October, 2002

9/11 ONE YEAR LATER: HOW HAVE WE CHANGED?
Alison M. Jaggar, Women’s Studies Program and Department of Philosophy

One year after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I am concerned about recent changes in the way the word "terrorism" is used.

What is terrorism?

In its central meaning, "terrorism" refers to politically motivated attacks on civilian targets. Terrorism is designed both to damage those targets and to create terror among the civilians who identify with them.

Terrorism is distinguished from war by the fact that its targets are civilian or private, not symbols or representatives of state power, such as political leaders or military forces. Of course, war as well as terrorism is harmful to civilians but the so-called rules of war forbid direct military attacks on civilian targets. When harm to civilians does occur, as an unintended by-product of military activity, it is nowadays called "collateral damage." Terrorism is distinguished from ordinary crimes by its motive, which is ideological rather than personal.

Who are the agents of terrorism?

In today’s Western media, terrorists are usually portrayed as crazed individuals, such as the so-called Unabomber, or as fanatical members of ideological groups. Indeed crazed individuals and fanatical ideologues regularly carry out terrorist attacks in most countries of the world, as do people who are regularly sane. Sometimes these fanatics target members of unpopular or stigmatized groups, such as religious, ethnic, racialized, or immigrant minorities or gypsies. Attacks like this are often portrayed as expressions of personal prejudice or hatred but, when they are intended to intimidate other members of the group to which the person(s) attacked belongs, they should really be understood as politically motivated acts of terror. Lynchings, cross-burnings or attacks on abortion clinics or clinic employees are often terrorist acts, not simply individual hate crimes.

In addition to being perpetrated by private individuals and non-governmental organizations, terrorism may also be perpetrated by states. Indeed, the use of the word "terrorism" to describe political violence derives from the French Revolution’s "reign of terror," when the Jacobin government executed large numbers of civilians in an effort to stifle dissent.

States may be terrorist in several ways. For example:

1. In wartime, states may order their military forces to attack enemy populations. State sanctioned terror by military forces is distinct in principle from the unauthorized attacks on civilians that soldiers often commit. For example, mass rapes ordered by political authorities are very different from even widespread raping committed against orders.
2. Governments may also harass and terrorize segments of their own populations by means of discriminatory legislation and law enforcement. The terrorization of Jews by the government of Nazi Germany was distinct from anti-Semitic acts perpetrated by individual citizens.
3. States may engage in terrorism covertly as well as overtly, using unofficial militias to assassinate political opponents or labor leaders. In the 1970s and 1980s, extra-judicial death squads linked with the government were common in several Latin American countries.
4. Finally, covert state terrorism, like overt terrorism, may extend beyond a country’s own borders. In the 1980s, the United States government supported the so-called "contras" (counter-revolutionaries) in Nicaragua, who sought to undermine the Sandinista government by attacking farms and clinics.

State terrorism has always caused far more harm than non-state terrorism for the obvious reason that the resources available to states are typically far more powerful and destructive than those available to private individuals or groups. Since 9/11 last year, however, state terrorism goes increasingly unacknowledged.

Recent distortions in the public understanding of terrorism

Last year’s dramatic attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have become so widely accepted as paradigms of terrorism that attacks that do not resemble those are often not considered terrorist today. Two related distortions in the public understanding of terrorism are especially disturbing. One regards all attacks by irregular or guerrilla forces as terrorist, even if their targets not civilian but instead are soldiers or warships. The second regards no attacks by official military forces as terrorist, even if their targets are civilian.

These two tendencies are clearly illustrated in much reporting of events in Israel and Palestine. In the U.S. media, Palestinian fighters are almost always described as terrorist, even when their targets are military rather than civilian. Yet Palestinian forces are necessarily irregular because Palestine is not recognized as a state. Conversely, the Israeli Defense Forces are never described as terrorist, even when they are attacking targets that seem indisputably civilian, such as ambulances and homes.

