War and Terrorism: Categories & Contradictions

For those of you who are interested, my last paper of the semester: A short reaction (though not a short blog post) to Talal Asad's book, On Suicide Bombing. 

In the United States, particularly since September 11, 2001, we are accustomed to the rhetoric associated with terrorism.  We know that terrorism—and the terrorist—is evil, irrational, and mean-spirited; yet, we can wage a ‘war’ on terror that does not evoke the same emotions, but instead represents courage, moral fortitude, and liberation.  Good and evil, light and dark, civilized and uncivilized, moral and immoral, legitimate and illegitimate, humane and inhumane—the simple use of the word ‘terrorism’, and we know immediately in which category the action belongs.  In his book On Suicide Bombing, Talal Asad challenges us to step back, drop the labels, and honestly examine what we call ‘war’ and ‘terrorism’ before categorizing them.  Upon doing so, we find that  “however much we try to distinguish between morally good and morally evil ways of killing, our attempts are beset with contradictions” (p. 2).  All our rationalized classifications seem woefully arbitrary.

The first way we denounce terrorism is by labeling it an illegitimate use of violence.  According to Max Weber, the state claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force.[1]  States can wage war (within certain parameters) without incurring an international backlash.  But terrorists, as non-state actors, have no claim whatsoever to a legitimate use of violence.  Because they are not acting on behalf of a state or an army, their actions are automatically denounced.  Asad references Michael Walzer to describe this phenomenon: “What Walzer condemns in war is excess and in terrorism its essence.  States kill, too, of course, although they claim to kill only legitimately” (p. 16). This categorization of legitimate and illegitimate becomes problematic in the case of the Israel/Palestine conflict.  As Asad articulates, though both sides have grievances, Israel, as a state, is the only party who can legitimately use violence or wage war, while Palestinian violent actions are automatically classified as terrorism.  Caught in an infuriating Catch 22, Palestine, in its attempt to gain statehood, has no legitimate recourse for the use of violence because it is not a state.  “So war is a legally sanctioned concept, and the hateful killing perpetrated by unlicensed militants is not” (p. 25).     

But if violence is to be legitimized at all, why should the state have the monopoly?  Why is war not denounced as vehemently as terrorism?  Are states somehow more discerning, more moral, or more responsible with their power than non-state actors? Some would indeed say yes, but Asad acutely observes that “modern states are able to destroy and disrupt life more easily and on a much grander scale than ever before and… terrorists cannot reach this capability” (p. 4).  War has certainly been more destructive and taken more lives, military and civilian, than terrorism; yet, the idea of large-scale killing in war is much more amenable to us than the idea of suicide bombing.  Why is this so?  Is the categorization of one as legitimate and the other as illegitimate not fairly arbitrary?

Another distinction made between war and terrorism is that terrorism is brutal and inhumane, while war is conducted ‘humanely’.  War has rules; therefore, it is more palatable to us.  Asad quotes John Keegan stating that, “moral inhibitions… served to restrain deliberate barbarities of design” (p. 61) in war, but that our concept of reprehensible weapons has been eroding.  Guns, tanks and air raids are humane; landmines, cluster bombs, and nuclear weapons are questionable; chemical and biological weapons and suicide bombings are inhumane.  But how long will even these loose classifications hold?  If the line between humane and inhumane ways of killing is so fluid, how is it determined?  Who determines it?  And how is it we have come to accept any method of killing another human ‘morally good’?  Asad attributes this to “the ingenuity of liberal discourse in rendering inhuman acts humane” (p. 38).  If we take a step back and look at these ridiculous lines we have drawn, do they really make any sense, or are they full of contradictions?  A suicide bombing may indeed be inhumane, but is dropping a bomb from a military plane any more humane?

