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« Emails From the Edge | Main | Fish or Cut Bait » February 14, 2007You Keep Using That Word...Kevin Drum joins in the piling on Glenn Reynolds for his proposal for dealing with Iran. I don't agree with Glenn's prescription, for various reasons I won't bother to get into here, but I'm curious about part of Kevin's response. According to him, "killing civilian scientists and civilian leaders, even if you do it quietly, is unquestionably terrorism." Really? Terrorism involves attacks designed to gain political support by convincing the government of a nation to acede to their demands rather than endure more attacks. Terrorism is not necessarily attacks against civilian targets, and attacks against civilian targets are not necessarily terrorism. Strikes at enemy leaders or civilians directly involved in the war effort have been accepted as legitimate targets in the past. In World War II the Allies leveled entire cities in attempts to destroy enemy factories. There is little doubt the Allies would have done whatever it would take to go after German scientists involved in their atomic bomb project if they had believed it had a reasonable chance of success. One can argue the morality of such attacks, but it's hard to reconcile them as terrorism. Update: Welcome, Instapundit readers, and thanks to Glenn for the link. Don't forget to check out the main page while you're here. Posted at February 14, 2007 06:51 PM
Comment policyI apologize for only allowing authenticated commenters, but comment spam overwhelms the site if I don't use those measures to prevent it. I reserve the right to delete any comment, although generally comments will only be deleted due to use of profanity or personal attacks on people. I have no objection to vigorous argument, but when name-calling begins, I'm putting a stop to it. In the immortal words of Eugene Levy, "People, people, let's stop this before somebody says something untrue!" If you want to call people names, I recommend you get your own blog. Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsRecall that during WW2, the US was prepared to asssasinate German nuclear scientist Werner Heisenberg if they decided he was on track to developing a nuclear bomb. See. e.g., mid-90's book The Catcher was a Spy, about the agent Moe Berg, who had the order. Posted by: SlugABug "Strikes at enemy leaders or civilians directly involved in the war effort have been accepted as legitimate targets in the past." When we were in a declared war. A government that kills civilians and scientists, of another country when the two countries are not at war, is engaged in _state terrorism_. The terrorism you describe in the second paragraph is what has been called "retail terrorism". States take the position that if governments do it, it's not terrorism. I'd think someone of your libertarian leanings wouldn't agree. Posted by: Nell OK, I'll concede that I was assuming we would not take such actions in the absence of a state of war. Where were you when this item was hot yesterday? :) Posted by: Andrew Post a commentThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |
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