Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
And every time such language is used by maintream and establishment Amercian politicians and media, a few more votes end up firmly in the Trump column.
Sure! Was not the same true in Germany in the late 20s? That people have decided to vote for fascism isn't a reason not to call it out. We can't deny that the GOP are going after women's basic rights when they are in the process of removing them. Sure, more shitkickers may then vote for it, but is the alternative to deny reality?
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
That's because you are that much-maligned thing, a Centrist Dad.
The Dad bit is relevant here, because one of the joys of parenthood is saying "I don't care who started it, I'm disappointed in how both of you are acting."
It's too easy to look for a simple goodie:baddie binary, rather then messy, non-uniform shades of grey. (Is it a problem with the UK folk memory of WW2 and the Falklands, where the good/bad division was pretty unambiguous?)
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
Wittgenstein suggests that the meaning of a word is in how it is used in practice.
Lewis Carroll — 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less"
I hope that helps.
This very attractive proposal is nonetheless incoherent junk. It ends in an infinite regress as the only way of knowing how a word is 'used in practice' is to describe that meaning in further words, which are (on this theory) subject to the same difficulty.
So when Wittgenstein (or Humpty) says anything at all, if the theory is correct it is impossible to have any idea at all what they mean, as meanings are unavailable.
Which means the theory is not even coherently sayable.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
Wittgenstein suggests that the meaning of a word is in how it is used in practice.
Lewis Carroll — 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less"
I hope that helps.
This very attractive proposal is nonetheless incoherent junk. It ends in an infinite regress as the only way of knowing how a word is 'used in practice' is to describe that meaning in further words, which are (on this theory) subject to the same difficulty.
So when Wittgenstein (or Humpty) says anything at all, if the theory is correct it is impossible to have any idea at all what they mean, as meanings are unavailable.
Which means the theory is not even coherently sayable.
Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
Alternatively, very little could happen like last time he was President.
Very little? Abortion outlawed in much of the country. A violent insurrection attacking Congress. Military aid withheld from Ukraine. US troops withdrawn from Syria, and the process started to withdraw them from Afghanistan. Significant excess deaths among one political group because of misinformation around COVID…
Only because the woke pesky doctors wouldn't give the injected bleach a fair go.
I thought you drink the bleach, but inject the UV lamps. Or am I wrong?
In my mind, terrorism is the commissioning of acts of indescriminate violence towards the general public, in furtherment of a political cause, with the aim of engendering wider fear in the community.
Which would include Israels current policy in Gaza.
Of course, that definition captures the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do we exclude states at war ? Iran ? North Korea, Russia ? (Well North Korea is de jure at war but not de facto; and Russia de facto but not de jure). Where is the line between war crime & terror. & Is one worse than the other ?
As Israel regarded the atrocities of October 7th as an act of war, then that definition would exclude Hamas being terrorists.
Hamas and Israel were not 'at war' when the attack was comitted though.
All wars have to start somewhere.
Russia wasn't at war with Ukraine on Feb 24th 2022 either.
Being at war legitimatises being able to kill the combatants of the other side, but shouldn’t enable indiscriminate killing of civilians. That some of the allied actions during WWII were close to or went over, according to view, that line is the nub of the problem.
Which is why its good that Israel are not indiscriminately killing civilians.
If they were there'd be hundreds of thousands or millions of dead Gazans.
Israel is following the rules of proportionality in trying to go after Hamas, while trying to minimise civilian casualties. Its difficult as Hamas use civilians as human shields, it ties one hand behind their back, but its also the civilised way to behave so we should be congratulating them for being so civilised in the face of such horror.
That is one view. Amnesty International, on the other hands, thinks some Israeli actions can be classed as war crimes. Maybe both are true.
Or maybe not. Amnesty have an agenda.
Either way though, Israel are definitely not bombing indiscriminately, are they? Even the discredited Hamas-supplied Gazan death figures which tried to claim 500 deaths from a fictional "Israeli" bombing haven't claimed that hundreds of thousands are dying from indiscriminate bombing - which would be the case if it were actually happening in an area as densely populated as Gaza.
Is the Israeli air force claiming all the victims in Gaza are Hamas fighters, or has it actually killed hundreds of ordinary Palestinian civilians? Perhaps it is a question of definition. It was said that under Obama, the Americans declared that everyone killed by a cruise missile was ipso facto an enemy combatant.
MarkHertling @MarkHertling Unfortunately, I also believe the fight will last a long time, will result in thousands of casualties, and neither side will achieve their strategic objectives. 8/
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
The IRA killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians over the years, but at no point did we consider bombing Dublin or Belfast to be a sensible solution.
Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
And every time such language is used by maintream and establishment Amercian politicians and media, a few more votes end up firmly in the Trump column.
Sure! Was not the same true in Germany in the late 20s? That people have decided to vote for fascism isn't a reason not to call it out. We can't deny that the GOP are going after women's basic rights when they are in the process of removing them. Sure, more shitkickers may then vote for it, but is the alternative to deny reality?
So awfully close to saying that Trump is literally Hitler.
I don’t want him to win either - but I do understand why millions of people think they have nothing to lose, and are voting for him to turn the whole thing upside-down.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
Can you accept that this neccessary and justified act was state terrorism, in the same way that the blitz was?
Remember that the aim of firebombing German cities was not to target their military capabilities. It was to so terrorise the population that it broke the will of the German people to fight.
As the war transpired we didn't really benefit from the german population pushing back against the nazi regime. The allies had to wage war literally to the capital and then block by block until the nazis surrendered. Fire bombing Dresden didn't advance the war at all. I'm not saying it was a crime - it was total war. But it was terrorism. The deliberate and explicit choice to incinerate innocent civilians with the aim of terrorising others to give up.
Wittgenstein suggests that the meaning of a word is in how it is used in practice.
Lewis Carroll — 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less"
I hope that helps.
This very attractive proposal is nonetheless incoherent junk. It ends in an infinite regress as the only way of knowing how a word is 'used in practice' is to describe that meaning in further words, which are (on this theory) subject to the same difficulty.
So when Wittgenstein (or Humpty) says anything at all, if the theory is correct it is impossible to have any idea at all what they mean, as meanings are unavailable.
Which means the theory is not even coherently sayable.
But what do you mean in practice rather than in theory?
I know that in theory, theory and practice are the same. But in practice, they are not.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
An epistemological problem arises when we declare attacks on civilian infrastructure to be legitimate when carried out by our allies in the Middle East but war crimes when carried out by Russia against our allies in Eastern Europe.
In my mind, terrorism is the commissioning of acts of indescriminate violence towards the general public, in furtherment of a political cause, with the aim of engendering wider fear in the community.
Which would include Israels current policy in Gaza.
Of course, that definition captures the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do we exclude states at war ? Iran ? North Korea, Russia ? (Well North Korea is de jure at war but not de facto; and Russia de facto but not de jure). Where is the line between war crime & terror. & Is one worse than the other ?
As Israel regarded the atrocities of October 7th as an act of war, then that definition would exclude Hamas being terrorists.
Hamas and Israel were not 'at war' when the attack was comitted though.
All wars have to start somewhere.
Russia wasn't at war with Ukraine on Feb 24th 2022 either.
Being at war legitimatises being able to kill the combatants of the other side, but shouldn’t enable indiscriminate killing of civilians. That some of the allied actions during WWII were close to or went over, according to view, that line is the nub of the problem.
Which is why its good that Israel are not indiscriminately killing civilians.
If they were there'd be hundreds of thousands or millions of dead Gazans.
Israel is following the rules of proportionality in trying to go after Hamas, while trying to minimise civilian casualties. Its difficult as Hamas use civilians as human shields, it ties one hand behind their back, but its also the civilised way to behave so we should be congratulating them for being so civilised in the face of such horror.
That is one view. Amnesty International, on the other hands, thinks some Israeli actions can be classed as war crimes. Maybe both are true.
Or maybe not. Amnesty have an agenda.
Either way though, Israel are definitely not bombing indiscriminately, are they? Even the discredited Hamas-supplied Gazan death figures which tried to claim 500 deaths from a fictional "Israeli" bombing haven't claimed that hundreds of thousands are dying from indiscriminate bombing - which would be the case if it were actually happening in an area as densely populated as Gaza.
Is the Israeli air force claiming all the victims in Gaza are Hamas fighters, or has it actually killed hundreds of ordinary Palestinian civilians? Perhaps it is a question of definition. It was said that under Obama, the Americans declared that everyone killed by a cruise missile was ipso facto an enemy combatant.
You're making an irrelevant point to the claim. In times of war innocents will get caught up in the cross fire, especially when one side violates the Geneva Convention (Hamas) by using human shields.
That innocents die does not make bombing indiscriminate.
If Israel sends bombs after Hamas, deliberately targeting Hamas and doing what is reasonable to minimise civilian deaths but civilians still die then do you think that is indiscriminate bombing? Or is it proportionate warfare?
