Collateral damage: self defence or murder?

[sebbysteiny]

I think terrorism and what makes a terrorist is important in this thread since it appears to come up alot.

However, I am trying to avoid specific allegations against one country or another, and instead focussing on the act. Specific examples for illustration are good though.

The reason for this is because I believe many people have double standards when it comes to some countries. The moral rightness of tactics and decisions seem often to be judged not by the act but by the actors.

For example, I refuse to believe that a tactic praised by the Pakistanis is suddenly wrong if done by America for the same reasons.

I don't think that the definition of a terrorist is that difficult. It is the intentional killing of innocent civilians for the puposes of spreading fear of furthering a political agenda.

The only reason this definition is not accepted is because Arab countries, knowing full well that the Palestinians do this all the time against Israelis, and that Iraqi insurgents do this to Iraqis and Americans, fear that allowing terrorism to be defined will mean that their beloved causes will be delegitimised.

The Arab nations have instead insisted on a definition saying 'intentionally killing civilians to cause fear or further a political cause EXCEPT if it for "resisting occupation". Quite what 'occupation' means I've never been too sure. It seems to me to be a word branded about to demonise opponents of Arab nations. Nevertheless, this definition is an attempt by Arab nations to give legitimacy to Palestinian groups like Hamas and Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade, and Al Quaeda (at least in Iraq) for walking into cafes, night clubs and markets and turning as many innocent people as they can into butcher meat.

However, where is the line between terrorism? Can you have a terrorist attack against enemy armed forces? I suggest you can. If the militants attack armed forces disguised as civilians rather than wearing a uniform, then they are not engaged in gorilla warfare like the Viet cong were, but are engaged in terrorism.

The reason for this is that when terrorists disguise themselves as civilians, it is the innocent civilians who they disguise themselves as that will suffer.

So how would this distinction help answer the above questions?

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Edella

I completely agree C1ay,But is seems the label "terrorist" is very derogatory and hard to define.

I don't think so. A terrorist is one that utilizes terror to get their way. Not by using terror against the soldiers of the enemy but terror against innocent people that are not part of the conflict. It is the use of fear against the people to forward their political ideology. Sometimes soldiers kill civilians by accident, terrorists kill them on purpose.

[HydrogenBond]

If we look at the art of war, although the motivation changes, the result is usually the same, i.e., death and casualties. The most common victims of war are not the leaders and the those who instigate and benefit most by the war, but the young men in the trenches fighting the war. Being a blood letting exercise, that serves only a small immune group, everyone not in that inner group gets to share in the negative festivities. This is why war normally spills into the civilian arena, since it would not be fair if only young men do all the dieing. That would skew the population. It therefore comes down to ideals fighting against ideals. In that respect, even noncombatants who share an imposing ideal are subject to the blood letting of war. This keeps the population distribution more balanced. I don't believe in war or civilian casualties but are summarizing the results.

What we are currently trying to do is not address war, but changing the distribution of people killed by war so only young men die in war. It would make more sense if we limit casualties to only those who instigate war. If two cultures wish to war, we put all the instigators in a cage match with low tech weapons, like sticks. We can wosify it more by given the combatants body suits that prevent cuts but allow bruises. We let them beat on each other until one of the team leaders says, uncle, for the team. The rest of us can watch it on pay-per-view, with the winner taking the gate receipts.

[sebbysteiny]

We can wosify it more by given the combatants body suits that prevent cuts but allow bruises. We let them beat on each other until one of the team leaders says, uncle, for the team. The rest of us can watch it on pay-per-view, with the winner taking the gate receipts.

Hydrogen bond

I like what you say, except I differ on one important respect.

If wars were truely decided in the way you say, what happens when somebody in charge of a truely disgusting regime takes on the Western world.

If, say, Saddam and Bush Sr had a wussy boxing match to decide the future of the middle East (including the entire state of Kuwait), the consequences of Saddam winning would be horrific. People would get brutalised, nations assets stolen, and democratic nations would be replaced with horrible tyrany.

