Boston Marathon: Is terrorism ever justified?

[Guest]

First of all, thoughts and sympathies for the victims, friends, relatives and fellow citizens of this awful incident.

Talking to American friends last night, including family members who live in Boston, I reflected on the American 'naivity' regarding US citizens collecting money in Bars for the IRA in the 80s (at least that was the decade in which I politely refused to contribute while having a beer in a NY bar). I wondered if the US view had changed over the years, since they have experienced terrorism.

And, for example, Paula Radcliffe has said that the perpetraters are 'sick' people. Was the ANC, Mandela et al sick? Is the IRA sick.

Is terrorism ever justified?

[Julien Sorel]

One problem is finding a definition of terrorism. You could ask the question you ask about the French Resistance.

My view is that all attacks on civilians and non-combatants are in principle wrong / unacceptable. Whether the attacks come from groups, individuals or states (including those habitually described as democracies).

Resistance to state terror is always going to be a series of grey areas. (I'm not, to make very clear, suggesting what has happened in Boston could fall under that definition - as far as I know no one has any idea who is responsible, group or individual. And, of course, pre the September 11, 2001 attacks the single deadliest terrorist act - as generally defined - within the US was Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, an attack carried out by far-right anti-state so-called libertarians.) It sounds almost, grimly, comic to say it, but some sort of proportionality and making every attempt to avoid indiscriminate acts for the sake of creating terror should be essential principles of any resistance group. And not losing sight of the fact that killing other people is a dreadful thing to do (a willed forgetting that states and populations of aggressor or combatant states routinely effect).

Walter Benjamin's great and necessarily complex 'Critique of Violence' is worth persevering with (IMV) http://www.scribd.com/doc/12200144/B...ue-of-Violence and Gerhard Richter's October 18, 1977 is (again in IMV) a profound meditation on the unanswerability of your question and the constant, urgent need to find answers to it http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/p...y.php?catID=56.

[DracoM]

And perpetrators? Anything yet known?
USA has its own unenviable record of indigenous outrages - Oklahoma etc. Is that 'terrorism' or frustrated, pathological dysfunction?

[Richard Barrett]

Regarding definitions: Chomsky points out that "US Army manuals (...) define terrorism as "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear." Which of course would have to include very many acts of the US government itself (and numerous others of course). But when terrorism is carried out by "our people" it tends to go under other names.

Many more people were killed by explosions in Iraq yesterday than in Boston. A few hours afterwards the former massacres were off the front pages altogether. But the people in Boston were "our people" and therefore outrage is massively greater.

[Julien Sorel]

Sadly it's not difficult to predict how the coverage will go, depending on who is found to be responsible.

If, say, it's a group with Islamist sympathies some will say they don't represent Islam, but a significant element on the right will talk of the dangers of Islam etc.

If it turns out to be right-wing individual: (a) any organised group aspect, even where there's evidence of some, will be refuted. There will be copious psychologising, the individual will be a loner, will have had problems with x, y, z. (b) any suggestion that right-wing ideology in its violent aspect has connections with mainstream, media and political right-wing attitudes and rhetoric will be denounced as exploiting the tragedy and an attempt to smear (the Melanie Phillips line).

[Beef Oven]

One problem is finding a definition of terrorism. You could ask the question you ask about the French Resistance.

My view is that all attacks on civilians and non-combatants are in principle wrong / unacceptable. Whether the attacks come from groups, individuals or states (including those habitually described as democracies).

Resistance to state terror is always going to be a series of grey areas. (I'm not, to make very clear, suggesting what has happened in Boston could fall under that definition - as far as I know no one has any idea who is responsible, group or individual. And, of course, pre the September 11, 2001 attacks the single deadliest terrorist act - as generally defined - within the US was Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, an attack carried out by far-right anti-state so-called libertarians.) It sounds almost, grimly, comic to say it, but some sort of proportionality and making every attempt to avoid indiscriminate acts for the sake of creating terror should be essential principles of any resistance group. And not losing sight of the fact that killing other people is a dreadful thing to do (a willed forgetting that states and populations of aggressor or combatant states routinely effect).

Walter Benjamin's great and necessarily complex 'Critique of Violence' is worth persevering with (IMV) http://www.scribd.com/doc/12200144/B...ue-of-Violence and Gerhard Richter's October 18, 1977 is (again in IMV) a profound meditation on the unanswerability of your question and the constant, urgent need to find answers to it http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/p...y.php?catID=56.

I wasn't overly worried about a definition of terrorism. Taking a more conversational approach, I was thinking about the sort of terrorism where the objective of it is an operation and strategy that aims to kill innocent people indiscriminately. Acts that include making every attempt to avoid indiscriminate killing, such as the IRA giving warnings well ahead of detonation, aren't the sort of thing I was thinking of.

Although Benjamin's work is worthy, an executive summary wouldn't hurt!

[Beef Oven]

And perpetrators? Anything yet known?
USA has its own unenviable record of indigenous outrages - Oklahoma etc. Is that 'terrorism' or frustrated, pathological dysfunction?

It's terrorism, isn't it?

[Beef Oven]

Sadly it's not difficult to predict how the coverage will go, depending on who is found to be responsible.

If, say, it's a group with Islamist sympathies some will say they don't represent Islam, but a significant element on the right will talk of the dangers of Islam etc.

