on which party is in the White House at a given time.

That bureaucrat needs a lesson in the differences between good and bad terrorism. First I borrow shamelessly from wikipedia to determine that terrorism is: "Generally speaking, the term, as evidenced by the root word terror, refers to acts that are not intended to merely victimize or eliminate those who are killed, injured or taken hostage, but rather to intimidate, destabilize, or otherwise influence the societies to which they belong.[citation needed] In this sense, terrorism can be seen as related to psychological warfare." Now that we understand the term we can point out instances of good terrorism - the fire bombing of Dresden - nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki [shortened the war, saved many lives, ...], terrorism light "AKA Shock and Awe", but simply (and this is where even a government civil servant ought to get it) good terrorism is when our side does it. Bad terrorism is of course when someone else does this sort of stuff to us. If we can wipe the slate clean for the former Nazi's who helped us build the bomb, we needn't get hung up about a little terrorism (of the right kind of course).

Supporting US interests = terrorism.

Opposing US interests = freedom fighter

Where did I hear that before . . .

Oh yeah, Al Jazeera

Care to offer an objective definition of terrorism with a bona fide example?

Ian: That bureaucrat needs a lesson in the differences between good and bad terrorism.

No. The KDP are not "good terrorists." They aren't terrorists of any sort.

"Generally speaking, the term, as evidenced by the root word terror, refers to acts that are not intended to merely victimize or eliminate those who are killed, injured or taken hostage, but rather to intimidate, destabilize, or otherwise influence the societies to which they belong.[citation needed] In this sense, terrorism can be seen as related to psychological warfare."

I see. {Snark elided for comity's sake}

Let's try to parse

"acts that are intended to influence the society to which they belong,"

which I think is a fair distillation of the nub.

SO:

Some acts "belong" to a ("the") "society" they "are intended to influence"?

And other, nonspecified acts do not so "belong"?

And acts that do not "belong" to a specific society can't qualify as "terrorism"?

I've never heard of acts "belonging to societies" before. What could that mean? What are the other categories along such an axis?

I'll be charitable and go with the conclusion that too many Wiki-cooks spoiled the sense of that Wiki-paragraph. To quote Mister Kiku in Heinlein's Star Beast, "The court finds itself incapable of following the alleged reasoning."

Further, I have a hard time imagining acts of war that are to no degree psychological -- that do not have some intent to influence psyches. Even brute conquest in the "Jengizzz Khon" [sic] mold has such, on the subjects.

A simple substitution of something like "chiefly intended" would help here, but then, I don't carry Wikipedia's water any more.

{Edited for some reason or other}

PS re #5, by Mr Coull:

Former Nazis? Helped us build the bomb?

You're being comically ahistorical.

Former workers & engineers for the Third Reich helped us build ICBMs.

Former workers and engineers for the Third Reich helped the USSR build their bombs. We already had our bomb shiznit (including the "Super") pretty much wired, without Nazis helping at all.

Try to pick your targets a little more precisely, won't you? Sloppy rants are, well... sloppy. Sloppy enough, long enough, you might get invited gone.

REFUGEES from the Nazis helped us build the bomb. In addition to the ethnic and political persecution issues, their approach was considered to be 'Jewish Physics," hence politically incorrect. So they fled, and were induced to cooperate with allied efforts.

The rocket engineer types didn't show up until after the refugee types had already succeeded with their project.

Do they even PRETEND to teach history in schools any more?

As near as I can tell, Mr Coull's actual point (however poorly buttressed by the "authority" provided by the amphigoric Wikipedia excerpt) seems to be:

war equals terrorism;

with a sub-observation that:

it's all about who gets to label what what.

That's a defensible stance to take. But I just uttered the whole thing in twelve words and a semicolon, and I wasn't even trying to be concise.

SO, let's go at it. But let's try to cut the chit-chat and address that claim, or maybe address the idea that the INS needs its procedures examined.

On a note related to the entry, I was told quite some time ago that INS policy was that if you were ever sentenced to prison for a year and a day or more, you were considered a felon, and hence persona non grata for green cards -- regardless of what regime sentenced you, what the trial if any was like, or even what the conviction was for.

That would include the Old Soviet Union, the DPRK, etc., etc.

INteresting if true, no?

By my definition, a terrorist is anyone who targets unarmed civilian populations (by violence or coercion) to intimidate a government of poulation.

By that definition, they're are plenty of anti-Castro terrorists in Florida. They're activities, such as bombing planes and hotels, strafing coastlines etc, are certainly anti-civilian. Yet they are not considered terrorists by the state goverment.

Doesn't that seem odd?

Look, I don't know anything about this Kurdish group. However, I have no problem allowing anyone who helped secure Iraq into this country. Hell, that's the LEAST we can do. What about 40 acres and a mule?

I expect this kind of "mistake" from the moral equivalence screechers on the left, not from a government agency...

By the way, what type of people generally work in and runs govermnment agencies? (us lefties)

This is unfortunate. So many arms of such a large lumbering bureaucracy where one hand doesn't know what the other is doing leads to this kind of nonsense.

alchemist:

That's an interesting article on Florida. But the article points out a lot that the U.S. is doing. Its prosecuted cases, its passed laws to deter vioence against Cuba and its engaged in disruption operations. The complaint appears to be more that juries aren't convicting, judges are throwing out cases, and d.a.'s are prosecuting for lesser offenses like illegal gun possession. (Similarly, Padilla was not charged with the most serious offenses and the government hasn't got a conviction yet agains the Sea of David cult)

I see this as problems inherent in confronting terrorism as a criminal matter. Crimes of pure intent to commit a future crime are hard to prosecute. More difficult when a portion or all of the crime takes place overseas in countries with bad human rights records. If anything, I think the type of terrorism directed towards Cuba is more dificult to prosecute than terrorism inspired from abroad but organized within and directed to the U.S.

