Is terrorism justified ?
The definition of terrorism is difficult to agree upon but l assume we all have somewhat of a similar understanding, it will not cause trouble.
What l want you to picture is something different :
If there is a conflict between two powers and if one of the side is a superpower with unmatched military capability and the opposing side is poorly equipped militias. Symmetrical warfare for the militias will ensure total destruction of their force. They will resort to asymmetric guerilla warfare.
One important feature of asymmetric warfare is that, civilians of enemy country are also counted as combatants. Another justification for targeting civilians lies in the fact that there will always be collateral damage on your side, your civilians are getting killed anyways, it only seems fair that you do the same in return.
I want to apply the golden rule in a different way here, leaving aside realpolitik
Don't condemn others for doing to you what you have done to them
What l want you to picture is something different :
If there is a conflict between two powers and if one of the side is a superpower with unmatched military capability and the opposing side is poorly equipped militias. Symmetrical warfare for the militias will ensure total destruction of their force. They will resort to asymmetric guerilla warfare.
One important feature of asymmetric warfare is that, civilians of enemy country are also counted as combatants. Another justification for targeting civilians lies in the fact that there will always be collateral damage on your side, your civilians are getting killed anyways, it only seems fair that you do the same in return.
I want to apply the golden rule in a different way here, leaving aside realpolitik
Don't condemn others for doing to you what you have done to them
Comments (46)
Unfortunately, civilians have always been targeted in wars, e.g., fire-bombing of German cities and nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I'm not sure how philosophy can justify one side doing it whilst condemning the other, except by arguing that the end justifies the means. Or "law of the jungle" or something.
I think applying moral concepts in war like situations makes the whole thing look absurd.
Don't kill innocent people doesn't function as a moral truth anymore. Soldiers on the opposing sides are essentially killing people who they don't even know personally.
Morality is changed to " Get to him before he gets to you " and " ends justify the means" as you have mentioned.
It doesn't take a lot to radicalize a person, once he starts seeing you as his enemy, he is in a different mindset. We should treat terrorism as nothing but an extension of conventional warfare.
The best solution to combat terrorism is not getting involved in conventional warfare in the first place. The war on terror produced more terror because it is a byproduct of war itself
Interesting observation, l think its difficult to terrorize unless you take up arms. Cyber attacks is an option though. Terrorism is usually defined as "using terror and violence against civilians for political motives ".
However non violent organizations have been designated as terrorist in some countries. Take hizb ut tahrir, they want to establish a global caliphate through peaceful means. They were banned for a weird reason, their followers tended to becoming more radicalized later on after being pacifist for a while, hizb ut tahrir was functioning as a coverup for other terrorist organizations. This group is banned in Muslim countries and yet it operates freely in non Muslim countries.
Good point. Islamic terrorists do seem to see their actions as part of some "Jihad" or "holy war" so, terrorism does seem to amount to waging war by non-conventional means.
Marxists like Trotsky advocate terrorism in the cause of communism:
L Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism
Personally, I am against war and violence in general. But the question remains, what do you when the "enemy" gives you no other option?
Depends on the enemy. I think it's impossible to defeat terrorism ( a tool ). You can weaken terrorist groups from time to time but time and again, they will regain power in a different place and time.
Terror groups are used as proxies by various nations against each other. Iran supports Shia terrorists and Saudi Arabia counters it by funding sunni militants , Pakistan supports Afghan Taliban, India supports Pakistan Taliban and BLM. I can mention more examples but the main point is, terrorism is a useful tool. Most countries these days cannot risk a full blown conventional war ( eg , Pakistan and India ) , so they end up using militants against each other. The key factor is creating instability in enemy country and seeing it self destruct in a civil war, then you interfere to install a puppet regime.
The best option for a powerful country like US or Russia would be to fund the local Governments when appropriate, collect intelligence to make sure they are not fucking around, never deploy your own soldiers and most importantly mind your own business ( Don't force your cultural values on a people )
Right on the mark
Why? What's the reasoning behind this?
Quoting Wittgenstein
So people are numbers to be added and subtracted and as brave resistance fighters you're there to do the math correctly and balance the equation.
Good point.
Engels’ definition of revolution was “the most authoritarian thing that exists; it is the act, whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon; and the victorious party must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries” - Engels, F., “On Authority”, 1874, MEW, Band. 18, s. 308.
So, it would seem that in some cases the oppressed engage in terrorism to counteract oppression and then apply state terror to stay in power by oppressing and terrorizing others.
I for one, tend to believe that humans should try and evolve and leave well behind them the stage of violence as a "solution" to problems. But I'm sure that others would disagree.
For conventional warfare : defeating combatants is seen as getting close to a military victory
For asymmetric warfare : terrorizing and killing civilians forces them to select a gov with different policies after a certain time. Infact, killing civilians is essential.
