The War of the Verbs

Late last week, Josh Marshall was noting some rhetorical switcheroos taking place on the right. Mitt Romney, for example, correctly notes that "There's not a global war on terror" before adding "There's a global war being waged by the terrorists and if I am president, there will be a global war waged on the terrorists and we will win." Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, has taken to referring to "the terrorists war on us."

This is totally backwards. War is a kind of organized, socially sanctioned violence. The people who destroyed the World Trade Center weren't soldiers fighting a war against the United States, they were mass murderers. In response, yes, we went to war against their patrons in Afghanistan which the Bush administration proceeded to transmogrify into a horribly misguided "war on terror" but either way we were the side with the soldiers fighting a war. Guys blowing up train stations aren't warriors. Shadowy networks that don't control territory don't prosecute wars.

James Fallows' article on the need to declare victory in the war on terror (see also this and this) makes the point brilliantly -- this habit of blowing things out of proportion for domestic consumption has a way of ennobling and glamorizing the terrorists' actions. It's important to keep some focus on the fact that what these people are doing is trying to kill unarmed people as they go about their lives and that whatever complaints one may have about U.S. foreign policy, what Osama bin Laden is simply encouraging random murder of the innocent, not masterminded a war.

Comments

War is a kind of organized, socially sanctioned violence.

I guess it escapes Matthew that Islamic terrorism IS organized, socially sanctioned violence. I mean, does he not realize that there is a large segment of Muslim society that sanctions terrorism?

Posted by Al | August 14, 2007 1:30 PM

Yes, and there are still some Americans who support the Disastrous, Illegal War on Iraq. Wingnut wackos are found everywhere, in every country. Even on this very blog, Al!

PS: What's going on in Afghanistan? I haven't heard much of late, so it must be going swimmingly!

Posted by Gregorio | August 14, 2007 1:34 PM

...there is a large segment of Muslim society that sanctions terrorism.

Could you define "large," please?

Posted by JH | August 14, 2007 1:36 PM

Matt, that's extraordinarily well said and very persuasive.

I shudder to think how powerful you would be with a little proofreading.

Posted by southpaw | August 14, 2007 1:40 PM

"It's important to keep some focus on the fact that what these people are doing is trying to kill unarmed people as they go about their lives and that whatever complaints one may have about U.S. foreign policy, what Osama bin Laden is simply encouraging random murder of the innocent, not masterminded a war."

Too late.

Posted by Jose Padilla | August 14, 2007 1:52 PM

In response, yes, we went to war against their patrons in Afghanistan which the Bush administration proceeded to transmogrify into a horribly misguided "war on terror" but either way we were the side with the soldiers fighting a war. Guys blowing up train stations aren't warriors. Shadowy networks that don't control territory don't prosecute wars.

Until they win, in which case it's they were glorious freedom fighters or soldiers warriors in a revolutionary army or somesuch. What's the difference between "warrior" and "soldier," anyway? Asymmetrical warfare is not warfare, then? Or it is warfare, but only one side is at war? It's possible to have soldiers, be fighting, and be at war with someone or something, but if you get opposition, then it has to be over a certain size threshold to count as being at war with you?

I agree with what I think your policies would be if you were president or had the ear of the president, and I agree that Romney and Giuliani are acting like fearmongering morons in the hopes of capturing Bush's base, but splitting hairs about which groups can properly be described as "warriors" seems really beside the point.

Posted by Cyrus | August 14, 2007 1:58 PM

Similar to Fallows point that we should deny terrorists the respect and publicity, we should also stop acting terrified. Searching airplane passengers for toothpaste, domestic spying, torture, etc. are all acts of a government that's acting from fear

The first step in winning a "war on terror" -- don't be terrified.

Posted by Oberon | August 14, 2007 2:00 PM

"It's important to keep some focus on the fact that what these people are doing is trying to kill unarmed people as they go about their lives and that whatever complaints one may have about U.S. foreign policy, what Osama bin Laden is simply encouraging random murder of the innocent, not masterminded a war."The attacks that al Qaeda have been responsible for; embassy bombings, the Cole and 9/11, are not simply "random murder," they are attacks against hard, military or political targets, taken for very specific political goals. They are no more the "random murder of the innocent" then Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The innocents are what they would term collateral damage.

The attacks on civilians in Bali, Madrid and London came after we went to war in Afghanistan, with the latter two coming after our invasion of Iraq. Al Qaeda's excuse generally being that the indiscriminate slaughter in our campaigns is being met by similar indiscriminancy in theirs.

