Some notes on terrorism

Genosphere

1795, in specific sense of "government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France" (1793-July 1794), from Fr. terrorisme (1798), from L. terror (see terror).

"If the basis of a popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror -- virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent." [Robespierre, speech in Fr. National Convention, 1794]

General sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" is first recorded in Eng. 1798. Terrorize "coerce or deter by terror" first recorded 1823. Terrorist in the modern sense dates to 1947, especially in reference to Jewish tactics against the British in Palestine -- earlier it was used of extremist revolutionaries in Russia (1866); and Jacobins during the French Revolution (1795) -- from Fr. terroriste. The tendency of one party's terrorist to be another's guerilla or freedom fighter was noted in ref. to the British action in Cyprus (1956) and the war in Rhodesia (1973). The word terrorist has been applied, at least retroactively, to the Maquis resistance in occupied France in World War II (e.g. in the "Spectator," Oct. 20, 1979).

Pronunciation: 'ter-&r, 'te-r&r

- ter·ror·less /-l&s/ adjective

"Terrorism"

01/01/2003 GMT

Terrorism is the unconventional use of violence for political gain. It is a strategy of using coordinated attacks that fall outside the laws of war commonly understood to represent the bounds of conventional warfare.

"Terrorist attacks" are usually characterized as "indiscriminate," "targeting of civilians," or executed "with disregard" for human life. The term "terrorism" is often used to assert that the political violence of an enemy is immoral, wanton, and unjustified. According to definition of terrorism typically used by states, academics, counter-terrorism experts, and non-governmental organizations, "terrorists" are actors who don't belong to any recognized armed forces and who don't adhere to their rules, and who are therefore regarded as "rogue actors".

Etymology

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terror, from terrEre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid, flee, tremein to tremble -- more at TREMBLE

1 : a state of intense fear

2 a : one that inspires fear : SCOURGE b : a frightening aspect <the terrors of invasion> c : a cause of anxiety : WORRY d : an appalling person or thing; especially : BRAT

4 : violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands <insurrection and revolutionary terror>

The term "terrorism" comes from the French word terrorisme, which is based on the Latin language verbs terrere (to frighten) and deterrere (to frighten from). It dates to 1795 when it was used to describe the actions of the Jacobin Club in their rule of Revolutionary France, during the so-called "Reign of Terror". Jacobins are rumored to have coined the term "terrorists" to refer to themselves. Acts described as Jacobin Club "terrorisme" were mostly cases of arrest and execution of opponents as a mean of frightening the "enemies of the Revolution

synonym see FEAR

3 : REIGN OF TERROR

Although the term is often used imprecisely, there have been many attempts by various law enforcement agencies and public organizations to develop more precise working definitions of terrorism

The United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention has proposed a short legal definition —that "[an act of "terrorism"is] the peacetime equivalent of a war crime." A U.S. court found that "the malice associated with "terrorist attacks" transcends even that of premeditated murder."

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terror, from terrEre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid, flee, tremein to tremble -- more at TREMBLE

1 : a state of intense fear

2 a : one that inspires fear : SCOURGE b : a frightening aspect <the terrors of invasion> c : a cause of anxiety : WORRY d : an appalling person or thing; especially : BRAT

3 : REIGN OF TERROR

4 : violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands <insurrection and revolutionary terror>

synonym see FEAR

Official definitions of "terrorism" tend to be relativist, because views toward particular acts of political violence are often only subjective, and rarely aim to objectivity. For example, according to the United States Department of Defense, "terrorism"is:

"the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."

This definition is vague because it relies on unclear terms which are left to interpretation —terms such as "unlawful violence," "intended to coerce or intimidate," "the pursuit of goals..." all can easily be applied to violent actions by state actors, though the above definition suggests such can be "lawful."

