Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,821 Year: 3,078/9,624 Month: 923/1,588 Week: 106/223 Day: 4/13 Hour: 0/2


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Just what IS terrorism?
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5873 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 91 of 112 (163015)
11-24-2004 6:04 PM
Reply to: Message 90 by contracycle
11-24-2004 11:53 AM


And right there your argument fails. I don't care what rationalisation is givenb for attacking civilians, civilians were attacked. Furthermore, neither the citizens of Grozny nor Falluja nor Hue can experience these assaults as anything other than deliberate. Guns don't kill people, marine snipers kill people, whetehr or not they are civilians.
How does this falsify the argument? Civilians (with the possible exception of Grozny), were NOT attacked. They were, unfortunately, caught in the crossfire. Under your definition as expanded, ANY act of warfare in any conflict where civilian casualties occur is terrorist. This makes the terrorist/nonterrorist dichotomy utterly meaningless. If orders were issued to Marine snipers to deliberately target any person seen in their sector, regardless of whether or not that person was armed or engaged in combat operations, and regardless of whether they were men, women or children (a "kill 'em all" order) then you might be able to make a case that the action was terrorist in intent. However, in neither the case of Hue NOR the case of Fallujah has that been either proven or even alleged.
An army that knowingly fights amid civilians cannot claim it killed those civilians accidentally. It can claim it had to do it, but it cannot claim it was an accident.
That is a ridiculous assertion. You have now thrown completely out the window the internationally agreed-upon definition of jus in bello, specifically that dealing with proportional response. It is possible to make a post facto determination that excessive force was used in a particular case, or that the principle of proportional response was ignored, but this is entirely different from terrorism. This entire line of argument is utterly irrelevant to an attempt to define what constitutes terrorism. You are merely arguing that no combat should take place where civilians can get hurt. Guess what? Whether dealing with asymetrical war/low intensity conflict in the developing world or guerre a l'outrance (total war al la Clauswitz) between superpowers, civilians are going to get killed. Unless you can come up with a formula where no war will ever be fought, or where the belligerants agree to fight only on some nice empty desert somewhere, civilian casualties are an inevitable consequence of armed conflict. Most of the laws of civilized warfare are designed to limit or mitigate civilian casualties and damage to civilian areas. However, even so, these treaties recognize that civilians may be caught in the crossfire when combat operations needs must be conducted in predominantly civilian areas. The laws make it incumbent on the combatants to take due regard for protection of civilians, that's all.
Now it's your turn. Please explain, in sufficient detail, preferably using specific examples from history, how adopting your preferred definition of terrorism avoids civilian casualties OR provides the necessary discrimination to differentiate "legitimate" from "illegitimate" tools of war. Also, how your definition forces nations to confront their own illegitimate use of this tactic.
What this analysis does is actually de facto legitmise all civilain killings by a formal army, becuase the only organisation with the power to take exception to the claim and do something about it is an opposing formal army.
No, it doesn't. In fact, it will have the opposite effect: stigmatizing the use of violence deliberately directed against civilians as terrorism. Your definition, OTOH, really DOES absolve nationstates from acknowledging their own illegitimate use of this tactic. After all, they're not attacking civilians for political purposes.
As far as spin goes - I agree. The most difficult aspect of adopting my definition is getting nations to recognize the targetting of noncombatants as terrorism. However, I submit that if this can be done, we will go a long way toward delegitimizing this odious tactic as a tool of warfare. Your definition simply avoids the issue completely.
By the way, "involuntary consript" is redundant.
No, it isn't. At least not in the context in which I used it. Conscription is a standard aspect of many national armies. Forced conscription, where someone is literally made to take up arms at gun point, is what I was referring to. Many of the Iraqi soldiers during Gulf War I were involuntary conscripts swept up by what were basically press gangs, and kept in place by threat of death - and they surrendered in droves to Coalition troops as soon as possible.
I simply don't care to whose detriment it speaks becuase my objective is to minimse loss of life, not to moralise murder.
An admirable desire. Unfortunately, it is also utterly irrelevant to the attempt at operationalizing a useable definition of terrorism.
Quite so. That is why I am wholly against the deploying of combat troops into civilian areas. If you recognise this to be true, then sending soldiers into such areas is explicit acceptance that they will necessarily kill non-combatants or involuntary combatants in the course of that opeartion. In which case: you are culpable fopr doing so, because you knew exactly what the concsequences of that action would be.
Right. However, besides being off topic by having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, this quite laudable desire ignores completely the reality of conflict. If the "enemy" is operating out of civilian areas, how is one to go about confronting them without taking the fight into those areas? Simply abandoning the field to the opposing belligerents doesn't seem a very effective tactic. Perhaps you would care to open a new thread to discuss what constitutes acceptable military operations?
Of course. The fact that there IS a difference is exactly what I dispute.
Then please make your argument more explicit. Why do you lump guerrillas with terrorists? How do you differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate acts of violence?
Yes of course. Why is that wrong?
Because, demonstrably, and with the exception of some of the fratricidal operations conducted by both sides in the southern colonies, the operations were not conducted against civilians. However, under your political definition, even those battles fought between Continental Army and British Regular forces would constitute terrorism, as the American forces were not members of a recognized nation state. Which, of course, renders the definition meaningless.
ll of which is quite true. Not least of which is becuase I recognise that in a fully serious, to-the-death war, the very idea of a civilian will vanish. Look at the second world war - the totalo war in wehich every sector of society was mobilised toward combat operations, whether that be Rosie the Riverter or actual front-line combatants. And no state in such a circumstance would ever even think twice about flattening whole cities full of civilians - becuase this is total war, and all civilian endeavours support the war effort directly or indirectly. War is hell, so what else is new?
I thought you were the one who claimed to be attempting to minimize casualties. Guess what, your entire argument here is built on the faulty assumption, first foisted on the world by the Prussian Clauswitz, and brought to its logical conclusion in WWI, that war even between nation states must by necessity be total war. I submit (and again a topic for another thread) that Clauswitz was wrong, and the adoption of his principles by modern states has led to more horror and suffering than any combination of terrorist acts ever in history. This is the paradigm that needs to change. Defining terrorism more narrowly is one step on that road. War IS hell. The idea, embodied in my definition, is an attempt to mitigate the effects on civilians by stigmatizing the deliberate targetting of noncombatants as terrorism. Your political definition simply perpetuates the Clauswitzian mistake.
Once again the net result is: a rich country with tanks and planes will kill civilians and claim that it was an accident, when not inntotal war, or take pride in it when it is total war. It will also describe any action by a poor enemy that results in a civilian death as illegitimate terrorism. The only time it cannot make tis analysis stick is when the enemy is sufficiently rich and powerful to produce its own propaganda, but then both sides resort to dehumanisaing the enemy completely.
Precisely what my definition directly confronts, and yours simply perpetuates. Terrorism is the deliberate targetting of civilians. Regardless of who does it. The political motivation of the attacker, or their material wealth, or their status as a nation state, is immaterial. It is an illegitimate act. Period.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by contracycle, posted 11-24-2004 11:53 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by contracycle, posted 11-25-2004 6:09 AM Quetzal has replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 92 of 112 (163144)
11-25-2004 6:09 AM
Reply to: Message 91 by Quetzal
11-24-2004 6:04 PM


quote:
How does this falsify the argument? Civilians (with the possible exception of Grozny), were NOT attacked. They were, unfortunately, caught in the crossfire.
Tjhuats complete sophistry. It is exactly this apologetic that annoys the hell out of me. "yes sir I blew the civilians head clean off but I didn't mean to"
"Thats OK son, it would only have been evil if you had meant to do it".
Thats just simply an apologetic for killing non-combatants. It is completely, totally, hypocritical.
quote:
Under your definition as expanded, ANY act of warfare in any conflict where civilian casualties occur is terrorist.
Yes. But only as a demonstration that the term is meaningless, emotive propaganda.
quote:
If orders were issued to Marine snipers to deliberately target any person seen in their sector, regardless of whether or not that person was armed or engaged in combat operations, and regardless of whether they were men, women or children (a "kill 'em all" order) then you might be able to make a case that the action was terrorist in intent.
I do not care about INTENT becuase it is unverifiable - a commander who gave such an order would be unlikely to admit to it. It is terrorist in FACT, regardless of nominal intent. Allegations have already been made that exactly this is in fact happening in Falluja right now and has been happening in Iraq since the occupation began.
Please refresh your memory of article 2 and 3 of Convention IV signed in Geneva:
quote:
Art. 2. In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace-time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.
quote:
That is a ridiculous assertion. You have now thrown completely out the window the internationally agreed-upon definition of jus in bello, specifically that dealing with proportional response. It is possible to make a post facto determination that excessive force was used in a particular case, or that the principle of proportional response was ignored, but this is entirely different from terrorism. This entire line of argument is utterly irrelevant to an attempt to define what constitutes terrorism. You are merely arguing that no combat should take place where civilians can get hurt.
No, I didn't: please read whatbI actually wrote. What I said was, an army can say IT HAD TO DO IT under the circumstances, it cannot say it DID IT BY ACCIDENT. It did not do it by accident, it did it deliberately and with malice aforethought. As the Convebntion makes clear, ALL civilians in a combat area are protected persons and the parties in combat have international treaty obligations to protect them AS A MINIMUM to the level laid oput above. Asserting that it "accidentally" killed civilains while knowingly fighting in a civilian area is very definitely a violation of the provisions of the Convention protecting civilians; it is abundantly clear that such a force did NOT undertake its duty of care to civilian poulations; the "accidental" defence is no more appropriate here than a burglar claiming he "accidentally" killed the householders in the course of his crime.
quote:
Now it's your turn. Please explain, in sufficient detail, preferably using specific examples from history, how adopting your preferred definition of terrorism avoids civilian casualties OR provides the necessary discrimination to differentiate "legitimate" from "illegitimate" tools of war. Also, how your definition forces nations to confront their own illegitimate use of this tactic.
Well, my difinition MAY reduce civilian casualties by denying formal armies the fig-leaf to hide behind which allows them to claim they killed civilians "accidentally". But I do not in fact expect that to actually happen. Furthermore, I do not accept that there are any "illegitimate" tools of war, and I accuse those who make such claims of gross hypocrisy, especially when they make this claim in company with apologetics for knowingly murdering civilians.
quote:
No, it doesn't. In fact, it will have the opposite effect: stigmatizing the use of violence deliberately directed against civilians as terrorism.
Nonsense - specifically your formulation offers an EXCUSE for killing civilians, the very opposite of stigmatising it. Under your definition, anyone can escape the claim of terrorism by saying it was accidental.
quote:
Your definition, OTOH, really DOES absolve nationstates from acknowledging their own illegitimate use of this tactic. After all, they're not attacking civilians for political purposes.
Well, thats just pragmatism - no-one will feel bound by such rules in total war. Thats exactly why the Western states and others possess ICBMS's measured by their capacity to vapourise concentrations of civilians in an instant. According to you, no army should possess such weapons because they can never be used without intentionally killing civilians - but they DO possess them anyway. Thats just real life - deal with it.
quote:
As far as spin goes - I agree. The most difficult aspect of adopting my definition is getting nations to recognize the targetting of noncombatants as terrorism.
They can not and will never adopt this - because total war will necessarily require direct attacks against the enemy population. It's a pipe dream.
quote:
However, I submit that if this can be done, we will go a long way toward delegitimizing this odious tactic as a tool of warfare. Your definition simply avoids the issue completely.
I'm afraid thats completely futile. Imagine you had state A that obeyed your rule, and therefore could not use nukes against cities, and state B who did not obey the rule. Who's going to win? Furthermore, after the first of state A's cities is turned into a miles high cloud of radioactive ash, do you really think there is any prospect that the populace of state A will not feel the populace of state B are their direct enemies? Again, its a naive pipe dream.
quote:
No, it isn't. At least not in the context in which I used it. Conscription is a standard aspect of many national armies. Forced conscription, where someone is literally made to take up arms at gun point, is what I was referring to. Many of the Iraqi soldiers during Gulf War I were involuntary conscripts swept up by what were basically press gangs, and kept in place by threat of death - and they surrendered in droves to Coalition troops as soon as possible.
More Utopianism. Most states that have the draft also have provisions for the imprisonment of draft dodgers or for sanctions including execution. Cowardice in the face of the enemy is almost always grounds for summary execution in any army. Conscripition is not a gentle hippy voluntary process - it is the state demanding military service from its citizens regardless of their wishes, and backed up with the full military power of the state. There are no "voluntary conscripts" - if they are volunteers, they are not conscripts. All consription is force, whether a gun is used there and then, or the power of the state merely threatens in the backiground.
quote:
An admirable desire. Unfortunately, it is also utterly irrelevant to the attempt at operationalizing a useable definition of terrorism.
Thats becuase there IS no operationally useful definition of "terrorism" any more than there is a useful definition of "evildoer".
quote:
Right. However, besides being off topic by having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, this quite laudable desire ignores completely the reality of conflict. If the "enemy" is operating out of civilian areas, how is one to go about confronting them without taking the fight into those areas? Simply abandoning the field to the opposing belligerents doesn't seem a very effective tactic. Perhaps you would care to open a new thread to discuss what constitutes acceptable military operations?
I don't consider any military operations to be "acceptable"; some may or may not be understandable in terms of the experience of the actors. However, it is not I who is ignoring the reality of war at all: as I have already pointed out, my charge is that you cannot fight in civilian areas and claim that you killed civilians accidentally. If you choose to fight in civilian areas, you are CHOOSING to kill civilians. I really don't give a shit about the tactical implications - I am not honour-bound to rationalise the actions of people who attack cities full of civilians, or to find answers to their intractable problems.
One of two cases applies: either you go in because the military situation demands it, and you honestly accept responsibility for your actions, or you don't go in. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
quote:
Then please make your argument more explicit. Why do you lump guerrillas with terrorists? How do you differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate acts of violence?
I do not see any distinction between guerillas and any formal army, appart from the level of equipment. There are no such things as terrorists any more than there are such things as fairies - it is a purely propagandist semantic device. I consider the legitimacy of acts of violence to be moot, because such acts are generally committed only when people think they are legitimate. If they didn't think they were legitimate, they would not have done it.
quote:
However, under your political definition, even those battles fought between Continental Army and British Regular forces would constitute terrorism, as the American forces were not members of a recognized nation state. Which, of course, renders the definition meaningless.
Thats right. The definition is meaningless, that is exactly what I have been arguing. It is purely a propaganda term without any objective reality to describe. I only argued that the definition that resorts to "political influence" is at least more cogent, and more objectively identifiable, than a definition that relies on deducing intent which can never be objectively observed. But you are correct in saying that this has the result of including formal armies. Whats the problem with that?
quote:
I thought you were the one who claimed to be attempting to minimize casualties. Guess what, your entire argument here is built on the faulty assumption, first foisted on the world by the Prussian Clauswitz, and brought to its logical conclusion in WWI, that war even between nation states must by necessity be total war. I submit (and again a topic for another thread) that Clauswitz was wrong, and the adoption of his principles by modern states has led to more horror and suffering than any combination of terrorist acts ever in history.
I think you grievously over-estimate Clausewitz's influence. How else do you explain the mass butchery of conquored cities in Classical warfare? The fact of the matter is that war does not occur exclusively between armies as entities distinct from their populations - that is an Idealistic abstraction. Armies are expressions of their populations, and thus real war always tends to turn into combats between equipped civilians. This is all the more pronounced in the modern era in which we have no warrior culture, very very few people train to be combat specialists, and almost ALL combatants are really civilians in uniform by comparison to real career fighters like knights or samurai.
quote:
Precisely what my definition directly confronts, and yours simply perpetuates. Terrorism is the deliberate targetting of civilians. Regardless of who does it. The political motivation of the attacker, or their material wealth, or their status as a nation state, is immaterial. It is an illegitimate act. Period.
Well, if you persist in that definition, then any act of war in a civilian area cannot be anything other than the deliberate targetting of civilians, becuase that outcome is a known and inevitable consequence of the act. That makes US forces in Falluja and Hue terrorists, period.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 11-25-2004 06:13 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Quetzal, posted 11-24-2004 6:04 PM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by Quetzal, posted 11-25-2004 12:39 PM contracycle has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5873 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 93 of 112 (163219)
11-25-2004 12:39 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by contracycle
11-25-2004 6:09 AM


