The Meaning of the Word

[rowyn]

In 2002, I attended a panel at a local sf convention on the subject of "How did 9/11 change SF?" One of the panelists, Glen Cook, said, "Before 9/11, the terrorists were the good guys." As an example of his point, he offered the rebels in Star Wars. Other panelists chimed in, one of them going so far as to label the American revolutionaries terrorists. The implication was "the only thing that differentiates a hero from a terrorist is whether or not you agree with his goal".

Sitting in the audience, I was struck by how wildly inaccurate it was treat "terrorist" as synonymous with "rebel". Cruising through dictionary.com's definition of "terrorism", I was surprised that several of the definitions would be synonymous with "rebellion". But it's this definition, attributed to WordNet, that matches my own understanding of the term:

"Terrorism: the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear"

For me, the key words are "against civilians". Luke Skywalker isn't a terrorist and the Rebel Alliance isn't a terrorist organization: they select military targets, not civilian ones. One of my friends once pointed out that, by attacking the unfinished Death Star, the rebels must have killed many civilian contruction workers. But I'd say even the unfinished Death Star is still a legitimate military target. Buffering your military targets with a wall of human flesh so that your enemy has to go through civilians to get to your soldiers and weapons doesn't make your enemy a terrorist, it makes you a monster. Soldiers are supposed to protect civilians, not the other way around.

Likewise, Iraqis using IEDs to blow up American APCs are certainly my enemy, but those are acts of guerilla warfare, not terrorism. Now, if they use the same IEDs to blow up an Iraqi cafe or library -- that is terrorism.

Zorro isn't a terrorist: he fought soldiers, not civilians, in his varios escapades. Robin Hood arguably is; even though he's not generally portrayed as a killer, he does use the threat of violence in "stealing from the rich".

Oddly, I'm not sure I'd qualify V, of "V for Vendetta", as a terrorist. Granted, he does kill civilians (in both the film and the comic book) in the pursuit of his goal. But what distinguishes him from Al Queda is that V's goal isn't to instill fear in the general populace. His message isn't "see these people I just killed? That could be you. Maybe next time, it will be." His targets aren't random and his goal isn't to make the general populace so afraid of him that they force their leaders to cave to their demands. Which is not to say that I approve of his methods ... I'm just not sure "terrorism" is the right word to use.

What surprises me, in all the talk of terrorists in the past and in the media, is one comparison I haven't heard from anyone except my mother.

In 2002, I was talking about current events on the phone with my parents, and my mother said, "We did it too, you know. Hitler may have started it by bombing London, but we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were civilian targets, and we destroyed them."

My father started to go through the usual list of reasons why it was the right decision, and my mother said, "I know. But it was still a terrorist act. Those were cities, not military installations. We shouldn't've done it."

I didn't have an answer for that at the time. I still don't.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I just got your reply to my comment on a certain someone's entry which is now locked to my eyes, probably for the better. My list is overflowing, so I may not add you, but this was an interesting entry, and I'm seriously considering stopping by here every once in a while if you don't mind.

[rowyn]

I quite understand about overflowing friends lists (it took me over a month to catch back up on mine after I was away for a week). You're certainly welcome to stop in. :) Sorry I forgot to respond to this earlier -- I'm usually just a tch more sociable than completely ignoring a new visitor. :)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I've made a number of disparaging comments about Star Wars in relation to terrorism, but I figure I'd better clarify a point in my own stance on this, at least: I wouldn't call the Rebels "terrorists", either. There were janitors and such on that Death Star, but there's also someone who has to clean the latrines on a battleship. My problems with Star Wars as a story - the celebration of the idea that you can cure the ills of a galaxy by blowing up a big battle station with the Evil Emperor on board - are different than my opinions on how I should live WITHIN such a universe.

I am seeing a lot of "witty" comments thrown around about terrorists lately because it is, well, oh so witty to point at everyone (but oneself, or even including oneself) and say, "You hypocrites!" What fun it is to turn things on their heads just for the sake of doing so! I have to be careful I'm not guilty of doing things like that just to be contrary.

