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In May of 2004 the video of Nick Berg's decapitation was released by Al Qaeda, and met with condemnation, outrage, and vows of swift reprisal against those responsible. In September of 2014 the video of Steven Sotloff's decapitation was released by ISIS, and met with condemnation, outrage, and vows of swift reprisal against those responsible. In the intervening decade, a number of important milestones transpired in America's War On Terror: elections in Iraq and Afghanistan and the establishment of new U.S. backed governments in those countries, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the decrease in Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein, and more. However, last night, on the eve of our newest American holiday, the President of the United States announced additional military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, to "degrade and ultimately destroy" this terrorist organization. Effectively launching a new campaign in our era of endless war against a inchoate abstraction. Collectively we have spent the past thirteen years being inundated by the word terrorism, or its factor- terrorist. Generally, terrorism is defined as violent acts intended to bring about a political result. Merriam-Webster defines it as "the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal;" the Federal government, at 18 U.S. Code § 2331 et al, defines international and domestic terrorism substantively in similar terms as "acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law; appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." The use of the word terrorism over this period has been used to describe all manner of individuals, from presidents, priests and politicians of all conviction and colors to school children, churches and humanitarian organizations. It has, through fearful and slavish exaggeration, been reduced to that basest form of propaganda. It means whatever we believe it means, we employ it to further our purposes, good or ill. This is not to say that ISIS' actions are not morally reprehensible. They are. The mass executions of soldiers and civilians, burying captives alive, the beheadings, the genocide of the Yazdis held captive at Mount Sinjar, the forced rapes and kidnappings of women and children; should all rightly be condemned and put to an end by effective and judicious means. Yet ISIS is not a demon spawned in a vacuum. They are Sunni Wahhabs (or Salafists if you prefer), much like Al Qaeda and many Saudis, responding to infidels, takfirs, and a decade plus of war of regional destabilization propagated by the United States government. Notwithstanding the reasons for the 9/11 attacks as described by Osama bin Laden in his 'Letter to America' (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver); the United States has in the years that followed helped to create a context and rationale for ISIS to continue to exist and thrive by way a litany of similar atrocities- the rationale for, war in and mismanagement of Iraq, Abu Gharib, the Siege of Fallujah, the execution of 17 civilians by Blackwater personnel, the indiscriminate bombing and killing of thousands of civilians, the rape and murder of civilians by American soldiers, American soldiers urinating on dead Afghanis and collecting the body parts of others as trophies, American doctors providing information on how to best torture prisoners, the displacement of millions into lives of poverty and prostitution, the massacre of 47 civilians at a wedding party in Deh Bala; among many others. The above so described acts would arguably, yet reasonably meet the prosaic and legal definitions of terrorism. Taken together a pattern of disturbing parallels emerges. Violent religious fundamentalism, be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh or other, is merely a facet of a larger claim towards tribal supremacy, and legitimacy. We proclaim ourselves the holy, the chosen people, and with this exercise in self-identity we begin to define others out of existence. Perhaps the singular and cruelest revelation is that after questing to destroy and dismantle any pocket of Islamic terrorism, the United States has succeeded in helping to create in ISIS the terrorists that we deserve, that so closely resemble ourselves in barbarity, conviction in our divine manifestation of right and pursuit of a moral legitimacy to enact violence. The old shibboleth that "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter" has not stopped being true. Our own venerated and nigh-mythological terrorists, The Founding Fathers (always capitalized and preceded by the definite article), destroyed property, burned government buildings, killed British agents and effectively dragged the thirteen colonies into a war of secession against the British government. The Boston Massacre, widely regarded as the flashpoint for the American Revolution, was brought about by crowds assaulting British soldiers, who were goaded into firing their weapons. John Adams represented the soldiers at trial, and was able to acquit six of the eight so charged. At the end of his life he remarked that it was "one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country." It should be remembered that John Adams served as Vice President under George Washington, second President of the United States and as a U.S. Ambassador. This seminal moment in American history is chosen as evidence that we as a nation are forged in a crucible of violence. In the past thirteen years we have continually failed to learn from our mistakes. Our nascent war with ISIS will be no different. We are being led into another conflict which will hemorrhage wealth, lives, and the stomach for yet another fight. In fact, certain scholars and commentators believe this to be the true purpose of the conflict- to weaken and siphon our resources via a tried and tested method of asymmetrical warfare. Be that as it may, the fact remains that ISIS and the United States will soon join battle in full, the latest iteration in the quest for a moral legitimacy for terrorism.