Rather than continuing the point-by-point, I think it makes more sense at this juncture to establish the rationale for my definition, and for my contention that terrorism is a useful descriptive, well within and consistent with international law and the principles of Just War, from which the definition is derived. Let's see if this is more than "sophistry" as you claim.
quote:
Warfare is so brutal that it is easy to understand the cynicism that doubts whether the words war and morality even belong in the same sentence.
That is not the way that the military looks at it, however. In the years since the war in Vietnam and revulsion at events like the My Lai massacre, leadership of the armed forces has probably been way ahead of civilian policy makers in giving heed to traditional standards of ethical conduct in battle. No one imagines that these standards will be perfectly observed in the heat of combat, but they provide precious barriers against the descent into utter inhumanity.
Most of this growing ethical concern has centered on sparing civilians. The principles are simple, even if observing them is not. First, civilian casualties must be an unavoidable side effect of military action, not an intended and purposeful part of it. Second, there must be some proportionality, however hard to define precisely, between the military objectives and the extent of civilian death and suffering.
Peter Steinfels The Brutality of War, and the Innocents Lost in the Crossfire, NY Times, 20 Nov 04
The above article provides a nice introduction to my argument. Legitimate tools of war are bound by two overriding principles: the Rule of Proportionality, to which Steinfels refers, and the Rule of Discrimination, which requires that every effort be made to limit military actions to identifiable military objectives (IOW, it is incumbent upon the belligerents to discriminate between military and civilian targets).
Although you quoted portions of the IV Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in your response, that protocol has been shown to be insufficient, both to define legitimate tools of war, AND to truly protect civilians given the evolution of conflict over the last half century. However, international law HAS kept pace with this evolution to some extent. A more germane discussion relates to the Additional Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions. A detailed examination of the relevant portions of this protocol provides both a rejoinder to your contentions, and justification for my definition.
quote:
Article 35.-Basic rules
1. In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited.
2. It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.
3. It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.
Article 35 establishes the primacy of the Just War principle of proportionality. No belligerent may use overwhelming force or indiscriminant weapons where such useage would cause widespread casualties among noncombatants. This is further defined in Article 51. Since this is the most important article in the context of both terrorism and minimizing civilian casualties, a thorough examination is required.
quote:
Article 51.-Protection of the civilian population
1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in circumstances.
2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.
Gee, paragraph two is almost verbatim what my definition of terrorism is all about, isn’t it? Acts or threats of violenceto spread terror among the civilian population. The deliberate targeting of civilians is prohibited. BY DEFINITION, the deliberate targeting of civilians to produce terror is terrorism. That’s where the flipping word comes from. It isn’t some useless semantic or propaganda tool as you assert. It constitutes acts that are specifically prohibited under international law.
quote:
3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.
As I pointed out previously, if you pick up a gun for whatever reason, you forfeit the right to be considered a noncombatant civilian. Again, my statement is backed up by defined international law. Where’s yours?
quote:
4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
Paragraph 4 prohibits among other things the use of carpet bombing and indiscriminant use of artillery and airstrikes on cities, etc. It enshrines the Just War principle of Discrimination. It also, by extension, provides additional condemnation of the use of terrorist tactics such as the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Again, the intent is to limit — but not eliminate — civilian casualties. This is further clarified in paragraph 5:
[quote]5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
(a) An attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and (prohibition against carpet bombing, cf. Tokyo or Dresden)
(b) An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.(This is an especially important section in the context of your argument. It recognizes the fact that civilians WILL be in harms way during military conflicts. A very succinct restatement of the Just War principle of Proportionality. It states that there will be occasions where military objectives necessary to the prosecution of combat operations may entail civilian casualties, but requires military commanders to take due regard for limiting such casualties. However, it also makes it clear that military necessity IS NOT the only criteria, and cannot be used as an excuse for killing civilians — as you claim.)[quote] More detail on proportionality is contained in Article 57:
quote:
Article 57.-Precautions in attack
1. In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. (Due regard)
2. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken:
(a) Those who plan or decide upon an attack shall:
(i)Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them; (Further prohibition against the deliberate targeting of civilians, i.e., terrorism)
(ii) Take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects;
(iii) Refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated; (This subparagraph is where we can truly argue whether or not military operations in Fallujah, for instance, were excessive. The key here is what constitutes excessive use of force. You might be able to make a case that this rule was violated, although thus far you have failed to do so.)
(b) An attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;
(c) Effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.
3. When a choice is possible between several military objectives for obtaining a similar military advantage, the objective to be selected shall be that the attack on which may be expected to cause the least danger to civilian lives and to civilian objects. (I submit that the US operations in Fallujah have been generally conducted in accordance with this principle. You must counter this with specific examples where this rule was violated to make your case.)
4. In the conduct of military operations at sea or in the air, each Party to the conflict shall, in conformity with its rights and duties under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, take all reasonable precautions to avoid losses of civilian lives and damage to civilian objects.
5. No provision of this Article may be construed as authorizing any attacks against the civilian population, civilians or civilian objects.
The two key points here are:
1. The definition of terrorism that I use has the force of international law behind it. It is the only operational definition of terrorism that can be effective. It is NOT propaganda as you contend. Whether or not the definition is misused is immaterial — the definition is valid and underscored by law.
2. The mere fact that military operations cause civilian casualties does not make those operations illegal. Military commanders are required by law to justify the specific uses of force and/or methods if those actions cause civilian casualties, however. Yes, it is conceivable that this could be abused. However, the fact that a case can be made concerning violations of international law in specific circumstances at least provides a check on unfettered use of military force — IMO a salutary and welcome move toward adoption of Just War principles. It also again places terrorism beyond the pale.
Oh, yeah. BTW your lumping guerrillas or insurgents in with terrorists is also shown to be erroneous under this protocol:
quote:
Article 43.-Armed forces
1. The armed forces of a Party to a conflict consist of all organized armed forces, groups and units which are under a command responsible to that Party for the conduct of its subordinates, even if that Party is represented by a government or an authority not recognized by an adverse Party. Such armed forces shall be subject to an internal disciplinary system which, inter alia, shall enforce compliance with the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict.
IOW, as long as guerrilla organizations or insurgents limit their activities and avoid deliberate attacks against civilians, even if they are not members of duly constituted or recognized statal armed forces, they are considered legitimate combatants. Compare with terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. There IS a distinction between terrorist and guerrilla.
PS: If you wish to continue the argument concerning the Napoleonic guerre a l'outrance enshrined in "On War" vs the modern concept of Just War derived in large measure from Grotius, you'll need to open a new thread.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by contracycle, posted 11-25-2004 6:09 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by contracycle, posted 11-26-2004 7:46 AM Quetzal has replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 94 of 112 (163288)
11-26-2004 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 93 by Quetzal
11-25-2004 12:39 PM