N.M. #11
I was away the day they taught relative moralism versus absolute moralism via a close examination of post WWII events - but your point about historical precision is valid; I shall choose my metaphors more carefully in any future rants, if indeed I am to be allowed. I am doubly pleased that you were able to extract my point from that muddle (it must be extremely difficult when one is near apoplexy), because I too believe it to be defensible. BTW the line about being 'away that day...' is also sort of allegorical; so a careful scrutiny of the history of the curriculum of all the schools I ever attended, and my attendance records will not help you understand the point. Anyway... time to cut the chit-chat.

It's at least a "rebuttable" that states often get a free pass when targeting civilians disproportionately, thanks to Westphalian policies and the untrustworthy nature of centralized power.

In particular, anything short of outright genocide on their own populations can and does get / has been labeled an internal matter.

OTOH, if (and I say if) a guerilla or resistance group very specifically only targeted government functionaries or military targets and was extremely successful in minimizing collateral damage, I would expect that to be spun by any government interested in its own survival.

On the third hand, I'd expect the fighters to spin stuff as much as possible, too, including fibbing about their methods and trying to downplay any errors.

It's pretty much human nature to lie.

Please note:

I do not want this thread derailed, so please, all be on notice that this is not the thread to start listing American actions or those of Saddam or any other government. OK? OK. Assume we already got that.

As a policy experiment, further rants in this thread by anyone that are akin to #5 will be removed.

Civility. It's what's for dinner.

Correction and amplification: when I wrote

this is not the thread to start listing

I meant

"This is not the thread to post screeds regarding" --
mentioning any government or a specific action in passing as an illustration of a salient point might get a pass from me here.

But I am experimenting with thread horticulture. Efforts at adding value are appreciated. Other efforts are deprecated. I am tired from wading through a now-closed recent thread with circa 150 posts, mostly acrimonious.

Yes, I'll even delete R******* if he goes overboard. :)

N.M. #8
If one is to parse, it is incumbent on the parser to get it right. The phrase in that scurrilous wikipedia definition of terrorism "to which they belong" qualifies "... those who are killed, injured or taken hostage..." NOT "acts". Perhaps this clarification will help you make more sense of the piece.

Here's another thought (though some might find it hackneyed):

What if calling any actor a "terrorist" is precisely the wrong tack to take? What if a healthy and effective means of responding to deprecated actions is deprecation: ridicule and shame, properly directed, rather than validation by reaction? See Dean Ing's fictional work Soft Targets, probably out of print.

Like, instead of calling them terrorists, just call them "sm*ll d*ck m*therf*ckers"... Or perhaps like a certain ventriloquist's puppet...?

I know, I'm an alien. Some kind of Randite pseudo-individualist, or maybe a Paul Verhoeven Starship Troopers fascist. I get that a lot.

Verhoeven likes to say "War makes fascists of us all."

Is he right? If so, is it reversible?

Actually, forgive me. The chances of these topics being meaningfully discussed here are small. Unless someone cares to show me I underestimate the participants.

Mr Coull, #18: Thanks for your exegesis.

Let me explain what I was doing: Yes, one can parse it in the way you describe, and that probably was the intended meaning. But the sentence construction is ambiguous (possibly due to the too-many-cooks effect), and if I gave half a whit for Wikipedia as a source I'd try to rephrase it so it can't be misread; then one of the cooks would probably revert it to the prior form because he has a tin ear.

My intended point: if the sentence structure is that easily misread -- which it clearly is -- maybe one is well advised to not give the attempted definition conclusive authority? As you apparently did.

But this thread isn't about Wikipedia, and I apologize for my screed picking out [one of] its failings. I get off track, too. So let's return to our muttons!

Nort: I understand your point. At the same time, understanding how we (& our government) view terrorism goes a long way towards deciding who should be allowed in. My point is that government doesn't necessarily use the same standard all the time. I'm not really sure we know what that standard is...

I'd be curious to see where INS gets its information to decline applicants. It's certainly plausible that we get names of terrorists and organizations from our "allies", and the INS list is thus influenced from other nations. Turkey, for example, might list KDP as they have more to fear from any militant Kurdish group.

I'm not really sure we know what that standard is...

Or could accurately apply it if we knew? :) Yes, I get your point. Certainty of some outcome is easy. Certainty of correct conclusion, not so much. Still, we must try, or it all goes even more to hell.

Nort,
I think the problem with your suggestion is that any term you chose to replace terrorist or terrorism will eventually go through the same etymological evolution as terrorist or terrorism, both of which, not too long ago, were meant to be deprecating terms.

Sooner or later, such terms get slung around too loosely and come to mean "that which I do not like" or "evil-doers." They come to describe the relationship between the speaker and the person (or act) rather than describing the person (or act).