If it turns out to be right-wing individual: (a) any organised group aspect, even where there's evidence of some, will be refuted. There will be copious psychologising, the individual will be a loner, will have had problems with x, y, z. (b) any suggestion that right-wing ideology in its violent aspect has connections with mainstream, media and political right-wing attitudes and rhetoric will be denounced as exploiting the tragedy and an attempt to smear (the Melanie Phillips line).

A tad fatalistic.

[scottycelt]

Sadly it's not difficult to predict how the coverage will go, depending on who is found to be responsible.

If, say, it's a group with Islamist sympathies some will say they don't represent Islam, but a significant element on the right will talk of the dangers of Islam etc.

If it turns out to be right-wing individual: (a) any organised group aspect, even where there's evidence of some, will be refuted. There will be copious psychologising, the individual will be a loner, will have had problems with x, y, z. (b) any suggestion that right-wing ideology in its violent aspect has connections with mainstream, media and political right-wing attitudes and rhetoric will be denounced as exploiting the tragedy and an attempt to smear (the Melanie Phillips line).

Whoever are responsible three innocent people are now dead including an eight-year-old kiddie. Many other innocents are horribly injured and have had limbs torn-off/amputated. Murderous mayhem was the clear intention.

I don't give a monkeys whether the savages responsible are from the Extreme Left or Right (the mirror-image of each other) or call themselves Islamists, Christians, Jews, Hindus or anything else.

They are simply savages, nothing more or less.

[Julien Sorel]

I wasn't overly worried about a definition of terrorism. Taking a more conversational approach, I was thinking about the sort of terrorism where the objective of it is an operation and strategy that aims to kill innocent people indiscriminately. Acts that include making every attempt to avoid indiscriminate killing, such as the IRA giving warnings well ahead of detonation, aren't the sort of thing I was thinking of.

Although Benjamin's work is worthy, an executive summary wouldn't hurt!

Executive summaries don't work with Benjamin.

Definition or not, I'd say any action where: "an operation and strategy ... aims to kill innocent people indiscriminately" is never justified. It often is justified by (conventionally) terrorists and by states (including those where we, as it were, live) on the grounds that it wasn't the aim, that it was collateral, that every effort was taken, etc. But the language of "shock and awe" gives that game away, IMO.

I'm not attempting to obfuscate or to remove blame from certain terrorist groups or individuals. Rather the opposite. I think in order to get anywhere thinking about and finding a way past terrorism the binary them (fanatics) / us (democracies) needs to be constantly challenged. As Richard Barrett says, there's no doubt our deaths matter more in our reckoning than theirs. That can be seen every time terrorism touches us (and underlies the absurdist disproportionality in mainstream political and media reactions to the Israel / Palestine situation. Israel being located in the us camp), and in the way day to day terrorist killing in Iraq is immediately old news / return to the main story.

[ahinton]

Whoever are responsible three innocent people are now dead including an eight-year-old kiddie. Many other innocents are horribly injured and have had limbs torn-off/amputated. Murderous mayhem was the clear intention.

I don't give a monkeys whether the savages responsible are from the Extreme Left or Right (the mirror-image of each other) or call themselves Islamists, Christians, Jews, Hindus or anything else.

They are simply savages, nothing more or less.

Sure, but the question here begs the second question "what is a terrorist?" and if one thing is clear it is that what is deemed to constitute "terrorism" will vary from one person to another; it is not easy to see how acts of "terrorism" can be "justified" or otherwise for everyone until they've first been defined to the satisfaction of a majority of people who are seeking an answer to that question but, that said, I agree pretty much with what Richard Barrett and Julien Sorel have written about this.

[Beef Oven]

Executive summaries don't work with Benjamin.

Definition or not, I'd say any action where: "an operation and strategy ... aims to kill innocent people indiscriminately" is never justified. It often is justified by (conventionally) terrorists and by states (including those where we, as it were, live) on the grounds that it wasn't the aim, that it was collateral, that every effort was taken, etc. But the language of "shock and awe" gives that game away, IMO.

I'm not attempting to obfuscate or to remove blame from certain terrorist groups or individuals. Rather the opposite. I think in order to get anywhere thinking about and finding a way past terrorism the binary them (fanatics) / us (democracies) needs to be constantly challenged. As Richard Barrett says, there's no doubt our deaths matter more in our reckoning than theirs. That can be seen every time terrorism touches us (and underlies the absurdist disproportionality in mainstream political and media reactions to the Israel / Palestine situation. Israel being located in the us camp).

:ok: You've answered the exam question. I agree with you. Acts of terrorism are never justified. :ok:

[Julien Sorel]

:ok: You've answered the exam question. I agree with you. Acts of terrorism are never justified. :ok:

Perhaps a better way to put that is they are unjustifiable, but are frequently justified (and not only by terrorist groups).

[Beef Oven]

Perhaps a better way to put that is they are unjustifiable, but are frequently justified (and not only by terrorist groups).

I think that when you said that acts of terrorism are never justified, you summed it up perfectly. But, I may only think that, because it's what I believe too.

[Richard Barrett]

They are simply savages, nothing more or less.

I suppose we can all agree that acts like the bombings yesterday in the USA and Iraq should not happen in a civilised world, and that it's necessary to understand why they happen if there's to be any chance of stopping them from happening. Does characterising people as "savages" help in that process?