quote:
The above article provides a nice introduction to my argument. Legitimate tools of war are bound by two overriding principles: the Rule of Proportionality, to which Steinfels refers, and the Rule of Discrimination, which requires that every effort be made to limit military actions to identifiable military objectives (IOW, it is incumbent upon the belligerents to discriminate between military and civilian targets).
Fair enough
quote:
Article 35 establishes the primacy of the Just War principle of proportionality. No belligerent may use overwhelming force or indiscriminant weapons where such usage would cause widespread casualties among noncombatants. This is further defined in Article 51. Since this is the most important article in the context of both terrorism and minimizing civilian casualties, a thorough examination is required.
Right, let’s bear these in mind.
quote:
Gee, paragraph two is almost verbatim what my definition of terrorism is all about, isn’t it? Acts or threats of violenceto spread terror among the civilian population. The deliberate targeting of civilians is prohibited. BY DEFINITION, the deliberate targeting of civilians to produce terror is terrorism. That’s where the flipping word comes from. It isn’t some useless semantic or propaganda tool as you assert. It constitutes acts that are specifically prohibited under international law.
I'll happily concede that it is. But just as you claim that the provisions have been "shown" to be insufficient, I can and will contend that this definition is also insufficient for reason I will lay out below.
quote:
As I pointed out previously, if you pick up a gun for whatever reason, you forfeit the right to be considered a noncombatant civilian. Again, my statement is backed up by defined international law. Where’s yours?
The generally recognized right to self defense. I'm well aware that this is a dubious quality in war conditions, but I point out that this common recognition that, unsurprisingly, a person confronted with violence or who believes themselves to be confronted with violence, will respond like wise. Now the problem arises that seeing as militaries are presenting such threats, and if they are killing civilians regardless of whether they claim to be doing so accidentally or deliberately, then a civilian may have a reasonable belief that they are under threat and seek to defend themselves AS A CIVILIAN, and not as a member of one of the forces. They have not in that sense "taken part in hostilities" any more than someone who defends themselves against a mugger has implicitly joined the police force.
The net result of this is as I have already described: analysis of the event depends on who survived, and corpses cannot testify in their own defense. Thus de facto, any civilian can be killed with near impunity.
quote:
(This is an especially important section in the context of your argument. It recognizes the fact that civilians WILL be in harms way during military conflicts. A very succinct restatement of the Just War principle of Proportionality. It states that there will be occasions where military objectives necessary to the prosecution of combat operations may entail civilian casualties, but requires military commanders to take due regard for limiting such casualties. However, it also makes it clear that military necessity IS NOT the only criteria, and cannot be used as an excuse for killing civilians — as you claim.)
Correct - because that is what we see happening. The US just invaded a city of a qua5rter of a million civilians, used grossly excessive force, and justifies it all on the basis of necessity. Now, how can I or anyone object to the US's self serving interpretation of the events and conditions? The US refuses to be subject to international war crimes tribunals, so the only judge of its compliance with these provisions is its own view. And what that means in practice is, it can do what the hell it likes - and does - with impunity. That is why these terms in isolation are not sufficient to justify the distinction you claim - because while you correctly describe what the provisions allow, that is not what we see actually happening in Falluja, or Grozny, or Hue.
quote:
(i)Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them; (Further prohibition against the deliberate targeting of civilians, i.e., terrorism)
Thus for example, the civilian hospital in Falluja was determined by the US alone to be a military target on the basis of "intelligence" and bombed. Nobody has been held accountable for the fact that there were no militants in the hospital and this was purely an attack directed at a civilian target in fact. Once again: who is to hold such a formal army to account for its actions, and how is that to be implemented? Without such measures any army can and will adopt the most self serving position it can. The entire war against then Palestinians by Israel has been bedeviled by exactly this problem.
quote:
(I submit that the US operations in Fallujah have been generally conducted in accordance with this principle. You must counter this with specific examples where this rule was violated to make your case.)
well that’s rather difficult when the reports we get are almost entirely under military reporting restrictions and by embedded journalists; the result is we cannot know - and you certainly cannot claim to know that US actions in Falluja have been operating on this principle, given the attack on a hospital mentioned above (itself a continuation of precedent established by US attacks on hospitals in Bosnia and the Sudan). Certainly, The UN has specifically claimed that US forces are NOT adhering to this criterion.
quote:
The United Nations senior human rights official condemned the killing of civilians and wounded people in Fallujah, saying that violators of international humanitarian law should be brought to justice.
Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, spoke generally and didn’t specifically mention the U.S. army report that it is probing the videotaped fatal shooting of an injured man by a U.S. Marine in a mosque in Fallujah.
Arbour also called for investigating abuses in Falluja, including disproportionate use of force and attacking civilians. "There have been a number of reports during the current confrontation alleging violations of the rules of war designed to protect civilians and combatants," Arbour said in a statement.
quote:
1. The definition of terrorism that I use has the force of international law behind it. It is the only operational definition of terrorism that can be effective. It is NOT propaganda as you contend. Whether or not the definition is misused is immaterial — the definition is valid and underscored by law.
The force of law among wealthy, organized states with formal armies. As I contended from the beginning, it is a self-serving definition that is routinely violated with impunity by such states. The fact that a propaganda term has passed into law does not make that term any less propagandist.
quote:
2. The mere fact that military operations cause civilian casualties does not make those operations illegal. Military commanders are required by law to justify the specific uses of force and/or methods if those actions cause civilian casualties, however. Yes, it is conceivable that this could be abused. However, the fact that a case can be made concerning violations of international law in specific circumstances at least provides a check on unfettered use of military force — IMO a salutary and welcome move toward adoption of Just War principles. It also again places terrorism beyond the pale.
It's not conceivable that it is being abused - it IS being abused, right now, in Falluja. The US quite plainly uses these provisions to do exactly what it is supposed to not be doing: for example, the use of phosphorous artillery shells in cities, which are necessarily imprecise and may cause casualties through secondary explosions. The US also uses depleted uranium ammunition which causes civilian death well after the conflict is over; and it uses cluster-bomb munitions with a built-in 10% failure rate that are guaranteed to cause civilian casualties.
So we are back where we started: the US, as so many other armies, pays lip service to these provisions but flagrantly violates them - and universally defaults to claiming accident any time any civilian is killed. The only difference between formal armies and terrorists is the degree of responsibility they assume for their own actions, and it is the formal armies who are lax in this regard.
quote:
IOW, as long as guerrilla organizations or insurgents limit their activities and avoid deliberate attacks against civilians, even if they are not members of duly constituted or recognized state armed forces, they are considered legitimate combatants. Compare with terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. There IS a distinction between terrorist and guerrilla.
Well, compare WHAT with Al Qaeda? They gave due warning that necessary targets in the US would be struck; they have decide in their own purview that the WTC was a necessary military target as a component of infrastructure just like NATO did when bombing TV stations in Serbia. Their other targets have been primarily military, such as the USS Cole. What is the distinction you draw between AQ and the USA? This is exactly the crux of the matter, and all your rationalization has done is show that formal armies use exactly the same process of target identification: if there are civilians there we just say "too bad" and do it anyway.
After all, I say again: no state in possession of nuclear weapons whose primary purpose is the elimination of enemy population centers can possibly claim that it has real intent to obey these strictures, nor can it cry crocodile tears when on the receiving end of the same hypocrisy. It remains the case that the people actually identified as terrorists will be poor, and all apologetics will be deployed to rationalize the exact equivalent actions by a state military with an appropriate propaganda system.
{spellcheck by admin)
This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 12-09-2004 03:49 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by Quetzal, posted 11-25-2004 12:39 PM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Quetzal, posted 11-26-2004 2:23 PM contracycle has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5873 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 95 of 112 (163339)
11-26-2004 2:23 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by contracycle
11-26-2004 7:46 AM


Much better. At least you refrained from accusing me of sophistry and utopianism, and only used the word hypocrite once. If we can continue in that vein, it might be possible to have an actual discussion rather than you simply casting aspersions on my character, integrity, intelligence, etc.
It appears you are willing to stipulate that there are laws that govern the conduct of military operations, and that these laws specifically delimit the methods and tools that may be employed. In addition, it appears you are willing to agree that the definition I propose for terrorism flows from these laws (although I didn’t derive my definition from this protocol, it is consistent with it), whether you agree with my definition or not. Let me know if this isn’t the case.
I see our disagreement stemming from two primary points:
1. You continue to proclaim that any use of the word terrorism is propagandistic and self-serving. In a sense, the haves use it as a convenient term to stigmatize the have nots as it suits their purpose. IOW, it has no operational or juridical meaning. I contend that, on the contrary, the use of the term can have both meaning in the context of international law AND can be a useful distinction from an operational standpoint.
2. In a related but not strictly parallel argument, you state that any combat operation where civilian casualties are incurred is indistinguishable from terrorism, hence rendering the term additionally meaningless. In fact, you go further by averring that any operation in civilian areas by statal forces will knowingly cause civilian casualties, and therefore is both illegitimate and indistinguishable from actions perpetrated by such organizations as Al Qaeda, etc, regardless of intent, simply by virtue of the fact that civilians are harmed. IOW, there is no way to distinguish between terrorism and combat operations in built-up areas that cause civilian casualties. I contend, on the other hand, that intent IS of critical importance as it renders certain methods and actions used specifically by statal forces (since they’re the only ones with the capability) hors la loi by identifying them as terrorism as opposed to legitimate military operations. In addition, I contend that such recognition can serve to prevent the worst damage to civilian areas and mitigate inevitable civilian casualties in time of conflict.
Before beginning to flesh out my argument further, I’d like to address up one or two peripheral points.
Q: As I pointed out previously, if you pick up a gun for whatever reason, you forfeit the right to be considered a noncombatant civilian.
C: The gerenrally recognised right to self defence. I'm well aware that this is a dubious quality in war conditions, but I point out that this common recognition that, unsurprisingly, a person confronted with violence or who believes themselves to be confronted with violence, will responde like wise. Now the problem arises that seeing as militaries are presenting such threats, and if they are killing civilians regardless of whether they claim to be doing so accidentally or deliberately, then a civilian may have a reasonable belief that they are under threat and seek to defend themselves AS A CIVILIAN, and not as a member of one of the forces. They have not in that sense "taken part in hostilities" any more than someone who dfeends themselves against a mugger has implicitly joined the police force.
The right to self defense of an individual in a combat zone is neither generally recognized nor particularly germane in this context. In the first place, the only internationally recognized right to self defense derives from the jus ad bello principles as found, for instance, in the UN Charter. IOW, the only legal right is that of a state that either finds itself attacked, or can reasonably consider itself under imminent threat. (I purposely used quotes around the term reasonable as this in my opinion is one of the most flagrantly and grossly abused principles in the entire Charter. After all, the US claimed imminent threat before the Iraq invasion — a claim that is questionable to say the least.) Under the Convention (and I don’t remember the specific article, but see the leve en masse provisions), any civilian who takes up arms in defense of their home in the face of invasion, for instance, is granted the status of legitimate combatant. Hmmm, sounds like just what I stated: you pick up a weapon, you’re a combatant. In the context of what we are discussing, picking up a weapon makes that individual a legitimate target of military action. Note well, I never stated that this hypothetical individual was necessarily automatically a member of a given organization, which renders your victim-police analogy spurious — rather that taking up arms for whatever reason forfeits the individual’s right to protection as a non-combatant civilian. It does, however, grant them the status of POW if captured, for what that’s worth.
The net result of this is as I have already described: analysis opf the event depends on who survived, and corpses cannot testify in their own defence. Thus de facto, any civilian can be killed with near impunity.
This conclusion does not follow from your argument. Civilians may NOT be killed with impunity, unless and until they take up arms — in which case they are no longer considered civilians under the law. As far as a post facto analysis goes, although I agree that history is written by the winners, it does not follow that indiscriminant slaughter of civilians will either go unnoticed or unpunished, especially in modern warfare. The only argument that holds water relates to excessive use of force, as in the example you relate concerning the allegations of the UNHCHR. The mere fact that such allegations have been brought up, as well as the undoubted investigation that will follow, renders your contention that civilians can be killed with impunity rather moot, wouldn’t you say?
The US just invaded a city of a qua5rter of a million civilians, used grossly excessive force (Q: you have not made this case, merely asserted it. Evidence please.), and justifies it all on the basis of necessity. Now, how can I or anyone object to the US's self serving interpretation of the events and conditions?
You can’t. OTOH, as is evident in the article you quote, the UN certainly can, and is doing so. Whether the US abides by it or not is immaterial. Your contention is that such actions are conducted with impunity. They are not. Oh, the US may refuse to abide by any findings. However, the record will be there, and even the US cannot afford to completely ignore international law and international opinion. At least if the abuses are flagrant and extreme. Note the rush to prosecute the Marine who murdered the wounded combatant, and the prosecution of the Abu Ghraib violators. Now, I won’t argue that in these two cases if a third party hadn’t made the original accusations, little would have occurred. OTOH, my team was subject to two GC investigations during Desert Storm. Both of which were generated and investigated internally by the military, without third party intervention or even knowledge. I submit therefore from my own certain knowledge that the US military in general takes the Conventions very seriously, especially the IV Protocol.
The US refuses to be subject to international war crimes tribunals, so the only judge of its compliance with these proovisions is its own view. And what that means in practice is, it can do what the hell it likes - and does - with impunity. That is why these terms in isolation are not sufficient to justify the distinction you claim - because while you correctly describe what the proivisions allow, that is not what we see actually happening in Falluja, or Grozny, or Hue.
Again, you have not made the case that excessive force is used in any of the instances — except Grozny which I already stipulated is very likely a blatant violation of the Conventions. As far as the ICJ goes, I’m not sure I disagree with the US position on that body. However, I believe that discussion is off-topic for this thread. Feel free to open a new thread, or perhaps simply read the linked thread where I outline some of my reasons why I feel the ICJ is neither useful as constituted or a realistic approach to dealing with the issues under its mandate.
Thus for example, the civilian hosptial in Falluja was detirmined by the US alone to be a military target on the basis of "intelligence" and bombed. Nobody has been held accountable for the fact that there were no militants in the hospital and this was purely an attack directed at a civilian target in fact. Once again: who is to hold such a formal army to account for its actions, and how is that to be implemented? without such measures any army can and will adopt the most self serving position it can. The entire war against then Palestinians by Israel has be bedevilled by exactly this propblem.
I don’t know the exact circumstances concerning the hospital to which you refer — perhaps you could provide more detail. OTOH, I am aware that a number of mosques, usually considered off-limits under the Protocol, were attacked because they were being used as strongpoints by armed insurgents. In addition, apparently fairly large caches of arms and munitions were found in several of them (at least according to news reports). The protocol does not prohibit attacks against such civilian structures if and only if they are being used by one side or the other for military purposes — thus forfeiting their protected status. Exactly like the case of a civilian who takes up arms. IF (and I say IF) the hospital was being used as a base of operations, or was reasonably believed to be so used, then attacking it was legitimate. In this particular case, assuming you’re reporting the facts accurately, it appears that the attack was a mistake. However, getting from this to an accusation of indiscriminant targeting of protected structures or facilities would have to entail evidence of a concerted campaign to destroy ALL hospital facilities in the city — a case that quite plainly did not occur. In the particular case you cite, IMO the US DOES have the obligation to prove that whatever information led to the attack justified the apparent violation.
Q: 1. The definition of terrorism that I use has the force of international law behind it. It is the only operational definition of terrorism that can be effective. It is NOT propaganda as you contend. Whether or not the definition is misused is immaterial — the definition is valid and underscored by law.
C: The force of law among wealthy, organised states with formal armies. As I contended from the beginning, it is a self-serving definition that is routinely violated with impunity by such states. The fact that a propaganda term has passed into law does not make that term any less propagandist.
Herein lies the heart of the disagreements I outlined waay up at the top of this post. It is NOT a self-serving definition because, if adopted, it forthrightly condemns the specific actions taken by wealthy, organized states as well as small, marginal groups. Admittedly, it may be somewhat unrealistic to assume that the US, for instance, will be willing to openly admit to or condemn its own past use of these illegitimate tactics (such as carpet bombing civilian areas during WWII), but if it serves to provide even some restraint on the tools and methods employed by these states by correctly labeling them as what theyare — even if not overtly acknowledged — then I submit that it constitutes a valid first step toward eliminating them from the military repertoires of these nations.
Terrorism is self-defeating. At no time and in no case to my knowledge in the history of conflict have deliberate attacks against civilians been effective in accomplishing military objectives. On the contrary, they have invariably been either ineffective OR have had the opposite of the intended effect: they have served to coalesce uncommitted civilian sentiment against those who use them. On this basis alone, IMO, modern states can be convinced that it lies in their own self-interest to adopt this definition and render attacks against civilians completely unacceptable.
OTOH, your approach whereby any military operation that causes civilian casualties is lumped under one large grab bag of condemnation — which as you rightly pointed out the major powers are going to ignore anyway — merely serves to perpetuate the status quo. No nation deploying armed force is going to be willing to allow their enemies (however that is defined) to operate with impunity behind the shield of noncombatants. It is an ugly dilemma, and innocents-in-the- crossfire is a situation as old as war itself. The only hope to mitigate this unacceptable cost of conflict is to force — either through internal recognition of the uselessness of such tactics, or through international pressure — states to refrain from the use of those methods which serve to greatly increase civilian casualties. IOW, refrain from the use of terrorism. To do this, there must be a definition of terrorism that both condemns the targeting of civilians AND recognizes the unfortunate realities of conflict. Mine comes closest. Yours merely begs the issue.
As far as your argument concerning excessive use of force, this is a distinct, albeit related, topic. Again, it goes back to intent: if the intent of this force is to cause terror among the civilian population — to deliberately target individuals or noninvolved groups — then it is terrorism pure and simple, whether perpetrated by a state or what we typically label terrorist groups. OTOH, accusations that a state used excessive force when attacking an insurgent group or whomever embedded in a civilian population is a distinct issue. It may be criminal under international law. It may even be classifiable as a war crime. It is not, however, terrorism. It IS important to make the distinction: the use of terror can be effectively eliminated from the military tactics of states. The use of force in civilian areas, even if causing civilian casualties, more than likely can not be eliminated because of the realities of armed conflict.
I submit we need to approach the subject as an exercise in the art of the possible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by contracycle, posted 11-26-2004 7:46 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by contracycle, posted 11-29-2004 7:12 AM Quetzal has replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 96 of 112 (163825)
11-29-2004 7:12 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by Quetzal
11-26-2004 2:23 PM


