Is it ok to train kids to terrorise?

[Big RR]

So you would not consider Sherman's march be much the same to achieve the same ends? Or the systematic looting and burning of twons (not to get supplies, but to rob the locals of their valuables) and the attendant assaults and rapes, and forced conscription of young males into the armies, that punctuated war and battles for centuries (certainly since greek and roman times) to be the same thing?

As for war crimes vs terrorism, what is your defintion as to when a state of war exists? THe US, e.g., hasn't been in a formally declared war since WW2, so what would similar actions in Vietnam or Korea or the Gulf/Iraq or Afghanistan (to name a few) be?

[Scooter]

You're talking about armies engaged in war and/or conquest; civilians got in the way as collateral damage, but they were not the intended targets.

I am talking about wars in which civilians were directly targeted for atrocities. For all of the conflicts I put in my initial list, that was true.

When the intent is to harm innocent civilians and there is no other purpose served; that is not war, that is terrorism.

And therefore, during

the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of the Roses, the French Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years' War, wars between indigenous peoples of the Americas, wars between those indigenous peoples and European settlers (and their descendants)

armies engaged in acts of terrorism.

Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols).

That definition applies to acts carried out by armies during

the Hundred Years' War, the Wars of the Roses, the French Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years' War, wars between indigenous peoples of the Americas, wars between those indigenous peoples and European settlers (and their descendants)

I repeat, "rape and pillage" is not a concept novel to the 20th century. And "rape", btw, means rape, which as BigRR has already stated, cannot be claimed to be "collateral damage". Nor can carrying off civilian populations into slavery, which was a practice of war from time immemorial. (Sometimes the Bible is useful as history, too, though of course it is not the only source for that practice.)

That civilians have been targets of war since war began is incontrovertible.

many agree that deliberate terrorist acts on civilians began during WWII

Care to cite even one of these alleged "many"?

[Gob]

When Israel had finished slaughtering all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and when all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai, and attacked it with the edge of the sword. The total of those who fell that day, both men and women, was twelve thousand—all the people of Ai. For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the sword, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their booty, according to the word of the Lord that he had issued to Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai, and made it for ever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day. And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, threw it down at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day.

The Lord said to me [Moses], ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin now to take possession of his land.’ So when Sihon came out against us, he and all his people for battle at Jahaz, the Lord our God gave him over to us; and we struck him down, along with his offspring and all his people. At that time we captured all his towns, and in each town we utterly destroyed men, women, and children. We left not a single survivor. Only the livestock we kept as spoil for ourselves, as well as the plunder of the towns that we had captured. From Aroer on the edge of the Wadi Arnon (including the town that is in the wadi itself) as far as Gilead, there was no citadel too high for us. The Lord our God gave everything to us.

"And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain." (Deuteronomy 2:34)

"And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Hesbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities we took for a prey to ourselves." (Deuteronomy 3:6-7)

"And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and woman: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house." (Ezekiel 9:5-6)

By now, the first of the five armies of the First Crusade were on their way to Constantinople. Godfrey of Bouillon arrived first. Soon after him, Bohemond of Taranto arrived, followed by Count Raymond IV of Toulouse. After that, Count Robert II arrived. Last came Duke Robert of Normandy. Together, they attacked Muslim lands. The city of Nicaea was taken first. Following that, the crusaders attacked and captured Antioch. Nearly all of the Muslims inside were killed by the merciless crusaders. Then the crusaders attacked Marrat an-Nu'man where the crusaders slaughtered a hundred thousand people. (The Templars did the killing even though they were supposed to be kind and sympathetic because they were of a religious order.) A year later, the crusaders attacked Jerusalem. Since the crusaders thought that killing Muslims was very good for the soul, they murdered as many as they could. No one was given mercy. Old or young, sick or healthy, male or female, all were beheaded and killed by the invading crusaders. The city was full of blood that reached up to the knees of the soldiers and up to the horses' bridles. The Muslims were forced to throw themselves from the tops of towers and buildings, were burnt alive, and the list goes on. The crusaders climbed up to the top of the Temple of Solomon, from where they massacred hundreds and thousands of Muslims. The slaughter was only paused when the crusaders gave thanks to their Lord. Then it was continued with as much ferocity as before.

Right, I now take you back to the original subject.

Was this exercise worthwhile or not?

[loCAtek]

So you would not consider Sherman's march be much the same to achieve the same ends? Or the systematic looting and burning of twons (not to get supplies, but to rob the locals of their valuables) and the attendant assaults and rapes, and forced conscription of young males into the armies, that punctuated war and battles for centuries (certainly since greek and roman times) to be the same thing?

No, I don't think war and terrorism are the same thing. The IRA and abortion clinic bombers are terrorists on a small scale.

As for war crimes vs terrorism, what is your defintion as to when a state of war exists? THe US, e.g., hasn't been in a formally declared war since WW2, so what would similar actions in Vietnam or Korea or the Gulf/Iraq or Afghanistan (to name a few) be?