No, it's just another way of saying, you can't mess with us without expecting something in return.
I'm in two minds about this but the matter, luckily or not, boils down to whether or not the ends justify the means.
Suppose, for argument's sake, ends do justify the means. This is tantamount to saying everything is permissible so long as an objective is achieved. This issue is alive only in an ethical context and is usually understood as the bad is allowed to the extent a good can be attained. This principle (the ends justify the means) if we could call it that has been used so often by so many people that it's almost become a standard response to many of our problems (the just war).
However, there's a contradiction that's not so hard to sniff out. The ends justify the means implies that the bad is permissible for the good but then good means bad is impermissible. Thus, to endorse the position that the ends justify the means is self-contradictory: bad is impermissible ( :down: ) and the bad is permissible ( :up: ).
Ergo, terrorism or any other ideology that subscribes to the maxim the ends justify the means is self-refuting. The point though is not just that such people, organizations, countries even are guilty of a cardinal sin against logic (contradiction) but actually the extremely difficult circumstances that contrive to make something so unreasonable appear so reasonable.
I see this has taken quite a bit of a philosophical turn. I would argue it is not contradictory. Ends justify the means works in a different way. We suspend our judgment on the means as long as the end is a greater good compared to the means.
Why do we suspend judgment ?
Well , it is a form of utilitarianism. The actual problem is, how do we weigh different deeds. Everyone has a different standard or taste.
I won't say he is wrong, FBI has described terrorist mindsets in similar terms. They will do anything to achieve their objectives in contradiction to even Islam itself. I haven't studied Marxist inspired terrorism in detail though.
This doesn't make any sense to me. Had anti-Nazi resistance movements ever started wantonly murdering German civilians it would have been publicized and pushed the country more towards Hitler. What, you think by portraying yourself -- the enemy -- as monsters you're going to scare the stronger force? No, you've enabled their most brutal elements.
Terrorism against an occupying force is successful when the cost outweighs the benefits to the occupier, but traditionally this is done through targeting property or resources as opposed to just killing civilians.
Quoting Wittgenstein
Maybe try targeting the person or group who actually committed the offense rather than random civilians who are uninvolved in the conflict.
You need to think like a terrorist. You don't use terrorism in your own territory to convince the government, the only reason to use terrorism in this case is if the terrain supports you and the government is foreign imposed ( unaware of local terrain and populace ).
Usually, you use terrorism in a foreign territory to force a change of policy towards you, completely different things. It's not limited to this though, if your terrorism is successful, you can cause socio-economic collapse in enemy country. Obviously, it's difficult for Al Qaeda ( or then Taliban ) to target America to this extent, however, they have succeeded in convincing American public to NOT INTERFERE IN THEIR OWN REGIONAL AFFAIRS. The current political talking point is against interference from bothsides. Afghan Taliban have won on both fronts, political and military.
Ofc, they work for their own interests but this doesn't mean their study on terrorism is wrong. They can think from the perspective of a terrorist cause they are the terrorist themselves in the first place. USA and terrorist organizations have quite a lot in common.
Revenge has served as basis for a lot of punishments in our legal jurisdiction ( death penalty ). Bodily harms is compensated with financial payments and prison sentence ( It's a form of revenge ). I think it is perfectly justifiable morally to return a slap for a slap. Infact, I would make sure l slap twice so my opponent doesn't even think of retaliation.
Quoting TheMadFool
Quoting Wittgenstein
I humbly beg to differ. The entire notion of ends justifying means is premised on the means being ethically suspect (verging on the bad or evidently bad). Isn't that why its validation (acceptable) lies elsewhere, in the ends. There's nothing good in the means; ergo, use the ends, good, to justify them. That seems to be the meat and potatoes insofar as I can tell. Signing off now.
Edited for clarity.
Terrorist are a subgroup of political activists, they want to bring a political/economic/social change. Political activists turn to violence if they don't see any other alternative.
Realpolitik justifies an action as long as it is the most beneficial in a pragmatic sense, morality doesn't play any role in realpolitik. Terrorism is obviously the only tool in the hands of terrorist besides negotiations, which they are often denied.
Realpolitik allows us to transcend moral considerations, it is a form of moral justification in the sense that we suspend moral judgment.
I don't see what you mean by a moral self ?
You don't need a fixed foundation if you are a pragmatist. You use moral systems as vehicles. I don't have any problem replacing one principle with another. It doesn't any make one principle less valid compared to others, it's more about what's appropriate for a specific time and place.
Does the moral self include our past, present, intentions, ideals, accidents, will etc. There are so many variables that it is next to impossible to define moral self.
For me, justified means being practical/pragmatic for my cause whatever it maybe.
Sure
This is not a realistic possibility, because natural resources are scarce, and as such, need to be fought for, in one way or another.
