Time to get tough on terrorism, UN warned

[MKSheppard]

Linka

Time to get tough on terrorism, UN warned
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
(Filed: 29/11/2004)

After decades of argument over whether one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, a group of international "wise men" will this week tell the United Nations to outlaw all terror attacks on civilians or risk losing its moral authority.

In a report to be unveiled on Thursday, seen in part by The Telegraph, a panel appointed to reform the UN said it must send "an unequivocal message that terrorism is never an acceptable tactic, even for the most defensible of causes".

This is a slap in the face for Palestinians, Iraqi insurgents, Kashmiri rebels, al-Qa'eda militants and other groups that claim to be fighting foreign domination. It is also a rebuke to Muslim states that have for years blocked agreement on an all-embracing UN convention on terrorism on the grounds that it should exclude groups fighting "occupation" or "colonialism".

On the question of "resistance" to occupation, the report declares that "there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians".

The report is from the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change which was set up to propose the most far-reaching reforms of the UN since its founding in 1945,

It carries added weight because one of its 16 authors is Amr Mousa, the secretary general of the Arab League, which includes all Arab states and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The panel was appointed by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, to find ways of healing the divisions over Iraq and fending off Washington's threats to treat the UN as "irrelevant" in dealing with modern dangers. Other luminaries include Brent Scowcroft, a national security adviser to President Gerald Ford and the first President George Bush; Lord Hannay, Britain's ex-ambassador to the UN; and Yevgeny Primakov, a former Russian premier.

Their report's section on terrorism argues that "lack of agreement on a clear, well-known, definition … has stained the UN's image". It attempts to break the logjam by proposing a definition which refers to "any action that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or compel a government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act".

It is unclear how this would be turned into international law. The panel wants the UN general assembly quickly to conclude a comprehensive convention that has been in stalemate since 1996.

The problem of defining terrorism has dogged the UN since the 1970s and the entry of dozens of countries that had cast off colonial rule, often by force. The report states that the problem is "not so much a legal one as a political one". It adds: "Achieving a comprehensive convention on terrorism, including a clear definition, is a political imperative."

[Coyote]

Good for them! Lets see if the UN has the cojones to pas it. I doubt it.

I actually have some sympathy for the thoughts and feelings of those fighting against imperialism or colonialism but to purposefully go out of one's way to attack civilians, especially children, evaporates most of the good will.

Odd that the UN seeks to protect 'child soldiers' due to the harm it causes kids, but seem not to care when a terrorist attacks children.

[Darth Wong]

How can the UN universally condemn terrorism when every nation has used it in some form or other during warfare? Can you name a warring nation in the last century that has not engaged in attacks against euphemistically named "infrastructure" targets in civilian centres during wartime?

[wautd]

And in the mean time, the genocide in Darfur continues with little or no intrest to the rest of the world

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

How can the UN universally condemn terrorism when every nation has used it in some form or other during warfare? Can you name a warring nation in the last century that has not engaged in attacks against euphemistically named "infrastructure" targets in civilian centres during wartime?

It is not that hard. They can just change the goalposts. Morality goalposts have been changing for awhile now. 150 years ago, slavery was allowed. A few hundred years ago, women were not only inferior, but often stated to be property. Nuremberg decided that countries were not free to do whatever they wanted in war. I don't know about America, but in Asia, corporeal punishments for kids were not only allowed but often seemed like recommended move until maybe 20-30 years ago. So morality can change with time.

And in pure principle, one can consider this a morality improvement. Jus tas long as they apply it with consistantly in the future - though of course, the UN does not have the power to really do that even if it wants to.

There's also some weak, borderline distinctions about what you "intend", though of course such debates can run on forever. Plus euphemisms. Humans are hypocrites whose morality varies as they cross very thin lines, anyway.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

I actually have some sympathy for the thoughts and feelings of those fighting against imperialism or colonialism but to purposefully go out of one's way to attack civilians, especially children, evaporates most of the good will.

What about the "in between" civilians, like policemen? Or high government officials of said imperialistic government.

[Armored Goldbar]

How can the UN universally condemn terrorism when every nation has used it in some form or other during warfare? Can you name a warring nation in the last century that has not engaged in attacks against euphemistically named "infrastructure" targets in civilian centres during wartime?