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Sep 11, 2014 19:46
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Not to sound like an idiot, but what is the point of discussion, precisely? If terrorism is "legitimate" or not? If the actions of the United States and allied forces in combating ISIS are justified?
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Sep 12, 2014 01:20
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The 'war on terrorism' was a moronic concept created from neoconservative fever dreams op. The real question you should ask "is our conflict with islamic extremists groups justified" rather than engaging in whataboutism.
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Sep 12, 2014 01:48
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The companies that profit from making the weapons are allowed to finance politician's campaigns. Probably shouldn't be doing that if you're not into having wars.
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Sep 12, 2014 02:46
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Yes, let's blame America for a multitude of conflicts of which some are over 1000 years old.
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Sep 12, 2014 15:49
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Yes, let's blame America for a multitude of conflicts of which some are over 1000 years old. I blame Ptolomy XVI. Terrorism is never acceptable. Terrorism is, by definition, organized non-state violence directed against state targets. Terrorism is not state-organized violence against non-state targets.
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Sep 12, 2014 15:52
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I tend to find that people who say conflicts are older than the past 100 years or so have a profound lack of understanding of history, as well as a clear interest in minimising the role of - for example - the US by making it seem like their actions are just a drop in an ocean of conflict.
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Sep 12, 2014 15:56
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Yes, let's blame America for a multitude of conflicts of which some are over 1000 years old. The blame isn't on the multitude of conflicts, but this country's reaction to it.
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Sep 12, 2014 15:58
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R. Mute posted:I tend to find that people who say conflicts are older than the past 100 years or so have a profound lack of understanding of history, as well as a clear interest in minimising the role of - for example - the US by making it seem like their actions are just a drop in an ocean of conflict. Ah, the Shiite-Sunni conflict is irrelevant, yes.
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Sep 12, 2014 15:58
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Ah, the Shiite-Sunni conflict is irrelevant, yes. You seem to really enjoy extremes; The whole cause, or irrelevant. Full blame, or none.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:00
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Ah, the Shiite-Sunni conflict is irrelevant, yes.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:00
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i am harry posted:You seem to really enjoy extremes; The whole cause, or irrelevant. Full blame, or none. Welcome to American Democracy, where you either win the round or lose and play better the next. E: R. Mute posted:It's relevant, but let's not pretend like the last hundred years of Middle East politics aren't a lot more relevant. The last 600 years have been crucial to state development in the Middle East. The next 600 will prove themselves just as critical.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:02
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My Imaginary GF posted:The last 600 years have been crucial to state development in the Middle East. The next 600 will prove themselves just as critical. Thomas Friedman?
