When people at the ends of the earth, Japan, were killed by their hundreds of thousands, young and old, it was not considered a war crime; it is something that has justification. -- bin Laden
This is the second part of my reflections on the sort of terrorism that targets civilians. The first part argued that it is not obvious that targeting innocent civilians can never be justified and that one should look at the specific case at hand. To take one example, American history seems to show that there can be a justification or excuse for targeting and killing innocent civilians. In past conflicts, America has used a concept of strategic bombing that included the intentional targeting and killing of innocent civilians. The US military has been very successful at intentionally killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Many Americans, including presidents, senators, and other political leaders and thinkers will claim that such killing has been justified. Also, there seems to be possible scenarios in which the intentional killing of innocent civilians can be justified, especially cases in which the killing of innocent civilians is necessary to counter the unjustified killing of a significantly greater number of other innocents. If the preceding is correct, then there are possible cases in which the intentional killing of innocent civilians (even enormous numbers of innocent civilians) can be justified. Consequently, one cannot know a priori that any particular case of such killing is not justified. One has to look at the specifics of the situation to determine whether the killing is justified. Al-Qaida has intentionally targeted innocent civilians. But is this justified? One must examine the specifics of the situation.
It may be that some of the terrorism against innocent civilians that Al-Qaida and bin Laden have committed is justified, but there is another reason for examining the circumstances behind terrorism, even if such terrorism is not justified. The goal is to find a way to eliminate or reduce terrorism, and this goal will likely be very much harder to attain without understanding the reasons and causes behind terrorism. Even if there is no justification for the killing of innocent civilians, we have an interest in understanding the causes of terrorism, just as we would want to understand the causes of violent crime in our cities. If we can understand the causes of terrorism, then it may be possible to remove these causes. If terrorism is justified, then we have even more reason to remove or correct the circumstances that generate terrorism, but we still have a strong reason to understand terrorism even if we find that terrorism that kills innocent civilians is not justified.
The late activist Eqbal Ahmad gives an interesting account of some reasons for political terrorism, the sort of terrorism that bin Laden is engaged in:
Normally, and there are exceptions, there is an effort to be heard, to get their grievances recognized and addressed by the people. The Palestinians, for example, the superterrorists of our time, were dispossessed in 1948. From 1948 to 1968 they went to every court in the world. They knocked on every door. They had been completely deprived of their land, their country, and nobody was listening. In desperation, they invented a new form of terror: the airplane hijacking. Between 1968 and 1975 they pulled the world up by its ears. That kind of terror is a violent way of expressing long-felt grievances. It makes the world hear. It’s normally undertaken by small, helpless groupings that feel powerless. We still haven’t done the Palestinians justice, but at least we all know they exist. Now, even the Israelis acknowledge. Remember what Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel, said in 1970: There are no Palestinians. They do not exist.
They damn well exist now.
Political terrorists normally turn to terrorism in an effort to be heard, to get their grievances recognized and addressed when all other means have failed. Also, terrorism may satisfy the need for retribution against a perceived injustice (which could include the injustice of having legitimate grievances ignored). Ahmad states:
Secondly, terrorism is an expression of anger, of feeling helpless, angry, alone. You feel like you have to hit back. Wrong has been done to you, so you do it. During the hijacking of the TWA jet in Beirut, Judy brown of Belmar, New Jersey, said that she kept hearing them yell, “New Jersey, New Jersey.” What did they have in mind? She thought that they were going after her. Later on it turned out that the terrorists were referring to the US battleship New Jersey, which had heavily shelled the Lebanese civilian population in 1983.
In addition, Ahmad includes the feelings of betrayal, which is connected to the tribal ethic of revenge, something that applies to bin Laden. According to Ahmad, Bin Laden feels that America betrayed him when US forces occupied Saudi Arabia (the land of the kaba, the sacred site of Islam in Mecca) for the Gulf War but then refused to leave. There had never been foreign troops in these holy lands. Since America did not keep its word, bin Laden, following tribal ethics, sought revenge. Ahmad also points out that people who have been victims of violent abuse often become violent people.
One interesting point that Ahmad makes is that the absence of revolutionary ideology (of the Marxist kind) in our time has been central to the spread of terrorism. Marxists argued that true revolutionaries do not resort to assassination. They rejected terror as a viable tactic of revolution. Instead of isolated acts of violence, social problems require social and political mobilization.
Now let’s look at the grievances in bin Laden’s “Letter to America”:
Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
a) You attacked us in Palestine:
(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.
(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.
When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) - and we make no distinction between them.
(iii) The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone.
(b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.
(c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;
(i) These governments prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah, using violence and lies to do so.
(ii) These governments give us a taste of humiliation, and places us in a large prison of fear and subdual.
(iii) These governments steal our Ummah's wealth and sell them to you at a paltry price.
(iv) These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine, acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people.
(v) The removal of these governments is an obligation upon us, and a necessary step to free the Ummah, to make the Shariah the supreme law and to regain Palestine. And our fight against these governments is not separate from out fight against you.
(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
(e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.
(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.
(g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. Under the protection of your weapons, Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa mosque, to pollute it as a preparation to capture and destroy it.
(2) These tragedies and calamities are only a few examples of your oppression and aggression against us. It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge. Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!!
(3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:
(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.
(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.
(c) Also the American army is part of the American people. It is this very same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us.
(d) The American people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in the American Forces which attack us.
(e) This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.
(f) Allah, the Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs.
The American Government and press still refuses to answer the question:
Why did they attack us in New York and Washington?
If Sharon is a man of peace in the eyes of Bush, then we are also men of peace!!! America does not understand the language of manners and principles, so we are addressing it using the language it understands.
To be continued in Part III….