Dismissing them simply as "mass murderers" is dangerous.

Posted by Tom | August 14, 2007 2:02 PM

I'm confused by the mention of "verbs" here and on TPM. What is it supposed to mean? What verbs? Is it some sort of garbled reference to Jon Stewart's error of saying that "terror" is "not even a noun"?

Posted by KCinDC | August 14, 2007 2:05 PM

Well said. We (mostly US politicians and media) have indeed blown the "war on terror[ists]" out of proportion. And its hard to see how this has not enabled the terrorists - that they may think we are preoccupied with this and they are winning, even though the daily reality for most in the US does not involve this preoccupation or concern.

It is much easier to claim (and to live with) the idea that much of our wasteful acts and spending have indeed prevented another terrorist attack than to actually consider the possibility that attacks at all (particularly large causalty attacks) are improbable and the risk has been completely overblown (much because of the ease of the political capital that it fosters).

Consider Oklahoma City, Columbine, the Virginia Tech shootings. Would it really be that hard for the sophisticated network of terrorists that we are told are bent on destroying the United States from executing similar tragic events? Are we really to believe they are too busy planning a large scale event similar to 9/11 to be bothered by these smaller but still obvious terror causing events. Or that they are for the most part tied up fighting in Iraq because that is a better front for their fight than an attack (even several small scale ones) in the United States?

It would be very nice to believe that our homeland security personnel are effectively identifying and thwarting attacks. But consider how many thwarted plots have actually been noted over the almost 6 years since 9/11? And, is the government really that effective at doing anything, particularly proactively?

Posted by Tom | August 14, 2007 2:17 PM

"The attacks that al Qaeda have been responsible for; embassy bombings, the Cole and 9/11, are not simply "random murder," they are attacks against hard, military or political targets..."

The World Trade Center wasn't a political or military target; it was a commercial center where people from a hundred countries worked and were killed for no good reason. Unless you are promoting Ward Churchill's "Little Eichmann" propaganda?

Posted by Juan | August 14, 2007 2:26 PM

That Fallows' piece (the first) was indeed brilliant.

BTW, both links in your parentheses are to the same Fallows follow-up (say that three times fast).

Posted by Bragan | August 14, 2007 2:40 PM

The World Trade Center wasn't a political or military target; it was a commercial center where people from a hundred countries worked and were killed for no good reason. Unless you are promoting Ward Churchill's "Little Eichmann" propaganda?

Don't be a bigger ass than you have to be. The WTC qualified as a political target given it's importance to the American economy and therefore political structure. There was also a poorly concealed CIA branch in the WTC.

And I'm not "promoting" anything, you hysterical miscreant, this is what al Qaeda itself claims. Repeating a stated military and political goal is not an endorsement of that statement.

Idiot.

Posted by Tom | August 14, 2007 2:41 PM

Guys blowing up train stations aren't warriors.

I'd say those guys disagree, in as much as they generally refer to themselves as the mujahideen.

Their concept of war is just different than ours, and we shouldn't necessarily project our norms onto them.

-

Posted by SoCalJustice | August 14, 2007 2:43 PM

I would resist the idea - which seems to be implied by Matt's comment - that organizing violence against unarmed civilians cannot be one way of fighting a war. The people who participate in this activity, and both read and write its various manifestos, certainly regard themselves as fighting a war of liberation, and as using the techniques that we call "terrorism" as one tactic in that war. I am perfectly comfortable in understanding this activity as a particular kind of warfare, constituting a global insurgency or guerrilla struggle.

Matt suggests that violence must be socially sanctioned in order to qualify as warfare. But if "socially sanctioned" means "sanctioned by a government", then that would seem to rule out all wars of insurrection or rebellion. If, on the other hand, "socially sanctioned" just means "sanctioned by some identifiable social group", then there is no reason to say that jihadist warfare is not genuine warfare. Nor does the fact that the the planning of jihadist violence is somewhat local and decentralized, with unified organization coming mainly in the form of flows of funds, propaganda and activism, and occasional training, necessarily argue against treating jihadist warfare as genuine warfare. The means of organizing violence have evolved over time.

The crucial point is that, whatever one prefers to call this activity, jihadist violence is a rather more limited and contained, and certainly less existential threat than the chief propagandists for the WOT would have it. It is greatly overhyped: it is not a "generational challenge", "the major moral threat of our times", etc. There is no "islamofascist wave" spreading throughout the world; nor is their a new rising "caliphate." So I think I agree with Matt's overarching point that the WOT is puffed up with a lot of hot air.