quote:
It appears you are willing to stipulate that there are laws that govern the conduct of military operations, and that these laws specifically delimit the methods and tools that may be employed. In addition, it appears you are willing to agree that the definition I propose for terrorism flows from these laws (although I didn’t derive my definition from this protocol, it is consistent with it), whether you agree with my definition or not. Let me know if this isn’t the case
I think the laws of war are a good idea, to an extent, but am wary of endorsing them outright because they were forumlated by states with regular armies in the interests of those states. I see a direct analogy with the modern situation and that of the feuydal world, when the gravest crime was to be a "rebel". Same methods, same goals, but one is recognised and thus legitimate, and one is not.
quote:
2. In a related but not strictly parallel argument, you state that any combat operation where civilian casualties are incurred is indistinguishable from terrorism, hence rendering the term additionally meaningless. In fact, you go further by averring that any operation in civilian areas by statal forces will knowingly cause civilian casualties, and therefore is both illegitimate and indistinguishable from actions perpetrated by such organizations as Al Qaeda, etc, regardless of intent, simply by virtue of the fact that civilians are harmed.
Not regardless of intent - I say that intent is a duplicitous measure. Becuase everyone can and will claim the moral high ground of intent. Only actions matter, and knowingly carrying out an action that results in civilian casualties remains knowingly killing civilians.
quote:
The right to self defense of an individual in a combat zone is neither generally recognized nor particularly germane in this context.
Your attack on this point moves immediately to the rights and priviliges of recognised states in war. But war is not only fought between states, as is abundantly clear.
quote:
Under the Convention (and I don’t remember the specific article, but see the leve en masse provisions), any civilian who takes up arms in defense of their home in the face of invasion, for instance, is granted the status of legitimate combatant. Hmmm, sounds like just what I stated: you pick up a weapon, you’re a combatant.
So, if I use my gun on Monday to defend myself against the Iraqi resistance, and on Tuesday to defend myself against the occupation forces, I am now a combatant on both sides, and can be killed by both sides with impunity. What better demonstration can there be that in effect civilians have no rights whatsoever.
quote:
As far as a post facto analysis goes, although I agree that history is written by the winners, it does not follow that indiscriminant slaughter of civilians will either go unnoticed or unpunished, especially in modern warfare.
Well clearly it does in fact. If the US chooses to disagree with observers of its actions, and refuses to prosecute, what can we do? How then can there be any expectation that such actions will be punished?
Your argument would be more compelling were it not the case that the Us refuses to submit its forces to such legal judgement for fear of "political motives". The presumption is abundantly clear: US forces can do no wrong. Seeing as the most powerful state refuses to accept binding judgements, and starts from an a priori assumption of its own innocence, how can anyone expect that justic will be done?
It was striking that during the Abu Ghraib scandal, it came to light that an internal investigation by US forces into complaints by prisoners was handled by going to the accused soldier only and asking him whether the allegations were true. The people making the allegations were not interviewed, and their opinion was not solicited. The individual was cleared on the basis of his own evidence. What, therefore, makes you so confident that these crimes will be noticed and punished? People are clearly getting away with murder.
quote:
The mere fact that such allegations have been brought up, as well as the undoubted investigation that will follow, renders your contention that civilians can be killed with impunity rather moot, wouldn’t you say?
Umm well no, not any more than any of the other cases - such as the bombing of Kosovo - that such allegations have been made. The US just dismisses as enemy lies; witness now republicans declaring the the UN is sympathetic to terrorists.
quote:
Again, you have not made the case that excessive force is used in any of the instances — except Grozny which I already stipulated is very likely a blatant violation of the Conventions.
Ah yes of course - when Russians use excessive bombardment of a city, its a crime. When Americans use excessive bombardment, its not.
I have already pointed out that it will be a long time before we know what really happenedin Fallujah, becuase all the jouranlists are embedded on only one said. Even so though, the US administration has not been slow to criticise Al Jazeera for reporting stories that do not agree with the official Us version. Human rights agents on the ground have severley condemned Us actions as displaying contempt for the very principles of human rights but you cavalierly dismiss this. How then can I expect you to police yourself, when your starting position is that any allegation is a malicious falsehood?
quote:
You can’t. OTOH, as is evident in the article you quote, the UN certainly can, and is doing so. Whether the US abides by it or not is immaterial. Your contention is that such actions are conducted with impunity. They are not. Oh, the US may refuse to abide by any findings. However, the record will be there, and even the US cannot afford to completely ignore international law and international opinion.
I'm well aware of that - its exactly what justifies AQ's actions. But when struck by AQ, the immediate response was blind incomprehension that anyone would hold the US accountable for its crimes. It is precisely because there is such a record that the US is so hated; and all the signs are that it continues to believe that its military might is such that it can continue with impunity.
quote:
At least if the abuses are flagrant and extreme. Note the rush to prosecute the Marine who murdered the wounded combatant, and the prosecution of the Abu Ghraib violators.
Erm, yes - these are both excellent cases of FAILING to address the problem. Abu Ghraib was not substantially different from Guantanamo - it is abundantly clear that the problems in the US military are insitutional, and most certainly not the fault purely of "rogue individuals". The US response in both cases has been wholly unsatisfactory, hanging out a scapegoat, and serve to whitewash the military proper of accountability. Hence, the problem will and does continue.
quote:
IF (and I say IF) the hospital was being used as a base of operations, or was reasonably believed to be so used, then attacking it was legitimate.
How can you demonstrate to my satisfaction that the belief was reasonable? All I have to go on is your word. As I have pointed out before: this acts as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card that can be played in any circumstance, rendering civilians totally unprotected in fact.
quote:
In the particular case you cite, IMO the US DOES have the obligation to prove that whatever information led to the attack justified the apparent violation.
Except it never will do, for this may compromise its intelligence gathering assets. And after all, we already have grave doubts about the quality of US intelligence - do you remember back in '91 the dropping of a pentrator paveway bomb on a bunker full of civilians, but which according to US intelligence was a command bunker? Rank incompetence cannot stand as a universal excuse for killing civilians.
quote:
Herein lies the heart of the disagreements I outlined waay up at the top of this post. It is NOT a self-serving definition because, if adopted, it forthrightly condemns the specific actions taken by wealthy, organized states as well as small, marginal groups. Admittedly, it may be somewhat unrealistic to assume that the US, for instance, will be willing to openly admit to or condemn its own past use of these illegitimate tactics (such as carpet bombing civilian areas during WWII), but if it serves to provide even some restraint on the tools and methods employed by these states by correctly labeling them as what theyare — even if not overtly acknowledged — then I submit that it constitutes a valid first step toward eliminating them from the military repertoires of these nations.
It cannot for the reasons I have already outlined: first, nobody wants to admit to being the bad guy and we already see the US making weak excuses for its conduct, and secondly because not state involved in a conflict of the gravity of WW2 can possibly consider the firebombing of cities illegitimate.
I mean look, we already have laws about self defence of states, right? And we can see that the US chose to interpret this in a very self-serving light. So what is to think that the same process will not be applied to whatever definition you proffer? When push comes to shove the formal states are able and willing to massacre whole populations, and have weapons specifically designed for the job. If you were in the position of being a non-nuclear state and advancing that idea, it would be more plausible, but as long as states retain city-levelling weapons any pretense to obeying a law that prevents attacks on civilians is fatuous. It merely exists to demonise the enemy.
quote:
Terrorism is self-defeating. At no time and in no case to my knowledge in the history of conflict have deliberate attacks against civilians been effective in accomplishing military objectives. On the contrary, they have invariably been either ineffective OR have had the opposite of the intended effect: they have served to coalesce uncommitted civilian sentiment against those who use them. On this basis alone, IMO, modern states can be convinced that it lies in their own self-interest to adopt this definition and render attacks against civilians completely unacceptable.
Yeesh. Take a look at the history of colonialism. I also note you have still failed to respond to my challenge to explain the slaughter of whole cities during Classical warfare. Or Oliver Cromwells use of the Biblical Israelites terms of surrender-or-massacre during his campaign in Ireland. Or the US behaviour in the Indian wars, which were certainly genocidal (although it is Politically Correct not to admit thisin the US):
The use of terror is deeply ingrained in our [national] character. Back in 1818, John Quincy Adams hailed the ‘salutary efficacy’ of terror in dealing with ‘mingled hordes of lawless Indians and negroes.’ He wrote that to justify Andrew Jackson’s rampages in Florida which virtually annihilated the native population and left the Spanish province under US control, much impressing Thomas Jefferson and others with his wisdom.
Noam Chomsky
I did not know how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream...
Black Elk
Oglala Holy Man, on the aftermath of the Massacre at Wounded Knee
How can you say that terrorism inevitably fails? That sounds like a Just World hypothesis, as if immorality authomatically brings about the vengeance of god upon the perpetrator. Very Calvinistic, but wholly unsupportable in the real world. The English terrorised Ireland, and held it for hundreds of years. The Norman aristocracy harried the north, and yet still hold it. Where is this evidence of the automatic failure of terrorism, by states or anyone else?
War-making against civilian populations is the historical norm, not the exception. The only reason we presume to address this matter is becuase we hold to a theory of international accountability through global organs - which results only, as I have already pointed out, in the coercive pressure of wealthy states as arbitrator. And the US has frankly elected not to engage in such international systems at all.
quote:
OTOH, your approach whereby any military operation that causes civilian casualties is lumped under one large grab bag of condemnation — which as you rightly pointed out the major powers are going to ignore anyway — merely serves to perpetuate the status quo.
No I completely disagree - because the present delusion results in people authorising war on false expectations of what it will entail. When I advanbced these very arguments prior to thw war, I was told I just an American-hater who failed to recognise the humanitarian and surgical strike capacity of the US military. All I was trying to point out is that in environment of fear and hatred, the laws of war are not going to be obeyed: it will be inevitable that civilians are killed and hate engenderdd in the local population. That view was regarded as evil and pernicious, and that is exactly why I violently disaprove of such nominal agreements that can never be obeyed in practice. We must recognise what war means in REAL terms, not what we wish it to mean. This nominal doctrine is unrealistic and merely serves as an apologetic for war - resulting in more lives lost.
quote:
No nation deploying armed force is going to be willing to allow their enemies (however that is defined) to operate with impunity behind the shield of noncombatants.
Look, CIVILIANS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY ARE NOT A SHIELD. Again you place is this in terms of guilt and culpability, when we are just talking about people trying to survive amidst warring factions.
quote:
The only hope to mitigate this unacceptable cost of conflict is to force — either through internal recognition of the uselessness of such tactics, or through international pressure — states to refrain from the use of those methods which serve to greatly increase civilian casualties. IOW, refrain from the use of terrorism.
Which will not work, because you immediately except such a state if they say they didn't target civilians specifically. It's completely circular and opportunist. It would be great if states did noit use methods gauranteed to cause civilian casualties like airstriking cities or dropping phosphorous artillery on them, but thaey are doing so. And when challenged, they just refer to civil;ians as unimportant collateral damage. Your argument is failing daily here in the real world, becuase we just have to accept the states own say-so and interpretation of events.
You see, you say you recognise that attacks on civilians engender only further hatred and resistance. Thats exactly true. But then you excuse attacks that kill civilians by "accident", and fail to recognise that by accident or otherwise, those civilians are still dead, and further hatred and resistance created. Intent is irrelevant, appeals to some abstract ideological position. As long as you allow this easy get-out clause for formal states, real attacks on real civilians will continue, and the hatred and resistance will continue to rise. No amount of excuse or apologetic makes up for a life lost. I remind you of a statement by war criminal Colin Powell when asked how many Iraqi civilians had died in the first Gulf War:
"It's not a number I am terribly interested in."
quote:
OTOH, accusations that a state used excessive force when attacking an insurgent group or whomever embedded in a civilian population is a distinct issue. It may be criminal under international law. It may even be classifiable as a war crime. It is not, however, terrorism.
Only because they wore a uniform when they committed their act in practice, though. I'm afraid it is terrorism in every practical, material sense.
quote:
It IS important to make the distinction: the use of terror can be effectively eliminated from the military tactics of states. The use of force in civilian areas, even if causing civilian casualties, more than likely can not be eliminated because of the realities of armed conflict.
Impossible. I point you to the experince of South Africa, unsurprisingly. Again and again the military and police would deploy overwhleming force in the townships. Again and again, bullets and explosives would go wide, or through targets, and kill bystanders. Again and again, the SADF would insist it didn't TARGET noncombatants and again and again non-combatants still died. They were not believed. Even if they had been believed, it would not have mattered, because few will ever accept that their loved ones were shot in the head and that they are just supposed to drop the matter. South Africa and Isael have both used exactly this self-serving justification for decades, completely blind to the fact that it never solved the problem, or even de-escalated it, but instead made it harder and harder, much more intractable, hatred settling down as the basic relationship. And then both - like the US - affect surprise and outrage when the favour is returned merely becuase it was returned purposefully.
Your conception of military-on-military conflicts does not accord with the real world or history. The purpose of militaries is to protect the population, and this would not be needed if rival armies refrained from attacking populations. That is why a "terrorist" strategy of killing civilians, and demonstrating the other sides ineffectiveness to impose a military solution or to fulfill the militaries raison d'etre, can bring about negotiations, as demonstrated by both the ANC and the IRA (also showing that your claim that terrorism has never worked is false). Excusing civilian casualties that arise from one side merely because they have not been pushed as far into a corner as the other - because they are wealthier and have more resources - is grossly hypocritical.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Quetzal, posted 11-26-2004 2:23 PM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 97 by Quetzal, posted 11-29-2004 3:38 PM contracycle has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5873 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 97 of 112 (163953)
11-29-2004 3:38 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by contracycle
11-29-2004 7:12 AM


