Stop Crying 'Terrorism' Every Time We're Attacked

[Richard]

Interesting read - terrorism vs war.

Richard

Stop Crying 'Terrorism' Every Time We're Attacked

Three weeks ago, a Jordanian suicide bomber blew up seven CIA employees at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. The CIA called it a "terrorist attack." So did The Associated Press in a report published in dozens of news outlets. Other journalists, analysts, commentators and TV news anchors followed suit. In a Washington Post op-ed published last week, CIA director Leon Panetta said of the fallen officers, "When you are fighting terrorists, there will be risks."

Terrorists? No, sir. The bombing of the CIA base, like the November massacre at Fort Hood, was an act of war. It was also espionage. But it wasn't terrorism. Terrorism targets civilians. The CIA officers killed at the Afghan base, like the soldiers shot down at Fort Hood, were not civilians. They were running a war.

According to the U.S. Code (Title 22, Chapter 38, Section 2656f), "the term 'terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents." That's the definition we apply to other countries when we designate them as state sponsors of terrorism.

The Sept. 11 attacks, which used planes full of civilians to hit the World Trade Center, fit this definition. So did the attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. So did the Taliban's 2008 bombing of a hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The Afghan base bombing doesn't fit the pattern. The CIA personnel who died in the attack were combatants. In interviews with multiple newspapers and wire services, U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed that the personnel at the Afghan base were closely engaged in selecting drone targets in Pakistan and orchestrating Special Operations attacks on the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. In the Afghan theater, the CIA is becoming a paramilitary agency. It runs our drone war in Pakistan, and the Afghan base struck on Dec. 30 is "a targeting center for Predator strikes and other operations inside Pakistan."

That's why the bomber, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, targeted the base. Read the accounts of his will and his farewell video. "This is a message to the enemies of the [Islamic nation], to the Jordanian intelligence and the CIA," he says in the video. "We will never forget the blood of our Emir Baitullah Mehsud." He vows to "retaliate" for the death of Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban boss who was killed in August by a CIA drone strike.

And because the officers at the Afghan base were drone masters, they let him in. He was offering them hot intelligence on Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader. They hoped his information would lead them to al-Zawahiri. They were going to do to al-Zawahiri what they'd done to other al-Qaeda commanders: wipe him from the face of the earth. If they'd been ordinary intelligence analysts, they never would have whisked al-Balawi into their base for an urgent meeting. They did it, and they died, because they were fighting a war.

Al-Balawi was a jihadist. He wrote nasty, crazy stuff about martyrdom and killing Americans. But those were just words. He was, as one terrorism expert put it, a "cyber-activist." Presumably, that's one reason the CIA took a chance on him: He had never actually tried to kill anybody.

Well, now he has. But his victims weren't civilians. Neither were the victims of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter. Read the job titles of the Fort Hood casualties: major, sergeant, captain, specialist, specialist, sergeant, private, private, captain, private, lieutenant, private.

Within days of the Fort Hood massacre, everybody and his brother was calling Hasan a terrorist. Even Sen. Joe Lieberman and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who should know better, said it was terrorism. Lieberman cited evidence "that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act."

Therefore? You mean, anybody who kills anybody in the name of Islamic extremism is a terrorist? If that's all we mean by terrorism, then our enemies are right: It's just a code word for people whose religion we don't like.

This isn't what we meant by terrorism when we went to war against it. But one of war's perils is forgetting your principles. You torture, you lie, you change the meaning of your commitments. You win the war by losing your bearings.

Al-Balawi's father understands what terrorism means. Last week, he said of his dead son, "Had he killed innocent civilians I would have denounced him." But his son hadn't done that. He had killed intelligence agents. And the fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the father argued, was "a war of intelligence agencies."

He's right about that. In the skies over Pakistan, our agents have the means to incinerate al-Balawi's masters. And I hope they succeed.