Oh com'on, DW. There is a fundamental difference between attacking a nation's capacity to make war in which civilians will probably be killed and intentionally killing civilians without any intent to damage the military-industrial complex with the goal of inspiring fear and weakening resistance to a policy or ideal.

The difference is like night and day.

[Darth Wong]

Oh com'on, DW. There is a fundamental difference between attacking a nation's capacity to make war in which civilians will probably be killed and intentionally killing civilians without any intent to damage the military-industrial complex with the goal of inspiring fear and weakening resistance to a policy or ideal.

The difference is like night and day.

Oh really? Very well, describe your ethical system and how it draws this sharp distinction then. What are the basic principles of your morality system? Do you believe that the intent justifies the means which justifies the end?

[Coyote]

I think DW's point is that every nation has done it. Even the "good guy" nations. During World War Two the Allies specifically targeted cities and population to hit factories and the workers for those factories. Also as a psychological ploy-- "Total War".

It was rationalized that since the civilians supported the war effort willingly, that made them legit targets. This is precisely the rationalization of the terrorists. But for some reason there is a difference betwen doing it from a properly orchestrated B-17 strike and setting off nerve gas in a subway. Or cutting off someone's head.

Imagine if we applied World War Two rules to modern Iraq. It was "proper" then, but now it is the anathema of what we are trying to accomplish.

The stickler points will be accepting if "state terrorism" is an actual concept, or if it is a buzzword. Is it terroris, or, say, tyranny? If war is to be couched in terms that exclude all civilians, then wars must be fouhgt in th efuture away from civilian infrastructure.

Back to the old concept of marching out onto an o0pen field and exchanging shots? I doubt it-- most wars in th efuture will be between the powerful States and the non-powerful anti-State guerrillas. Al-Queada comes ot mind.

And what is a State supposed to do when terrorists strike military targets but hide among civilinas? What about if the civilians knowingly hide the terrorists?

It will be a can of worms and thus, requires bravery to face. But it is time we all got started.

[Coyote]

What about the "in between" civilians, like policemen? Or high government officials of said imperialistic government.

I dunno. I guess it depends on if they support the terrorists or not. Any armed person who participates in terroists gioals will be seen as a combatant.

Part of this will focus on goals of the terorists. If the terrorists want to set up a type of soci-political system that will intentionally violate the human rights accepted as normal by the UN or similar bodies, then they are terrorists inded. The various groups that want to set up fanatical Muslim states with Sharia law as the norm would probably fit this category.

But if the 'terrorists' are trying to fight a government that violates these same human rights, then they would probably be couched as freedom fighters. What to do about the "terrorist" state, and does such a thing exist? Terrorism is typically seen as a tactic used by the stateless, is it not?

Policemen are part of state infrastructure. Therefore, the type of state they support would probably deterimine their status. And if they are shooting at someone...

[Armored Goldbar]

Thanks Coyote, but I understand what DW's trying to say, and the difference from a military standpoint is very clear and very simple: Intent.

The WWII bombing raids were NOT designed to murder civilians and change government policies. They were targeted attacks against Germany and Japan's ability to make war (nuke strikes excepted, of course). Did they kill civilians? Yes. Did they always hit the target and nothing else? Of course not. It was never the policy of the Allied governments to use the bombings to simply kill Germans for the sake of killing Germans. Now, don't get me wrong...the nuke strikes and events like the firebombing of Dresden push this to extremes, but even these were primarily targeted at the military-industrial complex of the Axis nations (they got a whole shitload of other things, too).

There is no way that you can claim that the death of civilians in a tank factory (or even civilians across the street from said factory) at the hands of pilots from an enemy nation is even remotely comparable to the murder of civilians by non-uniformed personnel that do not represent a government at all, much less one at war with the nation where the strikes occur. There is no way that they are the same.

[Armored Goldbar]

Also, my ethical system is neither here nor there. Whatever my morality may be it has nothing to do with the fact that what you are claiming is terrorism does not fit the defination of terroris that any soldier or politician holds to. You claiming it does simply does not make it so.