By that time, it's too late anyway. That's why it's so important to live in such a way that you either don't make enemies at all, or you become so big and powerful that nobody dares to mess with you.
Quite possibly, this is why China is trying to become as big and powerful as possible. A new colonial power. We'd better start learning Mandarin. Or self-defense tactics ....
Your logic is so childish, amounting to "do me wrong I do you wrong" except "you" = civilians who have no hand in military decisions. "Two wrongs make a right" is the level of your justification.
Quoting Wittgenstein
The US public is tired of war, they're not tired of terrorist attacks on US citizens.
Quoting Wittgenstein
Think about the topic you're talking about, with the US war on terrorism, your logic is worthless but that you use it on a thread about terrorism is just so funny.
Terrorism very rarely has any kind of success but backfires often, it's done by radicals who have no other means, that's all. Guerilla warfare has had success but terrorism very rarely does anything but upset and anger people. The media and politicians blow up terrorism for their own benefit, in reality, the scale is negligible, and it accomplishes nothing.
Absolutely - there's a huge difference between placing a bomb in an unoccupied government building and bombing an Elementary school. Both could be considered terrorism, but they are very different. "Terrorism" can absolutely be justified because a state can be criminal, but even within that realm there must remain lines that cannot be crossed otherwise the terrorists are no better than the oppressor. Sure, we might ally with them pragmatically but that's it. We are not friends.
True evil is never in any sense "pragmatic" or "necessary" - it is always completely unnecessary by its very nature. If something is necessary it cannot be evil.
Civilians were not the targets of the nuclear weapons used to end WWII in the Pacific. Stop spouting that bullshit! There were manufacturing facilities crucial to the Japanese war effort in both cities. It is well known that the knowledge of civilian casualties deeply troubled FDR and Truman. In fact, the civilians were forewarned by dropping pamphlets from the sky so as to reduce the numbers of civilian causalties, because the US wanted to reduce the civilian casualities as much as possible. That's not the sort of thing that is done if the civilians are being targeted.
Nuclear weapons to destroy manufacturing facilities? Doesn't make any sense to me.
95% of the casualties were civilians.
So, I doubt there was too much worrying about civilian casualties.
Besides, would you have advised the Japs to do the same in order to end the war?
Fact is, if "ending the war" is the primary concern, then we go back to "the end justifies the means" and all talk of avoiding civilian casualties becomes superfluous IMHO.
Nice racial slur.
Your opinion does not matter here. It doesn't matter if it does not make sense to you. The 'logic' you've employed here is flawed as well.
Whether or not the Japanese civilians were targeted has nothing to do with your belief or opinion. It has to do with whether or not they were being targeted. If they were the target, they would not have been warned by pamphlet of the day it was going to happen. They were warned more than once of that day. The warning allowed many to flee the area prior to, which tremendously reduced the casualities. Those are facts.
There would have been far far more casualties had the warnings not been dropped. That is not the sort of thing done if civilians were the target, if reducing the number of civilian casualties was not priority, and/or if those civilian deaths were not troubling.
There was no evidence that warning them would necessarily avoid all casualties, so some casualties must have been taken for granted even if they were not specifically singled out as target.
There were many thousands of civilian casualties and very few military. Some estimates have figures as high as 170,000.
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/survivors-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
I don't think the notion of "fairness" makes much sense here. All war tends to terrorize the civilian population where it's fought, so I think a general distinction between "regular warfare" and "terrorism" cannot be upheld. War exists on a spectrum where you can try to limit the terror inflicted, or you can try to increase it. In either case, you probably only have limited control over the actual result.
So I think the question ties back to the question of when war itself is justified. I think these situations exist, though they are quite rare. If you are in that situation, what matters is how much you achieve for a given amount of terror. No matter how oppressed you are, acts of violence can only be justified if they are a rational means toward an end, and the entire path from decision to means to end is justifiable.
I have explored that particular disagreement with @180 Proof in the Israel-Palestine threat. As emotionally unsatisfying as it may be to ask people to endure the unendurable because they simply have no plausible way to make a difference, I likewise see no way to ever justify objectively useless terror.
Quoting creativesoul
That's technically true, but in this case it's the bad kind of technically true. Hiroshima was selected as a bombing site for a number of characteristics, and maximizing civilian casualties wasn't one of them. Neither was minimizing civilian casualties. The chain of events that lead to the targeting decision is well documented. I recommend "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes for a very in-depth history. The bombs were definetly not dropped to destroy the japanese warmaking potential.
That is my argument too. I think it is important to distinguish between military strategy, political agendas, and propaganda by the press and other actors.
In military terms, you conduct smaller bombing raids that would focus on specific military targets, you don't flatten a whole city.