But imagine the reverse scenario: an armada of Afghan drones hunting American militia leaders in the United States. Would you retaliate by slaughtering Afghan civilians? Or would you identify the drone masters, infiltrate their intelligence network and kill them? Does it matter which path you choose?

It certainly does. And if we can't tell the difference anymore – if we need lessons in the meaning of terrorism from the father of a suicide bomber – then it's time to remind ourselves what we're fighting for.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.270fb4d.html

This essay is way above my modest intellectual gifts. He seems to base his entire argument around a definition that makes no sense to me. "Terrorism targets civilians." So non-civilians are not terrified? Sounds like we need a new word.

[JJ_BPK]

I think he is making an argument for the justification of the acts,, as acts of war
by brave combatants. He also doesn't denounce terrorism or terrorist attacks.


An Act of WAR, to him, it's OK..


An academic justification via word associations.

[Richard]

Actually - I read it as more a statement to the effect that we (as a nation, our NCA, reporting MSM and blogospheric pundits) seem pretty confused by the whole GWOT while our enemies appear to have a pretty distinctive and more cohesive point-of-view about it - terrorism vs terroristic acts.

Richard's $.02

[head]

The writer is saying the CIA attack and the Fort Hood shooting are simply quid pro quo in a time of war and he makes it seem as if we are not justified to be outraged or even upset since "the victims weren't civilians" - as if they deserved it.

I could understand if the writer was coming from the viewpoint that referring to these attacks as separate "terrorist attacks" leads the public to believe that the islamic extremist are lone wolves and not just small parts of a large scale "war" effort.

He can call it whatever he wants, whatever lets him sleep well at night.

[Sigaba]

IMO, the crux of Mr. Saletan's commentary is that he wants the United States to center its efforts on terrorist groups and their leaders rather than individuals.

By my reading, Saletan thinks that striking the wolves in their lairs is a more efficacious approach than attacking their shadows and their followers.

In some respects, Mr. Saletan's approach to GWOT is similar to the view Bush the Younger articulated in his 2006 speech to the general assembly of the United Nations. A transcript of that speech is available here. (Among the key differences would be Mr. Saletan's views on detaining and interrogating terrorists and suspected terrorists.)

FWIW, Mr. Saletan is a professional journalist, not an academician.

[LongWire]

Originally Posted by Richard

Actually - I read it as more a statement to the effect that we (as a nation, our NCA, reporting MSM and blogospheric pundits) seem pretty confused by the whole GWOT while our enemies appear to have a pretty distinctive and more cohesive point-of-view about it - terrorism vs terroristic acts.

Richard's $.02

I agree with Richard's view, and some of the others.

We have a tendency to heap things up under a word and act like it defines or encompasses a set of acts or events in order to prosecute our actions or reactions against.

Racketeering as defined by New Oxford:

racketeer |ˌrakiˈti(ə)r|
noun
a person who engages in dishonest and fraudulent business dealings.

I think of these acts thanks to our laws (lawyers) as being extortion, money laundering, receiving stolen goods/selling stolen goods, counterfeiting, book making, protection enforcement Etc...... as a means to profit and further Organized Crime.....all part of Rico as I understand it.

So what are we calling Terrorism? Not just the definition, and how do we define individual acts or events? The act in Afghan is pretty clear on an act of War IMHO.

Hasan in my mind could go either way, that would go to motive and state of mind, if one were to ask a lawyer.

I believe it will be harder for the NCA to define what specifically the definition of terror encompasses in the furtherance of prosecuting a GWOT IMHO, if one were to single out specific acts or events. Its not PC to declare Jihad on Islam. It would have to bring out another term such as Radical Islam and provide definition to suit the lawyers.

Meanwhile the guys on the ground "Have To" (and they are) provide or look at our key terms to conduct operations. These are Task, Purpose, Intent, and End State. It would do the NCA a world of good to look at and apply those as well, because I'm not so sure they know what these are..........