COUNTERING MYTHS ABOUT ISLAM AND THE ROOTS OF JIHADI TERROR
A review of “Terrorism, a History ”, by Randall Law, Polity press, 2009.
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Given that one of the dominant characteristics of the modern political era is the “war on terror” then it is perhaps surprising that there is so little discussion of what terrorism is. Therefore Randall Law’s recent book “Terrorism, a History ” is very much to be welcomed.
It derives from a series of lectures that Professor Law gave at Birmingham-Southern University in Alabama, and one of the strengths of the book, deriving from this academic context, is that it avoids simplistic answers, or indeed moral judgement. It seeks to explain the historical experience of terror, and makes a number of informed observations about the current situation, and raises questions about how terrorism might be combated, without necessarily providing answers. It does not ignore the use of terror by states, including the USA.
It is a very comprehensive work, starting with a discussion of tyrannacide and dictatorship in the classical European civilisations; then taking in everything from the Red Brigades, the Unabomber, the Weathermen, and the Jacobins to the Ustache. There is also a fascinating and useful discussion of the legacy of the ubiquitous political violence in nineteenth century and early twentieth century Russian society; and an account of KKK violence and the dirty war by white supremacists after the defeat of the Confederacy. However, the most politically significant issue is modern Jihadi terror, and the reaction to it from the USA and its allies.
It is worth pointing out at the outset that Professor Law makes a serious error in arguing that because the unitary Islamic principle of tawhid means that there is no distinction between religious and secular authority then this predisposes Islam towards political violence. While this is not the main thrust of the book, it is a fundamental problem of his argument with political implications, so it is worth a digression to address his misconception.
There is a common flaw when discussing Islamic society to misunderstand the historical origin of the religion by not taking into account the context of semi-arid pastoralism; and by assuming that the hierarchical nature of European feudalism was normative of pre-industrial societies. The separation of military and political function apart from a specialised religious authority in European feudalism encouraged parallel systems of religious and secular law, but this was not the case where agriculture was not dominant.
As Ernest Gellner describes in his authorative work of social anthropology, “Muslim Society”, the religiously sanctified ideology of Islam arose to mediate the interactions of a segmented society, with an almost universally armed population, where there was no specialised military caste, and the trained capacity for military violence was distributed across society. As a system of law to regulate the relationships between nomadic and settled populations, and between urban and pastoral populations, none of whom deferred to any higher secular authority, Islam as it arose needed to be non-refutable. In a sense, the Islamic community of believers, the umma predated the modern phenomenon of the nation state in providing an imagined community and loyalty wider than the circle of acquaintanceship, or tribal co-dependency. (for simplicity, in this article I will refer only to Sunni Islam)
Gellner quotes the Soviet anthropologists, A M Khazanov and G E Martov, experts on nomadism, who observe that while European feudalism saw cumulative economic growth and linear social development (regression and well as progression); in contrast nomadic societies have seen cyclical development where the same tribes could transition between “communal-nomadic” and “military nomadic” and back again. In the land south of the Mediterranean Sea, and in the Middle East, pastoralism and nomadism predominated over agriculture; the segmentatory rather than hierarchical nature of which is described by these Soviet anthropologists as “communal-nomadic”; and where a nomadic tribe adopts a socially and politically dominant role over wider society by displacing the ruling tribe who control the state, then this is, in their terms, “military-nomadism”: before the ruling tribe themselves become urbanised and subsequently displaced.
Whereas agriculture encourages the separation of military capacity as a social specialism, protecting flocks of animals (or stealing them) in a predominantly pastoral and nomadic society requires the dispersion of armed force throughout the population; and this itself ensures that the cities never socially dominated the countryside. Yet the cities were indispensible in pastoral nomadic societies as the source of manufactured goods, and sustaining elevated culture and learning. It is a conceit of Europeans to assume that only agriculture could produce a highly developed urban society.
In the specific historical and pre-industrial society that it arose in, Islam provided a shared and unchallengeable moral law that allowed socially accumulated wealth and cultural capital of the cities to be preserved during the cyclical transitions where a nomadic tribe displaces the ruling tribe that dominates the state structure. It also provided a common basis of morality and law for mediating and easing the interactions of nomads transitioning between territories, and their relationships with settled pastoralists. And of course later development of these traditional Muslim societies, such as the Ottoman Empire, developed military and political specialisms, based upon the economic development entailed from Islam’s success, and its expansion into areas with an agriculturally based society.
Bertrand Russell argued that if knowledge of the entire world was embodied by a finite number of facts, then for that body of knowledge to be authorative, then there would need to be one further fact: that the body of knowledge was complete. In Sunni Islam, its completeness as a system of law was provided by the stipulation that the law was divine and that there would be no subsequent prophet to Mohammed. Those historical and anachronistic peculiarities of Islam, such as intolerance of apostasy, derive from its social requirement to be a unifying ideology across a segmented and non hierarchical society, resistant to external challenge.
Fascinatingly, a critical self-awareness of this socially unifying role of Islam was originally developed within the faith observant Muslim community itself, with the philosophy of Ibn Khaldun. What is so remarkable about Ibn Khaldun, is that he was able to conceptualise his society so accurately without having knowledge of any comparator forms of social organisation. Ibn Khaldun can be thought of as an important “enlightenment” figure who challenged the concept of authority not rooted in rationality, yet who does not require renouncing faith in the divine aspect of Islamic law. He provides a philosophical foundation for distinguishing which parts of Islamic law are a reflection of the particular social conditions of its creation, and which parts can be held to be genuine expressions of God’s will. (Ibn Khaldun’s analysis of traditional Muslim society was adopted by Frederick Engels in his description of Algerian society for the New American Encyclopedia in 1858.)
The dispersed nature of authority within traditional Islamic society also encouraged a duality whereby rural, tribal Islam encouraged localised holy-men, often with hereditary status, who would provide ritual authority and often sanctify tribal customs with religious aura; this contrasted with the more scholarly authority of the urban community of the educated ulama . It is therefore inherent within the structure of traditional Islamic society that the religious scholars of the ulama should challenge the elevation of localised customs to religious status, and that the social nature of religious law should be subject to reevaluation as society changes and evolves.
While the indivisibility between God’s law and political society was an historical pre-condition for the development of Islam in the context of the prevailing semi-arid pastoralism of the near East; when Islam subsequently spread into societies where there was a division between religious law and political authority, then Islam proved as capable of adaption as any other religion.
So Professor Law’s fundamental starting point for discussing modern jihadi terror is ill conceived. The unitary Islamic principle of tawhid was a conjunctural and historical one from the religion’s social origin; and when we consider the total experience of Islamic cultures, then Muslim communities have often happily coexisted with secular authority.
This means that Professor Law’s account of the genuinely terrorist state of the Nizari sect in the thirteenth century (known as the Assassins by Europeans, after their tendency to take hashish) while interesting is deeply flawed. The Nizari were indeed a violent millenarian sect at war with all other forms of Islam and with Crusader Christianity, but Professor Law is completely wrong when he argues that the Nizari “simply parted ways with their fellow Muslims in their degree of commitment to Islam as an on-going revolution.” Islam was a militantly expansionist religion in its heroic phase only because it was socially necessary for it to embrace the totality of its pastoralist and nomadic world; once it reached the limits of that world it ceased to be a transformative revolutionary force. (Although, as correctly pointed out in the comments below, momentum and the weakness of the surrounding Empires carried the initial expansionist phase of Islam further than these limits. Only after Islam encountered military setbacks did consolidation start)
Despite the weakness of Professor Law’s understanding of the context of Islam arising in a society of pre-industrial, semi-arid pastoralism, his intentions are virtuous. He is seeking to establish that terrorism has a rational and instrumental nature and must be looked at in its historically specific context. For example, that the role of political assassination by the Nizari was both practical, in removing political rivals and destablising the societies they were at war with; and also demonstrative of their moral authority. It was not based upon innate irrationality.