An equally crucial point is that questions of definition and semantic classification have little to do with the question of what constitutes a rational response to jihadist violence. Whether we recognize the world's most militant Islamist groups as together constituting some sort of insurgency fighting a decentralized war of some kind, or prefer to classify the violent wings of the jihadist movement as constituting something more like a criminal security challenge, still that violence is what it is, and the sensible response to the the violence will be roughly the same.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 14, 2007 2:47 PM

I dunno Matt, I feel like we need a new word for what it is Al Qaeda's waging -- obviously not a war in the traditional sense (Al Qaeda's neither a state or a nation, nor even really an armed force) but also not a "criminal conspiracy" (which I think is the phrase you used the other day), which makes them sound like rumrunners or the Mafia or something. Familiar in-between categories, like 'insurgency', don't really fit either.

The problem with just calling them "mass murderers", "trying to kill unarmed people" is that it implies violence without purpose beyond itself. It allows us to write off entirely Al Qaeda's political objectives and ideology. Obviously some elements of these are always going to be repugnant to a good liberal (the caliphate ideal, sharia law, etc.) but others (down with corrupt puppet emirs, down with American Mideast hegemony more generally) are, frankly, goals that deserve a hearing.

Lots of people in the region who don't support Al Qaeda's methods *do* sympathize with some of their goals. If you call AQ criminals, you're dismissing those goals as unworthy of a hearing. You're also giving political cover to American leaders who would much prefer that we *not* reexamine policies which contribute to legitimate grievances against the U.S. in the Muslim/Arab/whatever world.

Also, tangentially, as the first Tom noted, in a 'real' war targets like the USS Cole and the Pentagon would be entirely legitimate. (Others, obviously, not so much, but all states at war target civilians to some degree -- AQ perhaps more than others, but it's not clear that there's some universally agreed-upon threshhold above which deliberate attacks on civilians make it 'not war' any longer.) So you're left with a definition of this as 'not war' because AQ's neither a state, a nation nor an army. Funny thing, though, it was representatives of nation-states with armies that came up with that definition, in part to delegitimize things like, well, AQ. Bottom line: definitions of war evolve as humans come up with new ways of organizing violence, so you're on fairly shaky ground when you try to pretend that there are objective yardsticks in these matters.

Really, the far better argument for calling them criminals is the one you made the other day -- that the methods we use for hunting down criminals are likely to prove more effective (though probably not sufficient) in bringing down AQ than military means alone. But that doesn't change what AQ *is*.

Posted by Ryan | August 14, 2007 2:49 PM

"Consider Oklahoma City, Columbine, the Virginia Tech shootings. Would it really be that hard for the sophisticated network of terrorists that we are told are bent on destroying the United States from executing similar tragic events? Are we really to believe they are too busy planning a large scale event similar to 9/11 to be bothered by these smaller but still obvious terror causing events. Or that they are for the most part tied up fighting in Iraq because that is a better front for their fight than an attack (even several small scale ones) in the United States?

It would be very nice to believe that our homeland security personnel are effectively identifying and thwarting attacks. But consider how many thwarted plots have actually been noted over the almost 6 years since 9/11? And, is the government really that effective at doing anything, particularly proactively?"

In many countries that have recently experienced AQ-related terrorism, the terrorists have been home grown. However, the US really doesn't have this problem, especially compared to Europe. The highest-ranked American in AQ is a former evangelical Christian who converted to Islam and accused his imam of being to moderate. When an imam in New Jersey started get strict and Salafist, his congregation sued the mosque to get him removed from the decision-making board. It's much harder to successfully attack a country with foreigners whose accents, everyday mannerisms and passports stick out than with someone raised in the target society.

Posted by Reality Man | August 14, 2007 2:50 PM

While I agree that "war on terror" is a stupid - yes - bumper sticker phrase used mainly as a political club, it's how you wage the "war" that is important. The worst way to fight a group like Al Qaeda is to dump tens of thousands of heavily armed US troops into countries that aren't our own. That's exactly what Al Qaeda wanted us to do and wants us to continue doing. They get to kill us while we piss off the locals, pushing them into the Al Qaeda camp (although that dynamic appears to be changing in Anbar province in Iraq). It's also great for fund raising - wealthy donors from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, the Emirates, etc - will continue to dump money into AQ and other terrorist groups' coffers and provide them with weapons as long as they are fighting the great infidel's army in Muslim lands.

