Terrorist
Terrorist – least u forget.
Today the word terrorist has for some governments a specific yet increasingly an expanded generic meaning that assumes the use of the word is understood sufficiently well to enable a body of laws to be drafted that can be used against the indefinite those, they or it. It in this case is taken to be anything associated to terrorist and is a word that represents a person as perhaps part of a group that attempts to actually inflict fear, damage, threats and death on another, group or elements of a society that may or may not be representative of an overall social structure. Such actions are not aimed at specific individuals. The word terrorist, in English dictionary terms, means somebody who uses violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and intimidation to assassination, often for political purposes. In November 2004, a UN panel described terrorism as any act: "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any acts”.
With the above definitions elaborated one can see that if one person pursues some consistent similar treatment onto another individual, they would be possibly undertaking criminal acts but not necessarily be labeled as terrorist even though the actions would cause personal terrorism. So ultimately the terrorism definition is a political interpretation that can be made elastic to suit the needs of the state. It is the resulting actions that are actually implicit in the term and what actions that stems from it that is the fundamental notable description of it that should be taken into account, not just for the simple expedience of applying the term loosely to any person or active situation based on whatever a state deems it to mean.
The applied descriptions under the generic term terrorism, is one that has now become elastic and is applied by any controlling power that defines others with the term in the expectation that close public scrutiny of the actual nature of the ‘terrorist’ who they are and the motives of the ‘terrorist’ will be avoided. It is enough to label the motives, person or actions as terrorist to gain sympathetic non critical application of force used against it. It is difficult to use actual force against organised terrorism successfully although a bit of state torture against individual seems crudely acceptable; the use of constructed new laws is the face of the practical way of tackling potential terrorist actions. The unfortunate consequence of such laws is that they impinge on all individuals innocent or not and although such laws may be initially accepted, they invariably lead to the miss appropriation of power eventually sliding into oppression. The application of draconian laws now are such that anyone who may view the use of such power as perverted or unnecessary, especially when used or quoted out of context and seek to oppose them are now at risk of being attacked with a terrorist ‘sympathiser’ tag for reasons that the controlling power see such opposition as a threat to its influence and existence.
As may be expected the use of the term terrorist if looked at in appeasement conditions might also be substitute for other descriptive terms like freedom fighter, resistance fighter, dissident, combatant, insurgent, rebel, hero, trouble maker etc. But to understand the word fully and to appreciate the increasing danger in its current value requires a broader appreciation of what it is and it has to be placed in some form of context. This does not mean that one has to agree with the acts of terrorism or the cause in whatever name it is carried out, only that the context on which the term is placed can change and one must be wary of accepting what is described as terrorism as an inviolate fact. This is particular importance if the term is applied by the controlling state power.
Consider a non-democratic country that has law and order, stability and freedom within the constraints applied by the controlling body but no ‘free’ open people representation or opposition. It may have all the civility that a democratic one has and functions well enough to maintain peace with no excessive overt oppression. This may be a stable situation that is tacitly supported by the people. Yet it may have a small element in it that wants more freedom to effect people representation i.e. democracy. With there being no ‘lawful’ way of bringing into existence a change, they resort to demonstrations against the ruling power which no doubt will be rebuffed by force, violence’s may ensue and is resisted leading to actions that escalate. Internally some may support the opposition’s view that supports the call for democratisation in a forceful way and probably the ruling power would call this forceful action against them as terrorism as only it has the ‘legitimacy’ of power. However external observers for whatever reason may call the agitators and their actions acts of resistance or freedom fighting. So due to the variety of interpretation that is dependant on a view point, one must beware of the indiscriminate use of the term terrorist.
As examples consider the role played in the past by such notable persons as:-
William Wilberforce 1759-1813, Eleanor Rathbone1872-1946; Emmeline Pankhurst 1858- 1928, Bertrand AW Russell 1872 -1970, Arthur Scargill 1938 -? Or Walter Wolfgang ejected from the LP conference hall after shouting "nonsense" as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended Iraq policy. Police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang's re-entry, he was not arrested. And the recent foolish Samina Malik the "Lyrical Terrorist" who has become the first woman in the UK to be convicted under the Terrorism Act and found guilty at the Old Bailey of owning terrorist manuals. These people could have or would all have been the purported terrorist with weapons of words, miss-guided deeds but no hard wear. As apposed to: Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965, Nelson Mandela 1918-? Martin McGuiness, Jerry Adams, Ian Paisley, Robert Mugabe 1924 - ? have all the in their own part been complicit instrument of terrorist. Even looking at the USA which does not have the intention of adopting the terms similar to the UK extensive terrorism act, some of its notable names would be suspects like John Paul Jones 1747-1792, John Brown 1800-1859, General Custer 1839-1876, and Martin Luther King -1929-1968. And not forgetting their friends Iraq’s Sadam Hussian 1937-2006, Israel’s Menacham W. Begin 1913-1992, Ariel Sharon 1928 -?, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf 1943 -?. These may have all been labelled terrorist if the political expediency was not reinforced by self interest of the state driven by the need to hold onto supremacy and following the operating perspective of the time.