He observes that there are serious problems with defining terrorism, as any criteria exclude phenomena that would intuitively be included, and includes those that would intuitively be excluded. So instead Professor Law takes the approach of discussing terrorism in terms of three related areas; a set of tactics, as acts of symbolic and provocative violence, and as a cultural construct.
The identification of terrorism as a tactic, or strategy, is important in order to appreciate that terrorism is not an ideology, and therefore is not an “ism” in the same sense as nationalism, or socialism. Therefore terrorism is always accompanied by a justifying ideology and political objectives, whether consciously articulated or not.
Populist American and European perceptions of Jihadi terrorism as being motivated by madness, “Islamo-fascism”, or jealousy and anger at American freedom and liberalism ignore the plethora of communications from, for example Osama Bin Laden, which explain their rational goals and objectives, most of which derive from opposition to American foreign policy in the Middle east.
Professor Law argues that the American government has proven particularly incapable of understanding terrorism; firstly through considering that terrorism is an ideology rather than a set of tactics; and secondly in beleiving that terrorist groups of any substance require state backing. Almost comically, these beliefs derived from the CIA’s own black-ops, which during the 1970s leaked a series of fake stories to European newspapers linking terrorist groups to the USSR; these stories were then taken up and believed to be true by conservative journalist, Clare Sterling, in her book “The Terror Network ” which fed back into the Reagan Whitehouse, who then shaped CIA funding to match its own lies. (Professor Law bases this account on Parry, “ Secrecy and Privilege ”)
Following American victory in the Cold War, the US government simply didn’t believe that terrorism was a likely problem. Condoleezza Rice, an expert on the Soviet Union, downgraded the status of Richard Clarke, the US intelligence community’s expert on counter-terrorism, so that he no longer had access to department heads. Structural problems in the American state also meant that there were jurisdictional turf wars, and failure to share information between different agencies.
Furthermore, because the Americans view terrorism as itself being an ideology, they have been resistant to seeking an underlying rationality or motivation behind modern Jihadi terror.
Despite his earlier fumbles at understanding Islam, here Professor Law is on stronger ground:
The anger so prevalent in Muslim societies today cannot be understood without recognising that for most of their history, the Islamic empires of the Middle East were not just militarily powerful but more intellectually and culturally sophisticated than European contemporaries. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, however, core Islamic territories began to fall to the advances of great European powers, whose technological and bureaucratic advances produced more powerful militaries. … … Across the Islamic world, the result was the creation of a small Westernised elite who generally accepted that the only way was along the Western path of secularisation, industrialisation and bureaucratisation.
The history of the Twentieth century saw systematic British, French and latterly American intervention into the Middle East to thwart the development of strong and independent states; to defeat and marginalise pan-Arabism; and to disarticulate the Arab nations so that they remain subordinate to imperialism. Professor Law correctly identifies the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt with the failure of Nasserism to deliver, and Sadat’s subsequent clientism to the USA combined with inadequate economic growth to satisfy the frustrated generations of highly educated graduates. Yet the possibility of a prosperous and independent Egypt had been undermined by American and Israeli destabilisation, and in particular an American sponsored proxy war between Saudi Arabia against Nasser, fought by armies in Yemen; and by Saudi sponsorship of Islamist propaganda and terrorism within Egypt.
This was the context in which Egyptian Islamist, Sayyid Qutb, wrote the inspirational work during the 1960s “ In the Shade of the Quran ” (later published in abridged form as “ Milestones ”). Qutb founded a unique political interpretation of Islam that reinstated total rejection of secular authority as a primary aim, and advocated a violent Jihad on all rulers who rejected Islam. In particular Qutb advocated the development of a new generation of Islamic leaders who would derive their authority from personal piety and militant commitment to the cause, not from the normal scholarly procedures for joining the established community of religious authority, the ulama .
The war Afghanistan against the Russians was the crucible where the anti-Soviet mujahideen received American arms, money and logistical support; and jihadis in the Pakistani, Egyptian and Saudi military and intelligence services received training and knowledge that they passed on to the Arab volunteers like Osama Bin Laden and the prime recruiter of Jihadi terrorists, Abdullah Azzam. Osama Bin Laden had studied at university under Muhammed Qutb, the brother of Sayyid Qutb. Some 5000 Arab jihadis were melded in Afghanistan into a cohesive force; and although the end of the war initially dispersed them, many of them reassembled in Sudan: where the continued US military presence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and American military intervention into Somalia, turned them against their former sponsors.
The jihadis therefore have adopted terrorism not because they are irrationally wedded to violence, but because they share a particular political project; and the asymmetry between their resources and the resources of their enemy, the United States, is such that they have assumed terrorism as an appropriate tactic for their war.
Nor is their political ideology founded in mainstream Islam, because they reject the authority of the religious scholars of the ulama and assume religious leadership based upon their military leadership in a perceived millenarian war against jahilayya , the Quranic term for the pre-Islamic state of Arabia which they interpret in modern terms as the influence of the West in the Middle East. The characteristic elitism of terrorist cells is exemplified by the Egyptian, al-Zawahiri, who has contempt for the masses of the umma beleiving then incapable of purity, which justifies promoting what he sees as the interests of Islam through conspiratorial terror.
Given the fact that jihadi terrorism has its roots in political grievances addressed against US foreign policy in the Middle East, and now Afghanistan, then the worst possible response is to treat it as purely a political and technocratic security problem; this can only perpetuate the war for ever by ignoring the factors that cause it.
What is more, by demonising Islam in the West, then this increases the chances of a small minority of alienated and disillusioned people being attracted to jihadism, as their stake in our society becomes diminished. At the same time, Islamophobia which argues that the Islamic religion is inherently backward, can reduce the standing of influential mainstream Islamic figures and organisations opposed to jihadism. This is particularly evident with those liberals who seek to delegitimize mainstream Muslim organisations, like the MCB, and to dictate that only “good Muslims” who agree with the lifestyle choices of Guardian reading white liberals, should be listened to.
The Ed Husein phenomenon of an “anti-extremism” agenda sets up a series of loyalty tests; whereby it is insufficient to NOT be terrorists, it is necessary for Muslims to leap further hurdles by denouncing terrorism from others, and to denounce even the peaceful advocacy of the aims that the terrorists claim to be promoting, it is then necessary to denounce those others who do not denounce terrorism loud enough, and to denounce those who fail to oppose even the peaceful advocacy of the aims of the terrorists. The result is further delegitimisation and marginalisation of the concerns of Muslims, and a polarisation that makes it more and not less likely that a small unrepresentative minority might be attracted to terrorism.
Terrorism has become a key political leitmotif; understanding how it can be overcome requires the avoidance of kneejerk responses and attitudes; and in particular requires recognition that there is little prospect of a successful military and security response to an essentially political problem. The state of Israel is the world leader in technical security and military responses to “terrorism”, yet they are the state who have done the most to perpetuate the root causes of the war, and the least to find a political settlement.
Professor Law’s book is flawed in places, but a rich treasury of information, and a useful resource for any serious study of the problem. He doesn’t provide the answers, but he helps to formulate the correct questions.
So, to be clear, if a BNP/C18 member who understands that his side is weak in comparison to the might of the British state, puts a bomb in a crowded Asian supermarket in Bradford in protest at the presence of brown people in the UK, is he wrong just because of his vile ideology?
I believe that terrorism as a strategy is wrong - whatever ideology it serves.
Comment by Charlie — 2 December, 2009 @ 11:41 am
#1
that is a possible moral position, but to be consistent we would also have to condemn much of the RAF’s bombing of Nazi Germany, and the military activities of the French resistance to nazi occupation.
In the case of the Israel/palestine conflict, both sides beleive that the other side are terrorists.
it doesn’t help us though. Because even if we say that all terrorism is wrong, then we are still left with the problem of what to do about it; which means that we stil have to solve the underlying political acuses of terror.