Like all political ideas, the meaning of the term "terrorism" has evolved in response to circumstances. The words "terrorism" and "terror" originally referred to methods employed by regimes to control their own populations through fear, a tactic seen in totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. As well at it was used by those regimes to qualify resistance movements.

In response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, political leaders from Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East have placed the phenomenon of "terrorism" within the context of a global struggle against systems of government perceived by those accused of using "terrorist" tactics as harmful to their interests. The European Union includes in its 2004 definition of "terrorism" the aim of "destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country."

Causes

Theories on the causes of terrorism include:

Sociological explanations, which focus on the position of the perpetrators in society

Conflict theory which examines their relationship to those in power

Ideological explanations, which focus on the differences in ideology, and the different goals of the ideologies

Media theory explanations, which treat "terror" acts as a form of communication.

Separatism

During much of the 20th century, the term "terrorism" was primarily applied to nationalist movements of various types. Most of them were separatist movements, seeking to create a new independent nation-state on the territory of a larger, existing state. There were also some cases of non-state irredentist violence, seeking to annex territory. Classic counter-terrorist operations were a feature of the decolonization in Africa and the Middle East.

Perpetrators

Acts of "terrorism" can be carried out by individuals or groups. According to some definitions, clandestine or semi-clandestine state actors may also carry out attacks outside the framework of a state of war. The most common image of "terrorism" is that it is carried out by small and secretive cells, highly motivated to serve a particular cause. However, some acts have been committed by individuals acting alone, while others are alleged to have had the backing of established states. Over the years, many people have attempted to come up with a "terrorist" profile to attempt to explain these individuals' actions through their psychology and social circumstances.

Responses to terrorism

Responses to "terrorism" are broad in scope. They can include re-alignments of the political spectrum and reassessments of fundamental values. The term counter-"terrorism" has a narrower connotation, implying that it is directed at terrorist actors.

Military intervention

"Terrorism" has often been used to justify military intervention in countries where suspects could be found. That was the false justification used for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and one reason for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It was also a stated justification for the second Russian invasion of Chechnya.

Source: wikipedia.org

First rate source: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/conferences/covar/Program/novotny.pdf

A fresh demonstration.

Title

Text demonstration.

The Best is None to Good

This issue has to do with hard-to-find or underpublished books.

In A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut writes: (page 99)

"snatchers. Sometimes I wish it [our country] had been. What
has happened instead is that it [our country] was taken over
by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone
Cops-style coup d'etat imaginable.

"I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really
scary reality TV show. I have one reality show
that would really make your hair stand on end:
“C-Students from Yale."

"George W. Bush has gathered around him
upper-crust C-students who know no history or
geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists,
aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly,
psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical
term for smart, personable people who have no
conscIences.

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly
respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has
appendicitis or athlete's foot. The classic medical
text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey
Cleckley, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the
Medical College of Georgia, and published in
1941. Read it!"

Yea verily! To spare yourself the effort of trying to find a copy online, or of trying to buy a used copy, simply enter the author’s name and the title in Google. The first hit up offers a PDF free of charge. One need only download it onto one’s desktop, to be read at leisure. Or, if one has a spare ream of paper and a loose-leaf binder one can print one’s own copy (485 pp) at considerably less cost than a purchase at the posted Amazon price.


If one treasures one’s own sanity, Vonnegut’s 145 pages of readable type will help in hanging on to it.

Quick mentions: Why? What happens when people give reasons. . .and why .by Charles Tilly. Malcolm Gladwell kicked this into view in “The New Yorker,” but it languishes still and may be missed by people who might regret having missed it. Then there is On Apology by Aaron Lazare. “Publisher’s Weekly” says (Starred review.) “Everybody on earth could benefit from this small but essential book.” Seconded and passed.

Lawrence of Arabia: Patience Saves Lives and Limbs. (Not perfect, but beats shock and awe.)