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Sep 12, 2014 16:12
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OwlBot 2000 posted:Thomas Friedman? I heard it from a Zoroastrian pharmacist, not an Indian rickshaw cabbie.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:14
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Kumo posted:Effectively launching a new campaign in our era of endless war against a inchoate abstraction. Are actual crucifixions of Christians and a genocide against the Yazidi (where worse things than crucifixions seem to be going on!) an "inchoate abstraction"? This is in no way to say that these things are not happening as a result of actions the US took. The root of what is happening now seems to be pretty clearly be our invasion of Iraq. I think that if we use the word terrorism to describe the beheading of journalists, that the word is being used with meaning. In that context it does not "means whatever we believe it means, we employ it to further our purposes, good or ill." To call that (the beheadings) terrorism, is not to manipulate language towards an end, it's to call a thing what it is. You're making a mistake to place the action of the President within the same ideological framework of President Bush. The Iraq invasion was a catastrophic adventure in naive idealism. I don't think this is like that and I don't think President Obama has handled the war on terror like President Bush. Bush's model was very we're going to bring democracy and build your nation to be an example of our ideals, using traditional forces. Obama's model has been, we're going to kill you methodically and systematically usually from the air most often with drones, but also with special forces. I think an expansion of second way of approaching it is what is going on here. I don't think you're wrong that the violent religious fundamentalism of ISIS is a response to and a consequence of our wars originating in naive national idealism. But our response now is something different.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:15
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Kumo posted:
Moral equivocation ITT. Tell me more about violent fundamentalist Christians and Sikhs.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:15
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Pauline Kael posted:Moral equivocation ITT. Tell me more about violent fundamentalist Christians and Sikhs. Where does Christianity come from? Jesus was non-violent. But the Jewish groups he came from, the Jewish groups from which the people who would end up being the early Jesus movement came from? They would have looked to the Romans very similiar to how Middle Eastern terror groups look to us.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:21
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Pauline Kael posted:Moral equivocation ITT. Tell me more about violent fundamentalist Christians and Sikhs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutaree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ellison_(polygamist) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbar_Khalsa
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Sep 12, 2014 16:23
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Pauline Kael posted:Moral equivocation ITT. Tell me more about violent fundamentalist Christians and Sikhs. Air India Flight 182 for Sikhs, the IRA, NLFT, Anti-balaka and Tigers Militia for Christians. It's good to know that your experience in the I/P thread meant you only had to ask for examples of violent Sikh and Christian groups. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 16:23
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BrandorKP posted:Where does Christianity come from? Jesus was non-violent. But the Jewish groups he came from, the Jewish groups from which the people who would end up being the early Jesus movement came from? They would have looked to the Romans very similiar to how Middle Eastern terror groups look to us. Byzantine revisionism. There were sects which quite held as fundamental belief in a very violent yeshua-figure. Still are in some circles.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:26
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Johnny Cache Hit posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutaree Gee with 4 examples plus Owlbot's, that makes 6 for faiths totalling over 2 billion adherents. I can see how you lump them in with Islam!
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Sep 12, 2014 16:28
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My Imaginary GF posted:Byzantine revisionism. There were sects which quite held as fundamental belief in a very violent yeshua-figure. Still are in some circles. Meh, fringe sects are usually fringe sects (and the non-canonical is usually non-canonical) for a reason.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:37
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Pauline Kael posted:Gee with 4 examples plus Owlbot's, that makes 6 for faiths totalling over 2 billion adherents. I can see how you lump them in with Islam!
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Sep 12, 2014 16:41
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It works a lot better than telling the general public we need to kill for oil
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Sep 12, 2014 16:44
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I'm offended ( ) when people refer to conflicts in the Islamic world as "a thousand years old" or "centuries old" or whatever. That's some straight bullshit, Garry Trudeau. Whatever sectarian conflicts have arisen, they've been punctuated by entire generations of stability. Sometimes it was empire that brought the stability, sometimes a strongman, sometimes it was civil society but you might as well say that Europe has been racked with conflict since the dissolution of the Roman empire. Nobody says that though, because the populations being discussed are not swart enough. That's right, I said it. Look at fake Omar Sharif up there in the comic, his tribal enmities are so intractable! If only he would trim his eyebrows, maybe civil government could obtain.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:49
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Pauline Kael posted:Gee with 4 examples plus Owlbot's, that makes 6 for faiths totalling over 2 billion adherents. I can see how you lump them in with Islam! Interesting how 'Islam' is a monolithic entity to you but other religions can have different sects, extreme examples of which can be dismissed as 'fringe'.
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Sep 12, 2014 16:58
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I often hear things like that cartoon from classmates who went army. Most interesting one I heard was about Afghanistan, apparently they had a reoccurring and fairly widespread problem with some of the newly trained Afghan police in the more rural areas liking to use their authority to uh, rape young boys. This would lead to the Taliban coming back into those areas. Every time I heard somebody talking about it the line always was that it was a cultural thing that had been happening in the area since Alexander the Great came through bringing the classical Greek love for an idealized young male form with him.
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Sep 12, 2014 17:03
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So were the Contras terrorists or not?