For example, according to most definitions offered here so far, the attack on the USS Cole wouldn't be a terrorist act since it targeted the military, not civilians. But the Cole attack is almost always included in any litany of terrorists attacks because doing so passes a moral judgement, not a descriptive one. By the same token, an act which targets civilians but for a good cause -- at least in the mind of the speaker -- will not be listed as a terrorist act in order to avoid passing judgement, or rather, to pass a different judgement.

The same thing will happen to ""sm*ll d*ck m*therf*ckers"

Since few people condemn the use of violence absolutely, the debate is always over judgement in using violence. When we disagree with the use of violence, we use one set of terms. When we agree with the use of violence, we use another set.

It's not really terrorism as such we object to, but the cause in which it is used.

Alchemist #21
To underline your point about the possibly situational nature of 'standards', I extract from the original post: "The KDP fought alongside the United States military as an ally during Operation Iraqi Freedom." Without reference to the specifics of the history, wasn't Saddam a US ally in another conflict? Where does this leave him viz a viz eligibility for a green card? Hence my original flawed attempt to assert that the classification of assorted combatants is by no means an absolute, but may revolve around such situational variables as who occupies the white house [see #4], or who is on today's list of 'a coalition of the willing'.

This is why I hate the conventional definitions of terrorism. Defining it around the 'intent to create fear' even 'intent to create fear for political purposes' is horribly ambiguous and includes no rigorous/objective test.

To pick a deliberately extreme example, if I make a horror movie with a political message, am I not creating fear with an aim to influence society in a political manner? It matches the technical definition but obviously doesn't match the spirit.

Not only does the conventional definition potentially scoop up all acts of war, regardless of legitimacy, it also can scoop up all kinds of other acts depending on the viewpoint involved.

The real definition of terrorism has little to do with tactics and more to do with the nation/non-nation actor issue. This is the actual crux of the definition, far more so than endless bush beating dealing with tactics. It's about the monopoly of force by nation-states.

I think that monopoly is both correct and necessary.

I lean instead towards an alternate definition that defines terrorism (which really needs a better term) as a condition of 'lacking a return address'. In this view nations cannot commit terrorism, they commit acts of war.

A nation attacking another nation's civilians provides a clear 'retaliation attacks go here' target. Scope is clearly defined, rules of engagement can be hashed out between combatants. Wars are usually reasonably quick, and have a good chance at being decisive, as in actually terminating the causal problem.

Terrorism and insurgency campaigns on the other hand often drag on for generations, are rarely if ever decisive and keep regions destabilized for as long as they drag on. And while the body counts from deliberate violence are lower than a war would cause, most deaths in conflicts come from starvation/disease, which puts the death tolls in most ongoing low level conflicts likely higher than a war would.

The other problem with not leaving a return address is that those seeking to retaliate are left looking at the larger host population the terrorists are swimming in, eventually find no practical option but to either attack the entire host population directly, or to just sort of swing in semi-blind and catch large swaths of the host population up in the fight anyway.

On a side note the US jujitsu trick in Iraq of taking advantage of the nasty nature of the terrorists to flip the local host population shows promise. A similar methodology also worked in Ireland, so hopefully we may have a generically applicable third approach between the two ugly current approaches ('shoot them all and let God sort it out' and 'do nothing and hope the mean people go away').

Note: for those who like to parse arguments in the worst way possible, I'm not advocating warfare as the best method of international conflict resolution (it's my worst but 2 actually), just as being preferable to no rules terrorism/insurgency/guerrilla action/whatever.

We have evolved systems of tradition and rules for how to declare, prosecute, and tidy up wars. We lack all of that for terrorism and it's really hard to see how it's even possible to evolve such things. Which is why what rules we have all run to eliminating it, not regulating it.

Nort: Feel free to strike me if I'm going astray. However, this line of reasoning intrigues me.

I lean instead towards an alternate definition that defines terrorism as a condition of 'lacking a return address'. In this view nations cannot commit terrorism, they commit acts of war.

Ok, I can buy this aspect of the definition. But we're still defining all those who participate in non-state violence as terrorists.

For the next part: Is there a definition that can adequately separate guerrilla freedom fighters from terrorists, or are they hopelessly intertwined? Take, for example: the French underground, or (for sci-fi junkies) the battlestar galactica episodes on new caprica, where the heroes were forced to target civilians that colluded with the oppressive government?

Also: what is the difference between violent vandalism and terrorism? Eco-terrorists haven't killed anyone (that I know of). Those crimes used to be considered vandalism, but that legal definition has now changed to full terrorism. Curious how it all fits.

For the next part: Is there a definition that can adequately separate guerrilla freedom fighters from terrorists, or are they hopelessly intertwined?

I'll take a stab at it. You could generally say guerillas attempt to follow the Geneva Convention without presenting an stationary, open target "in the field"; while terrorists routinely violate one or more of the Conventions as a matter of policy, as a specific and intentional military tactic.

Admittedly this definition leaves a lot of wiggle room, but it also allows for a useful gap between the two concepts. For example, fighting out uniform does not automatically convert a combatant from "guerilla" to "terrorist" status; it might, however, remove POW privileges and sometimes warrants field executions out-of-hand, per the traditional treatment of spies in war time.

Of course wiser minds than me have put together better, more comprehensive definitions; but I think mine serves for a useful rule-of-thumb. Just don't ask me to codify it for use by the INS...

For the next part: Is there a definition that can adequately separate guerrilla freedom fighters from terrorists, or are they hopelessly intertwined?

Personally I take the tact that you can define them out two ways.