APPENDIX IV

Twenty-Seven Articles*
by T. E. Lawrence, August 1917

The following notes have been expressed in commandment form for greater clarity and to save words. They are, however, only my personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while I worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab armies. They are meant to apply only to Bedu: townspeople or Syrians require totally different treatment. They are of course not suitable to any other person's need, or applicable unchanged in any particular situation. Handling Hejaz Arabs is an art, not a science, with exceptions and no obvious rules. At the same time we have a great chance there: the Sherif trusts us, and has given us the position (towards his Government) which the Germans wanted to win in Turkey. If we are tactful we can at once retain his good will. and carry out our job - but to succeed we have got to put into it all the interest and energy and skill we possess.

1. Go easy just for the first few weeks. A bad start is difficult to atone for, and the Arabs form their judgements on externals that we ignore. When you have reached the inner circle in a tribe you can do as you please with yourself and them.

2. Learn all you can about your Ashraf and Bedu. Get to know their families, clans and tribes, friends and enemies, wells, hills and roads. Do all this by listening and by indirect enquiry. Do not ask questions. Get to speak their dialect of Arabic, not yours. Until you can understand their allusions avoid getting deep into conversation, or you will drop bricks. Be a little stiff at first.

3. In matters of business deal only with the commander of the army, column or party in which you serve. Never give orders to anyone at all, and reserve your directions or advice for the C.O., however great the temptation (for efficiency's sake) of dealing direct with his underlings. Your place is advisory, and your advice is due to the commander alone. Let him see that this is your conception of your duty, and that his is to be the sole executive of your joint plans.

4. Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Strengthen his prestige at your expense before others when you can. Never refuse or quash schemes he may put forward: but ensure that they are put forward in the first instance privately to you.

Always approve them, and after praise modify them insensibly, causing the suggestions to come from him, until they are in accord with your own opinion. When you attain this point, hold him to it, keep a tight grip of his ideas, and push him forward as firmly as possible, but secretly so that no one but himself (and he not too clearly) is aware of your pressure.

5. Remain in touch with your leader as constantly and unobtrusively as you can. Live with him, that at mealtimes and at audiences you may be naturally with him in his tent. Formal visits to give advice are not so good as the constant dropping of ideas in casual talk. When stranger sheikhs come in for the first time to swear allegiance and offer service, clear out of the tent. If their first impression is of foreigners in the confidence of the Sherif, it will do the Arab cause much harm.

6. Be shy of too close relations with the subordinates of the expedition. Continued intercourse with them will make it impossible for you to avoid going behind or beyond the instructions that the Arab C.O. has given them on your advice: and in so disclosing the weakness of his position you altogether destroy your own.

7. Treat the sub chiefs of your force quite easily and lightly. In this way you hold yourself above their level. Treat the leader, if a Sherif, with respect. He will return your manner, and you and he will then be alike, and above the rest. Precedence is a serious matter among the Arabs, and you must attain it.

8. Your ideal position is when you are present and not noticed. Do not be too intimate, too prominent, or too earnest. Avoid being identified too long or too often with any tribal sheikh, even if C.O. of the expedition. To do your work you must be above jealousies, and you lose prestige if you are associated with a tribe or clan, and its inevitable feuds. Sherifs are above all blood-feuds and local rivalries, and form the only principle of unity among the Arabs. Let your name therefore be coupled always with a Sherif's, and share his attitude towards the tribes. When the moment comes for action put yourself publicly under his orders. The Bedu will then follow suit.

9. Magnify and develop the growing conception of the Sherifs as the natural aristocracy of the Arabs. Inter-tribal jealousies make it impossible for any sheikh to attain a commanding position, and the only hope of union in nomad Arabia is that the Ashraf be universally acknowledged as the ruling class. Sherifs are half-townsmen, half-nomad, in manner and life, and have the instinct of command. Mere merit and money would be insufficient to obtain such recognition: but the Arab reverence for pedigree and the prophet gives hope for the ultimate success of the Ashraf.