Indiscriminate bombing is what Russia does. Just level every building without warning and kill everyone. Israel categorically isn't doing that in Gaza, if it were millions would have died in the inferno.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
I just think the question of whether something is an act of terrorism is a seperate one from whether it is right or wrong, or justified or unjustified. The ANC blowing up infrastructure in Apartheid South Africa was terrorism. The KKK burning crosses on lawns was terrorism. 9/11 was terrorism. The IRA bombing campaigns were terrorism, whether they were blowing up pubs or army barracks. We might condemn all these acts, or some of them, and will surely condemn some more than others. My point is that, in my view, drawing the boundary of "terrorism" with reference to moral judgements is an incorrect approach. Terrorism is a weapon. We don't call a gun a different word depending on its target or who wields it.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
Good article. I guess defining terrorism always reminds me of Max Weber and his views on the monopoly of violence. I appreciate he was talking about legitimate violence within the state. However, I seem to recall Nozick expanding this to include protecting your state from barbarians.
Where that takes us in the context of the mess in the Middle East. Probably nowhere. I guess worth acknowledging that for good or ill (mostly ill) Hamas are in charge in Gaza. So presumably have the monopoly of violence within Gaza and, if you believe Nozick, Gaza can act for the universal protection of its state. However, what they did at the start of October could surely never be justified on those grounds. So was it a terrorist act by a state, a terrorist act by a group of terrorists or something else?
I guess this why folks get tied in knots over this. I personally think it is an easier to describe the act rather than the person / entity that did it. However, clearly if you commit a terrorist act, then surely you are a terrorist? So that doesn’t work either.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
The IRA killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians over the years, but at no point did we consider bombing Dublin or Belfast to be a sensible solution.
The "strategic objectives" of PIRA and Hamas are different. If PIRA was headquartered in Dublin and amassed troops on our border which one day en masse invaded Stranrear (or Strabane for that matter) and we knew the Dublin government's avowed aim was to obliterate the UK then yes we might have.
We were never at war with the RoI. Israel believes it is at war with Hamas.
Wittgenstein suggests that the meaning of a word is in how it is used in practice.
Lewis Carroll — 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less"
I hope that helps.
This very attractive proposal is nonetheless incoherent junk. It ends in an infinite regress as the only way of knowing how a word is 'used in practice' is to describe that meaning in further words, which are (on this theory) subject to the same difficulty.
So when Wittgenstein (or Humpty) says anything at all, if the theory is correct it is impossible to have any idea at all what they mean, as meanings are unavailable.
Which means the theory is not even coherently sayable.
But what do you mean in practice rather than in theory?
I know that in theory, theory and practice are the same. But in practice, they are not.
If that is a serious question - perhaps it isn't - it means that I am a 'meaning foundationalist', a sub-branch of 'epistemological foundationalism' which, understandably unknown to most, underlies most ways of thinking in the west and is a practice which, like all practices, is underlain by theory. Thomas Nagel's 'The Last Word' gives a simple account of it.
Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
And every time such language is used by maintream and establishment Amercian politicians and media, a few more votes end up firmly in the Trump column.
Sure! Was not the same true in Germany in the late 20s? That people have decided to vote for fascism isn't a reason not to call it out. We can't deny that the GOP are going after women's basic rights when they are in the process of removing them. Sure, more shitkickers may then vote for it, but is the alternative to deny reality?
So awfully close to saying that Trump is literally Hitler.
I don’t want him to win either - but I do understand why millions of people think they have nothing to lose, and are voting for him to turn the whole thing upside-down.
Fascism, not Nazism. Hitler was not Mussolini was not Hitler. I also can understand why people are voting to bring the whole thing down - America is so broken that its almost a joke. But they are voting for a political party whose objectives and practices are objectively comparable with fascism.
Trump is no Hitler. As mad as Adolf was, he had a vision for Germany. Trump has no vision for America, only for himself. He is a patsy, the figurehead demagogue of a machine which will use him to project their power in an accessible way.
Lets put it like this. Would women vote to remove their right to contraception? To access abortion? To travel? Some would, but most don't envisage themselves as chattel. But they will vote against things - woke, elites, liberals, foreigners, unChristian values etc etc etc. Especially when those things are whipped up by propaganda to be *the* thing that is threatening their way of life. And then when abortion is banned and travel is banned anc contraception is banned, the propaganda moves on to that being a sacrifice worth paying for the battle against woke etc etc.
This is America. You can't deny the factual truth to what I post because it is happening. We can debate the spin and the choice of words, but the subjugation of women voted for by women is real.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
Can you accept that this neccessary and justified act was state terrorism, in the same way that the blitz was?