Of course arguing that we need to find political solutions does not justify the terrorism, nor does it obviate the need for the state to take public safety precautions to protect the population from terrorism, including the use of arned force where necessary.
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Incidently Charlie, i think you are confusing the idea that something might be rational with the idea of whether it is virtuous.
A BNP member who planted a bomb in such circumstances may indeed be acting rationally, according to his own beliefs.
The problem would not be his rationality or irrationality, or indeed his lapse of moral compass. The problem would be the maimed and killed victims, the fear and growth of communitity tensions; and the endemic racism that had encouraged that BNP member to such a terrible course
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
Either Gellner, or your reading of him, is badly unhelpful on the limits of the early muslim expansionary impulse. It is absurd to describe Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Roman province of Africa or southern Spain, in late antiquity as characterised by ’semi-arid pastoralism’. On the contrary, the conquest imperative together with the conjunctural weaknesses of the Sasanian and Byzantine empires took islamic conquest well beyond the limits of ’semi-arid pastoralism’ into territories characterised by intensive irrigated agriculture and pre-existing state and rentier hierarchies.
It is, of course, equally absurd to link modern islamist jihadism immediately with the historical origins of islam. It would have more plausibility (though still only very limited explanatory value) to connect European capitalist expansionism from the early modern period on, whose consequences are still immediately with us, to the late medieval Iberian Crusader ideology.
Hence my point above is in no way a criticism of the main body of your argument, that modern islamist jihadism addresses modern political problems and ‘terrorism’ is a tactic/ strategy, not an ideology; this is entirely sound.
Comment by Mike Macnair — 2 December, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
I think one would need to distinguish between the military activities of resistance organisations like that in France, 1940-5, and al-Qaeda (if you are equating these organisations Andy?).
Whilst it is true that Osma bin-Laden does have definite objectives – essentially territorial: first and foremost get the Yanks out of Saudi Arabia – it is also true that AQ sole use of violence as a strategy separates it from other instances of anti-imperialist organisations. And it means that support for al-Qaeda remains fairly marginal amongst Muslims. Yes, there may be wider admiration amongst Muslims for bin-Laden’s frugality and steadfastness in comparison to the gluttony and timidity of Muslim leaders, but that doesn’t equate to mass political support. Jihadist Islam only finds mass support where it can adapt itself to the mass issues of nationalism. An exclusive pursuit of violence only alienates ordinary people as with Jamat al-Islamiyya in Egypt with its attacks on tourists in the 1990s and al-Qaeda with its indiscriminate bombings of Shia civilians 2003 ongoing.
With supporters of al Qaeda in Western Europe, the political goals are hazier still. Here most of the alienated youth who have been behind most, if not all, the terrorist attacks do subscribe on some level to the use of violence as a goal in itself. They may make reference to the killing of Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, formerly Bosnia and so on, but on another level their mission is an endless global jihad in pursuit of some ill conceived world caliphate. Again they don’t find many takers. The French writer Oliver Roy is very good on these issues http://www.opendemocracy.net/node/34938
Comment by Sam64 — 2 December, 2009 @ 12:34 pm
Mike
#4
Your point is well made, but I have simplified the argument purely for brevity.
Its initial social impulse for expansion was to embrace the world where nomadism and pastotalism dominated, but ideology and military capability exists independent from social necessity, and the expansionist militarism of this heroic phase was carried forward by its own momentum - as you describe - by the conjunctural weaknesses of the surrounding societies.
This in itself transformed traditional Muslim society, and encouraged an autonomy between the ideological superstructure and its material base, and also encouraged the development of specialised military and state administrative functions. Echos of tribalism still however endure even to the modern day, as we can see by the hashemites, the Sauds, (and the tribal nature of Saddam Hussains immediate government circles). there is a difefrence between monarchy in the Middle East and in Europe, as i europe the monrach is the pinnacle of a noble class, out of whom the monrach is selected, whereas in Arab society, the entire nobility is either ensconsed or replaced as a job lot, nd the funtion of monarch is a relatively collegite one, as we have observed by the band of brothers who have swapped the Saud crown between them.
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
#5
“I think one would need to distinguish between the military activities of resistance organisations like that in France, 1940-5, and al-Qaeda”
You need to distinguish between theiri politics, ,and the social forces they represent. For sure.
But in terms of their advocayy and use of terror as a way of waging asymetrical warfare, there is a close identity at a strategic level.
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
7.# I’m speaking largely from ignorance here but didn’t the French resistance 1940-45 initiate boycotts, strikes and so on, i.e. more mundane political activities, besides, key word, targeted bombings and assassinations? This I would suggest is quite different from the reality of the terrorist violence of a tiny number of Muslims: shooting up a coach load of tourists, car bombing a Mosque or market in Baghdad or detonating a bomb on London tube train. It’s the exclusive use of violence (besides propaganda) of al-Qaeda that separates it from other resistance type movements - and, as I say, accounts for its miniscule support.
On the other hand, AQ’s approach to violence as something that in itself will somehow bring about some sort of goal is probably fairly close to baader meinhof, the Red Brigades and so on.
Comment by Sam64 — 2 December, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
The violent methods of All Qaeda are within a long established tradition of modern day terrorim, for example, the campaign of assassinations, bombings of restaurants and train stations by JOhann Most’s German anarchists in the 1880s (unusually Most was a former Reichstag deputy for the SPD), the bombing of a Lyons opera house in 1882 by socialists, and hydrocyanic acid being relesed into the Paris stock exchange.
the anarchist campaign in France included restaurant bombings, and even the throwing of a bomb into the Chamber of Deputies.
Now whether or not such terrorim can be popular, recall as we discussed recently, that at the height of baader meinhoff (RAF)terrorism in germany, some quarter of Germans under 40 said they supported the RAF and a tenth said they would shelter them from the police!
So Al Qaeda are not a sui generis phenomenon. Their terrorism is a tactic in pursuit of a political goal. Oonce the underlying political root of the conflict is resolved, one way or another, then the problem will be solved.
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
“that is a possible moral position, but to be consistent we would also have to condemn much of the RAF’s bombing of Nazi Germany, and the military activities of the French resistance to nazi occupation.”
Andy, that is far too general. We would only need to condemn those RAF or Resistance attacks that targetted civilians. I am quite comfortable with that. Thois acts were terroristic. I don’t know how many there were but all terrorism is equally repugnant.
Likewise in Palestine/Israel. Both sides make claims but your implication that it is morally or otherwise diffciult to distinguish between legitimate attacks and terrorism is silly. If the attack was targetted at civilians it was terrorism. Otherwise, not. It is an empirical question.
Comment by John Meredith — 2 December, 2009 @ 3:07 pm
‘The violent methods of All Qaeda are within a long established tradition of modern day terrorism’. You’re not suggesting Andy that AQ – as is recognised an inchoate network not an organisation – places itself within any sort of European left wing tradition? Obviously not. As you say, in so far as AQ does have an ideological progenitor it’s the Egyptian Qutb – although I think I’m right in saying that he and his followers came to question an exclusive use of violence towards the end of his life (1966) because of the barriers from the ulema it involves. Also worth mentioning is that some whabbis have rejected Qutb for his sometime mysticism, along with just about every other Islamic thinker apart from Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab himself in their year zero religious zeal.
In terms of its objective approach to violence yes, there are continuities with European/Russian anarchism from the mid-nineteenth century. As you know, at least major strains of anarchism have historically idealised violence as a political outcome in itself – something that separated anarchists from communists. So again we probably agree. In terms of the support for left wing terrorist groups in the 1970s, I doubt that backing for for Baader Meinhof actually extended much beyond their romantic cache within a youth cultural quite different from that in 2009 – who can forget Joe Strummer’s Brigate Rosse t-shirt? But the important point is that because Baader Meinhoff were simply a tiny cell, once the German police had made key arrests of their leaders and thrown away the key, the organisation was finished, smashed. As like AQ, they exist entirely outside ‘the masses’ with no party membership, formal structure, youth wing, women’s organisation, intellectual fellow travellers etc they disappeared virtually over night.