First, if like the KDP here, they have a defined government, membership (citizenship), uniformed combatants, and a defined geographic control zone, than they are simply a nation no one else happens to recognize at the moment.

Second, a group from within a nation that targets attacks solely within the host nation is a criminal organization but not a terrorist. One serial killer would never be defined as a terrorist (even though he may generate significant terror). I don't see any meaningful difference if you scale that up into a group of serial killers, but correct me if I'm wrong. Nor do I find the distinction of political/non-political ends helpful. Legality and morality are unrelated axis.

So, no, ELF would not be a terrorist organization as long as they confine attacks to within the US. They are simply a criminal organization. If, however, they attack targets in Canada, now they have become a terrorist organization.

The difference is that within a nation there is a legal recourse for addressing the criminal activities, with all the rules and whatnot carefully defined. Across nations there really isn't any such methodology to take care of the problem, except of course to declare war on the host population.

We do have one out, namely that Canada, instead of declaring war, has agreements with the US that the US would treat the attack on Canada as a criminal manner and pursue it as such. But that requires significant trust and a relatively low level of conflict to work.

Note, I'm not saying anything about whether or not the criminal activity is justified, that's a different question having to do with means of legitimate political change available, nature of the act, etc.

A good example of this is FARC. If FARC operated solely within Colombia, they'd be a criminal group, and the problem would likely be resolved by now, as Colombia has largely rejected FARC. The problem is that FARC is now sheltering cross border in other nations, preventing Colombia from exercising civil control over the problem, prolonging it and destabilizing the entire region.

Treefrog,

I would guess that a sizable majority of conflicts over the course of human history have not been between well-defined nation states with "armies," but between self-identified groups of people. Further, most conflicts that did involve nation states on one side or the other (or both sides) involved significant employment of mercenary forces. (If the King of England hires Hessians to put down a rebellion of colonists who declare their independence and rely on farmers who have formed a militia, is he, the king, employing a legitimate use of violence?) Conflicts such as the current one in Darfur, the Crusades, the Moghul conquest of India, the Dutch conquest of Indonesia, or the 100 years war, will never be fit into a definition that is designed to place the participants of WWII into one category and the Mahdi army into another. The attempt to create such tidiness to produce comfortable moral outlines is doomed to failure. Terrorism is a tactic sometimes used by groups of people to get what they want. All judgement about it depends on how one fees about the ends, not the means. Whether the "actors" are nation states are not is wholly irrelevant. Often the people involved in a conflict are trying to create a nation state but are prevented by a nation state. Sometimes, too, the goal of creating a nation isn't present, but the group is in a conflict with an alien, invading group that may or may not be part of a nation. And, on the other hand, the army of a nation state is perfectly capable of using terrorism as a tactic to achieve desired ends.

I would guess that a sizable majority of conflicts over the course of human history have not been between well-defined nation states with "armies," but between self-identified groups of people.

Well, not to slide too much into sophistry, but essentially isn't the definition of a nation-state a self-identified group of people with a (more or less) defined geographic control zone?

Further, most conflicts that did involve nation states on one side or the other (or both sides) involved significant employment of mercenary forces. (If the King of England hires Hessians to put down a rebellion of colonists who declare their independence and rely on farmers who have formed a militia, is he, the king, employing a legitimate use of violence?)

I don't see how the origin of the forces is important as long as they clearly represent a nation. No one at the time of the American Revolution seemed to doubt that the Hessian mercenaries represented the nation of England in the conflict.

Conflicts such as the current one in Darfur, the Crusades, the Moghul conquest of India, the Dutch conquest of Indonesia, or the 100 years war

Darfur is an internal conflict (a failing nation-state), the Crusades were a war between an alliance of European nations (indeed the early ones included some of the actual Kings of said nations) against the Islamic Caliphate, both sides very well defined. Indeed the locals at the time had no trouble recognizing the Kingdom of Jerusalem for example (complete with legitimate government and rulers). The Islamics negotiated with them all the time. I think more conflicts fit the model than don't.

However, example nit-picking aside, I take your base point that not all conflicts fit the mold. Particularly the further back in history you go, the muddier things get.

And that is precisely my point. I was not arguing that this model describes all conflict. Exactly the opposite, I'm saying that the rules (and harsh penalties for) engaging in non-nation state conflict were evolved specifically to channel conflict around the nation-nation model specifically because the alternatives are so ugly.

Basically, war between nation states is a last ditch emergency steam release to get rid of the pressure in the boiler. It's bad, really bad, but not as bad as having the boiler outright explode.

So we have rules and traditions that encourage conflict to flow along certain lines. That's why war between nations is considered 'civilized' and the various forms of low-level tribal conflicts, insurgencies, etc are 'uncivilized'.

It's about utility, accountability and control. Without those, debates over conflicts just tend to slide into debates over labeling. For example, the recent history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the short version of which goes like:

You're a terrorist.
No, you're a terrorist.
No, YOU'RE a terrorist.
etc, etc.

Is there a definition that can adequately separate guerrilla freedom fighters from terrorists

It's easy: guerillas hit military targets, and terrorists hit civilian targets.

#30:

As I've said elsewhere, a fresh deliverable cluster munition mounted on a flight-ready attack aircraft is arguably more a "weapon of mass destruction" than a deteriorating gas warfare artillery shell many miles from any compatible cannon.