Good human intelligence (which we sorely lack, especially in the affected region), small force action, criminal investigations/arrests and cooperation with allies/strategic partners would work much better. And rather than reward allies who continue to allow jihadists and jihadist supporters to operate freely in their countries - see especially Saudi Arabia, Pakistan - we should hold them to their word and punish them - economically and diplomatically, not militarily - when they slack off. AQ operates freely in the tribal regions of Pakistan while the Taliban is active and out in the open in Quetta. For all the talk of jihadis entering Iraq through the Syrian and Iranian borders, just as many or maybe even more of these foreign fighters are probably coming through the Jordanian and Saudi borders. I know that we don't want any of these countries' government - however imperfect they may be - to fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists...but I think that threat is a bit inflated (although Pakistan scares me) and I think we can certainly apply some pressure - at least more than we do today - without facing that risk.

Posted by OGLiberal | August 14, 2007 3:13 PM

Agreed Reality Man, but it only takes one or two home grown individuals or entrants to make these types of attacks happen...which is my point...which is a lot easier that any second large scale attack.

Posted by Tom(2) | August 14, 2007 3:20 PM

I guess it escapes Matthew that Islamic terrorism IS organized, socially sanctioned violence. I mean, does he not realize that there is a large segment of Muslim society that sanctions terrorism?

Insert long, erudite discourse on Timothy McVeigh and the need to look in the mirror once in a while.

Posted by jonathan | August 14, 2007 3:22 PM

"I guess I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have or did or -- and certainly I've used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? I say it because the word "war" conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War, and it creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within the 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. And it isn't going to happen that way.

"Furthermore, it's not a war on terror. Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and impose their -- in the hands of a small group of clerics, their dark vision on all the people that they can control.

"So 'war on terror' has a problem for me, and I've worked to try to reduce the extent to which that's used, and increase the extent to which we understand it more as a long war or a struggle or a conflict, not against terrorism but against a relatively small number, but terribly dangerous and lethal, violent extremists." --Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3824

Posted by Don Bacon | August 14, 2007 4:10 PM

I dunno Matt, I feel like we need a new word for what it is Al Qaeda's waging -- obviously not a war in the traditional sense (Al Qaeda's neither a state or a nation, nor even really an armed force) but also not a "criminal conspiracy" (which I think is the phrase you used the other day), which makes them sound like rumrunners or the Mafia or something. Familiar in-between categories, like 'insurgency', don't really fit either.

The obvious answer is, call them "terrorists" who are waging a campaign of "terrorism." It's not complicated. The problem with wingnut is not that they use "terrorism" to describe organized violence against civilians by non-state organizations that are pursuing a political goal. The problem is that resist any attempts to evaluate or think about the reasons for terrorism, their preferred strategy for fighting terrorism is highly counterproductive, and they also use the word "terrorism" to describe any meaningful opposition to U.S. government policies that they agree with.

Just the fact that they talk about terrorism doesn't mean you/we should bend over backwards to avoid using the word when it actually is appropriate.

Posted by Cyrus | August 14, 2007 4:13 PM

"Insert long, erudite discourse on Timothy McVeigh and the need to look in the mirror once in a while."

And here's part of it: McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, John Allen Mohammed and a number of our "homegrowns" are ex-military with narrowly conceived worldviews and limited (if any) support structures acting within an established nation (the U.S.). Despite their military backgrounds, they qualify more as "terrorists" and "mass murderers" as they're not really connected beyond being rightwing, ex-military fanatics. They're not working in the service of any specific greater ideology.

They're a good example of why al Qaeda can be seen as a military organization fighting a war.

Al Qaeda openly declared war on the U.S and gave very specific reasons for that declaration. Reasons which resonate within the global Muslim community. Afghanistan and the Sudan were (and are) considerably more than mere "patrons" to al Qaeda; they share the same Wahabbist ideology and successfully imposed it on their populations. Al Qaeda has successfully carried out multiple strikes on multiple countries, all under the same banner.

There is a command structure, a unifying ideology, a propaganda wing, a comprehensive support structure and military arm.

Why wouldn't that be considered masterminding a war?

Posted by Tom(1) | August 14, 2007 4:22 PM

"Don't be a bigger ass than you have to be. The WTC qualified as a political target given it's importance to the American economy and therefore political structure."

Tom,

Why are you so quick to resort to puerile name-calling? You seem to have harsher words for me than for Al Qaeda. The fact remains that The World Trade Center was not a political target, except by your new weasel-word definition under which any target with "importance to the American economy" is one.

Posted by Juan | August 14, 2007 4:45 PM

Gregorio:

"What's going on in Afghanistan? I haven't heard much of late, so it must be going swimmingly!"

