For example, in the run up to the Iraq war, accusations of Saddam’s support for terrorism were bandied about in an effort to build support for the invasion. For the BBC, this sort of thing is a potential minefield. If they adopt the UK government view, they could end up being mouthpieces for the government.

To take another example, Cuban dissidents who hijack planes in order to escape to the US have generally been welcomed and supported by the US government, not branded terrorists and sent back to Castro. They have committed “terrorist acts” but US government’s, Democrat and Republican, have generally taken the view that they’re on “our side” against a greater evil so these “terrorist acts” are acceptable. (The irony there, of course, is that this is exactly the sort of justification al Qaida loons use too.)

The ICRC summarises the position of the Geneva Convention:
The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property. Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked.

It is forbidden to use weapons or methods of warfare that are likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering.

The problem, as always, is with interpretation. Is a munitions factory staffed by civilians a legitimate military objective? The consensus on that is generally that it is.

As to what constitutes “unnecessary losses or excessive suffering” that’s very difficult to say. I agree with Roger on that – it “depends on who is doing the justifying”. For example, Palestinians might (I believe some do) argue that suicide bomb attack against Israeli citizens are not excessive given that Israel occupies their territory and Israel, with its conscription rules, is a fully militarised society. Most people would disagree however.

(On Roger’s last point, I’d have to double check but I think the deliberate targetting of political leaders is explicitly not allowed under one of the conventions.)

PS – it’s Ravi. “Sam” was a cut&paste error from my next post about the attraction of nihilistic violence etc and the role that plays in driving young male terrorists. (Although maybe I’d be better off modeling myself on a hard bitten seminal dead American film director if I want to keep my posts “edgy” and interesting…)

It says:
We think they should call terrorist acts
“terrorism” because that term is clear and well understood.

My argument is that, no, it really isn’t, particulary in the margins.

Using “the deliberate targetting of civilians and noncombatants” creates a different set of problems. Just before “Shock and Awe”, the US government attempted to kill Saddam Hussein. As a non-combatant deliberately targetted, this would be terrorism if we assume the definition above. But is it terrorism? Should the BBC refer to the failed attack as an act of terrorism and call the US government a terrorist organisation? What if Saddam had attempted to kill Bush? Same answers?

It’s this sort of problem which makes the BBC wary of using the T word. I believe they’re right to be wary. They should, I believe, report the solid facts and let the viewer/reader/listener decide on whether to apply the term. It’s just not a judgement they ought to be making in my view.

I pretty much agree with you. But.

In 1, Bush certainly and Blair probably would call the single act terrorism, whether the person was a member of al Qaida or not. Similarly, the UK government always called IRA attacks against the UK military terrorism rather than insurgency. It’s a political disagreement.

In 2, I agree. But others would argue that firing a missile into an area when you know it will cause civilian casualties is a terrorist act. Again, its a political disagreement.

You may know that the second example actually happened a few months ago in Pakistan. Reports vary but the ST said five women and five children died. Not terrorism but probably a war crime as you say. Sadly, there’s absolutely no chance that anything’ll be done about it.

In 3, there was a deliberate attempt to force the NV govt. to surrender by carpet bombing their cities. Deliberate targeting of civilians in order to promote a political objective, in other words. Those most keen on the “war” on terror would never accept that that was terrorism though. And they’d go nuts if the BBC called it that.

Again, the point is that there is political disagreement over whether it was terrorism.

As soon as the BBC starts using the word it has a duty to be consistent. In many cases its true that it is easy to spot terrorism, the Londom bombing indisputably were for example, but it becomes very difficult to draw the boundary lines of what is and what isn’t without making political judgements. That’s why, traditionally, the BBC have avoided using the T word as much as possible.

Ravi

The definitional problem is a real one. But from what I’ve read I believe the deliberate targetting of civilians and noncombatants is near to being a consensus part of any definition. That goes for govts too – that’s why Bomber Harris’s WWII campaign against German cities is now called terror bombing. (Michael Walzer’s “Just and Unjust Wars” is quite good on that.)

On the more general issue of BBC terminology, I made a similar point to Garry on the previous Sri Lanka thread. For some time the BBC has failed to term ANYBODY a terrorist, including the 7/7 suicide nutters, Islamic Jihad, Zarqarwi’s civilian slaughtering “resistance” etc, unless quoting somebody else. Putting this right was one of the major recommendations of a BBC Governors report of 2 May. See:
http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/reviews/panel_report_final.pdf

Sam

2. That is feckless but one assumes that was not the intention. You could call it a war crime.

3– Vietnam carpet bombing. Here we have to argue about the intent. I am not enough of a historian to say whether this was primarily intended to terrorise the population or had other strategic intent. If the former then yes it is terrorism. Carpet bombing cities would these days be considered a war crime no matter the intention.

Here are a couple of semi-hypothetical examples.

1. An al Qaida suicide bomber in Iraq targets a British army patrol with an IED. The attacks is not deliberately directed at civilians but several bystanders are killed including women and children. Is this terrorism?

2. The US military targets al Qaida members in Pakistan with a missile. The attack is not deliberately directed at civilians but several bystanders are killed including women and children. Is this terrorism?

You can make a judgement on these easily enough based on your political opinions but it’s much more difficult to construct a definition which’ll support your decisions and which can be consistently applied by others with different political views.

If you start with “the deliberate killing of civilians” in your definition, you then include, for example, the US carpet bombing of North Vietnamese cities during the Vietnam war. Is this terrorism?

That is, I think, why the BBC rarely uses the T word. It’s very difficult to define terrorism in a useful and generally accepted way. When I studied terrorism, this was something most people (myself included) struggled to come to terms with because it appears to be counter-intuitive. But it’s true enough.

Yeah I did that and I don’t see what your point is or why you are bothered about them being described as terrorists. Call them ‘terrorists who control big areas of land and do other stuff too’.

Calling them ‘rebels’ neuters the tactics they use. If you say that calling them terrorist slants and gives only one side of the picture, so does the use of ‘rebels’ as a way to describe them.

Well that is terrorism if the end is to attack civilians– one can think of the gas attacks on the Kurds which would certainly be both terrorism and maybe some other terms.

Israeli attacks on say rocket positions that kill civilians would be feckless and war crimes imo — but not terrorism.

As I say I am just making a semantic distinction not a moral one.

sounds like everyone’s starting to sound like a terrorist!

They’re terrorists, I never said otherwise. I’m not sure how I can express my point any more clearly. Try re-reading the article Sunny posted and replace every instance of ‘rebel(s)’ with ‘terrorist(s)’, do you see what i’m trying to get at?