It is easier for us to accept war while denouncing terrorism when we categorize terrorists as ‘uncivilized’.  If terrorists are uncivilized, we do not need to understand them or consider that there may be logic behind their actions.  “Suicide bombing is terrorism and… as terrorism, it is an evil in need not of analysis and understanding but of moral condemnation and firm practical response” (Asad referencing Walzer, p. 22).  The civilized (Westerners), however, have a moral advantage in the performance of violence. “People at all times have, of course, justified the killing of so-called enemies and others they deem not deserving to live.  The only difference is that today liberals who engage in this justification think they are different because morally advanced” (p. 4).  The civilized may kill, but it is assumed their motives are more pure; they play by ‘the rules.’  And if you kill according to the rules (the rules you have established), the act of killing is less reprehensible.  Therefore, war becomes “a collectively organized, legitimized, and moralized game of destruction that is played much more savagely by the civilized than the uncivilized” (p. 53).  And no matter how savagely you play the game, you will never be as ‘savage’ as the uncivilized who do not play by the rules, or do not play your game at all.

Asad uses the military bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War Two as an example of moral advantage given to the civilized.  During these bombings, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and terrified.  Yet, this violence is generally categorized as neither illegitimate, inhumane, nor uncivilized.  Why?  Because the military commander’s, but not the terrorist’s, conscience is taken into account.  It is assumed the military commander was only doing what was necessary, which makes the bombings unfortunate, but not evil.  The terrorist’s conscience, on the other hand—no matter how clean it may be or how necessary he felt his actions were—is of “no significance in the categorization of his action” (p. 26). 

We also operate on the assumption that militaries do not target civilians as terrorists do.  However, Asad points out that the new doctrine of striving for zero military losses, coupled with the bombing of ‘dual-use’ targets such as electrical power plants, results in more enemy civilian deaths.  Civilians die en masse, but they are not technically targeted (even though undoubtedly, military commanders know their actions will result in these deaths); therefore, militaries and soldiers are absolved on the basis of motive.  “Motive becomes crucial to the distinction between collateral damage and war crimes” (p. 36).  Another important distinction is that civilians who die at the hands of terrorists are often Westerners, while civilians who die at the hands of Western armies are often the poor.  The sad fact of the matter is that in the West, we value the lives of the affluent more than the lives of the poor (p. 94), and are especially indignant when the civilized die at the hands of the uncivilized.

These dichotomous categorizations are carried through to the way captured terrorists are treated while detained.  Because they are uncivilized and their actions are illegitimate and inhumane, they become part of what Asad refers to as the “torturable class” (p. 33).  Torture, though denounced clearly by the Geneva Convention and human rights law, can be used against terrorists because they do not play by the rules.  International law applies to Prisoners of War (enemy combatants who play by our rules), but “since uncivilized opponents do not abide by international law, they cannot be protected by it” (p. 35). 

Certainly the horror evoked by terrorism generally, and suicide bombing specifically, is warranted.  What is disturbing is that “there is no general sense of horror… at the numerous atrocities committed or condoned by democratic governments” (p. 34).  We have framed war and terrorism as mutually exclusive, but evidence shows that our categorizations are full of contradictions.  Legitimate and illegitimate; humane and inhumane; civilized and uncivilized; torturable and nontorturable.  These classifications are, in the end, arbitrary social constructions.  Instead of thinking critically about all forms of violence perpetrated, we hear a word (‘terrorism’) and categorize automatically.  The great sorrow in this conditioning is not that terrorism as such is denounced, but that the legitimacy of war—with all its destruction, horrors, and atrocities—goes largely unquestioned in mainstream liberal discourse.  For peacemakers, countering this acceptance of war is a much greater challenge than ‘fighting’ terrorism.  In this respect, Talal Asad does a great service to the peacemaker community by challenging his readers to acknowledge the contradictions in their categories, and to move beyond labels toward a more holistic and honest view of violence in all forms.

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[1] Weber, M. (2002). Politics as a Vocation. In C. Besteman (Ed.), Violence: A Reader (pp. 13-18). Washington Square, New York: New York University Press.