If you read the NY Times article on Afghanistan Sunday, or Matt's post about it here, you'd know Afghanistan is an unqualified disaster. If you are a regular reader of the Sunday NY Times as I am though, you might remember getting a different, more hopeful perspective on Afghanistan from an article (perhaps less politically motivated?) in the Travel Section in January ("The Mysteries of Kabul"):

In a week of exploring the city, from the windswept, near-deserted ramparts to the teeming, labyrinthine passageways of the Mandayi Bazaar, I never once felt threatened. To the contrary, I was welcomed everywhere by Afghans eager to show me that their country and city were groping their way toward recovery.

Have things become horribly worse in Afghanistan between then and now? Or do the NY Times editors have a political motivation to do penance for publishing the O'Hanlon-Pollack op/ed by publishing an overly-negative article about Afghanistan?

Posted by Fred | August 14, 2007 5:01 PM

""Don't be a bigger ass than you have to be. The WTC qualified as a political target given it's importance to the American economy and therefore political structure."

Tom,

Why are you so quick to resort to puerile name-calling? You seem to have harsher words for me than for Al Qaeda. The fact remains that The World Trade Center was not a political target, except by your new weasel-word definition under which any target with "importance to the American economy" is one. "

Because Juan, you miscreant, you were so quick to resort to the tired, knee-jerk sputtering about Ward Churchill (an irrelevant academic from a midwestern university) as though his one remark represented some massive left-wing weltanschaung and furthermore, as though my post could somehow be construed as supporting his remarks.

Puerile, indeed.

You hammerheaded, rightwing assholes have spent so much time attacking your worthless strawmen that you're incapable of reading a simple statement of fact without staggering back to your childish us-vs-them mentality.

The World Trade Center represented the focal point of the United States' economic might and it's influence on the world economy at large. If you don't see something of that magnitude as a political target-particularly when it's attacked in conjunction with the Pentagon and Capitol-it's because you're a fucking moron.

And that's a good explaination for the stunning success rate the republican braintrust has had in this war.

Idiot.

Posted by Tom(1) | August 14, 2007 5:04 PM

Juan, would you say the intifada attacks on passover feasts were non-political? Or the attack on the Madrid subways? Just because they didn't involve any military or government buildings?

The politics of the 9/11 attack seem pretty clear: establish AQ's bona fides among the anti-American extremists. No better way to do that than attack a symbol of American economic power. Seems very political to me.

Posted by kwo | August 14, 2007 5:05 PM

You accused the guy of "promoting Ward Churchill's "Little Eichmann" propaganda?" and you also use phrases like "he has harsher words for you than Al Qaeda" and you wonder why he deservedly told you not to be a bigger ass than you have to be?

You can't really be serious? Can you?!?!?!?!

Posted by Tom(2) | August 14, 2007 5:08 PM

I'd be glad to 'declare victory' as means to change the language used to frame the issue, but it's probably more important to focus on a change in strategy.

We need a form of "containment" strategy -- something that acknowledges the ideological struggle without reflexive resort to clumsy and counter-productive military intervention.

Posted by STS | August 14, 2007 5:20 PM

Tom,

I stopped reading your last comment at "miscreant". Until you calm down with the hysterical name-calling, I am going to ignore the rest of your comments here.

kwo,

"Juan, would you say the intifada attacks on passover feasts were non-political? Or the attack on the Madrid subways?"

I would say the terrorists' targets weren't political; they were innocent civilians. Same with the WTC.

Tom(2),

"You accused the guy of "promoting Ward Churchill's "Little Eichmann" propaganda?"

I asked if he was promoting Churchill's propaganda, because Churchill made a similar claim that the WTC and the people who worked there were legitimate political targets. Since Tom seems to agree with that characterization, it doesn't seem to have been an unreasonable question to ask.

Posted by Juan | August 14, 2007 5:50 PM

I have not encountered a miscreant as puerile as this dunderhead who abuses 5 dollar words so profligately since...well, me.

Juan: Afghanistan and Iraq are mismanaged shitholes. The Bush Administration can do no right not because I don't want them to but because they are corrupt, inept, and stifled by a highly selective world-view. The only people our crusades in Afghanistan and Iraq have helped are Halliburton employees and Al Qaeda recruiters.

Posted by Gregorio | August 14, 2007 5:58 PM

This seems to be one of those areas of political discussion where any choice of words will inevitably reflect some bias, and those who care about accuracy in language are going to be at a loss.