Therefore it is well to remember the aphorism "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So one can sometimes say of terrorist, yes they may be terrorist but they are on our side.
In some way the use of the term terrorist has to be subscribed to acts of any form in any situation that is designed to specifically attack the non-influential people and such acts will generally have very little direct consequences on the machinery of state. In all situations where attacks are made on powerless resources, such an approach will always fail to effect a change in state direction as the incidents are usually of sporadic and limited usefulness and are not of a large enough nature to drive a population to reproach the state or demand a change. All that happens in this case is that state machinery will enact defensive measures that protect itself against all. If however it can be shown that the machinery of state is self serving, corrupt, unresponsive to ‘legitimate‘ expressions of required fairness or even democracy, than it may be possible to effect a change by targeting the state machinery itself thereby gaining popular support for disruptive actions?
Terror succeeds when even if it does not bring an immediate collapse of a target to effect a substantial change. It can be enough just to have the culture that is under ‘attack’ enact extensive and disproportionate measures to ‘defend’ itself with control measure that ultimately affect the populations freedom in a variety of small ways. Such is the insidious nature of a reflexive response to tackle terror that actions are difficult in implementation to be specifically aimed at a named terrorist resulting in a broad brush scatter gun stance being taken. This is what has occurred in four prime occasions 1- the blocking off of Downing Street to public access by gates, 2- banning demonstration in parliament square, 3- stopping and baring suspected picketers on the open highway during the miners strike, 4- banning ‘subversive’ demonstration within sight or sound of any place dictated by police. The use of enacted laws are over time conveniently morphed and are absorbed for their usefulness by corporate bodies as has happened with the FOI act and data protection act. In addition there is great danger for any part of the corporate establishment to call on police power supported by quoting potential terrorism acts to quell any form of dissent as has been used recently by the fuel embargo and BAA and of course there is the forceful and non voluntary imposition of ID cards.
Any modern society that professes to adhere to democracy should be extremely aware of the dangers inherent in reactions against so called terrorist that override the state of democracy not supported by the people. Any form of protest, legitimate or not subscribed by the power of the state; will ultimately be at acute risk of losing both freedom of expression, rights to object or appose anything that the state does not want to pay attention too.
In the long term terrorist of any description will win some special consideration simple by the default reactions of states in that they will use powers that over time over ride democratic principles, disenfranchise their own people who will turn away from involvement with democracy process and in some less stable states by neglect allow dictatorship and extremism to move in. Eventually this will lead to the downfall by fragmentation of the structures of statehood.
As of now there are 46 international terrorist organisations that are proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 of these, 2 organisations are proscribed under powers introduced in the Terrorism Act 2006, as glorifying terrorism and 14 organisations in Northern Ireland are proscribed under previous legislation. With the exception of the IRA most of the general public will have never heard of or been directly affected by any of the mentioned proscribed and in that there is a very important point.
The IRA were better organised, better resourced, had better access and were right on GB’s doorstep. They did much more damaged over a longer period of time than the bogy al quida, yet their actions did not call for the power that the Terrorism act now has or to seek with 28/48 days pre charge custody interment.
During the era of the Troubles there was one major difference between state action towards terrorist then (not named as such until after 9/11) and The Terrorist now and that was the official and unofficial lines of communication that provided a flow of mitigating communication between the apposing forces that had controlling direction. Providing the cut and thrust of conflict was manageable by dialogue and forceful action was absorbable there was no need for fortress actions. This began to progressively change notably in the UK with the attacks of Warrenpoint, Mountbatten-Sligo Bay, Manchester City, Tory Brighton conference attack and Omaha bomb. The subsequent 9/11 and London bombings were the opportune key points to allow the progressive anti terrorism laws to flourish with very little real scrutiny or opposition. Up to this point the usa were ambivalent to The Troubles and elements of the USA, keen supporters of the actions of such freedom fighters, soon re-assessed their allegiance particularly when exposed to the violent actions of their own indiscriminate discontents. Now by dint of hard work trust and achievable ends only possible with peace, The Troubles can be laid to rest, yet it has happened without the resorting to the new draconian terrorist powers.