As for World War II: There is much said about how it was "the good war" and all that. Why, we had the perfect villains - Nazis - and for a time it was rather cliche to have them as the bad guy everybody could hate, and feel good about it. Cities got bombed in World War II - sometimes because there was a factory there, and it was only natural for a lot of people to live right next to where there was a job to be done. But there were also cities bombed for sheer terror. (I am thinking, say, of the Buzzbombs - weapons too inaccurate to be of much tactical value, save to terrify people with the fear that one might drop out of the sky without warning at any minute.)

I do not try to justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is nothing to be proud of. I have also heard some compelling arguments that FDR may have deliberately provoked the Japanese into attacking at Pearl Harbor. (And it could well be that such arguments are without merit.) I don't know. It is nothing I am comfortable with, and nothing I'm going to try to defend in order to justify myself as an American, any more than I feel obliged to defend the Crusades or the Inquisition or the Conquistators in order to justify why in the world I would want to consider myself a Christian.

"Terrorist" is not a meaningless word, but it has a potency to it now - and we have a very unpopular President. Therefore, there is a temptation to apply the term too liberally, as if the mere usage of the word will persuade the public that someone is evil (for being a terrorist), and there is likewise a motive for someone else to try to rob the word of its value, and suggest that there is no justification for fighting terrorists because, oh, after all, aren't we just a bunch of terrorists, too?

Things aren't perfectly clean-cut, but the bottom line is that if I had a way of stopping 9/11, I'd do it. If I had a way of stopping some guy with bombs strapped to his belly from getting onto a bus in Jerusalem, I'd do it. There is something distinctively different about someone who deliberately tries to kill civilians than one who is trying to get an enemy combatant - even if attempting to do so may put bystanders at risk. For those who WANT the civilians to die, "terrorist" seems to be as appropriate a label as any.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Not to minimize the horror of the weapons, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were legitimate targets as they were large Army barracks at the time. It's just like Dyess is a legimate military target today, and the presence of Abilene is irrelevant. Also Nagasaki wasn't even the primary target - Kokura and its steelworks was, but smoke from a previous bombing run against a neighboring city made it impossible to hit the target.

War is hell, pure and simple.

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

But (with WWII tech) it was physically possible to target the subtarget without blowing away the entire city. And regarding Nagasaki, the attack could have been delayed in principle, so that is not an excuse.

No, the decision to erase the entire city (rather than just the military subtarget) was deliberate. According to what was declassified, the object was to stop the Pacific front of WWII cold, rather than annihiliate the entire military of Japan.

A calculated choice intended to maximize the number of Japanese who survived WWII. I hope that can be empathized with, regardless of politics or modern legal labels.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Actually Nagasaki posed a severe targeting problem. The Mitsubishi steelworks were in a little cup in the earth. If the bomb missed by too much, the blast wouldn't hit the plant. But yes, it was decided early on to maximize destruction by the two weapons in order to shock the Japanese into surrender. Remember: it was partly bluff - if they didn't surrender after the second bomb, it would be a year before enough Pu would be created to build another bomb.

It took both weapons to get them to surrender, and a direct command from the emperor himself. Even so, there was a small revolt against the emperor and his command to surrender, something inconceivable in their society. Thus it is clear that the weapons had to be used to full horror to bring the war to an end, because the Japanese military was willing to die fighting and not even the Emporer was going to stop them. When the revolt was crushed, Admiral Onishi - the coup leader - committed ritual suicide.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

The use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary; whatever will the Japanese may have had to continue fighting, they simply did not have the resources to continue. In particular, the lack of oil had become a critical hinderance in the Japanese war effort (indeed, if they had possessed an oil supply of their own prior to the beginning of the Pacific campaign, they would never have perceived a need to attack Pearl Harbour). In preparation for the last major naval action by the Japanese, the battleship Yamato and other accompanying vessels were ordered to be given only enough fuel to reach the island of Okinawa in its defense against invasion by American forces. The Yamato, pride of the Japanese naval fleet, was to beach itself and act as a surface battery in support of the Japanese army. This should give you an idea of just how desperately short of oil the Japanese were.

[(Anonymous)]

It reminds me of the argument about capital punishment; the logic being, "aren't we no better than murderers, if we kill someone who killed someone else?" (But I realize that's its own can of worms.)

- Krud42 (though my password doesn't seem to be working. Again! *grumble* *sigh*)