To call this a 'war on terror" is simply false, but I don't think it is for the reasons Matt submits. We are not at war with 'terrorist groups'. Check the US State Department list for yourself - there are many on there with which we have no quarrel.

If it matters, I am with Matt in the sense that those who advance the "War on Terror" slogan, or any of its derivatives, are doing so under the misguided impression that terrorism will be destroyed on the battlefield. I say misguided because (1) Terrorism will never be destroyed - that is utopian and (2) Islamic terror will have to be contained and limited and suppressed only be a combination of efforts: some of them military.

However, I think its wrong to say terrorism is not a tactic of war. Michael Scheuer for instance - a man whose work is probably admired in these circles - has said plainly that Al-Qaeda and others are waging an insurgency against the United States. Calling terrorist acts 'random' obscures the fact that they were acts of ideological violence, planned over months, meant to wound a nation's economy, terrify its citizens, and disorient its government. Equating that with (say) the Son of Sam seems to be a mistake.

I don't like to side with Guiliani, but I think he is right in a way. The United States is at War with those who are at War with us. Anything more is stupid - anything less is naive.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 14, 2007 6:01 PM

"Tom, I stopped reading your last comment at "miscreant". Until you calm down with the hysterical name-calling, I am going to ignore the rest of your comments here."

A pathetic and transparent lie if ever there was one. We all know you read my commments thoroughly and have absolutely no response because you are, as I said, a miscreant.

And then you compound your moral and intellectual cretinism with this idiocy:

"I asked if he was promoting Churchill's propaganda, because Churchill made a similar claim that the WTC and the people who worked there were legitimate political targets. Since Tom seems to agree with that characterization, it doesn't seem to have been an unreasonable question to ask"

Churchill said the WTC victims "had it coming." That's considerably more than "characterizing" al Qaeda's view, which is why I am so clearly hostile to you. As I said in my first reply to you (the one you admit to reading through)...

"I'm not "promoting" anything, you hysterical miscreant, this is what al Qaeda itself claims. Repeating a stated military and political goal is not an endorsement of that statement."

Anyone with a third grade education should be able to understand that

So tell us, what happened to you after the second grade? Did you start bleeding out of the ears because someone called you a bad name?

Idiot.

Posted by Tom | August 14, 2007 6:09 PM

All this puerile miscreancy is getting me hot & bothered!

Posted by Gregorio | August 14, 2007 6:21 PM

I haven't seen Matt string together so many bad judgements in one paragraph, ever:

War is a kind of organized, socially sanctioned violence. The people who destroyed the World Trade Center weren't soldiers fighting a war against the United States, they were mass murderers. In response, yes, we went to war against their patrons in Afghanistan which the Bush administration proceeded to transmogrify into a horribly misguided "war on terror" but either way we were the side with the soldiers fighting a war. Guys blowing up train stations aren't warriors. Shadowy networks that don't control territory don't prosecute wars.

War is a kind of organized, socially sanctioned violence.

No, you have kind of latched onto the Treaty of Wesphalia model of war, as if it somehow obligates all military force and all soldiers to fight as uniformed instruments of the State in all corners of the World. That was never the reality in history, and is even less of a reality now with 4th Gen Warfare.

The people who destroyed the World Trade Center weren't soldiers fighting a war against the United States, .

The people who destroyed the WTC were combat and military training hardened operatives skilled in use of all military small arms, who then attended flight training and close-in knife fighting martial arts training as their command ordered them to. They were fighting a religiously-sanctioned war in consequence of the 1996 and 1998 Fatwas declaring war on the West, the US and Israel especially, and listing several war objectives that had to be completed by Muslim combatants to satisfy the Fatwas. The Fatwas also legitimated as a valid tactic of war, the mass killing of civilians to help defeat the infidel enemy.
Each and every Muslim in AQ or in 60 other "tip of the spear" groups advancing radical Islam considers themselves Holy Warriors, Jihadis - with 1400 years of similar practices in their culture. They see themselves as doing their Duty to Islam as soldiers, seeking to gain Paradise and to extend Islams eventual global conquest.

they were mass murderers

No, not only do the people using the tactic of terror not consider themselves soldiers, most Muslims do. They may consider some of the Jihadis soldiers that committed war crimes by "going too far" like at Beslan...but they think of them as soldiers 1st.
If Matt thinks that any group that engages in assymetric warfare in wars of liberation or spreading their influence are mass murderers? Then George Washington & his men were mass murderers mostly fighting out of uniform and occasionally strikiking Brit and Loyalist economic and civilian targets. Same with Jose Marti, Castro, Americans that fought Franco's forces alongside the Communists, Lawrence of Arabia, Trotsky, Nelson Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta, Bolivar's irregulars, Menachim Begin and half of Israels other leaders......

