 April 28, 2005: The U.S. is no longer going to release its annual terrorism report. Seems there's a problem with defining exactly what is a terrorist attack? How do you count them? This is not a simple question.
| On the other hand, an approximation is better than no data, isn't it? |
That's been a problem for a long time. The current war on terror is mainly concerned with international terrorism. Specifically, attacks by Islamic terrorists on the United States, or its citizens overseas. That leaves out the majority of terrorist attacks world wide.
| I think most of us here would strongly disagree with that statement. The local groups — the Kashmiri Killer Korps, for the most obvious instance — make up the farm teams for the big time international Bad Guyz... |
Most terror attacks are by local groups. India has been under attack by Islamic terrorists for over a decade, primarily in Kashmir.
| Lashkar e-Taiba's pretty tightly integrated into the IIF. Bangla's HUJI is, too. So are the Egyptian Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, all "local" organizations. Since the original declarationo of war on us, they've been joined by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad bunch, GSPC, and a host of others. |
This province, with a majority Moslem population, has been claimed by India and Pakistan for over half a century. In 1989, Pakistan decided to support Islamic radicals who sought to wage a war of terror against Indians, and non-Moslems, in Kashmir, and eventually the rest of India. Hundreds of terror attacks occur each year because of this. You could count this as international terrorism, because thousands of Islamic radicals have come over the border from Pakistan. But what about Israel, where over four years of Palestinian terrorism has resulted in thousands of terrorist attacks, with the Palestinians getting support from many other Arab countries, plus Iran.
| Paleo Islamic Jihad is a proxy for Iran. Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood operation. PFLP and DFLP used to be Commie fronts. And Lebanese Hezbollah doesn't even pretend to be "Paleostinian." |
In many parts of the world, you get lots of overlap between criminal terrorism and political terrorism.
| Such as anything Dawood Ibrahim becomes involved with, or the Taliban alliances with the opium producers, or Abu Sayyaf/Pentagon Gang... |
The State Department report never included criminal terrorism attacks, which are far more numerous than politically motivated ones. But in the Philippines, and many other places, the political terrorists also carry out terrorism in support of plain old criminal activities (just for the money).
| ... and the money flows back into the terror organizations' coffers... |
In the Philippines, as elsewhere, some of the terrorism is the result of clan or tribe feuds. Some of these are about money or land disputes, but many occur simply because two groups of people don't like each other, and haven't for many generations. In many parts of the world, the criminals get themselves organized and indoctrinated, and suddenly their criminal scams are politically motivated and becomes a different kind of terrorism. The victims have a hard time telling the difference.
| Yeah, a bullet's gonna feel the same, no matter who puts it into your kneecap... |
Take Colombia, where it's hard to tell if an incident is terrorism or just a criminal trying to make some money. That's not an unusual situation.
| It can also be both, of course, and it's often a percentage of both that might vary from act to act... |
And then there's war. When one side is not organized as a proper army (per the Geneva Conventions), does that make every one of their attacks a terrorist incident? The Iraqi army that coalition forces defeated in early 2003 was organized and led by the Sunni Arab minority. This crew lost their army, and control of the country, but kept on fighting. So one day their attacks are combat, and after Baghdad falls it's terrorism?
| No. When their attacks are directed against U.S. or Iraqi forces they can be guerrilla warfare. When they target civilians they become terrorism. Occupying forces, even if we don't agree with their definition, are legitimate military targets. Civilians never are. Attacks on military targets that are designed to produce civilian casualties aren't, either. |
What we call guerilla warfare is basically irregular troops employing terrorism as a weapon.
| No, it's not. Guerrilla warfare has as long a history as warfare itself. There are fairly distinct rules that have evolved for the treatment of guerrillas — in Vietnam, for instance, they were treated as POWs unless they had taken part in attacks on civilians. |
That's all they have, since their more powerful opponent is too strong to face in a conventional battle. Guerillas fight like guerillas because they have no choice, and can only hope to wear down their opponent so that there will be a decisive battle the guerillas will win. It rarely works out that way, something most people ignore because the few guerilla victories get more publicity than the guerillas more numerous defeats. Don't let media driven perceptions cloud your view of reality.
| We won't, but we won't lose track of the difference between guerrillas — can be good guys or bad guys — and terrorists — always bad guys because the tactics themselves are illegitimate. |
To most Americans, the score keeping is simple. Only terrorist attacks on American civilians, especially in the United States, count. Dead or imprisoned terrorists, who failed in their attempts to carry out attacks are a plus. Plowing through all the other terrorism stats is useful, but only for people deep into counter-terrorism. There are relationships between criminal and political terrorism, and between those motivated by purely local grievances, and those who are eager to bring America down. But for most Americans, the score card is a lot simpler.
In that case more should be done to make the populace aware of the fact that there's not, in most cases, a difference between the big time international killers and the small fry local killers, not much of a difference between the local bully boys and the international men of mystery. Terrorism is a tactic and it's a mindset. While its use isn't only confined to Osama bin Laden, the locals can move up into the international organization easily enough. When they relocate, the problem relocates with them.
The War on Terror has to involve the ruthless extermination of all practitioners of terrorism, regardless of where they are on the food chain, or where they are on the poltical spectrum, if anywhere, the while physically destroying their organizational leadership. The leadership's the key — we saw that when Sheikh Yassin became a smear on the sidewalk and Rantissi went roasty toasty a few weeks later. But the muscle can grow into leadership, or it can sell itself to new leadership. The concept of terrorism itself is evil, antithetical to the values of civilization, so they have to be killed to protect the rest of us. Otherwise, as happened in Paleostine until Yasser died of old age, we'll end up doing the same thing over and over, playing the same charades, trying to appease the unappeasible, until we eventually just give up and become like them. |
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