I've never accepted propagandistic attempts to equate guerrilas with terrorists, and I'm still uneasy with using the term. However, it seems to me that over the past decade or so there has emerged among some Islamic radical groups a doctrine that emphasizes attacks on civilians. Here I look to Algeria as the most horrible example of this, and in a sense may remain so even now. My guess is that this reflects the prototerrorist's view that military and governmental personnel are too hard to get at effectively and that, faced with this strategic problem, a further process of dehumanization of the opponent, rationalized with reference to your own civilian losses and religious ideas, has occurred. To the dead, it makes no difference if a doctrine breezily accepts civilian deaths as collateral damage, as has been the case in US policy towards Iraqi children, or if the doctrine specifically targets civilians as a society's jugular. But I think there is a difference.
as I've tried to say in other posts, I am greatly troubled by the apparent
lack of internal limits to this doctrine. This may well go beyond something
like the Taliban have talked about, the obligation to jihad to defend a weak
country. Over the years it's become apparent to me that a significant part
of the reaction of radical Islam to the US has had a cultural dimension, and
central to that would be anxieties over loss of control over women. It is
certainly a possibility that if US support for Israeli expansionism was not
so unconditional, none of this would be going on; I would argue that any
acceptable solution to the current crisis demands changes in US policy. But
I think the threat posed by the institutions and media of the West to the in
tensely feudal/patriarchal order that these guys glorify tends to
supercharge the conflict for them. It hits them at their core, and
encourages a more apocalyptic vision of a solution. So for some of them it
might be Operation Infinite Patriarchy. I think that saying this doesn't
buy into Bush propaganda about 'the threat to freedom,' which is obviously
aimed at avoiding discussions of Mideast policy, and which also holds the
possibility of apocalyptic solutions. But, from the standpoint of trying to
decide what to call these people, I do think that at least *some* of these
groups have put together a 'package' of strategy and rationalizations that
legitimizes the steady, potentially massive targeting of civilians, and that
merits the term terrorism.
Randy Earnest
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> ==============
> What's the difference between anti-terrorism and anti-revolutionism?
> Is the IMF a terrorist organization? How about the CIA? If Britain had
> suppressed the war for independence would GW and TJ and BF be
> considered terrorists by historians?
> What is the future of dissent given the last 9 days?
>
> Ian
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