Mark, Treefrog et al are correct that terms (and with or without them, thinking) flow. A lot. It's important to have people talking about how they see the Emperor dressing on any given day, even if they disagree with one another about what they see -- pace Mr Coull.

Justification and carping are both always simpler than authentic critical thinking. Wisdom is still harder.

I sometimes think the latter two are just side-effects that have no significant selection pressure against them, rather than having any significant selection pressure for them.

Maybe that's only half right. At least critical thinking occasionally pays off with some scientific nuggets. Appearing wise can maybe get you laid. Actually being wise? Meh. Dispensible, I fear.

Let me take a shot or two: There is a mythos of "civilized" warfare, like unto "Marquis of Queensbury Rules" for fisticuffs, that seems to relate to a notion of fairness. To put it into almost cartoon terms, there's a notional "fair play" zone, outside of which you can "justly" get accused of "unnecessary roughness" or "cheating".

I conjecture that this really does result from either a naive or crypto-Christian (/Westphalian) model. When the Pope laid down the law in the Treaty of Westphalia, he really did threaten that God'll getcha if you violate the terms. I believe that at least one Pope really did excommunicate an entire nation-state's population when its monarch didn't play ball. {PS, If I'm remembering it rightly, once the monarch caved to Papal pressure, the mass excommunication was annulled}

Growing up is hard, and absent some sort of afterlife comeuppance, what is one practically left with, when bounds are overstepped? I have a few ideas, but I'd rather hear yours.

Edit:

When I say "mythos", I mean something like an underpinning shared narrative that goes without saying most of the time, and informs an ethos. Or at least I hope that's what I mean. I don't mean a fairy tale, necessarily.

When I mention "growing up" I don't mean to indicate that anyone who believes in an afterlife or divine judgment is not a grown-up; I mean losing the comforting illusion that war (or life) can be shoehorned into convenient games of cricket or badminton.

MT: I agree with this definition thus far.

Would you then agree with me that these anti-cuba freedom fighters are also terrorists (since it seems pretty clear they have attacked civilians).

Nort: I also think that's a good point. Back in the Rev. War, a military walked around with big targets on their heads "Shoot me! I'm soldier". The boundaries between "civilian" and "military targets" are blurring rapidly, especially as a military moves into, and holds a strategic town (see WWII, all of). The term "collateral damage" of course, adequately applies to civilian damages as a result of legitimate military actions.

This is especially true with guerrilla movements, which are almost always underfunded, undermanned, and need to use their smaller size to an advantage. However, "collateral damage" by guerrilla groups (assuming a well-intentioned group) is almost always seen (especially by oppressive governments) as evidence of their terrorist-nature. (Look, they attacked civilians!). Additionally, it's often difficult to figure out who caused what damage in areas that are both military and civilian.

Still, doesn't explain this particular situation, where it seems pretty obvious that KDP is a purely guerrilla group.

Norton:

There is a mythos of "civilized" warfare, like unto "Marquis of Queensbury Rules" for fisticuffs, that seems to relate to a notion of fairness.

Perhaps, just like there's arguably a mythos around fairness, egalitarianism, and free elections throughout the history of democracy/republicanism. But anyone who has lived in Chicago or New Orleans knows that the ideal systems quite often have the safeguarding rules broken. The key, however, is that we systematically punish the rule breakers once they are discovered. The lack of a spotless history does not invalidate the underlying system of morality.

Per the concepts laid down by Westphalia: sure, the Pope laid divine power behind the terms of the treaty, but at the time this was a common legitimizing action that doesn't affect the usefulness of the underlying concepts. (Here I'll invoke Voegelin's study of historical legitimacy via transcendental sanction and move on, hoping it will spare me an hour of typing out the full critique and sparing everyone else a few pages of dense reading (hey, that's twice this week I got to reference Voegelin in an argument, huzzah for me)) I know you aren't going this far, Norton, but if one were to dismiss Westphalian foundation they would need a stronger case than "the world is not Catholic".

Or at the very least they would need to put forth an equally profound alternative system, and I would argue no real alternatives really exist in the Western tradition, certainly not with the same historical tradition and testing. The closest thing out there is the kind of transnational bureaucratic moralism offered by the UN, which I suggest is a very bad model for anyone to take seriously.

In any case the relatively recent phenomenon of coordinated, international, non-state terrorist actions does not somehow invalidate our traditional frameworks of national sovereignty and warfare. I would argue the frameworks provide adequate terms and structures to deal with the problem; the question becomes one of national will, international political maneuvering, and "getting the details right". Michael Totten's post here shows we are getting some of the details wrong, which should obviously be rectified; but I don't see the case that terrorism is something sovereign countries are inherently incapable of dealing with.

It's Nortius, or Nort, but not Norton. :)

Thanks for the thought that went into the reply.

One of my several underlying concerns is that Islamists indeed "are not Catholic", so to speak, and to the extent that secularity is anathema to them, we're in a tough spot trying to build consensus.

Amusingly, for this discussion, "catholic" (in lowercase) means "concerning all people" or "universal". What's universal, these hectic days?

There was a notion put forward in a book I read once (title is escaping me at the moment, darn it) that of late, at least tyrants feel they have to explain atrocities or excesses to the world at large, and that's progress of a small but meaningful sort. I wish we could do better than that.

The lack of a spotless history does not invalidate the underlying system of morality.