Remember that the aim of firebombing German cities was not to target their military capabilities. It was to so terrorise the population that it broke the will of the German people to fight.
As the war transpired we didn't really benefit from the german population pushing back against the nazi regime. The allies had to wage war literally to the capital and then block by block until the nazis surrendered. Fire bombing Dresden didn't advance the war at all. I'm not saying it was a crime - it was total war. But it was terrorism. The deliberate and explicit choice to incinerate innocent civilians with the aim of terrorising others to give up.
No I don't. I think it was total war.
The entire population, civilian and otherwise, was being mobilised one way or another to fight the war effort. Either being on the frontlines, or working to support those who were, so they were all military targets.
From a less famous Churchill quote in 1940: There is another more obvious difference from 1914. The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere to be seen. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage."
Torsten Bell @TorstenBell · 1h We’ve known we had a problem for a while - moving to phone surveys in the pandemic missed loads of renters and there is a huge discrepancy with other surveys since (labour force survey shows no increase in employment on pre-pandemic levels, tax/business data shows a 1m increase!)
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
And Netanyahuism is a reaction to decades of “unending war until we drive them into the sea”
The pitch is - “Let’s stop playing nice, because they never have.”
Which isn’t to condone it, anymore than Trumpism. But there is a reason that Netanyahu gets votes.
I suppose the next question must be: Is terrorism ever justified?
In the cases of the French Resistance, the Polish Underground and, as your photo implies, the ANC, I'm sure many would say yes. In an asymmetric war, terrorism may be the only avenue of resistance remaining to the weaker side.
If we are defining it in terms of acts rather than people then no, I would say terrorism is never justified. The act of specifically targetting unarmed civilians, whether they are from the enemies 'camp' or simply neutrals, is something that should not be justified and accepted by reasonable people. To a large extent, although by no means completely, both the many French Resistance groups and the Polish Underground followed this principle. There were exceptions - executing unarmed collaborators, spies and informers which very much muddies the water.
But as a rule of course the various WW2 resistance groups did not find it necessary nor beneficial to target civilian populations becuase, generally, they were their own civilians within their own country. Blowing up your own countrymen to put political pressure on occupiers who don't care much about them in the furst place tends to be counter productive.
Of course both sides in the Troubles and Hamas currently didn't/don't seem to care much about their fellow countrymen and do indulge in acts of terrorism against their own people.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
Can you accept that this neccessary and justified act was state terrorism, in the same way that the blitz was?
Remember that the aim of firebombing German cities was not to target their military capabilities. It was to so terrorise the population that it broke the will of the German people to fight.
As the war transpired we didn't really benefit from the german population pushing back against the nazi regime. The allies had to wage war literally to the capital and then block by block until the nazis surrendered. Fire bombing Dresden didn't advance the war at all. I'm not saying it was a crime - it was total war. But it was terrorism. The deliberate and explicit choice to incinerate innocent civilians with the aim of terrorising others to give up.
No. It was war. As @OnlyLivingBoy mentioned (and I agree with this) a state actor can't engage in terrorism because there needs to be asymmetry.
(Having said the term terrorism is largely meaningless.)
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
Except the facts don't back up that whatsoever. Netanyahu wasn't even in power when Hamas took over Gaza, Ehud Olmert was.
Israel wasn't blockading Gaza prior to the rise of Hamas, quite the opposite. From 2005 to 2007 (when Hamas took over) Israel was not only not blockading Gaza, they were encouraging the development of the Port of Gaza to help Gaza get developed.
Unfortunately then Hamas took over, so the blockade became necessary and was instituted by Olmert in a reversal of his and Sharon's prior plans to encourage the development of Gaza without an Israeli occupation.
If anything Netanyahu is a response to Hamas rather than the other way around, and even then he's only barely been able to be elected even with Hamas.
I suppose the next question must be: Is terrorism ever justified?
In the cases of the French Resistance, the Polish Underground and, as your photo implies, the ANC, I'm sure many would say yes. In an asymmetric war, terrorism may be the only avenue of resistance remaining to the weaker side.
If we are defining it in terms of acts rather than people then no, I would say terrorism is never justified. The act of specifically targetting unarmed civilians, whether they are from the enemies 'camp' or simply neutrals, is something that should not be justified and accepted by reasonable people. To a large extent, although by no means completely, both the many French Resistance groups and the Polish Underground followed this principle. There were exceptions - executing unarmed collaborators, spies and informers which very much muddies the water.
