>We treat the
>killing of a soldier as more legitimate than the bombing of a hospital,
but
>if the soldier voted against the regime leading the war, while the
hospital
>is full of government partisans, why is killing the soldier a more
moral
>act?
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Brown [SMTP:CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 1999 4:02 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Bombing and terrorism
>
> Nathan,
>
> Aren't you in law school ? What about the fact that the U.S. and NATO
> are violating international law ? Doesn't that impact your reasoning
> as to what is legitimate or illegitimate use of deadly force ?
>
> Charles Brown
>
> >>> "Nathan Newman" <nathan.newman at yale.edu> 05/11/99 01:47PM >>>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com>
> To: 'lbo-talk at lists.panix.com' <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>
>
> >I'm willing to stand corrected, but, IMO, today's column by Thomas
> >Friedman of the NY Times is the most obscene thing he has ever
> written.
> >He states: We are at war with the Serbian nation, and anyone
> >hanging around Belgrade needs to understand that. This notion that we
> >are only at war with one bad guy, Slobodan Milosevic (who was
> popularly
> >elected three times), is ludicrous.
>
>
> Let's be clear: the NATO bombing of Belgrade is terrorism, and I say
> that
> not as a condemnation but as a description.
>
> The logic and morality of terrorism is specific to nations whose
> leaders are
> democratically elected or at least obviously legitimated by the
> majority of
> the population, so Friedman's point is no more obscene than any other
> justification of terrorism. But it is worth evaluating it in those
> terms,
> since many NATO critics may argue that the Kosovars have a just cause
> but
> this is an illegitimate means - exactly the argument used against
> terrorism
> by the PLO, the IRA, the Kurds and many other forces that have used
> terrorism to greater or lesser success over the years.
>
> As with most left interventionists, I think a military intervention
> was the
> moral choice, since one of the moral justifications of terrorism is as
> a
> tool of those facing military forces that they cannot hope to match -
> obviously a justification that NATO cannot use.
>
> But there are other justifications of terrorism. There is an argument
> that
> citizens voting for a brutal government are more responsible for
> actions of
> that government than soldiers drafted to defend that state. We treat
> the
> killing of a soldier as more legitimate than the bombing of a
> hospital, but
> if the soldier voted against the regime leading the war, while the
> hospital
> is full of government partisans, why is killing the soldier a more
> moral
> act?
>
> One argument against terrorism is that it is indiscriminate and
> violates the
> division we make (however arbitrarily) between legitimate spaces for
> violent
> conflict and the preservation of civility. But erasing that division
> is the
> point of much terrorism, as the characteristic phrase of terrorism,
> "no
> business as usual", indicates.
>
> In fact, there is an argument that the very "civility" of war rules
> can
> extend war and associated death by allowing protected civilian sectors
> to
> keep sending waves of soldiers off to die without facing the
> consequences
> themselves. Sherman's March was an act of war-related terrorism to
> "bring
> the war home" to Southern civilians, just as Hiroshima was an act of
> terrorism that obstensibly was aimed at ending the war early and
> preventing
> the deaths of even more soldiers. (We can skip the debate on whether
> other
> motives dominated, since the explicit goal was justified in terms that
> can
> only be deemed terroristic, and justified as moral on that basis).
>
> Terrorism like any other strategy can be condemned for being used for
> an
> unjustified cause or being ineffective in a particular situation -
> different
> propositions stated by those opposing the bombing - but I find the
> whole
> moral condemnation of the act of terror unto itself somewhat
> hypocritical,
> since almost everyone will justify versions of terrorism if the side
> using
> it has good cause and it is effective.
>
> (Note: One of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes was
> gave
> a full hearing to justification for use of terrorism by the Bajorans
> (read
> PLO) against the Cardasians (read Israel).)
>
> --Nathan Newman
>