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Sep 12, 2014 17:08
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My Imaginary GF posted:I blame Ptolomy XVI. Actually, the origin of the concept of terrorism is from the Reign of Terror in post-revolutionary France. From then, it was generally used a means to describe policies or tactics used by state actors (though not exclusively). The idea that it's only something non-state actors do is a product of the post-9/11 worldview and is intellectually dishonest. Edit: Ardennes posted:So were the Contras terrorists or not? Any actor that uses (violent) terror as a political tool can be considered a terrorist. Honestly, terrorism and terrorist are easily the most loaded terms used in modern discourse and the question of who does and doesn't deserve the label is decided almost purely on who are the actors and who are the victims. MizPiz fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 17:12
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Beheading people is NOT cool. That's my two cents.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:24
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My Imaginary GF posted:Byzantine revisionism. There were sects which quite held as fundamental belief in a very violent yeshua-figure. Still are in some circles. The last Jewish uprising in antiquity I can think of would be the Samaritan uprisings in I want to say sixth century. My Mizrahi history is incredibly spotty though so no clue what happened after Islam set up shop.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:37
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GBS Ambassador posted:Beheading people is NOT cool. Somebody better remember to tell the Saudis that. They're still beheading folks for the crime of sorcery (not joking at all).
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Sep 12, 2014 22:55
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OP, what's your thesis, exactly?
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Sep 12, 2014 23:02
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Kumo posted:
What? Your whole post is confusing and seems mostly meaningless.
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Sep 13, 2014 04:02
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My Imaginary GF posted:Terrorism is never acceptable. Terrorism is, by definition, organized non-state violence directed against state targets. Terrorism is not state-organized violence against non-state targets. I'm honestly having trouble parsing this so to be clear; you honestly think organised resistance is never acceptable against an oppressive state? I mean the easiest example that most agree with is Mandela, if we want to have some American flavour we have the civil rights movement. These are terrorist acts and there is absolutely no acceptable way to attempt to dodge this by saying "well but that's different". If you're going to outline your own strict definition then blanket it, then you're a pretty loving terrible person. Terrorism, in the sense of violence against an oppressive state when all democratic options have been exhausted, is both moral and our duty to our fellow citizens.
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Sep 13, 2014 04:07
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I think terrorism is actually more accurately described as non-state actors (with perhaps state backing) against non-state targets. This also explains why revolution against oppressive states and terrorism against civilian targets for the purposes of sowing fear in the populace can be distinguishable v  vSilver2195 posted:You should add political motivation to your definition to exclude ordinary crime. Certainly! SirJohnnyMcDonald fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 04:14
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SirJohnnyMcDonald posted:I think terrorism is actually more accurately described as non-state actors (with perhaps state backing) against non-state targets. You should add political motivation to your definition to exclude ordinary crime. I do agree that terrorism is a slippery word, but ISIS fits if anyone does.
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Sep 13, 2014 04:46
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Spangly A posted:I'm honestly having trouble parsing this so to be clear; you honestly think organised resistance is never acceptable against an oppressive state? If it helps, terrorism is tactic and not an inherent part of resistance. Your examples aren't necessarily wrong, both the South African and American civil rights movements employed terrorism as a means to achieve their goals, all the while the governments of both used and encouraged various security forces (including state, civilian, and with South Africa mercenary forces). However, resistance doesn't require terrorism and terrorism doesn't require a resistance movement (see al-Qaeda). SirJohnnyMcDonald posted:I think terrorism is actually more accurately described as non-state actors (with perhaps state backing) against non-state targets. What term do you think best describes when a state actors do the same thing?
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Sep 13, 2014 05:16
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MizPiz posted:What term do you think best describes when a state actors do the same thing? "Policy"
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Sep 13, 2014 05:28
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MizPiz posted:However, resistance doesn't require terrorism and terrorism doesn't require a resistance movement (see al-Qaeda). But that wasn't what I was trying to address: the idea of terrorism being only wrong is a bullshit absurdity. It's a thought terminating cliche to get you agree to just let the clever people bomb the bad people. My examples were not of terrorist acts themselves, but of organised terrorism that was clearly beyond reproach. Once democracy has completely broken down and political change is no longer achievable, it is not a matter of if it's justified but of how to best achieve your stated goals.
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Sep 13, 2014 05:39
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