On whether or not AQ really has identifiable political motives yes, on one level bin-Laden’s demands are pretty parochial: remove Americans and other Christians, Jews from the Saudi peninsula in particular and the wider Muslim world in general. On the other hand, as I point out, his followers in the West – whose own petty crimnial backgrounds and lifestyles are often far from devout - take as a point of departure Western atrocities against Muslims but subscribe to a ceaseless and bloody jihad. This doesn’t lessen the case for bringing the troops back home – draining the swamp of resentment as George Galloway puts it - but I’m not sure that Islamic terrorism will just cease if and when this does happen.
Comment by Sam64 — 2 December, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
#11
I am not sure we disagree.
For me the key is to recognise that Al qaeda do not do what they do because they are irrational ot that they just hate SAsnerican freedom, or whatever.
There are modern day political issues which inform their support, and the issues in the Middle East may well be different but related to the sense of anger and frustration of the home grown jihadis from the West.
Such political jihadism may have an ideological and organisation life of its own independent of those political roots, but unless solutions are sought which remove the soil in which such terrorism finds sustenance, then it cannot be defeated.
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 4:09 pm
#10
“If the attack was targetted at civilians it was terrorism. Otherwise, not. ”
Just so we are clear about your definition: the recent Fort Hood shootings were not terrorism? Hizbollah blowing up the US marines in Beirut was not terrorism? The 9//11 plane that hit the pentagon was not terrorism?
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
“Just so we are clear about your definition: the recent Fort Hood shootings were not terrorism?”
No. Has anyone suggested they were? The Columbine shootings weren’t terrorism, either,and they were aimed at civilians. So, you are right, we need a slight refinement (I thought it was implied): political violence aimed at civilians is terrorism. Otherwise, not.
“Hizbollah blowing up the US marines in Beirut was not terrorism?”
No, it was an act of war.
“The 9//11 plane that hit the pentagon was not terrorism?”
Yes, the plane was full of civilians, and aimed mostly at civilians too, I think (although maybe the pentagoin is cheifly staffed by military).
Do you disagree?
Comment by John Meredith — 2 December, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
“Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool.” — Mark Twain
Comment by Mahadiga — 2 December, 2009 @ 5:05 pm
It’s a genuine joy reading Andy Newman pretending to be a serious intellectual. Along with Galloway as the ‘Swiss Toni’of contemporary politics we now have Andy Newman as the Alan Partridge of cultural studies. A Perrier award can’t be long in coming.
Comment by Puff Diddy — 2 December, 2009 @ 5:16 pm
The comment above makes absolutely no reference to Andy’s argument in favour of a string of ad hominems. What is the point of this? To make Andy upset? To make the writer feel tough?
Also, as any fule kno, Kieran Allen is the Swiss Toni of contemporry politics.
Comment by Doloras LaPicho — 2 December, 2009 @ 8:03 pm
#14
“Do you disagree?”
yes, i suppose i do.
i don.t necessarily agree there is any moral distinction btween killing service personnel and civilians.
The classic example of which would be the use of large scale terror by Grant and Sherman in the seige of Atlanta and the Shennanoah campaign, and the deliberate atrocities against the civilian population of New Orlaans, which broke the will of the Confederacy.
In the immortal exchange Lincoln told Sherman to leave the Shannandoah valley so that “if a crow flew over it, it would have to take provisions”
“I understand” replied Sherman, “I will leave them nothing but their eyes to cry with”
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Concerning that some Respect councillors believe the twins towers was not carried out by Muslim fundementalists and is a conspiracy !!!
I remember the SWP also refusing to condem the twin tower outrage for over a year
The British Left is not far of the relevance of the Moonies
Which is a shame given the massive crisis in capitalism and the opportunity that should offer us
Comment by Sam — 2 December, 2009 @ 8:38 pm
Did we support the Birmingham Pub bombings
No we didnt or should we have
Comment by Sean — 2 December, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
” I don.t necessarily agree there is any moral distinction btween killing service personnel and civilians.”
Even Hitler at least pretended to make the distinction. This idiot is condemned from his own mouth.
Comment by Puff Diddy — 2 December, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
Andy wrote that the AQ’s terrorism is a tactic in pursuit of a political goal. Can I ask, and this is a genuine question, what is AQ’s political goal?
Also, terrorism is the deliberate targetting of civilians in pursuit of political objectives. Whilst most nation-states will go to war to protect their own strategic interests they do not officially target civillians-therefore there would appear to be a moral distinction? So one could argue that there is a moral difference between Tony Blair and AQ?
Comment by Owen — 2 December, 2009 @ 9:33 pm
#21
OK.
There is a legal difference nowadays, but is there a moral distinction, and on what basis?
Soldiers and civilans are all people.
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
Owen
“Whilst most nation-states will go to war to protect their own strategic interests they do not officially target civillians-therefore there would appear to be a moral distinction?”
the British state is planning to upgrade its nuclear weapons arsenal with a total lifetime cost of perhaps £85 billion.
If those nuclear weapons are ever deployed, will they target only military installations?
During the bombing of Serbia by NATO, “military targets” were taken to include bridges, power stations, water treatment plants, a car factory, a TV station, police stations, government buildings.
The only thing they didn’t seem to bomb was the Serbian army, who lost just 13 armoured vehicles after 72 days of bombing
Civilian targets were bombed not only in WW2, but also in Korea, Vietnam and cambodia.
During Bloody Sunday british paratroopers mowed down a dozen unarmed civilians on a demonstration through the streets of derry
Comment by Andy Newman — 2 December, 2009 @ 10:31 pm
#23
“but is there a moral distinction, and on what basis?”
I’m not sure that there is either but one could certainly make arguments to that effect (for example, one could argue that service personnel contract in to the possibility of being targets of violence in a way that civilians do not).
This sort of argument could be quite nuanced (for example, it could reference ideas about rules of engagement in determining whether any particular action against military personnel was morally justified).
But having said that I’m not convinced the distinction wouldn’t collapse under close scrutiny.
Comment by Jeremy Stangroom — 2 December, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
Andy, I think nuclear weapons are a different debate because they are indiscriminate in who they kill hence the reason why their use is illegal under international law.
I dont want to get into the specifics of different wars and I tend to agree witht the points you make about civilians being killed and in some cases deliberatley targeted.
However, the issue I highlighted here is that there is moral distinction between Tony Blair and AQ. Blair is prepared for people to die in order to pursue political objectives-which in the case of the Iraq war were-1) protect British strategic objectives in the region, 2) remove a dictator from power and 3) establish a ‘democracy of sorts’ on friendly terms with the West.
The killing of innocent civilians does not form any part of his primary motives. Meanwhile groups like AQ kill innocent people in ways which are very intentional and obviously deliberate. Therefore there is a moral distinction.
Comment by Owen — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:26 am
#26
“The killing of innocent civilians does not form any part of his primary motives. Meanwhile groups like AQ kill innocent people in ways which are very intentional and obviously deliberate. Therefore there is a moral distinction.”
Moral reasoning is never that straightforward. Intent is not the whole story. If a particular act, x, has likely outcome y, and it is reasonable to think that a moral actor should be aware of this fact, then even if the act is not directed towards y, y is still a factor in any moral calculus.
In other words, moral actors are responsible for all outcomes they can reasonably anticipate, not just those outcomes they seek to achieve (indeed, they’re probably also responsible in a certain kind of way for outcomes they can’t anticipate).
None of this is to argue that the Iraq War and the activities of AQ are equivalent. They’re not. But the difference in intent is not decisive.
Comment by Jeremy Stangroom — 3 December, 2009 @ 1:58 am
2. “to be consistent we would also have to condemn much of the RAF’s bombing of Nazi Germany, and the military activities of the French resistance to nazi occupation.”
