While I agree that the likely strategy employed by the "insurgency" in Iraq is probably motivated by the events that led to the US pullout of Somalia, as Andrew Sullivan observes, there is something about Cori Dauber's bright line distinction between terrorism and terroristic activity, on The Volokh Conspiracy that just bothers me
I still believe there is critical value in keeping a bright line around the concept of terrorism -- it is the intentional targeting of non-combatants, it is the killing of the UN's deminers, the Red Cross's water treatment specialists, hotel guests, September 11th. Politically inspired violence, it seems to me, is at play in the targeting of American troops, and there is value in asking what the motivations behind the violence are, but the killing of combatants is not terrorism per se, and it is just worth reminding ourselves of that when there are multiple kinds of violent activities taking place simultaneously.
I can see an excellent case for maintaining awareness of this distinction, in an abstract sense. But in this particular case it's also important to point out that there may be a deliberate strategy to blur this "bright line," because there isn't much doubt that the people who are targetting US military personnel are also targetting civilians and the Red Cross. That is, while the distinction may be important to us, I suspect it isn't important to them. The fact that they happen to target combatants once in awhile doesn't convince me that these folks are any less vile.
There almost certainly isn't one group of relatively ethical insurgents who target combatants, and another that targets noncombatants. It may not be a very practical distinction either, because the point of targetting civilian Iraqis and international relief agences as well as the UN is, as much as possible, to turn the Sunni Triangle into Somalia. Or, in other words, to turn it into a place Americans won't consider worth saving. Which makes it immanently clear that one side, which includes civilian Iraqis, international and relief agencies, and the US military, are doing their level best to build and maintain civilization, while the other side is doing its level best to keep barbarity and chaos an ever-present reality.
Update:
From Cori Dauber:
Update: A reader reminds me that it is probably worth adding this layer of precision. I think the jihadists coming in from outside the country are terrorists. But individual acts are defined as terrorism, and I have made this point before, based on whether they target non-combatants. I would call these people "terrorists" as a general term, while distinguishing between particular actions, by the way, because I think the groups to which they belong have pretty clearly established that they are willing to participate in terrorism as a tactic even if it is not the tactic they choose every time out of the gate.
Oh, OK. It's important to be precise, and "terrorism" is really about terrorizing a civil population. It's just exactly what the "terror state" does, except without the authority of the state. It is, essentially, a strategy for misrule.
Posted by Demosophist at November 4, 2003 01:47 AM | TrackBackPart of the deal is not so much that the targeting of non-combatants is necessarily an evil recognized in all corners of the globe, but rather that when one side plays by one set of rules and the other side doesn't tension is created. In the general case of terrorism, it's bloody hard to hit 'their' civilians, so essentially an asymmetry is created. The problem with the approach though is that symmetries can be both made and broken. Insensitvity to civilian casualties invites one's opponent to be just as cavalier. And if we do really get into a war of extinction sweepstakes, this will become the darkest and ugliest chapter in mankind's history by a long shot.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation at November 4, 2003 07:59 PMAnticipatory Retaliation:
I'm not sure what you're driving at, other than that there's a rather obvious double standard being applied. And, of course, the same goes for the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I can certainly understand (though not necessarily agree with) condemnation of the Israelis for their military assaults on Palestinian villages and for cantonization of the West Bank, but I don't see the slightest equivalence between that and the deliberate and indiscriminate suicide bombing of civilians. Clearly the US won't get into an "extinction sweepstakes." That could conceivably come to pass, if we leave Iraq, creating a power vacuum. And, of course, if we were ever induced to fight a war of extinction, it would be pretty asymmetrical.
Anyway, the first step in winning this "insurgency" is to find Saddam, and I just have no idea why he and Bin Laden are still stealing air on the planet. It demonstrates not only that we aren't very good at intel, but that they have a vast sympathetic population in which to hide. I have a theory, based on my interactions with various agencies and institutions in and around "the beltway," that there's a real inability to "think outside the box," on this. All of our intelligence institutions are extremely dysfunctional and in need of the same sort of reorganization that was visited on the DOD in the wake of Vietnam. And I don't think there's even the slightest chance that this will happen from the "inside." Once you create enough change that there's a commitment to the process within those institutions the momentum will take over, but the process won't begin unless it's mandated from congress or the executive, and probably both. In spite of all the nifty new spy dramas I think the real institutions tend to work more like the Baltimore Police Department that's depicted in the HBO series The Wire. Or worse.
Posted by: Scott (to AR) at November 5, 2003 09:09 AMSorry to be short in my reply, but the instructive lesson to me is that since, on the European front, the Germans and Italians took prisoners, the allies continued to take prisoners. On the Pacific front, the Japanese unwillingness to take prisoners eventually resulted in an overall "take no prisoners" understanding by both sides. Anytime a double standard exists, there is a not inconsiderable pressure to change the inequity. I've written more about that here.
Elsewise, the failure to nab Saddamn and Osama don't surprise me that much. Remember how much time it took to track down the Unabomber, and so on. It's not going to be like Panama all the time.
This is do, in real measure, to the fact that the organizations inside the beltway have no special claim on energy or efficiency, any more than any other business outside the betlway does. Fully of different people, personalities, and so on, it's not reasonable to expect an organization employing several million humans to always achieve fast results on everything. Sheer size mitiates against it.
Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation (to Scott) at November 5, 2003 05:10 PMA.R.:
Sorry to be short in my reply, but the instructive lesson to me is that since, on the European front, the Germans and Italians took prisoners, the allies continued to take prisoners. On the Pacific front, the Japanese unwillingness to take prisoners eventually resulted in an overall "take no prisoners" understanding by both sides. Anytime a double standard exists, there is a not inconsiderable pressure to change the inequity.
I'll check out what you have to say on the topic. I'm not sure who we'd target, though. While they may consider themselves at war with an entire people, I don't see how we could. The examples you mention involve nations at war, of course. I'd like to say more, but I'd have to say a lot more than I have time for at the moment. Suffice to say that when individuals can consider themselves at war with nations the assumptions underlying national sovereignty are undermined and there may ultimately be no solution except "supranational law." It would be a mess to implement it at the moment, given the mix of governmental systems and levels of democracy and individual sovereignty that are involved, but it's something we'll ultimately have to work out. Mortimer Adler's How To Think about War and Peace is an excellent book on the notion of supranational law and national sovereignty, but because it was written in the 1940s didn't foresee the possibility of the "superempowered individual" or small terrorist group. I also think the book makes quite clear how naive it was to think of the UN and its "internatonal law" as a serious way to deal with Saddam Hussein. Basically we can't employ a criminal justice model for the simple reason that there is no criminal justice system that has sovereignty over the cases. The irony is, perhaps, that what's required to establish the conditions for true "supranational law" is precisely what the US is doing now "unilaterally," (meaning, against the wishes of Continental Europe).
As for the failure to nab Hussein and UBL, that really has to be seen as something of a failure, I'm afraid. These aren't like the Unibomber. They're issuing orders, interacting with their followers, and waging an active campaign. And I think we have a right to expect competence from our intelligence services too. We knew from experience that the DOD was a mess during Vietnam, but the reorganization of the DOD, which took some 20 years to accomplish, basically turned it into the kind of military machine that we could then ask to accomplish the tasks we demand of it now, and which it performs very well. I'm not asking perfection, but the performance of our intelligence community is so far below the standard of the DOD that it's ludicrous to even compare them. I'm not sure what it'll take to get things rolling, but no one seems to have the stomach for it at the moment. I hope we don't pay too high a price, before a mood sets in to change things.
Posted by: Scott at November 5, 2003 06:14 PM