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Aswad -> RE: Does it bother anyone else the Boston terrorist is 19? (4/22/2013 10:51:32 PM)
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
The most common circumstance is hostile foreign military occupation, far and away the single most efficient trigger of terrorist activity.
New occupation or the occupation-like conditions surrounding seperatism (ETA, IRA, etc.). Also, ethnic conflicts, class warfare and so forth. As such, I think you could probably categorize the preludes to several revolutions as terrorism, and perhaps the revolutions themselves. Heck, Meinhof viewed the Holocaust as a response to the coincidence of class and "race" in Germany, which may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Israel-Palestine is another class/ethnic conflict.
The commonality is the existence of either (a) two or more groups in a resource conflict under shared administration, (b) two or more groups with an entrenched resource disparity, (c) two or more groups with a power disparity that is used by one or more groups to restrict the liberty of one or more other groups. Not all that different from conventional war. The main difference is such that we might take terrorist to mean "underdog".
In this sense, one-off domestic terrorism (I loathe the "lone wolf" designation) is somewhat anomalous in that it involves a single individual perceiving a great wrong (usually an injustice or a restriction of liberty) that must be set right. Often, there is no outlet or viable course of action, other than open conflict, at which point most throw in the towel. A few will, however, sacrifice themselves toward what they see as the greater good, either by symbolic self sacrifice (immolation as a "rage against the machine" thing is a classic example) or by defiantly attacking the superior force with full knowledge that one isolated attack is futile.
Note that the latter has been glorified in American media as long as I've seen any of it. I don't see the supposed trend of glorification of violence as particularly relevant in this regard. That hasn't taken hold, culturally. Going out "in a blaze of glory", however, particularly in the form of last stands and suicidal charges, is a theme that has taken hold culturally, and probably for good reason. Does one bend over and take it? Go out with a whimper? Or go out with a bang?
To two young adults from Dagestan, the answer seems to have been "go out with a bang", even if theirs was little more than a whimper in the scheme of things (at least until the police turned it into a huge bang, thus reinforcing the idea that it's the way to go and giving a real secondary payoff). Maybe they "got" their American peers more than they thought. I have certainly seen that aesthetic reflected in plenty of media from around those parts.
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Belief systems that 'approve' terrorism act as rationalisations after this primary cause. They propose analyses that make sense to the people under attack. They propose 'solutions' that appear rational and effective to people whose community/country/belief system/religion is under attack.
Note the similarity to the far right in the US, or their antecessors in the NSDAP.
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Considering some of the blood curdling responses to the Boston atrocity on these boards, (an attack that would qualify as one of the triggers listed above) it would appear that Aswad's insight - that some people posting here would, in different circumstances, behave the same way - is accurate.
I would like to think most of us would choose to stand for what we believe in, even if that involves the loss of life. One of my main complaints is people decrying it while subscribing to the underlying ethics of it; i.e. being blind to oneself. Another is the complete lack of any debate on what constitutes valid targets. I'm not inherently against the idea of the underdog choosing to fight, rather than perish, certainly. I don't need to be, in order to condemn common terrorism.
In the attacks in Norway, for instance, I'm convinced the attacks were a poor choice of strategy for his goals, even from a completely cynical point of view. What I object first and foremost to, however, are the Utøya shootings. If he blew up the gov't quarter, that's what our own doctrine of war says constitutes a legitimate target, where auxillary casualties are held to be acceptable, if not disporportionate. That's a doctrine the primary targets themselves support, and one enacted by the gov't which represents the auxillary casualties. They also knew they were choosing to work in one of the most attractive military or terrorist targets in the country. As such, I would shrug if he left it at that, ethically speaking. A stupid move, cynically speaking, but a valid one. The outcome is one I would've liked to avoid, one that was obvious from the first moment, but hey, he was my enemy, I don't expect him to bring me hugs and puppies.
The Dagestan fellows, they picked an illegitimate target. Period. No valid targets to which the civilians could have been potentially-acceptable auxillary casualties. The civilians were the intended casualties. Unless they're declaring war, genocidal war, on the entire culture and population, then there's no way to legitimize their choice of targets. McVeigh, by contrast, chose a perfectly legitimate target (based on the information available to him at the time). The Unabomber, too, chose legitimate targets for his objective. 9/11, again, legitimate target (a bit more iffy, but I think it'll fly; pun absolutely not intended).
An analogy. A far throw, but bear with me. We all know spousebeating is undesireable. But beating up the kids, the neighbour or a random passerby after arguing with your spouse seems even more senseless, and even more reprehensible (even if one should be more positively bound to the spouse, it's at least keeping the consequences inside the scope of the original conflict).
To my mind, this is the distinction between "randomly lashing out" and "directed violence", and it's an important one.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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