10-12-2002 23:27									#1
	Define Terrorism: Win $1000 Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Define Terrorism: Win $1,000
by Frank Bardacke

Several months ago, Jeff Lustig, Doug Lummis, and I bet $1,000 that no read of the New York Review of Books could define "terrorism" in a way that would exclude U.S. military strategy and tactics. Twenty-one people have answered our challenge so far. After studying the proposed definitions, we are happy to report that our money is safe. We are now even more confident that any accurate definition of terrorism would cover some U.S. military activity, and have decided to open our contest to the readers of CounterPunch and the rest of the world.

. . .

We now invite everyone to take us up on the bet. Proposed definitions can be sent to:

CounterPunch
P.O.Box 228
Petrolia, CA 95558

They must be received by Dec., 31, 2002. We propse to read them, write an essay discussing them, submit it to the New York Review of Books, and see what happens.

=========

Anyone wanna take them up on the bet?

	10-12-2002 23:30									#2
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couldn't you just make the defination start off by saying something about being of devout muslim faith? it's skewing the whole thing but that'd pretty much opt out the US

	10-12-2002 23:32									#3
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Terrorism: Criminal act by organized group with political agenda, to cause destruction to other nation or group to hurt economy or its people, or just for fun. The US is excluded.

Did I win?

	10-12-2002 23:33									#4
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Terrorism: anything that puts people under the state of terror. Like dealing with public services for example.

	10-12-2002 23:35									#5
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The trick is to include a bit about intentions.

Here's a beginning:

An act of terrorism is an act of political violence orchestrated by a non-sovereign entity (with or without the support of of a sovereign entity) in which the exact target of the violent act is not the smae as the intended audience of the act. (to explain this second bit: when Al qaeda blows somehting up, the political message they seek to send is directed towards the leadership fo the states they fight, but as they are too weak to do so, they aim at a different soft target so that indirect political pressure will be applied.)

Since the US is a sovereign entity, it can not by definition commit a terrorist act, plus the US always aims for the audience of its political violence when it undertakes a act of political violence (military action)since the US is strong enough to attack any political leadership.

	10-12-2002 23:35									#6
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another thing. terrorism is the willful, direct, purposeful killing of private citizens that have no real impact on the troubles ailing you. american attacks on other countries kill civilians, yes, but we don't AIM FOR THEM. saddam builds a missle silo next to a village, we can't help the casualities. terrorists hit the WTC. there was no reason to do that. the only quasi-reasonable (and i use that term VERY loosely) is to hit the ecnomoic power of the US.

i've said before that if the terrorists had just hit the Pentagon and some military bases i would see it as a little more justifiable, but they went out of their way to kill civilians. that's terrorism.

	10-12-2002 23:40									#7
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A terrorist (will be) anyone who disagrees with me. This includes people I don't like the look of in the street. All terrorists (shall be) put in 'super happy fun' camps.

	10-12-2002 23:50									#8
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I think it has to be a valid definition. It would have to be able to include say, the IRA, the Tamil Tigers, etc. You can't limit it to non-state entities, because the original defintion of terrorism was something that a state did to its own people.

	10-12-2002 23:57									#9
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Well, my definiton includes all those organizations, but as for the whole not letting states out of the hook:

Terrorism: an act of political violence intended to create political pressure on a group(an NGO, a political or social class) or state indirectly though the mechanism of fear.

Carpet bombing of cities would apply as terrorism. Direct attacks on those factions which you seek to change politically would not apply. The attack has to be intentional, so accident don't apply. Now, bonbing city services, as we did in 1991 might apply, so some refinement is needed....

I need $1000, so lets keep working on it..

	11-12-2002 00:00									#10
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If anyone gets the $1,000, you should cut me in because I clued you in to the contest.

	11-12-2002 00:03									#11
	Got spare money?

Yes, the unemployed and underemployed must stick togehter. What is the basic finder's fee? 10%?

	11-12-2002 00:07									#12
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Beggars can't be choosers. I'll take ten percent.

	11-12-2002 00:13									#13
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Casualties of War.

The real trick is to separate "war" from "terrorism".

Or "retribution" from all these words.

