The word \u201cterrorism\u201d is not all that easy to define. Yet we wouldn\u2019t know this given the wild indiscriminateness with which it\u2019s applied.\u00a0 The following five scenarios supply us with examples of this.<\/p>\n
(1)Those Muslims on the battlefields of such places as Iraq and Afghanistan are Islamic.\u00a0 Obviously, they are also killing, or trying to kill, American soldiers.\u00a0 Therefore, they are terrorists.<\/p>\n
(2) An enraged mob attacks an American embassy in Benghazzi on September 11, 2012.\u00a0 An American ambassador and a couple of servicemen are killed.\u00a0 The mob consists of Muslims.\u00a0 Thus, they are terrorists.<\/p>\n
(3)Nidal Malik Hasan, a United States Army Medical Corps officer, goes on a shooting spree in 2009 that ends with 13 fellow service personnel dead.\u00a0\u00a0 Hasan is a Muslim.\u00a0 Therefore, he is a terrorist.<\/p>\n
(4) The perpetrators of September 11, 2001, an event that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 American civilians, were Islamic.\u00a0 So, they were terrorists.<\/p>\n
(5) The brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing that killed and maimed American civilians were Muslim.\u00a0 Therefore, they are terrorists.<\/p>\n
Situations (1)-(3) involve non-civilian targets, agents of the United States government.\u00a0 But if Islamic \u201cterrorists\u201d are terrorists because they target American soldiers and\/or representatives of the American government, then it would seem that, say, the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor also qualify as \u201cterrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it because the Japanese were state actors, agents acting on behalf of their government, that we don\u2019t think of them along these lines?<\/p>\n
This can\u2019t be right.<\/p>\n
For starters, the state\/non-state distinction can all too easily be turned around to show that it is impossible to be at \u201cwar\u201d with non-state actors. \u00a0While it is possible for, say, the American government <\/i>to be at war with the governments <\/i>of Iraq, Syria, or any other country, <\/i>it is no more possible for the United States to wage war <\/i>against Al-Qaeda or \u201cIslamism\u201d or \u201cIslamo-Fascism\u201d than it is possible for it to wage war against Timothy McVeigh or Bill Ayers.<\/p>\n
Maybe the Japanese were terrorists.\u00a0 But then so too are own soldiers who kill the government agents of those on whom we wage war.<\/p>\n
Situations (4) and (5) involve attacks against civilians.\u00a0 This by itself doesn\u2019t prove that they the assailants are terrorists, though.<\/p>\n
We should recall that a person who causes terror isn\u2019t necessarily a terrorist.\u00a0 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass murderer Adam Lanza spread terror, yet we do not treat him as a terrorist.\u00a0 This is because a terrorist is motivated to instill terror for the sake of a purpose, <\/i>namely, a political, theological, or otherwise ideological purpose.<\/p>\n
The killers in (4) and (5) appeared to be motivated by such a purpose. Perhaps they are indeed terrorists.\u00a0 Yet if this is the case, then those governments that carpet bomb civilian populations in war are alike composed of terrorists.<\/p>\n
The objection that \u201cdemocracies\u201d don\u2019t intend <\/i>to kill civilians\u2014even if they foresee them\u2014relies upon the Catholic doctrine of \u201cdouble-effect.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0As the distinguished 20th<\/sup> century Roman Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe noted, to use the doctrine in this way is to abuse it. The abusers, she wrote, would have us think that \u201cby making a little speech to yourself: \u2018What I mean to be doing is\u2019\u201d this, not that, we achieve \u201ca marvelous way\u2026of making any action lawful.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, a person who starts shooting off a gun in a mall, say, and winds up hitting or killing bystanders, might appeal to the doctrine of double-effect by saying that he never intended <\/i>to kill anyone. He only intended to shoot off his gun.\u00a0 That someone was shot is but an \u201caccidental,\u201d <\/i>not an \u201cessential,<\/i>\u201d aspect of the situation.<\/p>\n Immediately, we recognize that this is unacceptable.\u00a0 No less unacceptable, though, is the idea that we didn\u2019t intend to kill civilians when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.\u00a0 Anscombe writes: \u201cIt is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend to do what is the means you take to your chosen end.\u00a0 Otherwise there is absolutely no substance to the Pauline teaching that we may not do evil that good may come.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps it is best that we don\u2019t think much about the meaning of \u201cterrorism.\u201d\u00a0 We may not like what we discover once we begin to go down this path.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The word \u201cterrorism\u201d is not all that easy to define. Yet we wouldn\u2019t know this given the wild indiscriminateness with which it\u2019s applied.\u00a0 The following five scenarios supply us with examples of this. (1)Those Muslims on the battlefields of such places as Iraq and Afghanistan are Islamic.\u00a0 Obviously, they are also killing, or trying to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n