[Col. Crackpot]

the difference between the Allies of WWII and the terrorist organizations of today is that the US AAC and the RAF were targeting military factories with the potential side effect of burning down the hospital and school next door. (building a school next to a tank factory is another argument in itself). Terrorists are targeting the school and hospital with the potential side effect of burning down the factory.

[Perinquus]

Thanks Coyote, but I understand what DW's trying to say, and the difference from a military standpoint is very clear and very simple: Intent.

The WWII bombing raids were NOT designed to murder civilians and change government policies. They were targeted attacks against Germany and Japan's ability to make war (nuke strikes excepted, of course). Did they kill civilians? Yes. Did they always hit the target and nothing else? Of course not. It was never the policy of the Allied governments to use the bombings to simply kill Germans for the sake of killing Germans. Now, don't get me wrong...the nuke strikes and events like the firebombing of Dresden push this to extremes, but even these were primarily targeted at the military-industrial complex of the Axis nations (they got a whole shitload of other things, too).

There is no way that you can claim that the death of civilians in a tank factory (or even civilians across the street from said factory) at the hands of pilots from an enemy nation is even remotely comparable to the murder of civilians by non-uniformed personnel that do not represent a government at all, much less one at war with the nation where the strikes occur. There is no way that they are the same.

Actually, I have to disagree. You are not entirely correct. The firebombing of Dresden is a good example of the allies using terror tactics. Dresden was a city of no military. It was a major cultural center, known as the "Florence of the North". The German forces there were minimal. Dresden was used a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not one combat unit was deployed in the city. Since it was so strategically unimportant, the Germans didn't think the allies would target it, and they put no real anti-aircraft defense their either.

There was no real industry in Dresden either. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china. This was certainly nothing that would have justified taking bombers off of other, more important targets - targets whose destruction would have negatively impacted the German war effort.

Churchill was primarily the one who insisted on attacking this city. And his motives appear to have been political. He wanted to try and break German morale with a fierce, merciless attack, and he also, apparently wanted to impress Stalin with an example of Anglo-American ruthlessness.

So the bombers were sent out, loaded with incendiaries. The first bombs fell at 10:09 p.m., and the attack lasted 24 minutes. This was enough to create a firestorm, when hundreds of smaller fires joined in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air were sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. People caught in the rush of wind we tossed about like straws and hurled into the flames or smashed to pulp against buildings. People who took to underground shelters often fared no better, suffocating as oxygen was pulled from the air to feed the blaze. Some were killed simply by the intense heat, which reached 1600 degrees centigrade. Nothing was left of people who were caught in this inferno, no bodies; they were vaporized in such intense heat.

The second raid came at 1:22 a.m., and this three-hour pause had been calculated to lure civilians from their shelters into the open again. Even more bombs were dropped than in the first raid. Many German civilians had fled to the Grosser Garten, a magnificent park nearly one and a half miles square, as it had escaped the first raid. The second raid made sure to cover this neglected zone. The U.S. army air force got into the attack as well. Just after 10:30 on the morning of February 14, the last raid carried out by American bombers pounded the charred, smoking rubble of Dresden for 38 minutes. But this attack was not nearly as heavy as the first two.

250,000 -- possibly as many as a half a million German civilians were killed in the attack on Dresden, which means more people were killed than in the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. And all this was for a strategically valueless target. In my view, this is the biggest stain on Anglo-American honor during the war, and on Churchill for insisting on this raid. I can't really find any way to excuse it.

[AMX]

the difference between the Allies of WWII and the terrorist organizations of today is that the US AAC and the RAF were targeting military factories with the potential side effect of burning down the hospital and school next door. (building a school next to a tank factory is another argument in itself). Terrorists are targeting the school and hospital with the potential side effect of burning down the factory.

Revisionist bullshit (or possibly leftover wartime propaganda; probably both).
The allies were in no way limiting their bombing to military targets; in fact, their primary targets during most of the war were residential areas, with the stated objective of destroying "the morale of the enemy civil population".

Like it or not, that's exaclty the "murder civilians and change government policies" Goldbar denied a moment ago (except, of course, the government didn't care, since the war machine was still working).