Now you’re back to name calling again. Don’t you realize yet that referring to someone who disagrees with you as hypocrite tends to obscure what are otherwise excellent discussion points? And that continuing to do so makes people less and less interested in discussing things with you? I would greatly appreciate it if you could restrain yourself in future responses. I understand you disagree, however there’s no need for name-calling. Let me know if you are unable to comply with this request, as that will save me a great deal of time and effort in replying to you. Last warning.
I think the laws of war are a good idea, to an extent, but am wary of endorsing them outright because they were forumlated by states with regular armies in the interests of those states. I see a direct analogy with the modern situation and that of the feuydal world, when the gravest crime was to be a "rebel". Same methods, same goals, but one is recognised and thus legitimate, and one is not.
I don’t entirely disagree with this. I am also leery of giving complete endorsement to existing international laws and institutions, and for not entirely different reasons than yours. OTOH, I consider such documents as the UN Charter and the Conventions to be admirable attempts to regulate relations between states, and mitigate some of the worst abuses — even if either dishonored in the breach or (IMO) fundamentally ineffective. Without such laws and institutions, there would be NO check, even if solely moral, on the actions of states. And since we are discussing statal actors as the greatest abusers, I think it’s important to keep this in mind.
Q: 2. In a related but not strictly parallel argument, you state that any combat operation where civilian casualties are incurred is indistinguishable from terrorism, hence rendering the term additionally meaningless. In fact, you go further by averring that any operation in civilian areas by statal forces will knowingly cause civilian casualties, and therefore is both illegitimate and indistinguishable from actions perpetrated by such organizations as Al Qaeda, etc, regardless of intent, simply by virtue of the fact that civilians are harmed.
C: Not regardless of intent - I say that intent is a duplicitous measure. Becuase everyone can and will claim the moral high ground of intent. Only actions matter, and knowingly carrying out an action that results in civilian casualties remains knowingly killing civilians.
They may be able to claim the moral high ground, but truth will out. Although small-scale atrocities may go unnoticed and hence unrecognized, any large-scale atrocity such as indiscriminant bombing of towns or deliberate massacres of civilians are unlikely to pass unnoticed. Yes, I understand your argument that there is no organization with the punitive or coercive powers to call major states to task for committing atrocities. However, I think you underestimate the cost to states for flagrant and continuing violation. Not even the US can completely ignore international opinion with impunity. In fact, I would submit that the evidence that at least in those cases where US servicepeople have been caught red handed as it were, the response was not to deny or ignore the allegations, but rather to initiate an immediate investigation and rush to prosecution, shows that the even the US is sensitive to charges of GC violations, etc. I admit, however, that lesser charges and allegations ARE ignored (the Guatanamo detainees being a case in point — I find NO justification of any kind for the way the Afghan prisoners have been processed and incarcerated without due process in either international or even US domestic or military law, and I have major concerns over the existence of military tribunals vice civil prosecution — however that’s a different topic).
Q: The right to self defense of an individual in a combat zone is neither generally recognized nor particularly germane in this context.
C: Your attack on this point moves immediately to the rights and priviliges of recognised states in war. But war is not only fought between states, as is abundantly clear.
I wouldn’t call it an attack on your point. However, I agree that my response deals with the laws governing the relationship between statal forces and civilians. Primarily, this is due to the fact that the only extant international laws are couched in those terms. However, that doesn’t change the fact that individual rights to self-defense are not recognized under international law except as outlined in the levee en masse provisions. The only internationally recognized rights and protections deal with noncombatants. This is not unreasonable — it is functionally impossible to distinguish between an armed civilian and an armed combatant who is not a member of a statal military force. As well, from a strictly military point of view, it doesn’t matter whether the person shooting at you is a civilian or a soldier. Nor does it matter why that person is shooting at you. The mere fact that they are engaged in combat actions makes them a combatant.
As far as your contention that civilians have no rights, you are in error. That is in fact the entire purpose of both the GC and the 1977 Protocols — to provide at least legal protections for civilians and their property. How that holds up on the ground, as it were, is entirely dependent on both the intensity of the combat and the willingness of the belligerents on both sides to recognize and honor the non-combatant status of civilians caught in the middle.
Well clearly it does in fact. If the US chooses to disagree with observers of its actions, and refuses to prosecute, what can we do? How then can there be any expectation that such actions will be punished?
The simplistic answer to your question is, nothing. However, the fact that the US HAS investigated and/or prosecuted several cases, including Abu Ghraib and the murder of the wounded insurgent, means that at least where evidence of atrocity has been irrefutable, the US is willing to take action to police its own military. Given my own experience, I would be willing to guess that there have been even more investigations that don’t make the media, although I have no hard evidence to back that up. You are correct, as I noted above, that the US has chosen to refuse to recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ, for example, for purely political reasons, and that this rejection has implications for other nations also choosing to ignore it when it suits their purposes. I don’t necessarily disagree with the US official position on this body, either (different thread).
Your argument would be more compelling were it not the case that the Us refuses to submit its forces to such legal judgement for fear of "political motives". The presumption is abundantly clear: US forces can do no wrong. Seeing as the most powerful state refuses to accept binding judgements, and starts from an a priori assumption of its own innocence, how can anyone expect that justic will be done?
I disagree with your contention that the US refusal to recognize the ICJ necessarily means that it presumes itself innocent. The refusal does mean that it is required to investigate/prosecute its own personnel where violations of international law are documented. And I freely admit that not all allegations are going to be given equal treatment (again, Guatanamo is a case in point, not to mention the invasion of Iraq itself). However, thus far, the US has shown itself willing to at least prosecute some of the more egregious violations. If, as you contend, the US simply chooses to flout international law in toto, then these investigations and prosecutions would never have occurred.
As to your subsequent paragraph on Abu Ghraib, I think you need to do some additional research. The investigation covered hundreds of depositions, and prosecution or censure extended from the actual perpetrators up through the chain of command to general officer ranks, and even to the Executive and other agencies of the government. You might find this document AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade of interest in your research.
Umm well no, not any more than any of the other cases - such as the bombing of Kosovo - that such allegations have been made. The US just dismisses as enemy lies; witness now republicans declaring the the UN is sympathetic to terrorists.
And stupid neo-con conspiracy theories support your argument how, exactly?
Ah yes of course - when Russians use excessive bombardment of a city, its a crime. When Americans use excessive bombardment, its not.
Now you’re accusing me of bigotry? The fact that Russian forces deliberately attempted to raze Grozny to the ground, similar to what the Syrians did at Hama, is why I singled this action out. Not because it was perpetrated by Russians. In a similar vein, I have been quite open in lumping US and Allied actions during WWII as terrorism. Or did you miss that part?
I have already pointed out that it will be a long time before we know what really happenedin Fallujah, becuase all the jouranlists are embedded on only one said. Even so though, the US administration has not been slow to criticise Al Jazeera for reporting stories that do not agree with the official Us version. Human rights agents on the ground have severley condemned Us actions as displaying contempt for the very principles of human rights but you cavalierly dismiss this. How then can I expect you to police yourself, when your starting position is that any allegation is a malicious falsehood?
Where, in anything I have written, have I cavalierly dismissed allegations of human rights abuses? Also, please point out any instance where I have stated a position that any allegation is a malicious falsehood. Are you having a conversation with someone else? Neither of these are my positions, stated or unstated. This is one of those instances I noted in my opening paragraph that make it less-than-desirable to continuing discussions with you. You seem to think that by the simple virtue of disagreeing with you, I am some kind of apologist for the US. Far from it.
I'm well aware of that - its exactly what justifies AQ's actions. But when struck by AQ, the immediate response was blind incomprehension that anyone would hold the US accountable for its crimes. It is precisely because there is such a record that the US is so hated; and all the signs are that it continues to believe that its military might is such that it can continue with impunity.
I don’t disagree with you. I consider US policy and actions in the Middle East overall to be both short-sighted and ultimately counterproductive. However, this has little to do with whether or not an acceptable definition of terrorism is possible or useful.
Erm, yes - these are both excellent cases of FAILING to address the problem. Abu Ghraib was not substantially different from Guantanamo - it is abundantly clear that the problems in the US military are insitutional, and most certainly not the fault purely of "rogue individuals". The US response in both cases has been wholly unsatisfactory, hanging out a scapegoat, and serve to whitewash the military proper of accountability. Hence, the problem will and does continue.
I refer you to the Abu Ghraib investigation I referenced above. Please digest that before continuing on this line of argument.
Q: IF (and I say IF) the hospital was being used as a base of operations, or was reasonably believed to be so used, then attacking it was legitimate.
C: How can you demonstrate to my satisfaction that the belief was reasonable? All I have to go on is your word. As I have pointed out before: this acts as a get-out-of-responsibility-free card that can be played in any circumstance, rendering civilians totally unprotected in fact.
There is probably no way, up to and including 8x10 color glossies, that I would be able to demonstrate to your satisfaction that the hospital was being used as a military post. OTOH, that wasn’t my contention. If you remember, I specifically asked you to support your claim that it was a deliberate and conscious attack on a known undefended hospital. I used the conditional form deliberately in my statement. Under international law, if the hospital was used as a military position, then it becomes a legitimate target. Period. I also pointed out (in the part of the paragraph you neglected to address), that to make a valid claim that the attack was part of a deliberate policy, there should be evidence of widespread — not simply a single attack — destruction of protected structures. You have not shown this.
Q: In the particular case you cite, IMO the US DOES have the obligation to prove that whatever information led to the attack justified the apparent violation.
C: Except it never will do, for this may compromise its intelligence gathering assets. And after all, we already have grave doubts about the quality of US intelligence - do you remember back in '91 the dropping of a pentrator paveway bomb on a bunker full of civilians, but which according to US intelligence was a command bunker? Rank incompetence cannot stand as a universal excuse for killing civilians.
As to compromising intelligence assets, that’s a very weak and grossly overused excuse, as I’m sure you’ll agree. In this particular case, it isn’t clear that this would be a valid argument. Again, I ask you to provide additional support for your claim. As to the bunker in Baghdad, the fact is it WAS a command bunker, built underneath the area where the civilians were sheltering. From what I remember, the military knew about the bunker, but didn’t know about the civilians. If they had — and this is an allegation which has not (and probably never will be) fully exposed — then I join you in condemning the attack. If they didn’t know about the civilians, then the attack was a deplorable loss of civilian life, but not an illegal or terrorist action.
It cannot for the reasons I have already outlined: first, nobody wants to admit to being the bad guy and we already see the US making weak excuses for its conduct, and secondly because not state involved in a conflict of the gravity of WW2 can possibly consider the firebombing of cities illegitimate.
How can you say this? The gravity or extent of a conflict does NOT by any stretch justify the use of terrorist tactics. The firebombing of civilians to no military purpose is terrorism. Period. Getting states to recognize this — or at least recognize the illegitimacy of the tactic, whatever they call it — is a clear step toward your (and my, btw) goal of reducing civilian cost during small and large-scale conflicts. You’re right, in one sense, that it’s unlikely that any state involved in WWII is likely to come out in public with a mea culpa. OTOH, if you delve more than superficially into the professional writings of either military historians or military officers, I think you’ll be surprised to find quite a bit of internal acknowledgement of the illegitimacy of those tactics, and a lot of soul-searching in an attempt to develop alternative tools to accomplish military or statal goals during conflict. Where do you think I come up with this stuff?
I mean look, we already have laws about self defence of states, right? And we can see that the US chose to interpret this in a very self-serving light. So what is to think that the same process will not be applied to whatever definition you proffer? When push comes to shove the formal states are able and willing to massacre whole populations, and have weapons specifically designed for the job. If you were in the position of being a non-nuclear state and advancing that idea, it would be more plausible, but as long as states retain city-levelling weapons any pretense to obeying a law that prevents attacks on civilians is fatuous. It merely exists to demonise the enemy.
Since the last time city-levelling weapons such as nukes were used was WWII, even in spite of the defeats in the Korean War once the Chinese became involved (and in spite of the fact that MacArthur demanded that nukes be used to create a cordon sanitaire along the Yalu), I would say that your statement concerning states’ willingness to obliterate the civilian population of their enemies is unsupported.
Q: Terrorism is self-defeating. At no time and in no case to my knowledge in the history of conflict have deliberate attacks against civilians been effective in accomplishing military objectives. On the contrary, they have invariably been either ineffective OR have had the opposite of the intended effect: they have served to coalesce uncommitted civilian sentiment against those who use them. On this basis alone, IMO, modern states can be convinced that it lies in their own self-interest to adopt this definition and render attacks against civilians completely unacceptable.