I think that going with the "soverignity" of a nation is a aproach. Include that the soverign state is "recognized" and define what "a recognized soverign state" is. Then define "war" as something that only such a state can perform, and then define terrorism as something completly different.

I.e.

Terrorism - acts of violence against an established and recognized soverign state by an indipendent organization not recognized or established as a state, with the soul intention to bring fear and anger to that soverign state. Such acts of violence are usually in resposne to ideals on which that state is established and for which it is recognized for. [All terrorist are cowards, and when seen in the street should be pointed at and laughed at until they cry and run home to mommy.]

One could also expand on the fact since terrorist are not apart of a specific state that they are generally harbored and rely on other states, or members of those states, for funding of cash, arms, and resources. While soverign states produce such things themselves. In a way one could define a terroris more like a parsite instead of an actual faction.

	11-12-2002 00:25									#14
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Taking recognized states out of the equation is a relatively new practice and downright dangerous. Terror tactics are commonly employed by states.

	11-12-2002 00:28									#15
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Which definition would they like? It's approaching the hundreds.

quote: The real trick is to separate "war" from "terrorism".

Terrorism can not be seperated from warfare because it is a meathod of waging war.

	11-12-2002 00:30									#16
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The problem with that Japher is that with that type of definition, as Che has stated, the notion's pf "terrorist states" akes no sense, as a sovereign state could never be guilty of terrorism.

I still think the magic bullet here is in the target/audience issue: is the target of the violence the same as the audience of the violence?

Now, let's say I am a criminal. I see a large man with a small child, with a fancy and expensive watch. Now, i want that watch, but how can I use violence to make the man choose to give me the watch?

1)The defined audience of my act is the man with the watch.
2)there are two possible targets, the man, and the baby.

If I direct my violent act directly towards the audience, the man, and either beat him, or threaten him with a weapon, then the audience of my act is also the target. If I direct my attack against the baby, or more likely, threaten an attack on the baby to get the man to chose the baby or the watch, then my adience is not the same as the target. Now, under the tye of definion I envision, the first act, the attack on the alrge man (who in theory can defend himself) would not be terrorism. The attack on the baby would.

In a sense then, if you ares trong enough to make the audience of your act the target, you dn't commit terrorism, you commit armed aggression. But if you are weak, then you seek to separate target and audience, and this is terror. Now, if a state wants to keep a whole group in check, but its too weak to actually take on eery member of it, then you can make exmaples out of individuals (again, separation of audience and target) to terrorize everyone else into submssion.

	11-12-2002 00:35									#17
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I change my answer to what Gepap said.

	11-12-2002 00:37									#18
	Re: Define Terrorism: Win $1000 Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Several months ago, Jeff Lustig, Doug Lummis, and I bet $1,000 that no read of the New York Review of Books could define "terrorism" in a way that would exclude U.S. military strategy and tactics.

How exactly are they defining the term anyway?

	11-12-2002 00:37									#19
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Yet, while terror tactics may be employed by soverign states as a war tactic this may not necessarily make that state, or the ppl in it, a terrorist.

In a way these definitions are great, but it defies the initial premise of the thread in that it is to be redefined to exclude the acts of the US. I still don't see that in these answers.

	11-12-2002 00:40									#20
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Now, the big issue here is knwoing US military doctrine, as the contest challenges one to make a definiton in which no aspect of US military strategy would fit under the definition.

So, are there any tactic in which the US military separates the target form the audience of violence?

This hinges on how one defines audience and target: a whole armed force can be defined as a single audience, or you can seperate each individual unit and make them different audiences. If you do that, in one swoop one action can go from being armed aggression(direct pressure) to terrorism (indirect pressure). So any definition must aslo include some way of limitin how one defines target v. audience.

	11-12-2002 00:41									#21
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I think perhaps, if you think this question can possibly be answered you should inventory some of the worst methods the US has used.

"We are now even more confident that any accurate definition of terrorism would cover some U.S. military activity"

The framers of the question were not stupid and I assume "US military strategy and tactics" refers to all tactics used since the birth of the nation. No brainer folks, these guys keep their money.

oops cross-post

	11-12-2002 00:44									#22
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It should have been obvious that the contest was an exercise in mental masterbation as soon as CounterPunch was mentioned. That doesn't mean that this won't be an interesting thread though.