They and all their followers....mass murderers???

In response, yes, we went to war against their patrons in Afghanistan which the Bush administration proceeded to transmogrify into a horribly misguided "war on terror" but either way we were the side with the soldiers fighting a war.

Wrong, one reason we wacked so many AQ in Afghanistan is they were still organized in country as working right alongside Taliban militias - doing death squad work for the Taliban against Uzbecks, Baluchis, Haziris - and controlling whole Afghan cities for the Taliban.

Same in Iraq. Once AQ got control of territory, they came out in the open and organized matters as an Army of occupation and terror intimidation with a clearly defined chain of command. One reason why the Shiekhs switching sides in Tal Afar helped whack another 2,000 of them - the locals know precisely who they were, their military rank, their military-political specialities.

Guys blowing up train stations aren't warriors.

Of course they are. They are called enemy agents or saboteurs, sent on missions behind enemy lines to destroy supplies, transportation centers, places of symbolic importance, manufacturing centers, command and control centers.
They have been around forever.
In the Civil War, for example, both sides blew up train stations and rails, rail depots.
The AQ military attack on Spain took that a bit further and timed it so it helped change political control and pull Spain's military out of Iraq.
You ought to read Sun Tzu's 3,000 year old works and the written guides to military strategy and tactics from Sumerians up to Mao and the AQ Military Handbook for all Jihadis. - Matthew. AQ and the 60 other "action arms" of radical Islam also draw extensively from writings and tactics of past Jihad campaigns against infidels and how the Qu'ran sanctions just about anything you do to infidels - and which of those tactics work best on them.

Spies, saboteurs, use of unlawful combatants to help win the war....all galore..From the earliest military tactics books written.

Shadowy networks that don't control territory don't prosecute wars.

Of course they do. Most groups that now control
territory globally started out as groups that controlled no territory, and were successful in prosecuting assymetric warfare against the established territory holders. Many, many succeeded by shadowy means.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 14, 2007 7:20 PM

Almost six years into this "war", and we have no more of a definition than this exchange? But I suppose it took a while to settle down into containment instead of unilateral nuclear war with Russia.

Posted by STS | August 14, 2007 8:04 PM

The point, I think, is not to deny that saboteurs and terrorists often consider themselves soldiers in a war or achieve militarily significant outcomes. Rather, it's important to retain our own sensibility that such forms of warfare are dishonorable and worthy of criticism.

Organized violence can fall anywhere in the spectrum from justified necessity to irrational, dumbass murder. The former is honorable and a fit occupation for soldiers; the latter is criminal and those who undertake such violence do not deserve the honor of being called a soldier.

Where on that spectrum we ought to place a peace-time surprise attack that kills unarmed civilians in the course of their daily lives is fairly obvious to me.

Posted by southpaw | August 14, 2007 9:23 PM

Sorry, Matt. Your distinctions are irrelevant on the ground.

As Wolverine once put it, "Terrorists? That's what the big army calls the little army."

The bottom line: war is violence executed for a political (or religious - and most religious purposes tend to be political, i.e., control of a given demographic) purpose as opposed to crime which is usually executed for a personal purpose. Even that distinction blues when you launch a "war" to enrich your military-industrial-security cronies.

The result is that bin Laden IS fighting a "war", and the US military ARE "terrorists" and "war criminals" (as an aside, how do you explain the phrase "war criminal - that "war" is legitimate in certain circumstances?) when they bomb civilians in Iraq. It's that simple.

"War" and "terrorism" and "crime" are in the eye of the beholder, or more precisely, in the definer of the debate.

Once again, it's a case of primate "rightness". If I don't like your purpose, you're a "terrorist" or a "criminal". If I do, you're a "freedom fighter" or a "soldier." Everybody draws the line so they're on the "right" side.

The real terminology lies at the lower level: why are you killing or coercing someone? Is it self-defense? Are you trying to get somebody off your back who doesn't belong there? Or are you just trying to enrich yourself at someone else's expense without engaging in any form of trade?

Coercion is the term of relevance here. Did you initiate it? Then you're incorrect. If you didn't, it doesn't matter what you're doing or how, it's correct.

Also, the choice of the victim is relevant. Is the person involved in coercing you? Then he's a legitimate target. If not, he isn't.

