Define Terrorism: Win $1000

[GePap]

The problem with that Japher is that with that type of definition, as Che has stated, the notion's pf "terrorist states" akes no sense, as a sovereign state could never be guilty of terrorism.

I still think the magic bullet here is in the target/audience issue: is the target of the violence the same as the audience of the violence?

Now, let's say I am a criminal. I see a large man with a small child, with a fancy and expensive watch. Now, i want that watch, but how can I use violence to make the man choose to give me the watch?

1)The defined audience of my act is the man with the watch.
2)there are two possible targets, the man, and the baby.

If I direct my violent act directly towards the audience, the man, and either beat him, or threaten him with a weapon, then the audience of my act is also the target. If I direct my attack against the baby, or more likely, threaten an attack on the baby to get the man to chose the baby or the watch, then my adience is not the same as the target. Now, under the tye of definion I envision, the first act, the attack on the alrge man (who in theory can defend himself) would not be terrorism. The attack on the baby would.

In a sense then, if you ares trong enough to make the audience of your act the target, you dn't commit terrorism, you commit armed aggression. But if you are weak, then you seek to separate target and audience, and this is terror. Now, if a state wants to keep a whole group in check, but its too weak to actually take on eery member of it, then you can make exmaples out of individuals (again, separation of audience and target) to terrorize everyone else into submssion.

[Japher]

I change my answer to what Gepap said.

[DinoDoc]

Re: Define Terrorism: Win $1000

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Several months ago, Jeff Lustig, Doug Lummis, and I bet $1,000 that no read of the New York Review of Books could define "terrorism" in a way that would exclude U.S. military strategy and tactics.

How exactly are they defining the term anyway?

[Japher]

Yet, while terror tactics may be employed by soverign states as a war tactic this may not necessarily make that state, or the ppl in it, a terrorist.

In a way these definitions are great, but it defies the initial premise of the thread in that it is to be redefined to exclude the acts of the US. I still don't see that in these answers.

[GePap]

Now, the big issue here is knwoing US military doctrine, as the contest challenges one to make a definiton in which no aspect of US military strategy would fit under the definition.

So, are there any tactic in which the US military separates the target form the audience of violence?

This hinges on how one defines audience and target: a whole armed force can be defined as a single audience, or you can seperate each individual unit and make them different audiences. If you do that, in one swoop one action can go from being armed aggression(direct pressure) to terrorism (indirect pressure). So any definition must aslo include some way of limitin how one defines target v. audience.

[gsmoove23]

I think perhaps, if you think this question can possibly be answered you should inventory some of the worst methods the US has used.

"We are now even more confident that any accurate definition of terrorism would cover some U.S. military activity"

The framers of the question were not stupid and I assume "US military strategy and tactics" refers to all tactics used since the birth of the nation. No brainer folks, these guys keep their money.

oops cross-post

[DinoDoc]

It should have been obvious that the contest was an exercise in mental masterbation as soon as CounterPunch was mentioned. That doesn't mean that this won't be an interesting thread though.

[GePap]

I don't think they use the whole hisotry of US military action, as then, i agree, this becomes impossible. My guess is that they judge by those strategies that the US mlitary employs today, specialy in Afghanistan and in any upcoming operaion on Iraq. The farthest i can see them going is the previous Iraq war: and we must remember we have actions in somalia and the balkans to also annalyze.

[Ramo]

The key is to associate terror with going against the law. And law is of course nothing but force. In other words, terror is not terror if you can get away with it.

So, terror is the illegal attacking innocent civilians to inspire fear.

Therefore, groups like the Contras didn't participate in terrorism because when the World Court came knocking, the US ignored them. Likewise, our allies, for instance Colombia, Pakistan, and Turkey don't participate in terror simply because they're our boys, and they therefore won't face any consequences of their actions.

On the other hand, it's clear the Taliban, al-Qaeda, et. al are terrorists because the authority of the world community has come crashing down on them.

Simple, eh?

[Sandman]

Terrorism:

Terrorism is a method of waging war that involves the use of the target society's infrastructure as a conduit for the placement of weapons, or as the weapon itself.

Consequently, the terrorist is always stealthy.

Terrorists virtually always use explosives, either improvised or readymade. Explosives are favoured because they are easy to acquire, conceal and can be detonated with minimal effort and immediate impact.

Anyone or anything that can be blown up is a terrorist target. Terrorists always seek to maximize damage whilst minimizing the risks of failure. Consequently, 'soft' targets are often chosen as they are simply less well guarded.

Anyone can be a terrorist. There is no need for a group, or a motive.

[chequita guevara]

I think Ramo's definition has the best of succeeding.

[GePap]

What about the bombing of power plants, water treatment facilities, radio stations, and many othere civilian services of duel purpose? Rememberm we are talking here about US mlitary action. In the Balakns, and in Iraq in 1991 the US bombed such targets and you can't say the fit a purely military service.

Then you run into the "who is an innocent civilian" rule. No, any definion must be very clear, and I think any definiton that stray into the realm of "law" and "innocence" will fail, as both are subjective terms. You need a definition to be mroe technical, divorced of "legality". After all, these guys got 21 responses: you think none of them brought up the whole innoncent civilians bit?

[Ramo]

The "innocent civilian" part isn't relevant to my argument, although I would normally conisder terrorism to be the previous definition minus the legal qualifier. FWIW, an innocent cilvilian is anyone who isn't initiating force against the people who would be terrorists.

Legality would be the key to the definition. If you generalize the concept of law, you'll realize it is simply the word of authority. And conveniently enough, the authority just happens to be the US (certainly, people aren't able to enforce their authority on [real] terrorists the US supports).

[GePap]

Sadly though, the US is NOT the authority, since no one actor has authority in the world of differen sovereign states. The closest we have to an authority is the UN, whose authority comes from the agreement of the different soverign actors.
Your definiton also does not seem to meet the notion of a state being terrorist, again given that all states have equal authority, if not equal power, in the system.

What the authoer are seeking, it seems to me, is a way inw chih we can separate political violnce taken by the US vs. Political violence taken by "terrorist", and I still think the notion of 'law' is not the way to again, and I would repeat that since this is the most obvious way to go: To make the definiton exclude the US by default, it most certaninly must have been one of the 21 rejected claims.

[Ramo]

As mentioned earlier, authority is connected to enforcement. If an authority cannot enforce its claims, it is not an authority. Again, when the Nicaraguans appealed to the World Court for the US to pay compensation for their support of the Contras and the World Court supported their claims, the US ignored them. Therefore, UN has no authority over them. Rather, the US does.

Regardless of what terrorism the US supports, the rest of world can do absolutely jack. Therefore, it's not terrorism because empty proclamations aren't law.