C: Yeesh. Take a look at the history of colonialism. I also note you have still failed to respond to my challenge to explain the slaughter of whole cities during Classical warfare.
Failed to respond to your challenge? Since you didn’t provide any specific case to examine, I thought you were simply making a rhetorical point. If you want me to respond, be specific in your request. IOW, what battle, what specific period, or what specific nation are you discussing?
Or Oliver Cromwells use of the Biblical Israelites terms of surrender-or-massacre during his campaign in Ireland. Or the US behaviour in the Indian wars, which were certainly genocidal (although it is Politically Correct not to admit thisin the US):
I don’t know what terms Cromwell used in Ireland. If you’re referring to the massacres at Drogheda or Wexford, the initial attacks in both cases were directed at the royalist defenders. It was only after the defenders were defeated that the cities were sacked — and the majority of the civilian casualties were incurred. It is possible to make a case that the massacres convinced Sir Lucas Taafe at New Ross to surrender rather than fight, but I maintain that the honorable terms gained at New Ross convinced the garrisons at Cork, Youghall, Capperquin and Mallow to surrender — not the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford, which likely would have had the opposite effect. IOW, it wasn’t terrorism that allowed Cromwell to succeed in Ireland. In fact, if you look at examples such as Kilkenny, even though Cromwell was forced to breach the walls with artillery, he was able to convince Sir Walter Butler that if the city was taken by storm, the inevitable sack and massive civilian casualties would be the result. Butler surrendered (and paid 2000 pounds to compensate Cromwell’s soldiers for the lack of loot). In the remaining three major fortifications, Clonmel, Limerick and Galway, although forced to submission by siege (and in the case of Clonmel, heavy republican losses), Cromwell did not permit the sack of the cities, and civilian losses were limited to those entailed by the siege conditions themselves (especially the plague in Limerick). Your contention in this case is unsupported — and mine is supported. Terrorism doesn’t work.
I agree that the US actions against Native Americans were genocide. As were the Spanish actions further south. OTOH, I’ve never argued that genocide — eliminating the entire populace — is not an effective tactic. However, it is roundly and justly condemned by nearly everyone except perhaps the practitioners. I suppose that if you consider genocide to be terrorism writ large, you may have a point, although I would argue that genocide is rightly a separate category.
World hypothesis, as if immorality authomatically brings about the vengeance of god upon the perpetrator. Very Calvinistic, but wholly unsupportable in the real world.
What on earth are you talking about? Who mentioned God or divine retribution? This is a very odd statement.
The English terrorised Ireland, and held it for hundreds of years.
True. However, they’ve never successfully pacified it. Which was my entire point. In fact, the use of oppressive and/or terrorist tactics has had the opposite effect in Ireland — hardening both sides. One wonders how the history of that blood-soaked island would have been different if, beginning with the land grants given by Cromwell to his lowland Scots supporters in an effort to develop a Protestant majority and continuing up through the present, a more enlightened approach had been taken.
The Norman aristocracy harried the north, and yet still hold it. Where is this evidence of the automatic failure of terrorism, by states or anyone else?
Well, we can start with the Roman slaughter of German villages in reprisal for the Teutoborgwald massacre (hardened the Germanic resistance and ultimately lost the area east of the Rhine to Roman control), pass through the massacres of the Hundred Years War (which were wholly ineffective, and left all sides attempting to fight over exhausted terrain void of civilians — i.e., with no food for their troops), the Boer War (where British tactics of forced relocation ultimately led to international condemnation and the fall of the government — they invented the term concentration camp — and was singularly ineffective in controlling the Boers, and in fact had the opposite effect), to the siege and bombardment of Paris (in the face of strident opposition by von Moltke, which had the result of hardening French resistance), to the widespread tactic of indiscriminantly bombing cities during WWII, which had no effect other than to harden civilian support around their respective governments to the nasty partisan/anti-partisan warfare of the Russian front. The examples are legion.
War-making against civilian populations is the historical norm, not the exception. The only reason we presume to address this matter is becuase we hold to a theory of international accountability through global organs - which results only, as I have already pointed out, in the coercive pressure of wealthy states as arbitrator. And the US has frankly elected not to engage in such international systems at all.
No argument here. My point, however, remains: in order to start the process of eliminating this tactic from the repertoires of states, including the US, a distinction between unacceptable and acceptable actions is required. As is an internal recognition of the ineffectiveness of these tactics. Since there is no international body with effective coercive or punitive powers capable of enforcing these norms, the individual states must come to the realization that such tactics are not in their interests. Can it be done? Je ne sais pas. However, simply throwing up our hands and saying nothing can be done is less than useful.
Q: OTOH, your approach whereby any military operation that causes civilian casualties is lumped under one large grab bag of condemnation — which as you rightly pointed out the major powers are going to ignore anyway — merely serves to perpetuate the status quo.
C: No I completely disagree - because the present delusion results in people authorising war on false expectations of what it will entail. When I advanbced these very arguments prior to thw war, I was told I just an American-hater who failed to recognise the humanitarian and surgical strike capacity of the US military. All I was trying to point out is that in environment of fear and hatred, the laws of war are not going to be obeyed: it will be inevitable that civilians are killed and hate engenderdd in the local population. That view was regarded as evil and pernicious, and that is exactly why I violently disaprove of such nominal agreements that can never be obeyed in practice. We must recognise what war means in REAL terms, not what we wish it to mean. This nominal doctrine is unrealistic and merely serves as an apologetic for war - resulting in more lives lost.
Well, obviously you weren’t arguing with me. I see little in this to disagree with. I especially agree with the idea that we need to focus on the reality of war, vice what we’d like to pretend is the case. Which is why I think it is imperative to approach the subject both as a realistic assessment of what war has been up to now, and how the effects of war can be mitigated. Starting with an agreed upon definition of what constitutes unacceptable tactics.
Q: No nation deploying armed force is going to be willing to allow their enemies (however that is defined) to operate with impunity behind the shield of noncombatants.
C: Look, CIVILIANS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY ARE NOT A SHIELD. Again you place is this in terms of guilt and culpability, when we are just talking about people trying to survive amidst warring factions.
Civilians in their own country when they are used as an interposition between warring factions, by one side or the other, are certainly being used illegally as shields to protect the side so using them. Since the attacker is (at least nominally) constrained by the presence of civilian non-combatants, the point is that this is an unlawful deliberately placing civilians in harms way.
Q: The only hope to mitigate this unacceptable cost of conflict is to force — either through internal recognition of the uselessness of such tactics, or through international pressure — states to refrain from the use of those methods which serve to greatly increase civilian casualties. IOW, refrain from the use of terrorism.
C: Which will not work, because you immediately except such a state if they say they didn't target civilians specifically. It's completely circular and opportunist. It would be great if states did noit use methods gauranteed to cause civilian casualties like airstriking cities or dropping phosphorous artillery on them, but thaey are doing so. And when challenged, they just refer to civil;ians as unimportant collateral damage. Your argument is failing daily here in the real world, becuase we just have to accept the states own say-so and interpretation of events.
I have not excepted states from taking responsibility for civilian losses. I have merely articulated an unfortunate reality of war that you claim to recognize: civilians are going to be harmed in any conflict. My intent is to develop a conceptual framework where those tactics that increase civilian losses are prohibited. With technological advances that allow greater and greater discrimination between what constitutes lawful and unlawful targets, states are finding they have less and less leeway to make excuses when civilians are harmed. I submit that even in Iraq, with all of the apparent lack of accountability on the part of the US forces, the tactics and weapons being employed are substantially LESS likely to cause civilian casualties than the weapons used in any previous conflict. The next generation of systems will be even more discriminatory. Why would states develop these systems if they were not concerned about reducing civilian casualties? Even Fallujah — your favorite example which was from all accounts very much an armed camp in many sectors — was not simply flattened as would have been the case in any previous conflict (and as was the case with Grozny). However, I consider any civilian casualties to be unacceptable, which is why I desire to stigmatize the deliberate targeting of civilians (i.e., terrorism) as an especially heinous affront. I’m not enough of an idealist to think that war can ever be made sterile, but I do think both philosophically and operationally it can be made less deadly to non-combatants.
You see, you say you recognise that attacks on civilians engender only further hatred and resistance. Thats exactly true. But then you excuse attacks that kill civilians by "accident", and fail to recognise that by accident or otherwise, those civilians are still dead, and further hatred and resistance created. Intent is irrelevant, appeals to some abstract ideological position. As long as you allow this easy get-out clause for formal states, real attacks on real civilians will continue, and the hatred and resistance will continue to rise. No amount of excuse or apologetic makes up for a life lost.
I have never excused attacks on civilians. I have, however, made a distinction between accidental death — however unacceptable — and the illegal tactic of deliberate attack on civilians. There is no free pass clause here. And as you yourself point out, real attacks on real civilians have been a constant in warfare throughout human history. Don’t you think it worthwhile to try and change that?
Q: OTOH, accusations that a state used excessive force when attacking an insurgent group or whomever embedded in a civilian population is a distinct issue. It may be criminal under international law. It may even be classifiable as a war crime. It is not, however, terrorism.
C: Only because they wore a uniform when they committed their act in practice, though. I'm afraid it is terrorism in every practical, material sense.
On the contrary, it has nothing to do with uniformed or not; member of state forces or not. I thought I had been very clear that regular statal armed forces have been as guilty of terrorism as any marginal group of nutjobs. You will never stop the nutjobs. You may, OTOH, be able to convince states to cease these operations.
Q: It IS important to make the distinction: the use of terror can be effectively eliminated from the military tactics of states. The use of force in civilian areas, even if causing civilian casualties, more than likely can not be eliminated because of the realities of armed conflict.
C: Impossible. I point you to the experince of South Africa, unsurprisingly. Again and again the military and police would deploy overwhleming force in the townships. Again and again, bullets and explosives would go wide, or through targets, and kill bystanders. Again and again, the SADF would insist it didn't TARGET noncombatants and again and again non-combatants still died. They were not believed. Even if they had been believed, it would not have mattered, because few will ever accept that their loved ones were shot in the head and that they are just supposed to drop the matter. South Africa and Isael have both used exactly this self-serving justification for decades, completely blind to the fact that it never solved the problem, or even de-escalated it, but instead made it harder and harder, much more intractable, hatred settling down as the basic relationship.
Thank you. You have made my point quite effectively. Terrorism as either a military tactic or a tool of state policy is ineffective and/or counterproductive. It doesn’t matter what the perpetrators claim. As a corollary, an internationally accepted definition of terrorism would go far to rendering such transparent excuses even more unacceptable.
Your conception of military-on-military conflicts does not accord with the real world or history. The purpose of militaries is to protect the population, and this would not be needed if rival armies refrained from attacking populations.
You talk about my lack of historical knowledge! Where did you derive this idiosyncratic definition of the purpose of militaries? Although defense is one (at least theoretical) use of armed forces, it is neither the most important nor the most historically prevalent use of it. Militaries are an adjunct of state policy — one arm of the government. They have historically been used primarily to impose state will on either other states or internal opposition. In consideration of non-statal actors, armed force is the principal mode of relationship with formal states to which they are opposed.
That is why a "terrorist" strategy of killing civilians, and demonstrating the other sides ineffectiveness to impose a military solution or to fulfill the militaries raison d'etre, can bring about negotiations, as demonstrated by both the ANC and the IRA (also showing that your claim that terrorism has never worked is false).
However, in neither of the two cases you cite was use of terrorism instrumental in accomplishing the objectives of the respective organizations. The ANC was successful not through terrorism, but through international pressure and sanctions imposed on the apartheid government, as well as internal pressure from progressive whites (in this case). As far as the IRA goes, this organization has been singularly ineffective in imposing its will on the British government. Even during the height of the IRA bombing campaigns in the UK, the only effect was to harden British public opinion against them — and increase British military intervention. The fallacy of terrorism is the belief that continued acts of violence against civilians will somehow show the ineffectiveness of a state to protect them. In no case in history has this been proven out — whether carried out by Che Guevara or the Red Brigades or Theodore Roosevelt.
Excusing civilian casualties that arise from one side merely because they have not been pushed as far into a corner as the other - because they are wealthier and have more resources - is grossly hypocritical.
As I have never excused anyone, and have in fact roundly condemned state and nonstate actors using this tactic, I will simply reiterate that the next time you use the term hypocritical or hypocrite in relation to me or anything I write, will be the last time you and I exchange messages.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by contracycle, posted 11-29-2004 7:12 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 7:41 AM Quetzal has replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 98 of 112 (164073)
11-30-2004 7:41 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by Quetzal
11-29-2004 3:38 PM