10. Call your Sherif 'Sidi' in public and in private. Call other people by their ordinary names, without title. In intimate conversation call a Sheikh 'Abu Annad', 'Akhu Alia' or some similar by-name.

11. The foreigner and Christian is not a popular person in Arabia. However friendly and informal the treatment of yourself may be, remember always that your foundations are very sandy ones. Wave a Sherif in front of you like a banner, and hide your own mind and person. If you succeed you will have hundreds of miles of country and thousands of men under your orders, and for this it is worth bartering the outward show.

12. Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day. A dry irony is the most useful type, and repartees of a personal and not too broad character will double your influence with the chiefs. Reproof if wrapped up in some smiling form will carry further and last longer than the most violent speech. The power of mimicry or parody is valuable but use it sparingly for wit is more dignified than humour. Do not cause a laugh at a Sherif except amongst Sherifs.

13. Never lay hands on an Arab: you degrade yourself. You may think the resultant obvious increase of outward respect a gain to you: but what you have really done is to build a wall between you and their inner selves. It is difficult to keep quiet when everything is being done wrong, but the less you lose your temper the greater your advantage. Also then you will not go mad yourself.

14. While very difficult to drive, the Bedu are easy to lead, if you have the patience to bear with them. The less apparent your interferences the more your influence. They are willing to follow your advice and do what you wish, but they do not mean you or anyone else to be aware of that. It is only after the end of all annoyances that you find at bottom their real fund of good will.

15. Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as perhaps you think it is.

16. If you can, without being too lavish forestall presents to yourself. A well placed gift is often most effective in winning over a suspicious sheikh. Never receive a present without giving a liberal return, but you may delay this return (while letting its ultimate certainty be known) if you require a particular service from the giver. Do not let them ask you for things, since their greed will then make them look upon you only as a cow to milk.

17. Wear an Arab headcloth when with a tribe. Bedu have a malignant prejudice st the hat, and believe that our persistence in wearing it (due probably itish obstinacy of dictation) is founded on some immoral or irreligious iple. A thick headcloth forms a good protection against the sun, and if you wear a hat your best Arab friends will be ashamed of you in public.

18. Dlisguise is not advisable. Except in special areas let it be clearly known that you are a British officer and a Christian. At the same time if you can wear Arab kit when with the tribes you will acquire their trust and intimacy to a degree impossible in uniform. It is however dangerous and difficult. They make no allowances for you when you dress like them. Breaches of etiquette not charged against a foreigner are not condoned to you in Arab clothes. You will be like an actor in a foreign theatre, playing a part day and night for months, without rest, and for an anxious stake. Complete success, which is when the Arabs forget your strangeness and speak naturally before you, counting you one of themselves, is perhaps only attainable in character: while half success (all that most of us will strive for - the other costs too much) is easier to win in British :things; and you yourself will last longer, physically and mentally, in the comfort :they mean. Also then the Turks will not hang you when you're caught.

19. If you wear Arab things, wear the best. Clothes are significant among the tribes, and you must wear the appropriate, and appear at ease in them. Dress like a Sherif - if they agree to it.

20. If you wear Arab things at all, go the whole way. Leave your English friends and customs on the coast, and fall back on Arab habits entirely. It is possible, starting thus level with them, for the European to beat the Arabs at their own game, for we have stronger motives for our action, and put more heart into it than they. If you can surpass them, you have taken an immense stride toward complete success, but the strain of living and thinking in a foreign and half­:-understood language, the savage food, strange clothes, and still stranger ways, with the complete loss of privacy and quiet, and the impossibility of ever relaxing your.watchful imitation of the others for months on end, provide such an added stress to the ordinary difficulties of dealing with the Bedu, the climate, and the Turkss, that this road should not be chosen without serious thought.