	11-12-2002 00:45									#23
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I don't think they use the whole hisotry of US military action, as then, i agree, this becomes impossible. My guess is that they judge by those strategies that the US mlitary employs today, specialy in Afghanistan and in any upcoming operaion on Iraq. The farthest i can see them going is the previous Iraq war: and we must remember we have actions in somalia and the balkans to also annalyze.

	11-12-2002 00:46									#24
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The key is to associate terror with going against the law. And law is of course nothing but force. In other words, terror is not terror if you can get away with it.

So, terror is the illegal attacking innocent civilians to inspire fear.

Therefore, groups like the Contras didn't participate in terrorism because when the World Court came knocking, the US ignored them. Likewise, our allies, for instance Colombia, Pakistan, and Turkey don't participate in terror simply because they're our boys, and they therefore won't face any consequences of their actions.

On the other hand, it's clear the Taliban, al-Qaeda, et. al are terrorists because the authority of the world community has come crashing down on them.

Simple, eh?

	11-12-2002 00:49									#25
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Terrorism:

Terrorism is a method of waging war that involves the use of the target society's infrastructure as a conduit for the placement of weapons, or as the weapon itself.

Consequently, the terrorist is always stealthy.

Terrorists virtually always use explosives, either improvised or readymade. Explosives are favoured because they are easy to acquire, conceal and can be detonated with minimal effort and immediate impact.

Anyone or anything that can be blown up is a terrorist target. Terrorists always seek to maximize damage whilst minimizing the risks of failure. Consequently, 'soft' targets are often chosen as they are simply less well guarded.

Anyone can be a terrorist. There is no need for a group, or a motive.

	11-12-2002 00:55									#26
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I think Ramo's definition has the best of succeeding.

	11-12-2002 01:21									#27
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What about the bombing of power plants, water treatment facilities, radio stations, and many othere civilian services of duel purpose? Rememberm we are talking here about US mlitary action. In the Balakns, and in Iraq in 1991 the US bombed such targets and you can't say the fit a purely military service.

Then you run into the "who is an innocent civilian" rule. No, any definion must be very clear, and I think any definiton that stray into the realm of "law" and "innocence" will fail, as both are subjective terms. You need a definition to be mroe technical, divorced of "legality". After all, these guys got 21 responses: you think none of them brought up the whole innoncent civilians bit?

	11-12-2002 01:37									#28
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The "innocent civilian" part isn't relevant to my argument, although I would normally conisder terrorism to be the previous definition minus the legal qualifier. FWIW, an innocent cilvilian is anyone who isn't initiating force against the people who would be terrorists.

Legality would be the key to the definition. If you generalize the concept of law, you'll realize it is simply the word of authority. And conveniently enough, the authority just happens to be the US (certainly, people aren't able to enforce their authority on [real] terrorists the US supports).

	11-12-2002 01:46									#29
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Sadly though, the US is NOT the authority, since no one actor has authority in the world of differen sovereign states. The closest we have to an authority is the UN, whose authority comes from the agreement of the different soverign actors.
Your definiton also does not seem to meet the notion of a state being terrorist, again given that all states have equal authority, if not equal power, in the system.

What the authoer are seeking, it seems to me, is a way inw chih we can separate political violnce taken by the US vs. Political violence taken by "terrorist", and I still think the notion of 'law' is not the way to again, and I would repeat that since this is the most obvious way to go: To make the definiton exclude the US by default, it most certaninly must have been one of the 21 rejected claims.

	11-12-2002 01:56									#30
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As mentioned earlier, authority is connected to enforcement. If an authority cannot enforce its claims, it is not an authority. Again, when the Nicaraguans appealed to the World Court for the US to pay compensation for their support of the Contras and the World Court supported their claims, the US ignored them. Therefore, UN has no authority over them. Rather, the US does.

Regardless of what terrorism the US supports, the rest of world can do absolutely jack. Therefore, it's not terrorism because empty proclamations aren't law.

Last edited by Ramo on 11-12-2002 at 02:03