For those that care to examine the history of ID cards, sedition and terrorist law, may well find that the current rush to improve and harden state defences against terrorism has little to do with the recent terrorist activities and more to do with controlling its population in times of stress and dubious immigration.
However now we have a created ‘war on terror’, one that by any assessment cannot be won, and it can only be toughed out for there is no method to mediate with the newly formed divergent non specific terrorist. This is the major weakness for any state that now resorts to the blunt instrument of unsubstantiated expanding powers that will impact on any ‘law abiding’ objectionable citizens and is consequently a strength given over to any nascent threats. In addition the created amorphous nature of naming terrorism has become a PR strap line and allows many different influences to hide within its description, it has to be redefined to clarify the acts to a purpose and a belief system which can be dissected and examined for relevance or countered with systemic activities.
At this present time democracy is too good to loose but too fragile to continue, it is being eroded by the possessiveness of the created war on terrorism which for most people is seen as an external foreign element. However it is the insidious internal terrorism which is the most pervasive and harmful which stems from increasing numbers of feral children that have no self control, respect, obligation or stake in society; yet laws of any description do not have a controlling influence on them and they know it.
It is said that the innocent have nothing to fear from the imposition of the expansive terrorist laws or the imposition of the ID cards, on the contrary they have the most to fear due to what freedoms they loose in little increment steps and the terrorist, foreign or home grown, do not care.
Since the incidents of Iraq, 9/11, and London are seen as the prime movers in adopting the war on terror squeezing plan, it is unfortunate that the terrorist are not all where they are supposed to be. As an aside it is interesting to note that the governments now are re writing the past regarding the described terms of the war on Iraq. Solders are no longer involved in a war but are now are and have always been on a “peacekeeping mission”. A peacekeeping mission might have been a label throughout the Northern Ireland troubles, it might apply to Afghanistan but the label does not apply to what has been inflicted on Iraq and spilling out.
Government progress towards unintended consequences are slowly making terrorist of all.
P21.12.07
© Renot 2008.
Today the word terrorist has for some governments a specific yet increasingly an expanded generic meaning that assumes the use of the word is understood sufficiently well to enable a body of laws to be drafted that can be used against the indefinite those, they or it. It in this case is taken to be anything associated to terrorist and is a word that represents a person as perhaps part of a group that attempts to actually inflict fear, damage, threats and death on another, group or elements of a society that may or may not be representative of an overall social structure. Such actions are not aimed at specific individuals. The word terrorist, in English dictionary terms, means somebody who uses violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and intimidation to assassination, often for political purposes. In November 2004, a UN panel described terrorism as any act: "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any acts”.
With the above definitions elaborated one can see that if one person pursues some consistent similar treatment onto another individual, they would be possibly undertaking criminal acts but not necessarily be labeled as terrorist even though the actions would cause personal terrorism. So ultimately the terrorism definition is a political interpretation that can be made elastic to suit the needs of the state. It is the resulting actions that are actually implicit in the term and what actions that stems from it that is the fundamental notable description of it that should be taken into account, not just for the simple expedience of applying the term loosely to any person or active situation based on whatever a state deems it to mean.
The applied descriptions under the generic term terrorism, is one that has now become elastic and is applied by any controlling power that defines others with the term in the expectation that close public scrutiny of the actual nature of the ‘terrorist’ who they are and the motives of the ‘terrorist’ will be avoided. It is enough to label the motives, person or actions as terrorist to gain sympathetic non critical application of force used against it. It is difficult to use actual force against organised terrorism successfully although a bit of state torture against individual seems crudely acceptable; the use of constructed new laws is the face of the practical way of tackling potential terrorist actions. The unfortunate consequence of such laws is that they impinge on all individuals innocent or not and although such laws may be initially accepted, they invariably lead to the miss appropriation of power eventually sliding into oppression. The application of draconian laws now are such that anyone who may view the use of such power as perverted or unnecessary, especially when used or quoted out of context and seek to oppose them are now at risk of being attacked with a terrorist ‘sympathiser’ tag for reasons that the controlling power see such opposition as a threat to its influence and existence.