21. Religious discussions will be fairly frequent. Say what you like about your own side, and avoid criticism of theirs, unless you know that the point is external, when you may score heavily by proving it so. With the Bedu Islam is so all pervading an element that there is a little religiosity, little fervour, and no regard for externals. Do not think, from their conduct, that they are careless. their conviction of the truth of their faith, and its share in every act and thought and principle of their daily life is so intimate and intense as to be unconscious, unless roused by opposition. Their religion is as much a part of nature to them as is sleep, or food.

22. Do not try to trade on what you know of fighting. The Hejaz confounds ordinary tactics. Learn the Bedu principles of war as thoroughly and as quickly as you can, for till you know them your advice will be no good to the Sherif. Unnumbered generations of tribal raids have taught them more about some parts of the business than we will ever know. In familiar conditions they fight well, but strange events cause panic. Keep your unit small. Their raiding parties are usually from one hundred to two hundred men, and if you take a crowd they only get confused. Also their sheikhs, while admirable company commanders, are too set to learn to handle the equivalents of battalions or regiments. Don't attempt unusual things, unless they appeal to the sporting instinct Bedu have so strongly, or unless success is obvious. If the objective is a good one (booty) they will attack like fiends: they are splendid scouts, their mobility gives you the advantage that will win this local war, they make proper use of their knowledge of the country (don't take tribesmen to places they do not know), and the gazelle-hunters, who form a proportion of the better men, are great shots at visible targets. A sheikh from one tribe cannot give orders to men from another: a sherif is necessary to command a mixed tribal force. If there is plunder in prospect, and the odds are at all equal, you will win. Do not waste Bedu attacking trenches (they will not stand casualties) or in trying to defend a position, for they cannot sit still without slacking. The more unorthodox and Arab your proceedings the more likely you are to have the Turks cold, for they lack initiative and expect you to. Don't play for safety.

23. The open reason that Bedu give you for action or inaction may be true, but always there will be better reasons left for you to divine. You must find these inner reasons (they will be denied, but are none the less in operation) before shaping your arguments for one course or other. Allusion is more effective than logical exposition: they dislike concise expression. Their minds work just as ours do, but on different premises. There is nothing unreasonable, incomprehensible, or inscrutable, in the Arab. Experience of them, and knowledge of their prejudices will enable you to foresee their attitude and possible cause of action in nearly every case.

24. Do not mix Bedu and Syrians, or trained men and tribesmen. You will get work out of neither, for they hate each other. I have never seen a successful combined operation, but many failures. In particular, ex-officers of the Turkish army, however Arab in feelings and blood and language, are hopeless with Bedu. They are narrow-minded in tactics, unable to adjust themselves to irregular warfare, clumsy in Arab etiquette, swollen-headed to the extent of being incapable of politeness to a tribesman for more than a few minutes, impatient,
and, usually, helpless on the road and in action. Your orders (if you were unwise enough to give any) would be more readily obeyed by Beduins than those of any Mohammedan Syrian officer. Arab townsmen and Arab tribesmen regard each other mutually as poor relations - and poor relations are much more objectionable than poor strangers.

25. In spite .of ordinary Arab example avoid too free talk about women. It is as difficult a subject as religion, and their standards are so unlike our own, that a remark harmless in English may appear as unrestrained to them, as some of their statements would look to us, if translated literally.

26 Be as careful of your servants as of yourself. If you want a sophisticated one you will probably have to take an Egyptian, or a Sudani, and unless you are very lucky he will undo on trek much of the good you so laboriously effect. Arabs will cook rice and make coffee for you, and leave you if required to do unmanly work like cleaning boots or washing. They are only really possible if you are in Arab kit. A slave brought up in the Hejaz is the best servant, but there are rules against British subjects owning them, so they have to be lent to you. In any case take with you an Ageyli or two when you go up country. They are the most efficient couriers in Arabia, and understand camels.