Very true. "Civilization" is an ethos that needs to push back against man's red-in-tooth-and-claw tendencies. When or if someone else has a very different notion of what civilization is, there is going to be either ignorance or trouble. Small scale, or large.

I am not sure we are in a clash of civilizations these days, but I'm not sure we're not. Ever watch time-lapse movies of sea anemones fighting?

What's important, I think, is to patiently, repetitively, keep acting in a way that tries to minimize the un-civilized-ness in a situation that can not be perfect.

From my, European, point of view, terrorism is a way of manipulating democratic systems, it is a way of obtaining through violence what could never be gotten in free elections.

Therefore, Ahmad, for me, is no terrorist, first of all, because he never tried to subvert a democracy.

By democracy I understand a political system that, among other characteristics, guarantees the rights of minorities, which are not all of them.

Are those who fight against declared dictatorships and disfunctional democracies, targeting mostly military objectives, freedom fighters? I'd make an extremelly conservative use of that label, so prone to manipulation. They are simply guerrilla, until proven the contrary, which usually happens at the end of their struggle, when they disband themselves if certain conditions are met.

Nort (#37)

We are not in a clash of civilizations because there is just one Civilization left.

We are in a clash between Civilization and people still living in the Middle Ages.

I would add to J. Aguilar's #39 that in a clash between civilization and savagery, the civilized side will occasionally be forced to do savage things. The trick is to minimize our own savagery to the point that we don't become savages ourselves while not minimizing it so much that we allow the savages to destroy civilization.

I would add to J. Aguilar's #39 that in a clash between civilization and savagery, the civilized side will occasionally be forced to do savage things.

We are in a state of national emergency; it is no time to ask what is normally done! Does the enemy worry about that? Where does international law allow for the tens of thousands of German women tortured and raped in the East, or the tens of thousands of German children who have been murdered in a cowardly and terrible way, or the many who have fallen victim to barbaric enemy bombing terror? All normal ideas of warfare have long since been discarded by the enemy. Only we good natured Germans still hold to them in the mistaken idea that we might thereby bring the enemy to reason. The facts prove the opposite. Our enemies are even insolent enough to call us barbarians and war criminals because here and there we put up tough resistance with the means we have available.

Nortius (apologies for the previous name mixup!), good point about how Islamists might view the conflict in terms of civilizations instead of just conflicting sovereigns. Out of habit I was thinking in terms of political science, but perhaps not broadly enough; or perhaps in terms that are too modern, when the "other side" has not gotten past the transcendental representation phase. Rejection of Christianity-influenced historical concepts does have its consequences, which the West does not often think about until it encounters a group who does so out of hand.

I don't want to dip into the clash of civilizations debate again, but isn't it interesting how we keep needing to reference these concepts--even if only as crude shorthand for a similar problem--whenever the question of Islam in the West comes up?

J. Aguilar:

From my, European, point of view, terrorism is a way of manipulating democratic systems, it is a way of obtaining through violence what could never be gotten in free elections.

I like your general intent here, but as a technical point (and at the risk of inviting flames) I think you need to generalize it out from opposition to democratic systems to any nominally legitimate system of government. Terrorism and its consequences should be treated as a moral wrong no matter who its victims are. I'm no fan of the Chinese Communist Party, but if some radical pro-democracy faction crashed planes into Beijing skyscrapers, they deserve just as much condemnation as Al Qaeda.

AJL:

I admit, I am only a casual student of history

Pardon my snark, but given your comments even this mild claim seems dubious. Even a casual student wouldn't have run afoul of Godwin's Law so recklessly.

It seems to me that the discussion has become whether 'terrorism' (absent a better word) should be defined in terms of actions or actors, in an effort (I think) to distinguish it from guerrilla warfare and from what we Westerners would regard as 'regular warfare.' To some extent this seems to be an effort to head off the careless/wholesale use of the word to mean 'X is a great big meanie.' (And possibly to avoid its being applied to the US and/or groups we personally might sympathize with -- but that way lies dragons and is not especially relevant to the basic point, so I'll leave it aside). As far as misapplication goes, mark is right. People will do that, and there's nothing we can do to stop them. Still, we can at least try to clarify the issue to prevent misapplication among ourselves. If nothing else, it's prompted me to codify my own thinking on the matter.

My definitions, for what it's worth:

Terrorism -- Attacks by 'illegal combatants' (i.e., those with 'no return address') deliberately directed at civilian targets* for the purpose of advancing some political and/or religious goal.

Guerrilla warfare -- Attacks by 'illegal combatants' (i.e., those with 'no return address') deliberately directed at non-civilian targets* for the purpose of advancing some political and/or religious goal.

War crimes -- Attacks by 'legal combatants' (i.e., uniforms, chain-of-command, etc.) deliberately directed at civilian targets* for the purpose of advancing their directing state's goals.

'Standard' warfare -- Attacks by 'legal combatants' (i.e., uniforms, chain-of-command, etc.) deliberately directed at non-civilian targets* for the purpose of advancing their directing state's goals.

Criminality -- Attacks regardless of actor or target* for financial or other purely personal motives.

*targets may be living or inanimate

As far as I'm concerned, if you engage in terrorism, you're a terrorist. Even if you're a guerrilla the other 364 days out of the year, even if your goal is noble as all get out, you're still a terrorist. So, for example, even though I wouldn't regard the attack on the Marine barracks (or the Cole) as terrorism, Hezballah (and Al Qaeda) are nonetheless terrorist groups.