quote:
Now you’re back to name calling again. Don’t you realize yet that referring to someone who disagrees with you as hypocrite tends to obscure what are otherwise excellent discussion points?
Don't you think that calling someone a terrorist obscures exactly such discussion points?
quote:
I understand you disagree, however there’s no need for name-calling. Let me know if you are unable to comply with this request, as that will save me a great deal of time and effort in replying to you. Last warning.
Whats good for the goose is not good for the gander, eh?
quote:
Without such laws and institutions, there would be NO check, even if solely moral, on the actions of states. And since we are discussing statal actors as the greatest abusers, I think it’s important to keep this in mind.
A fair point but: it is precisely my contention that these laws quite obviously have no limiting effect, becuase they allow such an easy excuse. If these laws cannot prevent such criminality as Falluja or Hue, what good are they?
quote:
However, I think you underestimate the cost to states for flagrant and continuing violation. Not even the US can completely ignore international opinion with impunity.
Really. Can you explain what sanctions the US has suffered as a result of its illegal invasion? I am not aware of any.
quote:
In fact, I would submit that the evidence that at least in those cases where US servicepeople have been caught red handed as it were, the response was not to deny or ignore the allegations, but rather to initiate an immediate investigation and rush to prosecution, shows that the even the US is sensitive to charges of GC violations, etc.
I do not accept that at all. There are credible reports that instructions to carry out the evils of Aby ghraib and Guantanamo came from Rumsfelds office and he is peronally culpable. And yet he remains in office as scapegoats are imprisoned. There is a clear failure of responsibility, and a clear failure to take on board the gravity of the offence.
quote:
As well, from a strictly military point of view, it doesn’t matter whether the person shooting at you is a civilian or a soldier. Nor does it matter why that person is shooting at you. The mere fact that they are engaged in combat actions makes them a combatant.
So de facto, civilians in any war zone cannot look to either force to carry out their Geneva Convention obligations to make serious efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Equal to your point, if you are shooting at a civilian, you are trying to kill that civilian, regardless of whther this is by "accident or othersie.
This is the opoprtunistic bias in your argument as I see it: the actions of uniformed combatants are interpereted from a very subjective sense of personal danger, but the civilians reactions are denied these quite natural responses and they are held as culpable for them.
quote:
However, the fact that the US HAS investigated and/or prosecuted several cases, including Abu Ghraib and the murder of the wounded insurgent, means that at least where evidence of atrocity has been irrefutable, the US is willing to take action to police its own military.
No, the US has WHITEWASHED its own military. Which again is exactly part of the problem - no matter how inadewuate and dismissive the reponse given by a formal state to such serious allegations, there is no mechanism by which to compel that state to clean up its act.
quote:
I disagree with your contention that the US refusal to recognize the ICJ necessarily means that it presumes itself innocent.
The exact statement - I think it ewas by Rubin - was that the US would not submit itself to such an organ because the only time accusations would be levelled would be by politically motivated enemies launching mischeivous allegations.
quote:
As to your subsequent paragraph on Abu Ghraib, I think you need to do some additional research. The investigation covered hundreds of depositions, and prosecution or censure extended from the actual perpetrators up through the chain of command to general officer ranks, and even to the Executive and other agencies of the government. You might find this document AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade of interest in your research.
I'm afraid I believe it is a whitewash. Please see the human Rights Watch report on Abu Ghraib and systematic abuses of human rights in multiple fields:
"The 38-page report, "The Road to Abu Ghraib," examines how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops."
Bush Policies Led to Abuse in Iraq | Human Rights Watch
I much prefer the analysis of independant investigators than an investion carried out by the same military as would have to carry the blame. They have an understandableand predictable, but no less unreliable, motive tyo interpret events in the best possible light. Again and again the "investigations" of the Us government into these crimes have been decries as inadeuate, and yet still nothing is done.
The guilty go unpunished - only the rank and file suffer.
We also know for example, that:
"The confidential Jan. 25, 2002, memo, first reported last month by Newsweek magazine, was written by the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and urged Bush administration officials to declare captives in the war on terror exempt from the Geneva Convention. It said that otherwise, Americans might be subject to "unwarranted charges" of committing or fostering war crimes."
So quite blatantly, the classification of prisoners was a prelimary to the purposeful use of torture - knowing this would violate human rights - authorised at very senior levels. And Gonzales has not been reprimanded - he has been promoted.
404 Not Found
This stands in stark contrast to the claim in the report you linked that "Neither Department of Defense nor Army doctrine caused any abuses." This is a blatant lie considering the preparations that the DoD underook to shield its personnel from "unwarrented" charges, and arguing that prisoners should be reclassified specifically so they could be tortured.
"According to the author of the 19-page UN report, "Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment," "The condoning of torture is, per se, a violation of the prohibition of torture."
The study, by UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Theo van Boven, points out that "legal argument of necessity and self-defense, invoking domestic law, have recently been put forward, aimed at providing a justification to exempt officials suspected of having committed or instigated acts of torture against suspected terrorists from criminal liability."
But, van Boven says, "the absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment means that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as justification for torture."
According to Francis A. Boyle, who teaches international law at the University of Illinois, "As White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales originated, authorized, approved, and aided and abetted grave breaches of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949, which are serious war crimes."
"In other words, Gonzales is a prima facie war criminal. He must be prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. War Crimes Act," Boyle told IPS."
Furthermore, Boyle points out that should Gonzales enter a country signed up to the international anti-torture bodies, the police forces in those states would be under treaty obligations to arrest him and hold him for trial as a war criminal, as was attempted with Augusto Pinochet.
The report produce by the USA is a whitewash, is seen to be a whitewash, and far from supporting your claim that the USA is undertaking due diligence in relation to its human rights abuses, it is actively concealing and condoning these abuses.
quote:
And stupid neo-con conspiracy theories support your argument how, exactly?
Becuase they demonstrate the inability of the US to accept criticism from foreign sources, so there is no prospect of any real or serious investigation of any war crime committed by Americans.
quote:
As to compromising intelligence assets, that’s a very weak and grossly overused excuse, as I’m sure you’ll agree. In this particular case, it isn’t clear that this would be a valid argument.
I certainly agree it is weak and overused. But as you have conceded, there is no mechanism to compel the Us or any other state to show its work, as it were. They will refuse, as they have always refused.
[quote] Again, I ask you to provide additional support for your claim. As to the bunker in Baghdad, the fact is it WAS a command bunker, built underneath the area where the civilians were sheltering. From what I remember, the military knew about the bunker, but didn’t know about the civilians. If they had — and this is an allegation which has not (and probably never will be) fully exposed — then I join you in condemning the attack. If they didn’t know about the civilians, then the attack was a deplorable loss of civilian life, but not an illegal or terrorist action.[/quotde]
you miss the point. the Us is under Geneva Convention obligations AS A MINIMUM to ensure that civilians are not unnecesarioly caught in the fighting. But the quality of US intelligence is so predictably low and routinely contains errors that it is impossible to claim that due diligence to its convention responsibilities has been carried out. It would be fairer to say that the US is willing to bomb first, based on rumour, and ask questions later. And again - they simply cannot be held to account after the fact.
quote:
There is probably no way, up to and including 8x10 color glossies, that I would be able to demonstrate to your satisfaction that the hospital was being used as a military post. OTOH, that wasn’t my contention. If you remember, I specifically asked you to support your claim that it was a deliberate and conscious attack on a known undefended hospital.
Which I have already conceded I cannot know because journalists are embedded. But therefore I also reject your rejection of this allegation: it is not invalid to raise this incident precisely becuase the situation is unclear. For you to dismiss it is unnaccaptable; your position appears to be that all benefit of the doubt should be accorded to US forces. Why? You may only dismiss it if you can demonstrate certainly that it was a military outpost; until such time as you can do that the question remains open. Furthermore, seeing as the US forces are the ones with a responsibility in law and a duty of care to the civilians of Iraq, it is most certainly the case that the burden of proof falls to the US.
But here is a very interesting remark from the New York Times:
quote:
American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.
"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.
Of course the hospital director disagrees:
quote:
Hospital director Dr. Salih al-Issawi said Monday he asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the Americans.
Al-Issawi denounced the U.S. seizure. The Americans "thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance," he said by telephone to a reporter inside the city. "But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance."
Page not found - Truthout
quote:
Period. I also pointed out (in the part of the paragraph you neglected to address), that to make a valid claim that the attack was part of a deliberate policy, there should be evidence of widespread — not simply a single attack — destruction of protected structures. You have not shown this.
Do you not get news in the US, then? I find this mind-boggling - this has been a persistent criticism of US praxis for more than a decade. You will recall the outrage and horror that folowed the bombings of hospitals, power stations, and TV centres in Belgrade.
quote:
OTOH, if you delve more than superficially into the professional writings of either military historians or military officers, I think you’ll be surprised to find quite a bit of internal acknowledgement of the illegitimacy of those tactics, and a lot of soul-searching in an attempt to develop alternative tools to accomplish military or statal goals during conflict. Where do you think I come up with this stuff?
None of this is in dispute. The fact that these acts are in fact terrorist acts, but are always described as necessary acts of self defence in the event, is precisely my angle. No definition you or I come to will have any impact on its next time. so the net real terms effect of the formulation you propioses is to premit the demonisation of those combatants too poor to raise appropriate propaganda, or to comnpel their enemy to respect them by the use of main forces suich as tanks an aircraft.
quote:
How can you say this? The gravity or extent of a conflict does NOT by any stretch justify the use of terrorist tactics. The firebombing of civilians to no military purpose is terrorism.
I'm afraid that is just naive. Once again you cannot rise above moralism and employ analysis analysis - I never "justified" anything, I merely OBSERVED that total war is total war. Under those circumstances, killing civilians IS a military goal, because it undercuts the other states productive capacity to manufacture war materiel and man units. Now it may be true that you wish that this would not happen; but wishing is not going to change anything. we know this happesn - it has always happened - and there is no serious prospect that some words on a treaty document are going to change that. So to advance an argument about terrorism based on the naive assumption that formal states will never again massacre civilians in bulk is simply unrealistic. It is a triumph of optimism over realism.
quote:
Since the last time city-levelling weapons such as nukes were used was WWII, even in spite of the defeats in the Korean War once the Chinese became involved (and in spite of the fact that MacArthur demanded that nukes be used to create a cordon sanitaire along the Yalu), I would say that your statement concerning states’ willingness to obliterate the civilian population of their enemies is unsupported.
Oh yes right. Like, if I had a car in my garage with the key in the ignition, its unreasonable and unsupported to suggest I might ever drive it. Puhleeze.
quote:
Your contention in this case is unsupported — and mine is supported. Terrorism doesn’t work.
I see. An yet Britain is still in occupation in Ireland. How then does it not work?
quote:
What on earth are you talking about? Who mentioned God or divine retribution? This is a very odd statement.
Well what other mysterious mechanism is going to exact the vengeance of the righteous dead? you seem desperate to convince yourself that terrorism by states "never works", but why should this be true, just because it is aesthetically pleasing? If you kill everyone, there is no-one left to be horrified. If you kill most people and indoctrinate the rest into your culture, nobody will avenge them. If you kill a large number and leave the remainder in semi-autnomy, you are most at risk. State terrorism mostly fails when it cannot complete the job - there is no mystical force of supernatural justice that comes along to right these wrongs. The Romans cruficied reblliuos slaves all the way from Rome to Ostia, where was the righteous judgement that proves that "terrorism never works"? Terrorism works so well that Gibbon declared that Rome was the greatest era humanity had ever seen.
quote:
True. However, they’ve never successfully pacified it. Which was my entire point. In fact, the use of oppressive and/or terrorist tactics has had the opposite effect in Ireland — hardening both sides.
Well that is true in part. I'm fully aware of this aspect of popular resistance. That's exactly whay the invasion of Iraq is doomed, and why it will never be pacified, no matter what brutal methods are employed against the resistsance. And I have already arged why this is the case - it is because you will never be forgiven for the "collateral" casualties.
quote:
the Boer War (where British tactics of forced relocation ultimately led to international condemnation and the fall of the government — they invented the term concentration camp — and was singularly ineffective in controlling the Boers, and in fact had the opposite effect), to the siege and bombardment of Paris (in the face of strident opposition by von Moltke, which had the result of hardening French resistance), to the widespread tactic of indiscriminantly bombing cities during WWII, which had no effect other than to harden civilian support around their respective governments to the nasty partisan/anti-partisan warfare of the Russian front. The examples are legion.
I'm well aware of this - these form the basis of my argument. Lets look more closely at the Boer War because it is quite relevant - because the Boers fought in khaki and not in formation, they were condemned by the British as irregulars and corwards who did not obey the rules of war - therefore the British were justified in their burning of farms and the camps. This is exactly the antique form of the modern argument to "terrorism" which you are trying to construct. As you point out, this completely failed and brought down the British government of the day, but this achieved little for the Boers who only threw off the Imperial yoke by withdrawing from the Commonwealth in 1961, nearly a hundred years later.
Using the term "terrorist" to demonise the Iraqi reistance, or the global reistance to American terror, is not going to achieve anything. It's only going to prolong the inevitable by lending a spurious legitimacy to state terror, a thin layer of self-righteousness. It would be far better if we talked in practical terms of resistance, of sabotage, of revenge strikes, then construct purposefully emotive terms like "terrorist".
quote:
No argument here. My point, however, remains: in order to start the process of eliminating this tactic from the repertoires of states, including the US, a distinction between unacceptable and acceptable actions is required.
Its a pipe dream - as definitely shown by the existing of nuclear weapons. I have dealt with this before - it is simply naivite, and I'm afraid we cannot afford that any more, we have to be realistic.
quote:
However, simply throwing up our hands and saying nothing can be done is less than useful.
We have - the ICC. that does not propose unrelaistic solutions like it never happening again, but does allow for occurrences to be prosecuted. That is a step in the right direction resisted by - the USA, what a surprise.
quote:
Since the attacker is (at least nominally) constrained by the presence of civilian non-combatants, the point is that this is an unlawful deliberately placing civilians in harms way.
The ATTACKER is constrained?
Thats just jaw-dropping. All the ATTAKCER has to do is do is rationalise them as enemies. I remind you that state department said that if Americans went to Iraq as human shields they would be killed as enemy combatants. It is the DEFENDERS who are constrained because it is those civilians they are protecting. Your statement is completely backwards and shows a rank disregard for the lives of civilians IMO.
quote:
I have not excepted states from taking responsibility for civilian losses. I have merely articulated an unfortunate reality of war that you claim to recognize: civilians are going to be harmed in any conflict. My intent is to develop a conceptual framework where those tactics that increase civilian losses are prohibited.
By who and what? By nothing, so it acheives nothing.
But as long as you encourage the use of the term terrorist to indicate an enemy who kills our civilians, as opposed to our dievine enligtenment when klilling their civilians, all you are doing is providing a conceptual framework which excuses yet more violence and resultes in yet more civilian deaths.
quote:
The next generation of systems will be even more discriminatory. Why would states develop these systems if they were not concerned about reducing civilian casualties?
I am 100% confident it has nothing to do with civilain casualties at all - every effort by bodies to limit weapons that are most effective against civilians, such as areas denial munitiions and landmines, have been rejected by the US. Or the radiation inflicted on civilians on DU rounds. The inly purpose for increasdingly precise weapons is to provide a cost effective target solution for combat effectiveness purposes - not for minimising civilian casualties.
quote:
Even Fallujah — your favorite example which was from all accounts very much an armed camp in many sectors
Yes well funny that you invade a country and find the people in it resist, I mean that obviously makes them evil. Jesus.
quote:
I have never excused attacks on civilians. I have, however, made a distinction between accidental death — however unacceptable — and the illegal tactic of deliberate attack on civilians. There is no free pass clause here. And as you yourself point out, real attacks on real civilians have been a constant in warfare throughout human history. Don’t you think it worthwhile to try and change that?
Well no - I think thats fatuous. Why not propose that states solve their differences by a game of football? Becuase it cannot be binding - each state has the capacity to ignore the judgement and resort to force. Similarly, if a state refused point blank to attack civilians, it would be held hostage by the first enemy that did not obey those terms, or it would have to abandon those terms to offer a similar degree of threat. So there is no prospect of wars being fought exclusively between militaries, ever. Only of the most trivial and irrelevant of wars are fought in that way. I insist on realism.
quote:
Thank you. You have made my point quite effectively. Terrorism as either a military tactic or a tool of state policy is ineffective and/or counterproductive. It doesn’t matter what the perpetrators claim. As a corollary, an internationally accepted definition of terrorism would go far to rendering such transparent excuses even more unacceptable.
Except you are wrong - what I showed is that the people who were denounced as terrorists, and who did attack civilian targets openly as part of their strategy, won the day, achieved international legitimacy and came to power. While then people who declared themselves the righteous agents of justice against terrorists, and who sibnsisted that by contrast to their enemy they only killed civilians by accident, lost and were delegitmised. In every respect it is counter to your argument - it demonstarets that civilians are necessarily the objects if not the subjects of war, and that no degree of excuses and apologetics for killing civilians ever makes it anything other than equivalent to terrorism. but what your doctrine did achieve was the funnelling of resources to South Africas campaign in Angola by the Reagan administartion - so your doctrine of distinguishing between "accidental" and purposeful killing of civilians served only to prolong the fight and reinforce the bad-guys on this wholly spurious basis. That is exactly why your proposition is njothing more than an apologetic for civilian death, and why for example the ANC refuses to accept that terrorist is a meaningful term any more than I do.
quote:
You talk about my lack of historical knowledge! Where did you derive this idiosyncratic definition of the purpose of militaries?
Well I don't have time to address that. I genuinely don;t know where to start with such a bizarre claim.
quote:
However, in neither of the two cases you cite was use of terrorism instrumental in accomplishing the objectives of the respective organizations. The ANC was successful not through terrorism, but through international pressure and sanctions imposed on the apartheid government, as well as internal pressure from progressive whites (in this case).
No, I'm afraid you are wroing. I was there - we lost. The NP could not protect the soft underbelly of the state, thats all. The ANC won through terrorism, and were right to do so.
quote:
As far as the IRA goes, this organization has been singularly ineffective in imposing its will on the British government. Even during the height of the IRA bombing campaigns in the UK, the only effect was to harden British public opinion against them — and increase British military intervention.
Again thats just naive; the IRA have rightly been described as the mnost sophisticated and most succesful terrorist organ on the planet. to the point that they are encouraged to have a word with groups like the basque separatists and pass on their insight. They brought about the present negiotiations almost entirely on their own iniative; it is true that the British have no ntoiceably demilitarised yet, but that only goes to demonstrate the self-serving duplicitousness that priviliged input to media organs allows. It is exactly that issue that is being negotiated right now.
To refer to the ANC and IRA as failures when in both cases their members - without renouncing their methods - have become formal members of the political system is ridiculous. I don't know where you get this nonsense; they have in nrearly all respects achieved their agendas, and the agendas of their enemies have been frustrated. They won.
quote:
As I have never excused anyone, and have in fact roundly condemned state and nonstate actors using this tactic, I will simply reiterate that the next time you use the term hypocritical or hypocrite in relation to me or anything I write, will be the last time you and I exchange messages.
Is there some reason I am supposed to be worried about an apologist for civilian killings refusing to talk to me? You in severe need of some perspective, my son.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Quetzal, posted 11-29-2004 3:38 PM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by Quetzal, posted 11-30-2004 8:43 AM contracycle has not replied
 Message 100 by AdminHambre, posted 11-30-2004 9:15 AM contracycle has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5873 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 99 of 112 (164084)
11-30-2004 8:43 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by contracycle
11-30-2004 7:41 AM


