October 26, 2005

• My Xanga recently has been a football journal, so this time I want to
  talk about some more serious things; some stuff I learned from class.

  Defining Terrorism
  
  As far as I can understand, many
  people in the Bay Area would like to call our own armed forces a
  "terrorist" group from the viewpoint of countries in the Middle East
  .  There is also a phrase "one man's terrorist, another man's
  freedom fighter."  Before listening to my professor's lecture on
  defining terrorism, if you gave me reasons why you might have thought
  the above, I might have said "alright, you might have a point." 
  But actually, from the perspective of international law, terrorism is
  actually quite different and distinct.

  There are two factors within terrorism that is considered unacceptable anywhere and everywhere.  Terrorism is:
      1)   unpredictable-> 
  unpredictable in the sense that no one really knows where the "front
  line" is of a terrorist war.
      2)   use of violence that intentionally targets civilians.

  Under the Geneva Conventions, national armies are not allowed to use
  terror tactics to gain military advantage.  In other words,
  national armies must distinguish combatants from non-combatants and
  only attack legitimate military targets.  Now, legitimate military
  targets could include hospitals, hotels, cultural sites, and other
  civilian sites so long as a force is being attacked from those
  sites.  So if a sniper is picking off your men from the 8th story
  of a hospital, that hospital no longer is a civilian target, but a
  legitimate military target.  Of course, there is also the rule of
  proportionality, which limits the military's use of weapons in taking
  out that sniper (i.e. bombing the hospital to smithereens and killing a
  hundred patients inside will not be considered proportional).

  Now obviously, terrorist groups do not follow the Geneva
  Conventions.  First off, in connection with unpredictablity. 
  They do not have uniforms in most cases.  They do not have their
  weapons in open view, and the chain of command is close to
  indistinguishable.  These are all not in accordance to
  international humanitarian law, and also allow for unpredictable
  attacks.

  The use of fear (terror)
   If, for example, a
  terrorist group carries out an attack on a five star hotel in Bali,
  therei is no need to carry out attacks on every hotel.  The fear
  multiplies and permeates, and everyone eventually leaves hotels. 
  This is because there is the sense of unpedictability.  You don't
  know when they will strike again.  Militaries cannot do
  this.  If they do, it automatically becomes  a war crime.

  The terrorist group's logic
   A terrorist group may say the Geneva Conventions only
  benefit nations.  They consider themselves oppressed, and that
  none of the institutions of justice hears their cause.  They do
  not have a large standing army and therefore, believe that they must
  use any means necessary to get their point across, and that their
  actions are justified.
  I know that some leftists agree.  They say that America has done
  so many bad things to them, it's no wonder they do these terrible
  things to us.
  

  However...  there is an inherent problem in  the terrorist's logic.  And the logic is best explained in the boxer's metaphor.

  There are two boxers in a ring.  One is  large, a heavyweight
  boxer.  The other is skinny, short, clearly not someone who can
  beat a veteran boxer.  If the little boxer is to have any chance
  in winning, he would need to pull a few dirty tricks, to essentially
  create a "level playing field."  Problem is that, if you do use
  dirty tricks, it gets rid of your ability to call an unfair
  fight.  And even if you do use dirty tricks, they must stay
  "within the ring."  No one will applaud your "gallantry" by going
  outside the ring and taking the heavyweight boxer's family hostage and
  threaten to kill them unless the heavyweight boxer agrees that the
  little one has won.  These are essentially the fallacies of the
  terrorist logic.

  So even if people say "oh it's all our country's fault for causing terrorist attacks," that does not justify their actions.

  Another example may be Israel and Palestine.  Putting aside
  whether Israel had a good reason for doing whatever they did to
  Palestine to start this horrific conflict; Palestine's raid on Israeli
  olympians, taking them hostage, and then killing them is, in all cases,
  unjustifiable. 

  Comparing terrorists and national armies

  Terrorist groups and
  national armies are different in another sense.  Terrorists must
  have victims.  As my professor said, terrorists that do not have
  victims are just a bunch of people sitting around.  Armies on the
  other hand, do not have to be fighting or attacking anyone.  Take
  the Swedish military for example.  Most of it is show and
  ceremonial.  They "protect" the king's palace.  Or what about
  the Japanese self-defense force?  They aren't a "military" but
  they have the capability of acting like one.  They are mostly
  doing civilian work projects, and they help out in natural disasters
  within Japan.  And finally, the US Army.  I know talking
  about the US military right now is controversial, especially knowing
  who my readers are.  But think about the development of the
  internet, or the GPS system.  They were all initially developed by
  our own military.  My point is, national armies can be "useful"
  domestically without fighting.  Terrorists, well, they need
  targets.

  Guess that's it for now.  This was from Professor Darren C. Zook's War, Violence, Terrorism course.

  • 3:48 am
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