Vietnam and Korea were engaged in civil wars; when we became involved our actions while not in defense of our homeland, but were contributions to those wars. The current Gulf War and Afghanistan were instigated by acts of terrorism, to the scale of acts of war; the current counter-action is known as the War on Terror, because we are not in conflict with the nation of Afghanistan but the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, which has no nationality.

[loCAtek]

That civilians have been targets of war since war began is incontrovertible.

Agreed the targeting of civilians outside the context of war is terrorism.

many agree that deliberate terrorist acts on civilians began during WWII

Care to cite even one of these alleged "many"?

Mark Burgess
CDI Research Anallyst

The 1930s saw a fresh wave of political assassinations deserving of the word terrorism. This led to proposals at the League of Nations for conventions to prevent and punish terrorism as well as the establishment of an international criminal court (neither of which came to aught as they were overshadowed by the events which eventually led to World War II).[xiii] Despite this, during the interwar years, terrorism increasingly referred to the oppressive measures imposed by various totalitarian regimes, most notably those in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Stalinist Russia. More recently, other governments, such as those military dictatorships which ruled some South American countries in recent years, or the current regime in Zimbabwe, have also been open to charges of using such methods as a tool of state. Such considerations notwithstanding, some commentators, such as Bruce Hoffman, argue that “such usages are generally termed ‘terror’ in order to distinguish that phenomenon from ‘terrorism,’ which is understood to be violence committed by non-state entities.”[xiv] However not everyone agrees that terrorism should be considered a non-governmental undertaking.



For instance, Jessica Stern insists that in deliberately bombarding civilians as a means of attacking enemy morale, states have indeed resorted to terrorism. Per Stern, such instances include not only the Allied strategic bombing campaigns of World War II, but the American dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the Pacific phase of that conflict.[xv] This issue remains a contentious one, with individuals such as the World War II British Air Chief, ‘Bomber’ Harris alternatively defended and reviled for their belief in the utility and morality of strategic bombing.


Terrorism Since World War II

By contrast, the preponderance of non-state groups in the terrorism that emerged in the wake of World War II is less debatable. The immediate focus for such activity mainly shifted from Europe itself to that continent’s various colonies. Across the Middle East Asia and Africa, nascent nationalist movements resisted European attempts to resume colonial business as usual after the defeat of the Axis powers. That the colonialists had been so recently expelled from or subjugated in their overseas empires by the Japanese provided psychological succor to such indigenous uprisings by dispelling the myth of European invincibility.



Often, these nationalist and anti-colonial groups conducted guerilla warfare, which differed from terrorism mainly in that it tended towards larger bodies of ‘irregulars’ operating along more military lines than their terrorist cousins, and often in the open from a defined geographical area over which they held sway. Such was the case in China and Indochina, where such forces conducted insurgencies against the Kuomintang regime and the French colonial government respectively. Elsewhere, such as with the fight against French rule in Algeria, these campaigns were fought in both rural and urban areas and by terrorist and guerilla means.



Still other such struggles like those in Kenya, Malaysia, Cyprus and Palestine (all involving the British who, along with the French, bore the brunt of this new wave of terrorism – a corollary of their large pre-war empires) were fought by groups who can more readily be described as terrorist. These groups quickly learned to exploit the burgeoning globalization of the world’s media. As Hoffman puts it: “They were the first to recognize the publicity value inherent in terrorism and to choreograph their violence for an audience far beyond the immediate geographical loci of their respective struggles.”[xvi] Moreover, in some cases (such as in Algeria, Cyprus, Kenya and Israel) terrorism arguably helped such organizations in the successful realization of their goals. As such these nationalist and anti-colonial groups are of note in any wider understanding of terrorism.



Through the 1960s and 1970s, the numbers of those groups that might be described as terrorist swelled to include not only nationalists, but those motivated by ethnic and ideological considerations. The former included groups such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization (and its many affiliates), the Basque ETA, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army, while the latter comprised organizations such as the Red Army Faction (in what was then West Germany) and the Italian Red Brigades. As with the emergence of modern terrorism almost a century earlier, the United States was not immune from this latest wave, although there the identity-crisis-driven motivations of the white middle-class Weathermen starkly contrasted with the ghetto-bred malcontent of the Black Panther movement.[xvii]



Like their anti-colonialist predecessors of the immediate post-war era, many of the terrorist groups of this period readily appreciated and adopted methods that would allow them to publicize their goals and accomplishments internationally. Forerunners in this were the Palestinian groups who pioneered the hijacking of a chief symbol and means of the new age of globalization – the jet airliner – as a mode of operation and publicity. One such group, Black September, staged what was (until the attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001) perhaps the greatest terrorist publicity coup then seen, with the seizure and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. Such incidents resulted in the Palestinian groups providing the inspiration (and in some cases mentorship and training) for many of the new generation of terrorists organizations.