Since us, the West, have such a decisive military superiority to dictators like Saddam, I am happy such conflicts are solved by tanks and planes rather than a more even boxing match. Further, if we go back to the second world war, I would rather fight and die to keep western democratic freedom from being replaced by nazism, and so it seemed did our grandparents generation.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

The most common victims of war are not the leaders and the those who instigate and benefit most by the war, but the young men in the trenches fighting the war.

It is those very leaders though that are the targets of war, not the young men in the trenches or the civilians around them......

[HydrogenBond]

You makes some good points. But these work under the assumption that the instigators are given enough time to muddy the social waters allowing the madness of war to take hold. At that point the social damage is done and it is hard to put the worms back into the can. On the other hand, as soon as the leaders begin to stir up the sediment with their rhetoric, we book the cage match. Since war is often for the personal gain of the instigators, their reward is the reciepts. The rest of us watch the match like we are wathcing two football teams. We can get all pumped up with team pride, but when the game is over, we go back to our normal lives.

[Edella]

Originally Posted by C1ay

A terrorist is one that utilizes terror to get their way. Not by using terror against the soldiers of the enemy but terror against innocent people that are not part of the conflict. It is the use of fear against the people to forward their political ideology. Sometimes soldiers kill civilians by accident, terrorists kill them on purpose.

I disagree,At least I think it is an oversimplification.The fire bombing of Dresden during WW II comes to mind: The city had no military targets to speak of, and it was known that it was packed with civilian refugees from the east.Most estimates put the death toll at around 35,000, but some claim it was three or four times this figure.I of course don't know if you think this was an act of terrorism or not,but it does seems to me fit your definition of what a terrorist does.

Originally Posted by Racoon

But its not like America is completely innocent, whole-hearted benefactors either...

I do love my country,but America is not above reproach.

There is a fine line between patriotism and nationalism.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Edella

I disagree,At least I think it is an oversimplification.The fire bombing of Dresden during WW II comes to mind: The city had no military targets to speak of, and it was known that it was packed with civilian refugees from the east.Most estimates put the death toll at around 35,000, but some claim it was three or four times this figure.I of course don't know if you think this was an act of terrorism or not,but it does seems to me fit your definition of what a terrorist does.

That was in fact an early example of terrorism. Many past military assemblies are guilty of such crimes. Terrorism is exactly what the term itself describes, the use of terror as a weapon.

[sebbysteiny]

Lets analyse the Battle of Britain.

Germany was bombing the RAF into submission. The RAF was about to cease to exist as a fighting force. Churchill ordered an RAF bomber group to bomb civilians in Berlin. Up until then, Hitler had not bombed British civilians. Hitler went mad and ordered all Luftwaffe bombers and fighters to bomb London. This caused major damage to civilians but gave the RAF the rest bite it needed to repair and survive. The Germans suffered many losses on their air attacks on London, and by the time they went back to bombing the RAF, they had pretty much lost the Battle of Britain.

Was Churchill's decision to bomb Berlin a war crime?

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by sebbysteiny

Was Churchill's decision to bomb Berlin a war crime?

I give up, was it?

I'm sure we could find hundreds of examples from past wars where using today's standards would qualify them as war crimes or terrorism. With the tools of war that were used at the time, and the tactics employed by the men which fought those wars, the methods were not judged then as they would be now. That should not change our current opinions on what's acceptable or not by today's standards. The tools are different now. We can put a laser guided bomb through the front door of a terrorist's home without killing the occupants of the neighboring houses. That capability makes it wrong, by today's standards, to bomb a neighborhood to kill a war criminal as the warriors of yesteryear might have done. As we forever increase our ability to protect civilians during war our expectations to protect them should increase as well. Terror is a weapon that has been used throughout time by many nations in many wars. We should learn from that and move on.