Is there some reason I am supposed to be worried about an apologist for civilian killings refusing to talk to me? You in severe need of some perspective, my son.
That's it. I'm done. Screw you pal. Too bad, it was an interesting discussion. Someday maybe you'll grow up and learn how to converse like an adult.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 7:41 AM contracycle has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by jar, posted 11-30-2004 9:18 AM Quetzal has not replied

  
AdminHambre
Inactive Member


Message 100 of 112 (164087)
11-30-2004 9:15 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by contracycle
11-30-2004 7:41 AM


Rhetoric Overload
You've been warned about name-calling before.
Everyone can see that your opponent is defining terrorism in a way that you don't approve. However, this is no excuse for calling him a hypocrite and an "apologist for civilian killings" as well as holding him culpable for the invasion of Iraq.
Got that?
Adminssimo Hambre

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 7:41 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 10:28 AM AdminHambre has not replied
 Message 104 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 10:41 AM AdminHambre has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 395 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 101 of 112 (164089)
11-30-2004 9:18 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by Quetzal
11-30-2004 8:43 AM


I hope the discussion doesn't die.
IMHO we are currently seeing a major change in the basic organizational format of the world, a redifinition of the nature of community. The end result will be a change in the concept of Nation State and as big a change world wide as was seen with the consolidations of city-states into Nation States that continued into the late 1800's.
Part of these changes will be new forms of exerting pressure, both militarily and economically, and new forms of political organization. I believe the issue of Terrorism is part and parcel of that sea change.
One of our limitations is that much of our terminology is based on references from 50, 100 and 200 years ago. Part of what I was trying to say earlier in this thread is that we either need to come up with new terms or remove the implied and hiding connotations from the terms we use. It is not a simple terrorism is bad and Nation State war is good issue. Both can be very, very bad, both can effect civilians or militray targets, both can be driven by a host of motives.
The bigger question, for me, is that the whole existing organization structure is changing. Part of this is the rapid expansion of communications, both physical in the ability to move people and materials around, and more traditional in the ability to move thought, knowledge, opinion and chatter.
I don't know where all this will end. But I also do not see anyway that the overall disruption of lives or systems can be any less than was was seen following the final consolidation of the city-states into Nation States.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Quetzal, posted 11-30-2004 8:43 AM Quetzal has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 10:34 AM jar has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 102 of 112 (164101)
11-30-2004 10:28 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by AdminHambre
11-30-2004 9:15 AM


Re: Rhetoric Overload
quote:
You've been warned about name-calling before.
Yes, I thought this might happen as soon as I saw you with an Admin tag. An reactionary backlash waiting to happen.
quote:
Everyone can see that your opponent is defining terrorism in a way that you don't approve. However, this is no excuse for calling him a hypocrite and an "apologist for civilian killings" as well as holding him culpable for the invasion of Iraq.
Got that?
No. Since when are my thoughts subject to your approval or anyone elses? This is the same old bullshit; when you don't like a contrary opinion you choose to view as deliberately insulting rather than descriptive. It's very selective and frankly juvenile. This applies to Quetzal as much to you. It is a word; that word has meaning; if it is not descriptive of the subject you are free to explain why. Got that? The fact thnat you resort to rank-pulling, and Quetzal to shamefully running away, demonstrates only that you cannot. Or take responsibility for your arguments. And then,having done this, you still find it inexplicable that I object to the use of deliberately slanderous terms like terrorist! The arrogance is breathtaking.
In fact I have more to say. Quetzal has behaved very badly IMO; at no point has he actually acknolwdged the legitimacy of any deployment of violence EXCEPT by a state. I have gone to great lengths to make it clear that a doctrine of acceptable violence formulated around the rights and responsibilities of the state is functionally redundant, and he has never risen to the challenge.
An allegation of hypocrisy is perfectly legitimate. I don;t care whether he LIKES it; I neither care nor said that he APPROVES of it; the FACT of the matter is his definiition is IN USE in a hypocrtiical manner. If he doesn;t like it he can go sulk in a corner - and while he and his fellows legitimised the atrocities of the South African state - and that is NOT rhetoric - I don't see why I can't tell it like it is. If she doesn;t like it, maybe he should do something about it.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 11-30-2004 10:39 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by AdminHambre, posted 11-30-2004 9:15 AM AdminHambre has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Quetzal, posted 12-01-2004 8:37 AM contracycle has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 103 of 112 (164102)
11-30-2004 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 101 by jar
11-30-2004 9:18 AM


Re: I hope the discussion doesn't die.
quote:
I don't know where all this will end. But I also do not see anyway that the overall disruption of lives or systems can be any less than was was seen following the final consolidation of the city-states into Nation States.
Marx already told you where it will end - with the eradication of the nation state and the developement of free association among self-defined communities. The change you are seeing is occurring exactly as he predicted, with the rise in technological capacity at the individual level making the enforced patriotism and centralisation of resou5rces by nation states redundant.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by jar, posted 11-30-2004 9:18 AM jar has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 104 of 112 (164103)
11-30-2004 10:41 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by AdminHambre
11-30-2004 9:15 AM


Re: Rhetoric Overload
Even better, seeing as you patronisingly title your selective intervention as "rhetorical overload", I ask that you practice what you preach: that the term terrorist be forbidden on the board as nothing more than excessive rhetoric. Well? Gonna step up to the plate?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by AdminHambre, posted 11-30-2004 9:15 AM AdminHambre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by AdminHambre, posted 11-30-2004 11:16 AM contracycle has replied

  
AdminHambre
Inactive Member


Message 105 of 112 (164108)
11-30-2004 11:16 AM
Reply to: Message 104 by contracycle
11-30-2004 10:41 AM


Blah blah blah
contracycle,
quote:
I ask that you practice what you preach: that the term terrorist be forbidden on the board
You're not fooling anyone. I recall before I had my reactionary police power, another admin chided you for name-calling. You responded that if using childish names was against forum guidelines, then so was misrepresenting Marxist theory. Now I get a lecture on how arrogant, juvenile, and reactionary I am for trying to keep the discussion civil.
Just stop the name-calling. Period.
Adminssimo Hambre

Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:

Change in Moderation? (General discussion of moderation procedures)
or
Thread Reopen Requests
or
Considerations of topic promotions from the "Proposed New Topics" forum
or
Introducing the new "Boot Camp" forum
< !--UE-->
This message has been edited by AdminHambre, 11-30-2004 11:24 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 10:41 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by contracycle, posted 11-30-2004 11:25 AM AdminHambre has not replied
 Message 110 by Quetzal, posted 12-01-2004 9:38 AM AdminHambre has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024