With the current concern about suicide bombing the media debate seems to have forgotten to focus on the target of the attackers rather than the mechanism. Suicide bombings do not equate to terrorism and terrorism cannot be defined by the method of attack.
The upholding of international law was enshrined as an important objective (7) by Jack Straw at the start of the UK involvement in the "war on terror", long before the predicted attacks on London. Unfortunately, the last three years have seen this objective progressively eroded by the actions of the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK governments. Never before has the lesson been so clear - the rules governing international actions are there for a purpose. Ignore then and the future will turn round and bite with teeth sharpened by each transgression.
After London 7/7 there is an understandable desire to modify UK law to try and reduce the risk of future attacks. However, in the somewhat fevered debate that is taking place it is essential to keep connected to the bedrock of previous legal precedent. This is especially true in the consideration of suicide attacks.
Attacks willingly undertaken and involving the inevitable death of the attacker are common place throughout the history of conflict. From the refusal to surrender in the face of impossible odds, through to heroic charges into the face of machine guns, ramming your ship or plane into an enemy target. All may be condidered heroic by the side undertaking the action and particularly unsettling and terrifying by the side on the receiving end.
But are these actions necessarily illegal under international law. Absolutely not as an interesting discussion of suicide attacks in the invasion of Iraq makes clear!
What makes attacks illegal and/or defines them as an act as a war crime or act of terrorism is firstly, the intended target, secondly, exactly how the attack is caried out, and thirdly, whether a state of war actually exists. If we follow the rather contorted and localized logic of the US governments "war-on-terror" then the events witnessed over the last few weeks may well be considered as acts of war but illegal, nonetheless, due to the deliberate targeting of civilians. Luckily the British government has not bought into the distortion on international law in such a whole hearted way as the US and was careful to describe the London attacks as crimes and not as acts of war. This is not to say that a state of war does not exist in Iraq or in other parts of the world, but at the moment at least, the organisational link between the fragmented Iraqi resistence and the attacks in London is not clear enough to allow direct attribution.
The definition of terrorism is a confused and politically charged area which has yet to achieve resolution. Terrorism can take place during war or peacetime, be committed by state or non-state actors, by members of official armed forces or adhoc groups or inviduals. It is described with a limited definition in Geneva convention 4, but for a more encompassing definition we need to turn to the recommendations of the UN Secretary General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.
"any action, in addition to actions already specified by the existing conventions on aspects of terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to door to abstain from doing any act."
This makes it very clear, it is the intended target that defines whether an action is terrorist or not in nature. Terrorism is something that, theoretically, all 'civilized' governments and people are opposed to. However, history says the reality is sadly otherwise. It is all too easy to remember attacks, made by the allies in the second world war, which fall very easily into the definition of terrorism. The concept of 'total war' has been used as an attempted justification but has no legal justification whatsoever. The point of international law is of course to prevent wars becoming total, thereby limiting their impact on people who have no control over their conduct.
At the moment there is a tendency in the press to equate suicide attacks with terrorism and to call for the outlawing of suicide actions. Whilst understandable, such calls are misplaced and fail to understand the history of conflict, the legal basis, or the definition of terrorism. We desperately need the governments of the US and UK to return to a legally acceptable approach to foreign policy and action. The making of UK law in response to the recent attacks must not be allowed to exacerbate the underlying problem.
After London 7/7 there is an understandable desire to modify UK law to try and reduce the risk of future attacks. However, in the somewhat fevered debate that is taking place it is essential to keep connected to the bedrock of previous legal precedent. This is especially true in the consideration of suicide attacks.
Attacks willingly undertaken and involving the inevitable death of the attacker are common place throughout the history of conflict. From the refusal to surrender in the face of impossible odds, through to heroic charges into the face of machine guns, ramming your ship or plane into an enemy target. All may be condidered heroic by the side undertaking the action and particularly unsettling and terrifying by the side on the receiving end.
But are these actions necessarily illegal under international law. Absolutely not as an interesting discussion of suicide attacks in the invasion of Iraq makes clear!
What makes attacks illegal and/or defines them as an act as a war crime or act of terrorism is firstly, the intended target, secondly, exactly how the attack is caried out, and thirdly, whether a state of war actually exists. If we follow the rather contorted and localized logic of the US governments "war-on-terror" then the events witnessed over the last few weeks may well be considered as acts of war but illegal, nonetheless, due to the deliberate targeting of civilians. Luckily the British government has not bought into the distortion on international law in such a whole hearted way as the US and was careful to describe the London attacks as crimes and not as acts of war. This is not to say that a state of war does not exist in Iraq or in other parts of the world, but at the moment at least, the organisational link between the fragmented Iraqi resistence and the attacks in London is not clear enough to allow direct attribution.
The definition of terrorism is a confused and politically charged area which has yet to achieve resolution. Terrorism can take place during war or peacetime, be committed by state or non-state actors, by members of official armed forces or adhoc groups or inviduals. It is described with a limited definition in Geneva convention 4, but for a more encompassing definition we need to turn to the recommendations of the UN Secretary General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.
"any action, in addition to actions already specified by the existing conventions on aspects of terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to door to abstain from doing any act."