As may be expected the use of the term terrorist if looked at in appeasement conditions might also be substitute for other descriptive terms like freedom fighter, resistance fighter, dissident, combatant, insurgent, rebel, hero, trouble maker etc. But to understand the word fully and to appreciate the increasing danger in its current value requires a broader appreciation of what it is and it has to be placed in some form of context. This does not mean that one has to agree with the acts of terrorism or the cause in whatever name it is carried out, only that the context on which the term is placed can change and one must be wary of accepting what is described as terrorism as an inviolate fact. This is particular importance if the term is applied by the controlling state power.
Consider a non-democratic country that has law and order, stability and freedom within the constraints applied by the controlling body but no ‘free’ open people representation or opposition. It may have all the civility that a democratic one has and functions well enough to maintain peace with no excessive overt oppression. This may be a stable situation that is tacitly supported by the people. Yet it may have a small element in it that wants more freedom to effect people representation i.e. democracy. With there being no ‘lawful’ way of bringing into existence a change, they resort to demonstrations against the ruling power which no doubt will be rebuffed by force, violence’s may ensue and is resisted leading to actions that escalate. Internally some may support the opposition’s view that supports the call for democratisation in a forceful way and probably the ruling power would call this forceful action against them as terrorism as only it has the ‘legitimacy’ of power. However external observers for whatever reason may call the agitators and their actions acts of resistance or freedom fighting. So due to the variety of interpretation that is dependant on a view point, one must beware of the indiscriminate use of the term terrorist.
As examples consider the role played in the past by such notable persons as:-
William Wilberforce 1759-1813, Eleanor Rathbone1872-1946; Emmeline Pankhurst 1858- 1928, Bertrand AW Russell 1872 -1970, Arthur Scargill 1938 -? Or Walter Wolfgang ejected from the LP conference hall after shouting "nonsense" as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended Iraq policy. Police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang's re-entry, he was not arrested. And the recent foolish Samina Malik the "Lyrical Terrorist" who has become the first woman in the UK to be convicted under the Terrorism Act and found guilty at the Old Bailey of owning terrorist manuals. These people could have or would all have been the purported terrorist with weapons of words, miss-guided deeds but no hard wear. As apposed to: Winston Churchill 1874 – 1965, Nelson Mandela 1918-? Martin McGuiness, Jerry Adams, Ian Paisley, Robert Mugabe 1924 - ? have all the in their own part been complicit instrument of terrorist. Even looking at the USA which does not have the intention of adopting the terms similar to the UK extensive terrorism act, some of its notable names would be suspects like John Paul Jones 1747-1792, John Brown 1800-1859, General Custer 1839-1876, and Martin Luther King -1929-1968. And not forgetting their friends Iraq’s Sadam Hussian 1937-2006, Israel’s Menacham W. Begin 1913-1992, Ariel Sharon 1928 -?, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf 1943 -?. These may have all been labelled terrorist if the political expediency was not reinforced by self interest of the state driven by the need to hold onto supremacy and following the operating perspective of the time.
Therefore it is well to remember the aphorism "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. So one can sometimes say of terrorist, yes they may be terrorist but they are on our side.
In some way the use of the term terrorist has to be subscribed to acts of any form in any situation that is designed to specifically attack the non-influential people and such acts will generally have very little direct consequences on the machinery of state. In all situations where attacks are made on powerless resources, such an approach will always fail to effect a change in state direction as the incidents are usually of sporadic and limited usefulness and are not of a large enough nature to drive a population to reproach the state or demand a change. All that happens in this case is that state machinery will enact defensive measures that protect itself against all. If however it can be shown that the machinery of state is self serving, corrupt, unresponsive to ‘legitimate‘ expressions of required fairness or even democracy, than it may be possible to effect a change by targeting the state machinery itself thereby gaining popular support for disruptive actions?
Terror succeeds when even if it does not bring an immediate collapse of a target to effect a substantial change. It can be enough just to have the culture that is under ‘attack’ enact extensive and disproportionate measures to ‘defend’ itself with control measure that ultimately affect the populations freedom in a variety of small ways. Such is the insidious nature of a reflexive response to tackle terror that actions are difficult in implementation to be specifically aimed at a named terrorist resulting in a broad brush scatter gun stance being taken. This is what has occurred in four prime occasions 1- the blocking off of Downing Street to public access by gates, 2- banning demonstration in parliament square, 3- stopping and baring suspected picketers on the open highway during the miners strike, 4- banning ‘subversive’ demonstration within sight or sound of any place dictated by police. The use of enacted laws are over time conveniently morphed and are absorbed for their usefulness by corporate bodies as has happened with the FOI act and data protection act. In addition there is great danger for any part of the corporate establishment to call on police power supported by quoting potential terrorism acts to quell any form of dissent as has been used recently by the fuel embargo and BAA and of course there is the forceful and non voluntary imposition of ID cards.