I admit, I am only a casual student of history: there may be, unbeknownst to me, some army or government that has boasted of being on the side of savagery, while conceding its opponents are civilized.

Quite a few actually. Nearly all the barbarian tribes who fought the Romans for example (Huns, Goths, etc.) They were fairly upfront that they were in it to steal the wealth, power, and land of the Romans. Ended up attempting to ape the Romans and eventually created modern Europe.

In the mean time, I am reduced to examining our acts, in which the conflict appears to be savagery versus worse savagery.

The problem many, such as myself, have with your argument is not the general point that two wrongs do not make a right. It's the refusal to address the inherent dual standard.

You've defined savagery for the US so far down that the US government is now no longer civilized for you because of it's endorsement of an act that not only does not kill, it doesn't even provide permanent injury.

On the other hand you provide no concrete punishment or aversion mechanism to punish the truly savage, those who commit truly evil actions, those who torture to death and kill by the tens of thousands, and no, sharply written condemnations do not count.

Let's assume, and actually my viewpoint isn't far from yours - that waterboarding is a, barring really weird specific circumstances, a largely useless and demeaning (to us) activity. Let's assume that you are absolutely correct on the moral angle and there is no excuse for that behavior.

You still must deal with the dynamic tension being generated between those who without shame indulge in savagery and receive no negative feedback and those who try for civilization and get zapped without mercy for the least transgressions.

The original 'rules of war' where one may shoot unlawful combatants out of hand, where if one side ignores the laws of war the other can retaliate in kind were intended to reduce this tension to encourage savagery back towards civilization. To reduce the tension between the two poles.

If you reject the specific remedial mechanism, you must provide some other mechanism or else the tension will grow and grow. The number of Rockfords will increase until they hit critical mass and instead of savagery advancing to civilization, civilization will snap to savagery.

That is what I, and many on the right worry about (Belmont famous conjectures post for example), that unless constructive means to let off the pressure are found, it's simply going to build until the situation explodes.

AJL, Other posters have addressed most of the points I would have addressed in response to your response to my comment (Godwin's law and the facile moral equivalence in particular). I would only add that I doubt anyone posting here would deny that there are very few saints in this world and no saintly states. However, to the degree that there are good guys and bad guys in this fallen world, we are the good guys (certainly compared to Al-Quaida, Iran, China, Russia). Compare, for example, our invasion of Iraq to what the Russians did in Chechnya. Compare waterboarding prisoners to beheading them, etc. And if waterboarding prisoners helps stop the people who behead them (about which reasonable people can disagree) then I'm all for it. If a less meticulous concern for collateral damage helps stop people who deliberately target non-combatants, then I'm all for that.

I believe that "savagery versus worse savagery" makes quite clear that no moral equivalence is being drawn. War and conflict, however, give people an excuse to let their ids run freer. I call this the Body Heat syndrome, after the line in the movie: "When it's hot, really hot, people act differently because they see it as emergency time, and the rules don't apply."

That we only give in to the dark side as far as waterboarding and they behead their prisoners seems not so critical as examining motives and even results. Idiot INS agents (original post), idiot TSA agents (dangerous breasts)—well, how is it that we have little idiots get this type of power, except that we wet our collective pants on 9/11 and promised Big Brother we would let him rule at whim (if only he would protect us. Just yesterday the Attorney General told us that somehow the 72-hour window to wiretap without a warrant plus the court that grants such warrants were impediments to preventing 9/11, that they need to listen in to anyone, anytime. So now idiot NSA clowns will listen in on every phone call you make (yeah, the government doesn't tell anyone who they wiretap, but in a great leap of faith you assume it is only the bad guys).

By the way, how many mysterious homicides have occurred to prisoners in our custody? Beating to death is so much better than beheading?

AJL

You still have to answer the question as to why it is better to be a civilized man than a monster.

And no, 'I didn't beat anyone to death today', isn't really an answer. Occupying the moral high ground is good, but it doesn't put food on the table.

Why wouldn't any world leader want to be like Saddam? Wealth, power, women, he had it all (so to speak). See also Castro, Chavez, lil Kim, Mugabe, etc. Fewer seem to fall to assassination than US presidents. Most of the AQ leadership lived quite well until the US started chasing them around with fighter-bombers.

'Be good or we will kill you' most certainly isn't the ideal answer, but it does work. If you reject it and don't replace it you are simply going to be increasingly surrounded by monsters who simply don't give a damn about your high standards.

we wet our collective pants

um, well. We are told that we did, and/or that we are supposed to; and brittleness ("zero tolerance" is not a sign of resiliency) is in evidence.

I find some sympathy with most of your points; I'm at work or I'd post a longer response. Suffice it to say that three-letter-acronym buro-clowns of every stripe frequently follow or invent rules so they have minimal *ss exposure. "You can't fire me for being too lenient."

As another example, the FAA would rather assert zero tolerance for pilots taking antidepressants, than have to explain why even one pilot with such a medical history had a "controlled flight into terrain".

I do think that a lot of the Patriot Act was not much more than an FBI/etc. Christmas wish list.

David Brin has some cogent (or perhaps only flattering) things to say about the cultural indoctrinated orneriness of Americans (link to follow). That doesn't exactly jibe with the averred pants-wetting. I don't know how to sort that out. And that bugs me.