Such slippages in the concept of terrorism prejudice moral and political judgements. When all violence by irregular forces is labeled terrorist, even if it is directed against political or military targets, then it is automatically condemned. It becomes impossible to justify any attacks by rebels without uniforms, because their actions can never be recognized as acts of war. Conversely, when the possibility of state terrorism is forgotten, government sanctioned violence against civilians escapes the condemnation it deserves.

My purpose here is primarily conceptual. I do not wish to take a stand on any aspect of the Israel/ Palestine conflict. I invoke contemporary reporting of this conflict only to illustrate a recent distortion in the meaning of the word terrorism. If we are to evaluate situations fairly, we need to use the word terrorism accurately.

Could the United States war on terror be terrorist itself?

A war on terror sounds as morally unobjectionable as a war on disease or a war on poverty. However, even wars with just aims may be pursued by unjust means. Some people are concerned that the United States government may be using the rhetoric of fighting terrorism as a justification for supporting and even engaging in terrorist activities. For example,

1. In a NYT Op Ed article (August 20) entitled "Losing Our Best Allies in the War on Terror," Jeffrey Goldfarb, a professor of sociology at New York’s New School, worries that current United States policies are alienating the world’s democrats. He reports that many foreign students enrolled in his courses on democracy and diversity believe that, in the name of fighting terrorism, the U.S. government is supporting crack downs on democracy advocates by authoritarian regimes around the world. Among such regimes, Goldfarb cites the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
2. Other critics are concerned that the USA Patriot Act, hastily passed in the aftermath of 9/11 and signed into law on October 26, 2001, violates several parts of the United States constitution. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) has charged that the USA Patriot Act violates the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments. The laws comprising USA Patriot Act are so repressive and permit such discriminatory application that many critics argue that they authorize agents of the U.S. government to terrorize some United States citizens and residents.
3. In a recent article entitled "The Troubling New Face of America," (Washington Post, September 5, 2002) former president Jimmy Carter criticized the treatment of several hundred captured Taliban soldiers imprisoned on the United States military base at Guantanamo Bay. He quoted the United States Secretary of Defense as declaring that these soldiers would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. Carter observed that such actions resemble those of abusive regimes that historically have been condemned by American presidents. He stated that the United States, "formerly admired almost universally as the pre-eminent champion of human rights¼has become the foremost target of respected international organization concerned about the basic principles of democratic life."

Conclusion

Because terrorism is widely condemned, debates about which actions are terrorist are frequently passionate. Such debates cannot always be settled easily. For instance:

• Attackers whose motives are unknown may be terrorists or simply thugs.
• In wartime, it is often difficult to distinguish deliberate terror from accidental "collateral damage," because it may be debated how far particular harms to civilians were foreseeable, avoidable or officially condoned.
• It may be difficult to draw the line between state terror and the systemic injustice of harshly discriminatory laws or practices of law enforcement.
• Some may deny that attacks on property, as opposed to persons, are acts of terror. Contemporary mainstream media usually conflate the two but anarchists have long distinguished assassination from sabotage.
• What counts as a civilian target may also be debated. For instance, workers in weapons industries may be seen as integral parts of a war machine and members of colonizing populations may be regarded as representatives of an invasive state.

The possibility of disputing a concept’s applicability in a particular situation does not render that concept useless. All concepts have "fuzzy borders," even the most commonly used. However, concepts do become worthless if their use degenerates to the purely rhetorical. President Reagan described the United States supported contras as freedom fighters, famously asserting, "I am a contra." (He also described terrorist Jonas Savimbi as Angola’s Abraham Lincoln and the Taliban as the moral equivalent of the founding fathers.) If those on my side are always freedom fighters and those on yours are always terrorists, then "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" lose both their descriptive meaning and their moral force.

In order for the term "terrorism" to retain any significance, it is important to remember that its central meaning is politically motivated violence against civilian targets. And in order for us to retain any moral credibility, it is important that we condemn all such violence, whether it is perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, by the Klu Klux Klan, by al Qaeda, or by governments far or near. If the government of the United States turns to terror, it will be the most powerful and dangerous terrorist in the world.

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