Many of these organizations have today declined or ceased to exist altogether, while others, such as the Palestinian, Northern Irish and Spanish Basque groups, motivated by more enduring causes, remain active today – although some now have made moves towards political rather than terrorist methods. Meanwhile, by the mid-1980s, state-sponsored terrorism reemerged ‑ the catalyst for the series of attacks against American and other Western targets in the Middle East. Countries such as Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria came to the fore as the principle such sponsors of terrorism. Falling into a related category were those countries, such as North Korea, who directly participated in coverts acts of what could be described as terrorism.[xviii]



Such state-sponsored terrorism remains a concern of the international community today (especially its Western constituents), although it has been somewhat overshadowed in recent times by the reemergence of the religiously inspired terrorist. The latest manifestation of this trend began in 1979, when the revolution that transformed Iran into an Islamic republic led it to use and support terrorism as a means of propagating its ideals beyond its own border. [xix] Before long, the trend had spread beyond Iran to places as far a field as Japan and the United States, and beyond Islam to ever major world religion as well as many minor cults. From the Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo in 1995 to the Oklahoma bombing the same year, religion was again added to the complex mix of motivations that led to acts of terrorism. The al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought home to the world, and most particularly the United States, just how dangerous this latest mutation of terrorism is.

You'll say the main article supports both[all] our views; I'll say we're debating semantics.

[loCAtek]

Was this exercise worthwhile or not?

I enjoyed a good debate; still think this should be in a 10th level student's lesson plan?

[Big RR]

The current Gulf War and Afghanistan were instigated by acts of terrorism, to the scale of acts of war; the current counter-action is known as the War on Terror, because we are not in conflict with the nation of Afghanistan but the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, which has no nationality.

So is it your view that only non-nations (NGOs and individuals) can commit terrorism, or is it that a nation is not a terrorist if someone in its government says it is in a war, regardless of what that war is about or whether it is a formally declared state of war or not? I can't agree with wither of those points; IMHO deliberately attacking civilian (nonmilitary) targets by any group or army (whether sanctioned by national government or not) with the intent of demaralizing the populace is an act of terrorism, pure and simple. Hell, I'm sure Al Qaeda would say it is in a war against US imperialism and its efforts to crush islam.

[Scooter]

You'll say the main article supports both[all] our views; I'll say we're debating semantics.

We're not debating semantics at all. You asserted:

Attacking an opponent's innocent civilians is a very modern tactic to the twentieth century

which has been proven false by reference to numerous conflicts occurring over several millenia.

The article you just posted doesn't make any claim to the contrary, your bolding and big fonting of passages which do nothing to support your view notwithstanding.

[loCAtek]

. Hell, I'm sure Al Qaeda would say it is in a war against US imperialism and its efforts to crush islam.

As a matter of fact they do. Much of the Middle East does, but that's semantics.


Interesting interactive chart that documents, at the very least, that the level of terrorism is at its highest this century than it ever was.

[Big RR]

As a matter of fact they do. Much of the Middle East does, but that's semantics.

And without a legal defintion, so is any war just a matter of semantics. Which is why I say just calling something a war does not change the nature of a terroristic act. Nor does changing the actor from a representative of a government to a representative of any other group or evn just an individual with an axe to grind.

[Scooter]

Interesting interactive chart that documents, at the very least, that the level of terrorism is at its highest this century than it ever was.

Gee, one does a search including the term "WWII" and one is surprised that it yields very few results prior to the 20th century.

[loCAtek]

Gee, it couldn't include the history of terrorism up to WWII, could it?

[Scooter]

If there existed a single compedium of every terrorist act committed from the beginning of time until WWII, then I would presume that it would be captured by this search. Except that is not what this search came up with; it came up with a series of works covering particular periods or issues of hisstory. Sorry, but you're not going to find many works about the 12th, 13th, 14th centuries which make any mention of WWII, and so this search would not identify any work about terrorist acts in those centuries unless the same work also happened to meanion . And so the inclusion of WWII as a search term completely skews the search results

[loCAtek]

Well, again we'd have to agree on the parameters of what terrorism is. This definition eludes many.

[Scooter]

Indeed, and if one begins with the incorrect notion that innocent civilians were never the targets of violence by opposing forces prior to the 20th century, then one is going to miss a lot in compiling a list.

[loCAtek]

Good thing no one said that then.

[Scooter]

Of course they didn't:

Attacking an opponent's innocent civilians is a very modern tactic to the twentieth century, meant to demoralize AKA 'terrorize' before any real fighting takes place.

[loCAtek]

Operative word being 'before', glad I could point out the distinction.

[Sean]

The IRA and abortion clinic bombers are terrorists on a small scale.

As somebody who spent most of his life living in both Ireland and England under the threat of IRA attack I think I'll just treat that remark with the contempt it deserves Lo.

[loCAtek]

I called them terrorists; stipulated with a lower body count, hence the scale. Not sure how scale matters to our agreeing they're terrorists.