This makes it very clear, it is the intended target that defines whether an action is terrorist or not in nature. Terrorism is something that, theoretically, all 'civilized' governments and people are opposed to. However, history says the reality is sadly otherwise. It is all too easy to remember attacks, made by the allies in the second world war, which fall very easily into the definition of terrorism. The concept of 'total war' has been used as an attempted justification but has no legal justification whatsoever. The point of international law is of course to prevent wars becoming total, thereby limiting their impact on people who have no control over their conduct.
At the moment there is a tendency in the press to equate suicide attacks with terrorism and to call for the outlawing of suicide actions. Whilst understandable, such calls are misplaced and fail to understand the history of conflict, the legal basis, or the definition of terrorism. We desperately need the governments of the US and UK to return to a legally acceptable approach to foreign policy and action. The making of UK law in response to the recent attacks must not be allowed to exacerbate the underlying problem.
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They have to blow things up and kill innocents...what wrong with that?
25.07.2005 14:59
No, really, it's not terrorism. The bombers are actually peace activists!
It's just moslems expressing themselves.
Next time I see a suicide "peace activist" I'm going to run up to him (or her) givwe BIG HUG
and say, I understand...do you need some help? There are some little children that could use some islamic love and education over there...
Hey,can I carry your backpack?
MOSLEM PEACE ACTIVIST
Obsfucation
25.07.2005 17:19
If you are a friend, why are your name and face unknown?
No
What pathetic hypocritical responses to a thoughtful post ...
25.07.2005 19:31
... you know a bomb dropped from 20,000 feet as part of Blair/Bush's illegal War Criminal aggression against Iraq can blow more people up in Baghdad than the London bombers succeeded in doing.
... An illegal cluster bomb can take several people's heads off faster than a Jihadist's sword can remove one.
Moreover, the London bombs were the equivalent of a really quiet day in Iraq. The people of Iraq, however, neither had any choice in the makeup of their former deposed Government, nor in the unwarranted criminal and murderous invasion of their country - and so bear no responsibility for either. The British, however, (and I am British, FYI) re-elected the state terrorist, liar, coward and hypocrit Blair (but boy, he's up there with Clinton in ability to fake sincerity), even after the wide publication of the "Downing St. Memo". In a nutshell, people in a democracy (well, as alleged, anyway), unlike the Iraqis, surely must bear the responsibility for the actions of their Government, just as the Israelis do for the re-election of man who was "yea or nea" in charge of those that executed the Sabra and Chatilla massacre: Ariel Sharon. As Bush says: "If you harbor (sic) a terrrrist, you are a terrrrist".
Of course, on an individual as opposed to a geopolitical level (the latter being the only concern of people like Blair), sympathy for those killed and maimed, whether in Baghdad under US-UK auspices, or in London, funnily enough, and contrary to the recent lies of Jack The-Ripper Straw (basically that the London bombings were not related to Iraq), also under US-UK auspices, is natural, unavoidable, and, of course, completely desirable - except may be on the part of some of those groups whose people have suffered the same a thousandfold or more as a result of Western "Democracy" State Terrorism - hardly surprising. As I have not a nationalist corpuscle in by bloodstream, however, more of my sympathy goes to those who had the least choice in their fate - the Iraqis - as elucidated in the preceding paragraph. I might have more sympathy, relatively, for the fate of my "fellow countrymen" (though entirely by accident of birth, of course, as also was the birth of the "proud to be American" crowd), IF as much media coverage were given to the equivalent dire effects of each and every dropped bomb by, and each and every outrageous ground action of the Coalition of the Killing. That, of course, would fill and continue to fill the press - which would be just fine (but aggressors learned a lot from "too much" media freedom with Vietnam).
Some people round here have sunk to the "intellectual" level of "Free"Republic.
Dennis Revell
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dennisrevell@att.net
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very murky waters
25.07.2005 22:53
one needs to look around a bit. how many countries have Islamic violence or war? Iraq is painful for evryone except the shia & the kurds, but maybe see the wider global context?
watcher
Religion of Peace Alert
26.07.2005 13:24
Bouyeri had told the court he had acted out of religious conviction.
Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet"
Ali ibn Sharmootah
Homepage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4716909.stm
Biblical Authority
28.07.2005 11:37
Objective comment
Yea, but Samson was an Ay-rraabb ... ;-)
31.07.2005 15:30
Yea, but Samson was an Ay-rraabb ... ;-)
I mean, weren't they all?
I mean there must have been someone around to turn into Muslims. We know Samson WASN'T a Christian!
Funny thing is, Muslims recognise this Christ person as a revered prophet, Christians go further and claim he's the son of doG, Judaeism doesn't recognise Christ as figure of any religious significance WHATEVER. And yet Christian fundamentalists in the US align themselves with Zionists, and hate the Muslims.
Anyway, even without looking at more recent history for proof, which provides a-plenty, both Christianity and Judaeism are Genocidal Religions, both worshipping a toxic *insane God* who advocates Genocide.
If in doubt, read Deuteronomy.
*insane God* myth:
Dennis Revell
e-mail:
dennisrevellATatt.net
Homepage:
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