Daniel Davies" <dsquared at al-islam.com>
Brad DeLong: What should we call September 11 instead of "terrorist"? It seems to me to be a fine description, not "crude" or "reductive" at all...
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CB: A fine description , but what do we make of it ?
Since the perpetrators of the Sept 11 murders are of sufficient status to have a war declared on them, shouldn't they be called "warriors" or "soldiers" ? Of course, soldiers and warriors are the greatest purveyors of terror in civiliization.
On the other hand, if these are only terrorists , how can one support a full war against them ? They don't rise to the level of a worthy opponent in war. They are mere violent criminals, terrorists. One can only have a war with soldiers.
The repetition of the word "terrorism" is sort of as if Bush just invented his own legal category of "Bloody murderers" , i.e. somehow worse than just "murderers". He keeps shouting "bloody murderers". But afterall, bloody murderers are mere murderers. Like Timothy McVeigh.
Daniel Davies: Strikes me that as a term intermediate between "soldiers" and "common murderers" that you are looking for, the word "terrorists" is pretty accurate and has the advantage of being widely understood.
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CB: Actually , I was not looking for a new , inbetween term. Brad's fine description is inadequate for legal purposes. I think the perpetrators of Sept 11 must be classified as either soldiers or criminals, and that "terrorist" is an illegitimate legal term. To act legally , Bush must define them as either criminals or soldiers, and act accordingly to law with respect to them ( of course the actual perpetrators of Sept 11 are all dead ). The legal charge against McVeigh was murder, not terrorism/bloody murder/mass murder. Mass murder is either murder or war.