According to one theory, the nukes were intended as a message to the Soviets. But there are other possibilities:
Edit. "President Harry S. Truman decided to use the atomic bomb as revenge for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1942. Truman worried that an invasion of Japan would cost up to one million American lives and would drag on for far longer than the American public wanted due to the fanaticism of Japanese soldiers to defend their island and emperor. He also needed a reason to justify the $1,889,604,000 the government spent on the Manhattan Project, which in of itself was a secret program. He worried of the political ramifications of not using the weapon while spending almost $2 billion. Finally, Truman understood the Soviet Union's role in post-World War II global affairs would be one of an antagonistic player to American policies. He felt a showing of American military might would force the Soviet Union to reconsider its approach to its own Eastern European affairs."
https://www.reference.com/history/were-major-reasons-bombing-hiroshima-9e47a834f91d027c
Essay about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their meaning for Islam and secular culture.
This raises the question as to how the motives of terrorism, and violence in general, are determined, and the extent to which it is possible to determine motives through the analysis of language and behaviour.
For example, what were the motives of rampaging England fans after they lost to Italy? Is a Marxist analysis of English hooliganism warranted? or were they merely indulging in spontaneous and instinctual acts of self-gratification in the absence of a sufficient deterrent under the influence of alcohol? I'm inclined to believe both.
Sort of misleading. They were warned of potential air raids, but it was specifically decided not to warn them about the nuke.
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Leaflets]In preparation for dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the Oppenheimer-led Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee decided against a demonstration bomb and against a special leaflet warning. Those decisions were implemented because of the uncertainty of a successful detonation and also because of the wish to maximize shock in the leadership. No warning was given to Hiroshima that a new and much more destructive bomb was going to be dropped. Various sources gave conflicting information about when the last leaflets were dropped on Hiroshima prior to the atomic bomb. Robert Jay Lifton wrote that it was 27 July, and Theodore H. McNelly wrote that it was 30 July. The USAAF history noted that eleven cities were targeted with leaflets on 27 July, but Hiroshima was not one of them, and there were no leaflet sorties on 30 July. Leaflet sorties were undertaken on 1 and 4 August. Hiroshima may have been leafleted in late July or early August, as survivor accounts talk about a delivery of leaflets a few days before the atomic bomb was dropped. Three versions were printed of a leaflet listing 11 or 12 cities targeted for firebombing; a total of 33 cities listed. With the text of this leaflet reading in Japanese "... we cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked ..." Hiroshima was not listed.[/quote]
And in the case of Nagasaki they actually intended to bomb Kokura but visibility was poor so the plane diverted to Nagasaki.
Quoting creativesoul
They didn't need to use a nuke for that. In fact they specifically chose not to target these locations with conventional weapons so that they could save them to be nuked. And it wasn't just about damaging manufacturing facilities:
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Choice_of_targets]The Target Committee stated that "It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released. ... Kyoto has the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed.[/quote]
How is that not terrorism?
You appear to be sidestepping the root question. You're describing an action or ideology. So we have to ask what is the driving factor behind said action or ideology. Therein lies your answer. If it's someone who was displaced by war, while justification is an important overall concept (though less so if you're an atheist or not a believer in some sort of absolute collective accountability), it comes down to a matter of basic sense and logic. No, it's generally not a smart thing to do. Beyond that if it's just someone trying to take more crap that doesn't belong to them, like is human nature.. well that's the root question. Is war justified? The governing authorities and the material provided will definitely convince the citizen so.
I attended an anti/counter-terrorist quick reaction crisis mission course at the FBI Academy back in the 70s. World experts at the time could never give me a satisfactory definition of the term “terrorism.” Over the intervening years, I still have yet to see a definition that distinguishes “us” from “them.”
“Rules of War” is an oxymoron and a luxury of a winner. Here’s the proof of that: Next time a combatant champions the notion of “rules” in a war, see if they will provide their opposition with a level playing field: give their enemy the same weaponry, training and numbers.
Wait, what? They won’t do that? You mean they like to use F-16s, drones, and fire-and-forget missiles to bomb the shit out people with rifles and grenade launchers? And then they want to take a moral high ground and act all indignant when someone blows up some of their civilians? That’s rich.
Some would argue that military superiority itself is proof of the righteousness of the winner. After all, the winner's "system" generated the largess; and money = right, even if might does not, right?
BS.
This brings us to genocide. There may or may not be a line between genocide on the one hand, and destroying the enemy's will to fight on the other hand. But I tell you this: A failure to utterly destroy the enemy's will to fight will leave a lingering, low-intensity, simmering evil and hatred that will last for eternity. If genocide is the answer to that, then it might best be left on the table.
These are universal truths:
“War is hell.” Bill Sherman
"“The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.” John Lyly
Edited to add another universal truth: "In war, everyone is a combatant whether anyone likes it or not." Me.