I’m very willing to condemn most of the RAF’s bombing of Germany, most of which consisted of the terroristic mass murder of civilians, nearly 70% of whom would have voted against the Nazis when they last had the chance, on both moral grounds and instrumental rationality grounds, as it was counterproductive. I’m not sure if my grandfather, a leader of a squadron of Halifaxes, came to quite the conclusion that most of his friends were killed in battle for no good reason, but he was clear that Bomber Harris was a clinical psychopath.
14. ‘“Hizbollah blowing up the US marines in Beirut was not terrorism?” No, it was an act of war.’
Well it was, but I’m not sure it also wasn’t terrorism (I’m pretty sure the mass murder of Iraqi conscripts by US forces at the end of the 1991 Gulf War was terrorism).
Interestingly though, and supportive of Andy’s main argument, is the extent of non-Islamists who have participated in Hizbollah’s campaigns (at least in the 80s), presumably because they saw the Party of God as at least militantly struggling against imperialism. Also interesting is how little this is know even on the far left.
When I wrote for a Green Left article on media Islamophobia (summarising research presented in Robert Pape’s Dying To Win) that, “Of 38 Hezbollah suicide bombers who struck US, French and Israeli targets between 1982 and 1986, just eight were Islamic fundamentalists, the rest being socialists and Christians”, the subeditor assumed I had made a mistake and changed “Hezbollah” to “Lebanese” (see http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/685/8102 I should get it changed back really, and some other unhelpful changes, like making less clear that a Murdoch columnist saw western liberals as “useful idiots for the Islamists”).
Comment by Nick Fredman — 3 December, 2009 @ 2:06 am
“i don.t necessarily agree there is any moral distinction btween killing service personnel and civilians.”
But you can at least concede that there is a difference in kind between the two acts and that it might be useful, therefore, to give them different names. Then we can at least agree that there is no special difficlulty in distinguishing between terrorism and other acts of political violence. I think this is important because so much energy goes into blurring the distinction that I can’t help feeling something is at stake.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 9:37 am
I aauspect that the word “terrorism” is so morally and politically loaded as to have lttle value as an objective term for discussion.
“One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”, “You dare to call me a terrorist, as you look down your gun, when I think of all the things that you have done.
You have plundered many nations, divided many lands…” etc
I recall when I first became fascinated by the second world war at a young age getting hold of a book called “The White Rabbit”, the true story of an SOE opperative in France who was eventually captured, and his Gestapo torturers called him a terrorist. I also remember that the IRA were being castigated as terrorists on the TV news at the time along with Baader Meinhoff- very confusing at the time, less so as I got older!
The British army used to refer to the Communist guerillas in Malaya as terrorists as well as Eoka in Cyprus.
What’s the difference between a “terrorist” and a guerilla fighter? Is it that terrorists make no distinction between soldiers and civilians?
I agree with Andy that it is difficult to make an absolute moral distinction between the two. What’s the difference between the killing of a soldier and that of an (adult) civilian who in many cases is more than likely to support the actions of the government against which the “terrorist” is fighting? They will both have families who love them and who may be dependent on them. The soldier may be a conscript who disagrees with the war, but even if he or she is a volunteer, it could be said that they at least have more courage than the civilian who supports (for example) a war that includes the suppression of the right of another people, killings of truly innocent civilians, torture etc, from the comfort of their living room. George Orwell had some interesting things to say on this subject by the way.
As for the distinction between (a) deliberately killing and (b) killing as a result of actions which are virtually certain to cause death and you know this to be the case, in English law it is established by precedent that there is in essence no distinction and that one equals intent while the other is irrefutable evidence of intent. This is something any student of criminal law will be aware- Tony Blair was a barrister at one of the most prestigious chambers in the country.
Comment by Armchair — 3 December, 2009 @ 10:45 am
“I aauspect that the word “terrorism” is so morally and politically loaded as to have lttle value as an objective term for discussion. “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”, ”
That is why the common sense definition of ‘terrorist’ I gave is so useful, it gets rid of any pretended equivalence. We can easily agree whether your ‘freedom fighter’ was a ‘terrorist’ simply by asking whether or not he deliberately targeted civilians. It stops dishonest people muddying the waters too much.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 10:48 am
Another point from the Second World War- In Crete, the Germans justified their harsh treatment of the local civilian population on the grounds that large number of their paratroops who were killed in the initial invasion were the victims of armed civilians, acting contrary to the rules of war by fighting not in uniform.
They were particularly angry that many of their young soldiers had landed without weapons and been killed on the spot, some of them while dangling helplessly from trees.
Nevertheless an interesting legal distinction, given that their invasion of Greece was utterly illegal anyway.
Comment by Armchair — 3 December, 2009 @ 10:57 am
#31
john Meredith.
Doesn’t it give you some unease that under your definition the entire British government prosecuting the war against fascism netween 1939 and 1945 would have been terrorists? That tens of thousands of British air crew who participated in the bombing raids on Hamburg and Dresden and other cities across germany would be terrorists?
The moraal justification for using the A bomb against Imperial Japan was alsoways given that forcing the surrender of the japanese saved more lives than it cost. This was an argument heard all the time not so many years ago. It was felt that attacking the civilian centres woudl break the will of the Empir to continue fighting, whereas a land assault to engage with the japanese army would kills hundreds of thousands on both sides.
Whether or not that was factually justified, it is a correctly formualted argument. Wars are about using violence to impose a political outcome on an adversary that they oppose - it may be that less violence is required, less suffereing and less loss of life to do that by killing civiliand than by directly engaging the military.
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:03 am
#31 Does your distinction between deliberate and non- deliberate embrace a distinction between an action where the consequences are desired and one where they are a virtual certainty, and you are aware that they are?
My father explained to me that he was told as he was waiting to be listed for his first mission over Germany as an RAF navigator/bombadier, that they were told that the purpose of carpet bombing cities was to “demoralise the civilian population”.
Comment by Armchair — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:05 am
#32
The Germans also announced in 1940 that they would not recognise the Land Defence Volunteers (Home Guard) in Britain as lawful combatants, and would treat them as terrorists if captured. This was due to the informal command structure of the early LDV (Dad’s Army is inaccurate on this point - there was no heirarchy of rank in the early LDV)
The geneva convention only regards as combatants people who fight in unifirm under a heirarchical command structure.
As I undrstand it, an occupying army is legally entitled to treat guerilla attacks on it as criminal, and punish the perpetrators accordingly. As an occupying army is regarded as having de jure as well as de facto legal authority, they are perfrctly entitled to execute civilians who have commited crimes provided it is legal to do so under their own law, and they follow due process. Where this becomes illegal is if there is collective punishment, or where killings are outside due process.
This is of course somewhat contradictry of the fact that an occupied people also have a legal right to military resistance
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:12 am
The theory behind mass aerial bombardment was devised by US air force General Billy Mitchell, who wrote that the real targets of war were not the armies in the field but the civilian centres.
This was envisaged as a way to prevent the stagnation and slaughter of trench warfare, taking the war beyond the front lie to break the stalemate.
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:15 am
“Doesn’t it give you some unease that under your definition the entire British government prosecuting the war against fascism netween 1939 and 1945 would have been terrorists?”
But that isn’t true. The British government did not, as far as I am aware, target civilians in the war against Germany. Certainly Albert Speer in his account of the war is absolutely clear that British bombing raids were aimed at military/industrial targets. But if the British government had fought a terroristic war, it would not bother me to acknowledge it, it would only bother me that they had done it.
“The moraal justification for using the A bomb against Imperial Japan was alsoways given that forcing the surrender of the japanese saved more lives than it cost.”
And you by that moral justification? That it was legitimate to kill the entoire (just about) populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in otrder to terrify the Japansese into surrender?