[Perinquus]

In fairness, I should add that I have also seen lower estimates on the damage at Dresden, which listed only about 50,000 dead, but I am inclined to think the higher figures are more accurate. I have also read that there was a bit more industry than I indicated above, but still nothing heavy, and nothing that really would have justified pulling the bombers off of more valuable targets. And to Churchill's credit, he later seems to have undergone something of a crisis of conscience over Dresden, saying: 'the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing."

Nevertheless, I still think that Dresden remains a serious black mark against the conduct of both the British and the Americans. It's hard not to look at it as sheer terrorism.

[Admiral Valdemar]

How does one get harder on terrorism? The intelligence agencies aren't exactly twiddling their thumbs (well, the CIA may have been) and it's not like you can just go "Look! Terrorists! Send the spec-ops in" and stop the problem. Places like Iraq are festering wounds for terrorism to crop up.

[MKSheppard]

There was no real industry in Dresden either. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china. This was certainly nothing that would have justified taking bombers off of other, more important targets - targets whose destruction would have negatively impacted the German war effort.

It was a major railyard and marshalling point for german forces.

[MKSheppard]

The U.S. army air force got into the attack as well. Just after 10:30 on the morning of February 14, the last raid carried out by American bombers pounded the charred, smoking rubble of Dresden for 38 minutes. But this attack was not nearly as heavy as the first two.

We smashed the railyards of Dresden, instead of aiming for the city, as
the British did.

Same thing happened at Hamburg; the USAAF got into the act to smashy
the railyards there too after the Brits were done with it.

[Perinquus]

There was no real industry in Dresden either. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china. This was certainly nothing that would have justified taking bombers off of other, more important targets - targets whose destruction would have negatively impacted the German war effort.

It was a major railyard and marshalling point for german forces.

There were still more important targets, and it was hardly necessary to level the entire city in order to take out the marshalling yards. This remains an example of a terror attack.

[Master of Ossus]

How can the UN universally condemn terrorism when every nation has used it in some form or other during warfare? Can you name a warring nation in the last century that has not engaged in attacks against euphemistically named "infrastructure" targets in civilian centres during wartime?

Just because every nation pumps out pollution (some admittedly more than others) does not mean that you cannot condemn polluters. I agree that it's somewhat hypocritical, but by condemning such tactics the UN at least gives itself a consistent option of decrying future uses of them for all nations and groups.

[Elfdart]

Perinquus is right: The Allies did massacre civilians by bombing them. The Russians added artillery saturation for the "extra point". However, the "estimates" for the dead in Dresden of 100,000 or more are mostly the work of a Nazi Holocaust denier named David Irving. He got the numbers from Goebbels' public statements, and from his ass.

The Nuremberg trials found that invading/ attacking a foreign country without true justification and a formal declaration of war was the most important war crime, because without it, the other war crimes weren't really possible. So if these shysters want to admonish pipsqueaks for "terrorism", maybe they could make a good faith gesture and outlaw invading a country without just cause and a declaration of war. Like, oh I don't know... the war in Iraq! I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.

On the question of "resistance" to occupation, the report declares that "there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians".

Really? So the all the resistance movements during WW2 in France, Russia, Poland, Philipines, China, Norway and elsewhere that killed informants, collaborators, quislings, and spies were criminal enterprises, right? I would expect that kind of chickenshit from the Nazis and Imperial Japan, but hearing it from Americans (remember Colonel Lynch?) is a disgrace and shows whom these shitstains want to emulate, doesn't it?

[Darth Wong]

I love the "it's infrastructure, so it's OK!" argument. By that token, since the World Trade Centre was the financial hub of North America, it was a legitimate infrastructure target, hence not really terrorism. It's "night and day", really ...

[Admiral Valdemar]

I love the "it's infrastructure, so it's OK!" argument. By that token, since the World Trade Centre was the financial hub of North America, it was a legitimate infrastructure target, hence not really terrorism. It's "night and day", really ...

Uh-oh, this could get ugleee...

[MKSheppard]

I love the "it's infrastructure, so it's OK!" argument. By that token, since the World Trade Centre was the financial hub of North America, it was a legitimate infrastructure target, hence not really terrorism. It's "night and day", really ...

Yes, nice way to ignore the hijacking of multiple airliners, which does
qualify as terrorism.