Any modern society that professes to adhere to democracy should be extremely aware of the dangers inherent in reactions against so called terrorist that override the state of democracy not supported by the people. Any form of protest, legitimate or not subscribed by the power of the state; will ultimately be at acute risk of losing both freedom of expression, rights to object or appose anything that the state does not want to pay attention too.
In the long term terrorist of any description will win some special consideration simple by the default reactions of states in that they will use powers that over time over ride democratic principles, disenfranchise their own people who will turn away from involvement with democracy process and in some less stable states by neglect allow dictatorship and extremism to move in. Eventually this will lead to the downfall by fragmentation of the structures of statehood.
As of now there are 46 international terrorist organisations that are proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 of these, 2 organisations are proscribed under powers introduced in the Terrorism Act 2006, as glorifying terrorism and 14 organisations in Northern Ireland are proscribed under previous legislation. With the exception of the IRA most of the general public will have never heard of or been directly affected by any of the mentioned proscribed and in that there is a very important point.
The IRA were better organised, better resourced, had better access and were right on GB’s doorstep. They did much more damaged over a longer period of time than the bogy al quida, yet their actions did not call for the power that the Terrorism act now has or to seek with 28/48 days pre charge custody interment.
During the era of the Troubles there was one major difference between state action towards terrorist then (not named as such until after 9/11) and The Terrorist now and that was the official and unofficial lines of communication that provided a flow of mitigating communication between the apposing forces that had controlling direction. Providing the cut and thrust of conflict was manageable by dialogue and forceful action was absorbable there was no need for fortress actions. This began to progressively change notably in the UK with the attacks of Warrenpoint, Mountbatten-Sligo Bay, Manchester City, Tory Brighton conference attack and Omaha bomb. The subsequent 9/11 and London bombings were the opportune key points to allow the progressive anti terrorism laws to flourish with very little real scrutiny or opposition. Up to this point the usa were ambivalent to The Troubles and elements of the USA, keen supporters of the actions of such freedom fighters, soon re-assessed their allegiance particularly when exposed to the violent actions of their own indiscriminate discontents. Now by dint of hard work trust and achievable ends only possible with peace, The Troubles can be laid to rest, yet it has happened without the resorting to the new draconian terrorist powers.
For those that care to examine the history of ID cards, sedition and terrorist law, may well find that the current rush to improve and harden state defences against terrorism has little to do with the recent terrorist activities and more to do with controlling its population in times of stress and dubious immigration.
However now we have a created ‘war on terror’, one that by any assessment cannot be won, and it can only be toughed out for there is no method to mediate with the newly formed divergent non specific terrorist. This is the major weakness for any state that now resorts to the blunt instrument of unsubstantiated expanding powers that will impact on any ‘law abiding’ objectionable citizens and is consequently a strength given over to any nascent threats. In addition the created amorphous nature of naming terrorism has become a PR strap line and allows many different influences to hide within its description, it has to be redefined to clarify the acts to a purpose and a belief system which can be dissected and examined for relevance or countered with systemic activities.
At this present time democracy is too good to loose but too fragile to continue, it is being eroded by the possessiveness of the created war on terrorism which for most people is seen as an external foreign element. However it is the insidious internal terrorism which is the most pervasive and harmful which stems from increasing numbers of feral children that have no self control, respect, obligation or stake in society; yet laws of any description do not have a controlling influence on them and they know it.
It is said that the innocent have nothing to fear from the imposition of the expansive terrorist laws or the imposition of the ID cards, on the contrary they have the most to fear due to what freedoms they loose in little increment steps and the terrorist, foreign or home grown, do not care.
Since the incidents of Iraq, 9/11, and London are seen as the prime movers in adopting the war on terror squeezing plan, it is unfortunate that the terrorist are not all where they are supposed to be. As an aside it is interesting to note that the governments now are re writing the past regarding the described terms of the war on Iraq. Solders are no longer involved in a war but are now are and have always been on a “peacekeeping mission”. A peacekeeping mission might have been a label throughout the Northern Ireland troubles, it might apply to Afghanistan but the label does not apply to what has been inflicted on Iraq and spilling out.
Government progress towards unintended consequences are slowly making terrorist of all.
P21.12.07
© Renot 2008.
posted by Renot at 4:10 am
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