“This was an argument heard all the time not so many years ago. It was felt that attacking the civilian centres woudl break the will of the Empir to continue fighting, whereas a land assault to engage with the japanese army would kills hundreds of thousands on both sides.2
It is a reasonable argument. It is still terrorism, though.
“Wars are about using violence to impose a political outcome on an adversary that they oppose - it may be that less violence is required, less suffereing and less loss of life to do that by killing civiliand than by directly engaging the military.2
It may be, but it is still useful to have a word for the different strategy of attacking civilians, and ‘terrorism’ is the one usually used for the good reason that it is appropriately descriptive.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:15 am
“The British government did not, as far as I am aware, target civilians in the war against Germany.”
Yes they did.
the raids on Dresden, and Hamburg in particular were designed to destroy entire cities with the maximum loss of life. Dresden was not in any way a military target.
Remember that Churchill was also contemplating the deployment of anthrax bombs on German cities.
Inceidently, neither Hiroshima not Nagasake gave the highest los of life in a single raid, that honour fell to General le May’s fire bombing of Tokyo in April 1945.
Both the British and Americans subscribed to the deliberate targeting of civilian population centres in WW2; and this was a conscious strategic objective following the doctrine of air warfare developed by General Mitchell.
I think there is a huge political problem in describing the British war against Nazi Germany as terrorist,m becausue it suggests an equivelency with the Nazi regime.
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:21 am
“the raids on Dresden, and Hamburg in particular were designed to destroy entire cities with the maximum loss of life.”
Dresden was unambiguously a war crime. Hamburg was a massive military and industrial centre and I see no reason to believe that large scale loss of civilian life was an aim of the raid. I realise that this subject is hotly disputed here and there, but the evidence for a policy of maximising civilian loss of life is very thin as far as I can see. If that was the aim of the raid (rather then the more plausible one of destroying Gemrnay largest centre of arms production) then it was a crime.
“Remember that Churchill was also contemplating the deployment of anthrax bombs on German cities.”
And that would have been an act of terrorism. Do you imagine that acts undertaken by Churchill are somehow exempt from criticism?
“Inceidently, neither Hiroshima not Nagasake gave the highest los of life in a single raid, that honour fell to General le May’s fire bombing of Tokyo in April 1945.”
I don’t know about that raid, but I will take your word for it.
“Both the British and Americans subscribed to the deliberate targeting of civilian population centres in WW2; and this was a conscious strategic objective following the doctrine of air warfare developed by General Mitchell.”
I don’t believe that is true, although I am open to persuasion. Can you tell us what targets were set for civilian deaths? We know what targets were set for industrial and military damage, of course, I would expect the figs to be in the same files.
“I think there is a huge political problem in describing the British war against Nazi Germany as terrorist, becausue it suggests an equivelency with the Nazi regime.”
Or it could be that the war wasn’t terrorist because it was a military campaign against a military enemy. That makes life easier and seems to be a tighter fit with the facts. It is quite possible that crimes were undertaken during the course of a legitimate war, of course, in fact we know it to be true and would be very surprised if it wasn’t. To help you see why you are getting confused, think about the reverse situation: we know that the Wehrmacht and the SS performed humanitarian acts, but we do not, therefore, consider the Wehrmacht or SS campaigns to have been humananitarian in nature, and we easily distinguish between their criminal and non-criminal actions.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:34 am
Armchair wrote:
As for the distinction between (a) deliberately killing and (b) killing as a result of actions which are virtually certain to cause death and you know this to be the case, in English law it is established by precedent that there is in essence no distinction and that one equals intent while the other is irrefutable evidence of intent. This is something any student of criminal law will be aware- Tony Blair was a barrister at one of the most prestigious chambers in the country.
I’m not sure any of this is relevant to the discussion. No one is suggesting that Blair be tried in an English court on a murder charge. What some people on the left call is for him to be tried for war crimes in an International Court-which of course would be subject to a different legal criteria than a murder charge. Anyway, my original post more concerned questions of morality than it did legality.
I also sometimes get the impression that the left does not criticise AQ strongly enough-there seem to be too much emphasis on the political context which allegedly motivates AQ. Nothing is mentioned of the religious fundamentalism which primarily motivates these people. I remember when 9/11 happened and there was some people on the left whose argument was ‘well they had it coming’, which at the time I found very offensive
Comment by Owen — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:47 am
#39
“I don’t believe that is true, although I am open to persuasion. Can you tell us what targets were set for civilian deaths?”
With reagrd to general le may’s campaign over Japan. He was tasked with destroying japan’s 69 biggest towns and cities.
This was done by dropping incendiary bombs from high altitude, onto predominantly timber and paper constructions. Over the course of his campaign some 40% of the urban areas were levveled, killing between 250000 and 500000 civilians,and making over 5 million homeless. The raid on Toyko alone killed upwards 0f 100000 people.
The US air force had made a strategic deciion to discontinue targetted lower altitude bombing against specific industrial and military targets due to their high loss of aircraft and crew, and instead decided to knock out entire population centres.
It seems that you have retreated from your earlier idea that the targetting of civilians is definitional of terrorism, and now claim that it is whether or not it is part of a “was a military campaign against a military enemy”
It sees that you are making this up as you go along!
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:59 am
“This was done by dropping incendiary bombs from high altitude, onto predominantly timber and paper constructions. Over the course of his campaign some 40% of the urban areas were levveled, killing between 250000 and 500000 civilians,and making over 5 million homeless. The raid on Toyko alone killed upwards 0f 100000 people.”
Which on the face of it looks like an act of terrorism and therefore a war crime. I am not sure what we are disputing here, do you think that wasn’t a crime?
“The US air force had made a strategic deciion to discontinue targetted lower altitude bombing against specific industrial and military targets due to their high loss of aircraft and crew, and instead decided to knock out entire population centres.”
I don’t think this is true, although, as I said, I am open to persuausion. But if the aim was to kill the civilian populations, then it was a crime. Why is that hard to swallow?
“It seems that you have retreated from your earlier idea that the targetting of civilians is definitional of terrorism, and now claim that it is whether or not it is part of a “was a military campaign against a military enemy””
I haven’t budged. Targetting civilians is definitionally terrorism and a crime. What I said (the idea you seem to be struggling with) is that if crimes happen in the course of a war it does not necessarily follwo that the war was itself criminal. It is you that is getting all ad hoc about this, Andy.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
John #42
I don’t know how you expect me to convince you by persuasion. The remit of General may’s campaign is a question of histrical fact that you can check in history books.
The US air force felt that the losses of air crew were too high because of the distance they were having to fly from their bases in china, giving them limited time over target, the highly developed state of Japanese air defences, and the generally cloudy weather in Japan, which either meant they had to fly unde the cloud making them vry vulnrable or bomb through the clouds, losing all precision
their expreince in Europe had all been daytime raids, whereas the RAF had carried out the nighttime raids, and had developed the pathfinder tactic marking the the targets with incendiaries prior to carpt bombing from high altitude. It is against simply a question of fact that the RAF included in their targetting civilian residential areas for carpet bombing. they did not set targets in terms of deaths but in terms of acreage destroyed.
What you cannot do is to seperate out these bombing raids as if they were isolated mistakes distcint from the overall conduct of the war. they were an absolutely central part of allied strategy, agreed and approved at the very highest levels. So if they were forms of terrorism, then the entire prosecution of the war was terrorism.
Personally, I woujld not be so quick to criticise Bomber Command. The war against fascism was a just war, and they were fighting it with the resources they had availale, and with the knowledge that they had.
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:16 pm
Owen asked earlier what Al Qaeda’s poliical aims are. these have evolved over time, but essentially they want the Americans out of saudi Arabi, the end of American support for Israel (and therefore Israel’s destruction), the end of Ameican support for corrupt rulers, and the creation of a pan-islamic caliphate, modelled somewhat on the Taliban’s rule of Afganistan.