Which means the one million Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq so far are victims just as much as the 3,000 killed on 9/11. And the US military are as much "criminals" or "terrorists" as bin Laden - in fact, if numbers count, far more so.

The Taliban did not attack the United States. We had no justification for attacking them. We had a justification for attacking bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The fact - if it is a fact - that the Taliban were in some sense "cooperating with" Al Qaeda was irrelevant to the facts of 9/11.

You really need to start analyzing things on a deeper level before you post some of these comments, Matt. You'll end up with a reputation for shallowness if you don't.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 14, 2007 11:50 PM

Just to add to that, let's remember that "War on Terror" is just a stupid slogan, like the "Way on Drugs" or the "War on Poverty".

Don't read too much into stupid slogans - or the idiots who promulgate them.

Also, don't confuse whether somebody is fighting a "war" with how YOU need to deal with them. Just because bin Laden is fighting a "war" doesn't mean we need to invade Afghanistan with our military.

Just because I was fighting my own little private "war" as a "terrorist" in 1993 doesn't mean I couldn't be caught by some ordinary cops - which I was and I was.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 15, 2007 12:00 AM

The point, I think, is not to deny that saboteurs and terrorists often consider themselves soldiers in a war or achieve militarily significant outcomes. Rather, it's important to retain our own sensibility that such forms of warfare are dishonorable and worthy of criticism.

In wartime, one sides delicate sensibilities matter not one whit if the other side believes they have moral/religious authority to proceed, and their tactics are successful.

The British raged that Americans, from the Minutemen onwards, did not wear brightly colored uniforms as Euro armies did, did not come out in the open and shoot from well-formed ranks but shot from behind trees and other cover, and did "despicable things" like having snipers single out the Brit aristocrat-officers.

The British eventually stopped whining and we celebrate those "dishonorable" Revolutionary Americans today.

**********************

The latter is criminal and those who undertake such violence do not deserve the honor of being called a soldier.

Sure they do. Statues to such fighters and patriots exist in most countries. We have statues and national tributes to such unlawful combatants as spy Nathan Hale, Lafitte and his pirates, John Brown, the OSS saboteurs, the CIA Paras that did freedom and democracy's work agaigst the greatest mass murderers in history, the Communists...
And nations, most, have statues and tributes galore to "civilian killers" because any military man or statesmen recognizes that civilians are no more innocent or valuable than soldiers. Lincoln, Lee, Jackson, Pershing, FDR, Truman, Sherman, Eisenhower, Oppenheimer, Churchill all helped kill tons of innocent soldiers and civilians and burn and blast whole cities out of existence. Great heroes all. JFK and his boys established nuclear MAD doctrine.

********************
we ought to place a peace-time surprise attack that kills unarmed civilians in the course of their daily lives is fairly obvious to me.

The Islamoids declared war on us in 1996 and 1998 with religiously-blessed Fatwas. They mounted attack after attack on US military and civilian targets.

Surprise attack?

Most military attacks are surprise or not exactly spelled out on a set schedule to affected civilians.
And the bugaboo about "killing any civilian but it being OK to kill any young man drafted into uniform" is wrong. And it ignores that true victory does not come from a strategic battlefield success or attriting the innocent guys in uniform on the other side down to the last one - True victory is when the military and civilians KNOW that the military can no longer protect civilians from enemy forces and that the enemy WILL impose it's will on civilians under more favorable terms if they surrender and abide by the terms of surrender.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 15, 2007 12:03 AM

Chris,

Undoubtedly the history of warfare, including American warfare, is shot through with savagery. But I still maintain that modern terrorism is qualitatively different from all the examples you mention. There is an ineffable madness to sending men clothed in dynamite into crowded nightclubs, bombing commuter trains with explosive backpacks, or leveraging a few tickets for transcontinental air travel into the destruction of over 3,000 lives. And that madness tears at the fabric of civilization more even than the battlefield horrors of the Allies' victory in World War II.

-I agree with you that our sensibilities don't directly dictate the outcome on the battlefield. Certainly, the military should not engage in "whining" about car bombs and the like--they're a reality. But our sensibilities do determine what we are willing to fight for.

- My argument does not require that our history be free of cruelty and dishonor. It is not, regrettably.

-For Al Qaeda, that same cruelty is not a bug in their system: it's a feature. Their organizing principles are hostile to everything western civilization now holds sacred--from individual rights to representative government to the intrinsic value of human life. That's why, even if you're not enamored with the broad sweep of American history, you should still favor the Americans in this fight.

Posted by southpaw | August 15, 2007 2:08 AM