Assuming Treefrog is serious, I think I can put his last comment into evidence that for some people, war provides an excuse for the worst behavior. You know, bad as George Bush is (much less, say, either Clinton), I don't think he envied Saddam his lifestyle. Constant fear of being deposed, if nothing else? I'm much-reminded of the anti-homosexual right-wing Christians caught with their pants down. The fire and brimstone are really about their own internal struggles. And for some people, there seems to be a drive to waterboard and to behead, and bless us, we have a war that gives us an opportunity to do so.

If I had to give a short answer to Treefrog's question, it would be the Golden Rule.

(I will concede that Treefrog may be correct about the barbarians who sacked Rome.)

Assuming Treefrog is serious, I think I can put his last comment into evidence that for some people, war provides an excuse for the worst behavior.

So making an argument that a lack of negative consequences for savagery leads to more savagery equals advocation of savagery?

Throwing little old ladies off of cliffs will kill them. See, now I'm advocating offing the elderly.

Building campfires in your living room will tend to burn down your house. Now I'm advocating arson, is there no end to my evil?

You know, bad as George Bush is (much less, say, either Clinton), I don't think he envied Saddam his lifestyle. Constant fear of being deposed, if nothing else?

Funny, how many of these guys actually have been deposed without outside intervention?

If I had to give a short answer to Treefrog's question, it would be the Golden Rule.

Uh, you do realize the golden rule is about reciprocity, right? That for it to work it assumes that the deeds of the initiator will be returned in kind? If you are good to someone they will be good to you back, but if they are evil to you, you should be evil back or else it doesn't work?

The Unbeliever (#42)

I like your general intent here, but as a technical point (and at the risk of inviting flames) I think you need to generalize it out from opposition to democratic systems to any nominally legitimate system of government. Terrorism and its consequences should be treated as a moral wrong no matter who its victims are. I'm no fan of the Chinese Communist Party, but if some radical pro-democracy faction crashed planes into Beijing skyscrapers, they deserve just as much condemnation as Al Qaeda.

What for a pro-democratic faction would crash planes into Chinese skycrappers? Trigger an immediate war?

BTW, in China, there is no free public opinion, so it is futile to perform such an attack, because if the Chinese government wanted, they could simply hide it to most of its population.

I think terrorism is directly linked to democracy because it means a manipulation of the public opinion, of the masses.

I think the approach of the aiming clarifies the issue beter. Therefore, the attack against the USS Cole is an act of terrorism because it was aimed at manipulating the US and Western public opinion in one side and the Arab in the other, even though, civilians attacked military.

However, the operation Wrath of God, by Israeli secret services, was not terrorism because it was not aimed to change or manipulate the policies of any democracy or, in this particular case, not even a country: it did not consist in mass manipulation.

In my opinion, the biggest difference is there.

I did a poor job of trying to make a point about the relative and/or situational nature of good and evil in my original post on this thread. I think that point would have been better made via this 3.5 minute interview with a former Nazi slave. BTW I found the discussion which has ensued to be both on point and useful.

Treefrog: Funny, how many of these guys actually have been deposed without outside intervention?

Billy Shakes: Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

On balance, I'd say Billy has the better of it. For example, Saddam's predecessors—how did they lose their jobs? But that scarcely matters to my original point, which is that Treefrog has inadvertently told us more about himself than geopolitics with his Saddam-envy. (There's no small amount of 007-envy in our torture policy, too.) How the dictators die is of less importance than the fear that comes with their misrule.

As to the Golden Rule: no, it’s not about reciprocity. It’s not about how you expect to be treated but about how you wish to be treated. In Abe Lincoln&rsquo's formulation: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master." You have already indicated reasons having nothing to do with national security and everything to do with personal weakness for a less restricted view of ethical behavior.

Perhaps there needs to be a corollary to Godwin's Law: First one comparing someone to Saddam loses, and ends the discussion.

As a matter of theology, AJL is right: What treefrog is citing is actually the tit-for-tat rule (I've heard it called the Silver Rule). In gaming theory it is a stable and winning strategy in multi-party iterated games. Which is lot closer to how actual foreign affairs and power politics works than theological wishful thinking.

Andrew J. Lazarus:

"[N]o small amount"? I'd say rather that there is an indeterminate amount. I'm not sure how to quantify it. That's also complicated by how recent exposure to almost any stimulus shows up in judgments, even down to something as irrational as hearing a number changes the range guessed for something totally unrelated a few minutes later. That "proximity" (salience) property of human cognition factors in "copycat" events, and probably is deeply connected to crowd / mob psychology. To borrow from lolcats: OH HAI, I CAN HAZ TERROR NAO?

Treefrog's "Saddam envy", hmm? It must have felt really good to say that. Might be time to put the bong down, though. Just because some apologists will try to make maximum hay out of any given class of utterance doesn't make an utterance false -- merely suspect.

So, charitably, I surmise it's "no small amount" in the slippery slope sense, combined with the "everyone I know who says things like {x} is a {y} or is {y}'s useful idiot".

It's a bit more murky than you make it out to be; be advised that meaningful distinctions are meaningful.

Tim: Maybe we will install a Godwin-analog rule. Thanks for the sp*m heads-up elsewhere.

But that scarcely matters to my original point, which is that Treefrog has inadvertently told us more about himself than geopolitics with his Saddam-envy.

And I suppose if I said that removing the penalties on murder would result in more murderers you'd consider that part of my secret desire to kill people?

You have a...unique...grasp of rhetoric and logic.