Now these demands may include some that we strongly disagree with, but they are not irrational.
there was an interesting article recently in the Egyptian paper Al Ahram about Al Qauda’s more military aims:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/969/op5.htm
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
“I don’t know how you expect me to convince you by persuasion. The remit of General may’s campaign is a question of histrical fact that you can check in history books.”
Andy, you don’t need to coinvince, it is not central to the point. I have said that I don’t know enough about the history be feel confident on the facts, but if they are as you describe them, the ey were crimes.
“What you cannot do is to seperate out these bombing raids as if they were isolated mistakes distcint from the overall conduct of the war.”
Yes you can and we do in every other war, we say ‘this act was a crime’ even if we think the war as a whole was just.
“they were an absolutely central part of allied strategy, agreed and approved at the very highest levels. So if they were forms of terrorism, then the entire prosecution of the war was terrorism.”
It doesn’t follow, Andy. Because crimes were approved, it does not follow that the entire war was criminal.
“Personally, I woujld not be so quick to criticise Bomber Command. The war against fascism was a just war, and they were fighting it with the resources they had availale, and with the knowledge that they had.”
I am not criticising anyone. It may be that sometimes a crime is necessary, but we shouldn’t be mealy mouthed about it or pretend that there is some agonising difficulty in distinguishing between the targetting of civilians and the targetting of combatants.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
I think Andy’s position is sliding into one where in just wars any means will do. Presumably if he thought the current war on terror was a just war he would have no problem with its conduct.
This though:
“Personally, I woujld not be so quick to criticise Bomber Command”
Yikes. Has the man never read catch 22?
Comment by johng — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:29 pm
“I think Andy’s position is sliding into one where in just wars any means will do. “
No I just think there are problems with describing the Allies in WW2 as terrorists, which depite John Meredith jesuit like distinctions is where he is heading.
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
#40- The point is the definition of “intent” with regard to crime (in this case murder, unless the killing is justified legally in itself).
If you do something with the desired intention of killing people unlawfully, there is no doubt that you have intended to commit murder. (eg, planting a bomb packed with nails in a crowded train).
If you do something which:
(a) is virtually certain to result in people dying (or suffering serious injury) and you
(b)are aware that it is virtually certain, and
(c)you do it and people die and
(d) you had no lawful justification,
you have committed murder, even if you would have preferred that nobody died and your aim was to destroy property.(eg, dropping bombs on a location where there are known to be civilians with inadequate or no air cover.)
I may be wrong but I was under the impression that there was an implication that there was a significant distinction between the two (”it is a matter regret” etc.)
Comment by Armchair — 3 December, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
I wouldnt describe the ‘Allies’ as ‘terrorists’ without qualification. But we should be clear that they did commit terrorist atrocities. In a tacit admission of this fact, during the Nuremburg and Japanese war crimes trails prosecutions did not take place where defendants could prove that the Allies had committed the same crimes that they were charged with.
It’s interesting to note that a even a figure like John McNamara - architect of the firebombing of Tokyo and the destruction in Vietnam - is willing to describe himself as a war criminal, and concedes that only victor’s justice saved him from prosecution.
It’s a simple moral truism that the justice of a cause does not excuse the means used.
Comment by J Macarthur — 3 December, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
“No I just think there are problems with describing the Allies in WW2 as terrorists, which depite John Meredith jesuit like distinctions is where he is heading.2
I don’t quite understand your point Andy, or what is jesuitical in distinguishing between war crimes and other military actions. Allies can be terrorists too, there is nothing magical about the category ‘ally’. If an act is a crime, it is a crime, no matter who enacts it.
Comment by John Meredith — 3 December, 2009 @ 1:55 pm
Armchair, we are straying into a legal debate here which I am keen to avoid because I am not a lawyer. There is however a moral distinction and I think the issue of intent has to form part of that equation. Otherwise you end up straying into a world of moral relativism.
In regards to Andy’s point about AQ’s political aims not being irrational this is a fair point. However, I’m sure we can agree that killing yourself and thousands of innocents in the process in order to get into ‘paradise’ is highly irrational!
Comment by Owen — 3 December, 2009 @ 4:26 pm
“If an act is a crime, it is a crime, no matter who enacts it.”
This statement is regarded as subversive by every commissar and doctrinal manager in history. By definition it’s not a crime if ‘we’ do it, whether ‘we’ are the infallible Party or the liberal humanitarians.
What’s particularly ugly is the spectacle of former #Stalinists making the transition from one ideological pole to another, but maintaining their defence of ‘double think’ and the right to lie and kill in the service of power.
Comment by J Macarthur — 3 December, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
It is partly because of the moral complexities that are involved when you try to disect the rights and wrongs of the horrendous, often anarchic, slaughter that accompanises any war that the most heinous of all war crimes is to start an agressive war in the first place if there is no legal justification.
Comment by Armchair — 3 December, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
“For me the key is to recognise that Al qaeda do not do what they do because they are irrational ot that they just hate SAsnerican freedom, or whatever.”
That is so.
‘It’s interesting to note that a even a figure like John McNamara - architect of the firebombing of Tokyo and the destruction in Vietnam - is willing to describe himself as a war criminal, and concedes that only victor’s justice saved him from prosecution.’
As a victor he could afford to be honest.
‘What’s the difference between a “terrorist” and a guerilla fighter? Is it that terrorists make no distinction between soldiers and civilians?’
No, although it would be simpler if it was so. War is a calculation and the amount of death and misery usualy is intended to be proportionate to the aims of the protagonist. That applies to conventional armies and established Governments too.
The concept of a “just war” is deeply rooted in most civilisations and cultures because everyone knew how bad it could be. So to go to war you had to prove the ‘Right’.
We end up with a sliding scale of descriptions of the opposition in asymetric wars by those who have proved the ‘Right’ Irregulars, Guerillas, Terrorists.
I think the Talban are currently Irregulars although recently they were Terrorists’
That said terror as a military tactic is as old as humanity. Most often it is used by those who control the most force.
Comment by Christy — 3 December, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
#50
” don’t quite understand your point Andy, or what is jesuitical in distinguishing between war crimes and other military actions. Allies can be terrorists too, there is nothing magical about the category ‘ally’. If an act is a crime, it is a crime, no matter who enacts it.”
because firstly, the bombing were as a question of law categorically NOT crimes. They were perfectly legal acts of war. If they were war crimes, which at that time existing international law did they break?
Secondly, you simply cannot isolate the mass bombing from the overall war strategy of the allied governments. They were the deliberate strategic prefereence of the anti-facsist governments.
So to say that they were terrorist actions is to say that they were the actions of a terrorist government.
To say that Britain and the USA were terroris in fighting nazi germnay takes you into unwelcome company
Comment by Andy Newman — 3 December, 2009 @ 11:07 pm
Andy this simply does’nt make sense. First of all your argument about the absence of a law might have been invoked by the Nazis to cover a number of atrocities which we would rightly retrospectively call crimes (although its certainly true that the remit of the actual Nuremberg trials was too narrow).
Secondly, the argument that because something was carried out as part of a strategy by a government waging a just war, this means that to call it a crime means suggesting that the war was’nt just, is even more problematical.
The strategy outlined by bomber Harris was criticised at the time in the British Parliament and in the British media by those who were very far from being Nazi sympathisers (much of this in stark contrast to ridiculous arguments put foward by New Labour about appropriate behaviour in the war on terror) and subsequently.
All of this from a perfectly bourgoise standpoint and without any implication of subversion of the war effort. There is much evidence that the strategy did not even work, (the idea was that bombing civilians would demoralise them and make them turn against their government: the reverse is the case).
I think it would be wiser to worry about what contemporary company you keep with arguments like this.
Comment by johng — 4 December, 2009 @ 3:46 am
Oh and I have no problem describing the allied bombing campaign as terrorism directed at civilians. Not only was that it was, thats what Bomber Harris SAID it was.