27. The beginning and ending of the secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them. Keep always on your guard; never say an inconsidered thing, or an unnecessary thing: watch yourself and your companions all the time: hear all that passes, search out what is going on beneath the surface, read their characters, discover their tastes and their weaknesses, and keep everything you find out to yourself. Bury yourself in Arab circles, have no interests and no ideas except the work in hand, so that your brain shall be saturated with one thing only, and you realise your part deeply enough to avoid the little slips that would undo e work of weeks. Your success will be just proportional to the amount of mental effort you devote to it.


* First published in the Arab Bulletin, a spin-off from daily Military Intelligence Bulletins. A Lawrence biographer, Jeremy Wilson (from whose work this is reproduced), writes of it: “They provide a remarkable insight into the methods he used to direct operations without being seen to do so, and they have since been used in the training of Western advisers for many other theatres of war.”

Dante protects his c

Dante protects his copyright.

. . Certainly no poet could any longer expect, as Dante Alighieri could, to hear his verses being sung. One day in Florence Dante had left the house after eating and while passing through Porta San Pietro, came upon “a smith who was beating iron on the anvil and singing Dante the way one sings a popular poem and mixing his verses up, shortening some and lengthening others, so that it seemed to Dante that he was receiving a great injury from the fellow.” Without a word Dante went into the man’s workshop and threw his tongs, his hammer, his balances. and all his other implements into the street. When the smith remonstrated loudly at finding himself stripped of the tools of his trade and blocked from exercising his own special skill, the poet replied, “You are singing from my work. But not the way I wrote it; I have no other art and you: are ruining it for me.”

Chiara Frugoni Frugoni, Arsenio., A day in a medieval city (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) P. 45

Intelligent Design: Ritual vs. Science

The world looks so different after learning science. For ex­ample, the trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in the flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the sun which was bound in to convert the air into trees, and in the ash is the small remnant of the part which did not come from air, that came from the solid earth, instead.
These are beautiful things, and the content of science is wonderfully full of them. They are very inspiring, and they can be used to inspire others.
Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought, as well as the importance of free­dom of thought; the positive results that come from doubt­ing that the lessons are all true. You must here distinguish­ -- especially in teaching -- -the science from the forms or procedures that are sometimes used in developing science. It is easy to say, "We write, experiment, and observe, and do this or that." You can copy that form exactly. But great reli­gions are dissipated by following form without remember­ing the direct content of the teaching of the great leaders. In the same way it is possible to follow form and call it sci­ence but it is pseudoscience. In this way we all suffer from the kind of tyranny we have today in the many institutions that have come under the influence of pseudoscientific advisers.

Richard P. Feynman
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

So much for "the blame game"

This is from "The tyranny of petty coercion", by Marilynne Robinson [Gilead] in "Social Research" for March 22, 2004:

Here is an instance:[of intimidation by consensus] for some time the word "bashing" has been used to derail criticism of many kinds, by treating as partisan or tendentious statements that are perfectly available to being dealt with as true or false. To say that the disparity between rich and poor in this country exceeds any previously known in American history (putting aside the marked economic disparity between plantation owners and slaves) is to say something falsifiable-that is, for practical purposes, verifiable, and in any case arguable. But such criticism is called "Bush bashing" and also "class warfare." In other words, a statement that is objectively true or false can be dismissed as the slur of a hostile subgroup. It is interesting and germane to note how effective this tactic is. Perfectly sensible people flinch at the thought that they might have been a trifle Jacobin, and they are shamed out of saying what they believe to be true in the plainest sense of the word true. Nor, I believe, is it the critics alone who lose their bearings when these strategies are employed. Those who identify with the group toward whom the criticisms are directed-in this case the present administration-can hear irrational attack where they might otherwise hear a challenge to their values or to their theories and methods.

So the exchanges political life entirely depends on, where in good conscience people speak and listen, attempting to establish practical truth and then candidly assigning value to it, simply do not take place. This is a failure of courage on both sides. I assume many apologists for the administration would find it painful to say that radical economic polarization is a good thing. So they are relieved to learn that they are only being "bashed," and therefore need not consider the issue on its merits.