I am not being flip. I think I've established my antiterrorism credentials these last few years and I certainly know that terrorism exists and we must do our damndest to stamp it out. I am working on a book on global terrorism, and the very first chapter confronts establishing a definition. The scholar and writer Boaz Ganor's article "Terrorism: No Prohibition Without Definition" has been particularly important in my thinking on this issue. If we want to stop terrorism, if we are to develop a coherent program to deal with those who engage in it, we must decide what it is -- to define terrorism is to establish a universal desire to prevent it and to punish those who engage in it.
And yet there are still days when I want to throw my hands up and adhere to Justice Potter Stewart's approach to dealing with pornography -- I cannot define it, but I know it when I see it. Unfortunately, that is not good enough. Because if we leave terrorism to be in the eye of the beholder, the terrorists will simply define themselves away. We do not want that. The DMN piece reveals the difficulty in establishing a universally recognized definition. Nonetheless, even if it seems like we are trying to nail jelly to a wall, we need to continue to pound away.
2 comments:
I think the definitions here are largely useful, at least as general guidelines, although I don't see a reason why the group in question need be "subnational." The reason for that insertion probably has something to do with actions many claim to have been committed in the name of the U.S. government in years past. I say "claim to" not because I would deny them, but because I declare outright my own ignorance over specific details of the historical record that I wouldn't see myself defending, either. I'm not defending ignorance either, just admitting to it.
Lee --
I actually prefer "civilian" to "noncombatant." Countries try to play clever games with what is and is not a noncombatant. Soldiers when they sleep, say? General staff planning a war in their offices? Military spies?
Now don't get me wrong -- there are lots of things that we can condemn and punish through military or other means that are not terrorism, so I have no aversion to a relatively narrow definition being drawn that we can agree upon that does not preclude action against other nefarious activities that we nonetheless do not call "terrorism."
dcat
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