Comment by johng — 4 December, 2009 @ 3:48 am
It would probably make more sense to say that in the war against the Nazis terrorism was legitimate. This can be debated. But your position as it stands is a strange one.
Comment by johng — 4 December, 2009 @ 3:49 am
Nice article Andy, and it’s sparked an unusually illuminating discussion.
Can’t let you get away with one thing, though…
at #18 you talk about Union terrorism during the American Civil War. Certainly there was a lot of confiscating and destroying of property going on, but systematic physical violence against southern civilians was basically absent. I certainly can’t think of anything that happened in New Orleans that one could label an “atrocity” comparable to a deliberate military attack on a civilian population.
Just nitpicking. Doesn’t detract from your argument, of course.
Comment by James — 4 December, 2009 @ 7:32 am
What you cannot do is to seperate out these bombing raids as if they were isolated mistakes distcint from the overall conduct of the war. they were an absolutely central part of allied strategy, agreed and approved at the very highest levels. So if they were forms of terrorism, then the entire prosecution of the war was terrorism.
I’m afraid that simply does not follow, Andy.
Comment by KrisS — 4 December, 2009 @ 7:56 am
#58
Sherman’s siege of Atlanta in 1864 would certainly come under the definition of terrorism. He laid siege to the city, shelling it indiscriminately and cutting off supplies in order to starve it into submission. Then, when it fell, he order the entire population evacuated before setting fire to it.
The Union Army had a clear policy of punishing the people of the South in an effort to demoralise them and drain support for the Confederacy. Indeed, despite the Geneva Convention attacks on civilians during war between states has become a common tactic.
I think ultimately, when measuring whether or not an act of terrorism applies to any armed or military action, the truism that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter applies.
It has always seemed to me a subjective rather than an objective value judgement.
Comment by John — 4 December, 2009 @ 8:04 am
#58
James “I certainly can’t think of anything that happened in New Orleans that one could label an “atrocity” comparable to a deliberate military attack on a civilian population”
General Butler’s order that any woman showing disrespect to any US soldier or officer should be raped would count as an atrocity in my book.
To his credit, he was the man who changed the character of war by unilaterally declaring that any slave reaching areas under his military control would be free, in advance of emancipation of the slaves being announced by lincoln. Indeed butler may well have bounced Lincoln on this.
Comment by Andy Newman — 4 December, 2009 @ 8:25 am
#59
“I’m afraid that simply does not follow, Andy.”
It does follow, unless you make a highly implausible arguemt that certain acts of war can be terrorism, but that the people who devise, plan and implement those acts are not terrorists.
if the large scle bombing of civilian areas by the RAF was terrorism, then the British war cabinet who aproved this strategy at the highest level of policy were terrorists, and the British conduced a terrorist war.
This is not a moral or political judgement on my patr, I am just pointing out that ther terms “terrorism” is inevitably subjective, as it carries perjorative political overtones.
The only contemport political figure in Britsh politics who descibes Churchill asa terrorist is mark Collett.
Comment by Andy Newman — 4 December, 2009 @ 8:29 am
“because firstly, the bombing were as a question of law categorically NOT crimes.”
I don’t know about the legal status, but that is just pettifogging. If the intention was the slaughter of civlians in order to terrorise the German population, that was crime as we understand it today. Remeber that slave ownership was perfectly legal in the US previous to the civil war, but it was still a crime in the moral sense, I think you agree.
“Secondly, you simply cannot isolate the mass bombing from the overall war strategy of the allied governments. They were the deliberate strategic prefereence of the anti-facsist governments.”
You can, there were different strategic priorities and approaches and many people dispute that the allied bombing was aimed at the civilian population and anyway many contemporarries opposed it at the time.
“So to say that they were terrorist actions is to say that they were the actions of a terrorist government.”
This is a very basic logical error. Try it this way: to say that the Chinese regime has committed crimes is to say that they were the actions of a criminal regime.
“To say that Britain and the USA were terroris in fighting nazi germnay takes you into unwelcome company”
It is a claim that only you have made, Andy. The most I nhave said is that it is not definitionally impossible that the allies committed war crimes in the course of World War 2.
Comment by John Meredith — 4 December, 2009 @ 9:06 am
#64
” many people dispute that the allied bombing was aimed at the civilian population”
Name ONE historian or military expert in the field who disputes, for example, that the bombing of Dresden was aimed at the civilian population.
Many people who know nothing about it may dispute it, but I don’t think that is relevent.
Comment by Andy Newman — 4 December, 2009 @ 9:23 am
“Name ONE historian or military expert in the field who disputes, for example, that the bombing of Dresden was aimed at the civilian population.”
The Dresden raid was an exeption and undoubtedly, to my mind, a crime. It was a retaliatory raid. But most allied bombing was not retaliatory but strategic, and there are shelves of historiography discussing it in terms of its aims and its effectiveness. It doesn’t matter for our purposes, though, because I am not disputing the strategic nature of the bombing raids but only whether they could, even notionally, be considered criminal. It seems obvious to me that there is at least the possibility that dropping thousands of tons of explosives onto a civilian population might be a crime, I think that it is very odd that you dispute that.
Comment by John Meredith — 4 December, 2009 @ 10:04 am
#62
Butler’s famous “Woman Order” certainly didn’t order the rape of New Orleans women. After a wealthy white woman had tipped a chamber pot on the head of a northern naval officer, Butler implied that any woman abusing Union soldiers would be treated as “a woman of the street plying her avocation”–i.e. treated as a prostitute. The threat of rape was implicit, maybe, and it certainly pissed off the Confederates (and the British, too–nearly brought them into the war) but there’s no evidence that I know of that northern soldiers made good on the threat.
Actually Butler didn’t need to take particularly harsh measures in New Orleans as a good portion of the white working class in the city, especially Irish and German immigrants, preferred the Union to the Confederacy.
Butler gets a bad rap. As Andy notes, he pioneered the policy of confiscating runaway slaves in Virginia. In New Orleans he raised some of the first black military units in the Union Army, and they had black line officers–unlike any other black regiments in the war. He would’ve stayed in Louisiana longer if he hadn’t insisted on letting his brother fill his pockets with the planters’ wealth…
Comment by James — 4 December, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
Newman’s ‘argument’ condensed: indiscriminate bombing of civlians can’t be a terrorist act because it was sanctioned by the Cabinet, and by definition they can’t have behaved like terrorists. Not convincing.
Then he states that no law existed to prohibit aerial bombing of civlians.
In fact the Hague Convention of 1907 specifically outlawed indiscriminate aerial bombing, in particular:
Article 25: The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited.
Article 25 was subsequently supported at Nuremburg, where the judges confirmed that the rules laid down by the Hague Convention should be regarded as declatory of the laws and customs of war, and
additionally that a country did not need to formally ratify the convention to be bound by the rules.
Comment by J Macarthur — 4 December, 2009 @ 10:59 pm
#67
I defer to your greater knowledge James.
Comment by Andy Newman — 4 December, 2009 @ 11:56 pm
#68
BUt all the cities bombed did have defences. So the law you quote wouuld not have applied.
My argument is just that the word “terrorist” has political baggage. You can argue that the bombing of civilians by the anti-facist states was wrong, immoral, illegal even, militarily ineffecyive, or what you like.
BUt if you say it was terrorist them you are equating the allied government with the nazis, and that is an equation I wouldn’t want to make.
Comment by Andy Newman — 4 December, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
No. Let’s be clear on the legal definition of a defended city.
To clarify Article 25: “In principle, a defended city is a city which resists an attempt at occupation by land forces. A city even with defence installations and armed forces cannot be said to be a defended city if it is far away from the battlefield and is not in immediate danger of occupation by the enemy.”
Judicial clarification: Hague Convention of 1907 IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land and IX - Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War, and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922-1923.
The international framework was in place prior to the indiscriminate bombing, as the Nuremburg Tribunal confirmed.
Comment by J Macarthur — 5 December, 2009 @ 12:41 am