Commenting on a story from the Chicago Tribune reporting a drop on international terrorism, Daniel W. Drezner properly credited the efforts of the Bush administrations efforts in "arresting" the worrisome increase of such attacks that was seen at the end of the 1990s.
While I am surely not a fan of international terrorism, and was as shocked as anyone at the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, but the discussion on international terrorism brought to mind one of the stories that played on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, where, when Syria's foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa was asked about Palestinian militants living in Syria who send suicide bombers and missiles into Israel, insisted that Palestinians who attack Israel are not terrorists but freedom fighters trying to liberate their land from Israeli occupation. That viewpoint may have some credibility, to a point.
What is an act of terrorism and what is simply a tactic employed by a weaker force against a powerful oppressor? In my very first post, I questioned the criticism the Iraqis were getting for using guerrilla tactics at the beginning of the war. I again have to question whether every supposed reported act of terrorism is actually an act of terrorism, or whether some are, in actuality, a form of military attack against an enemy one has no other means to attack.
There is no doubt that 9/11 was a terroristic attack. I do not say this because it was an attack on America and that any attack on Americans is a terroristic attack. I am suspicious, however, that in the minds of many Americans, any attack on Americans constitutes a terroristic attack. I classify it as a terroristic attack because it targeted civilians. Let me back track, the part where the planes hit the World Trade Center was a terroristic attack, but the attack on the Pentagon was aimed toward a military target. Was that a terroristic attack? Remember the US attack on Iraq? Supposedly their attempt was to attack only military targets, and attempted to minimize destruction of infrastructure and loss of civilian lives. Is it the method of the attack that makes it a terroristic attack? Had it been a plane full of Islamic volunteers that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, would that have made it a proper military attack? Or do they have to don uniforms, announce their intentions and allow defenses against their activity to be set up before any action against an enemy's military installations can take place? As all attacks committed against the United States on 9/11 were accomplished by commandeering commercial aircraft and sacrificing the lives of those passengers in the attack, even the attack on the Pentagon was a terroristic attack. But imagine some different scenarios. From a different perspective, could some supposed terroristic threats actually be unconventional military attacks: The USS Cole bombing or the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon?
While our diplomatic agenda has been superbly used to quell international terrorism, is not our foreign policy partly to blame for the causes of international terrorism aimed against the United States? ["A 'Moral' Foreign Policy That Ignores International Law? The History and Ironies of the U.S.'s Current View of Its Role In the World" by Edward Lazarus provides a good synopsis of US foreign policy and its development since the early beginnings of the nation] We do take sides in the Middle East, rightly or wrongly. But when you take sides in a conflict, the opposition rightly sees you as an enemy. If they attack you, does it necessarily become terrorism because they are they and you are you? Terrorism is sometimes just a matter of perspective.
Posted by Tiger at May 2, 2003 09:21 AM