But as a rule of course the various WW2 resistance groups did not find it necessary nor beneficial to target civilian populations becuase, generally, they were their own civilians within their own country. Blowing up your own countrymen to put political pressure on occupiers who don't care much about them in the furst place tends to be counter productive.
Of course both sides in the Troubles and Hamas currently didn't/don't seem to care much about their fellow countrymen and do indulge in acts of terrorism against their own people.
There were quite a few civilian collaborators in France, for example. The French resistance (mostly) only targeted those who were actively on the payroll of the Vichy or German governments.
In my mind, terrorism is the commissioning of acts of indescriminate violence towards the general public, in furtherment of a political cause, with the aim of engendering wider fear in the community.
Which would include Israels current policy in Gaza.
Of course, that definition captures the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do we exclude states at war ? Iran ? North Korea, Russia ? (Well North Korea is de jure at war but not de facto; and Russia de facto but not de jure). Where is the line between war crime & terror. & Is one worse than the other ?
As Israel regarded the atrocities of October 7th as an act of war, then that definition would exclude Hamas being terrorists.
Hamas and Israel were not 'at war' when the attack was comitted though.
All wars have to start somewhere.
Russia wasn't at war with Ukraine on Feb 24th 2022 either.
Being at war legitimatises being able to kill the combatants of the other side, but shouldn’t enable indiscriminate killing of civilians. That some of the allied actions during WWII were close to or went over, according to view, that line is the nub of the problem.
Which is why its good that Israel are not indiscriminately killing civilians.
If they were there'd be hundreds of thousands or millions of dead Gazans.
Israel is following the rules of proportionality in trying to go after Hamas, while trying to minimise civilian casualties. Its difficult as Hamas use civilians as human shields, it ties one hand behind their back, but its also the civilised way to behave so we should be congratulating them for being so civilised in the face of such horror.
That is one view. Amnesty International, on the other hands, thinks some Israeli actions can be classed as war crimes. Maybe both are true.
Or maybe not. Amnesty have an agenda.
Either way though, Israel are definitely not bombing indiscriminately, are they? Even the discredited Hamas-supplied Gazan death figures which tried to claim 500 deaths from a fictional "Israeli" bombing haven't claimed that hundreds of thousands are dying from indiscriminate bombing - which would be the case if it were actually happening in an area as densely populated as Gaza.
Is the Israeli air force claiming all the victims in Gaza are Hamas fighters, or has it actually killed hundreds of ordinary Palestinian civilians? Perhaps it is a question of definition. It was said that under Obama, the Americans declared that everyone killed by a cruise missile was ipso facto an enemy combatant.
You're making an irrelevant point to the claim. In times of war innocents will get caught up in the cross fire, especially when one side violates the Geneva Convention (Hamas) by using human shields.
That innocents die does not make bombing indiscriminate.
If Israel sends bombs after Hamas, deliberately targeting Hamas and doing what is reasonable to minimise civilian deaths but civilians still die then do you think that is indiscriminate bombing? Or is it proportionate warfare?
Indiscriminate bombing is what Russia does. Just level every building without warning and kill everyone. Israel categorically isn't doing that in Gaza, if it were millions would have died in the inferno.
There are lots of levelled buildings in Gaza but Israel warned Palestinians to move south so that's that. Sure, Israel is better than Russia, better than Hamas, but not above criticism.
Wittgenstein suggests that the meaning of a word is in how it is used in practice.
Lewis Carroll — 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less"
I hope that helps.
This very attractive proposal is nonetheless incoherent junk. It ends in an infinite regress as the only way of knowing how a word is 'used in practice' is to describe that meaning in further words, which are (on this theory) subject to the same difficulty.
So when Wittgenstein (or Humpty) says anything at all, if the theory is correct it is impossible to have any idea at all what they mean, as meanings are unavailable.
Which means the theory is not even coherently sayable.
But what do you mean in practice rather than in theory?
I know that in theory, theory and practice are the same. But in practice, they are not.
If that is a serious question - perhaps it isn't - it means that I am a 'meaning foundationalist', a sub-branch of 'epistemological foundationalism' which, understandably unknown to most, underlies most ways of thinking in the west and is a practice which, like all practices, is underlain by theory. Thomas Nagel's 'The Last Word' gives a simple account of it.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
In my mind, terrorism is the commissioning of acts of indescriminate violence towards the general public, in furtherment of a political cause, with the aim of engendering wider fear in the community.
Which would include Israels current policy in Gaza.
Of course, that definition captures the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Do we exclude states at war ? Iran ? North Korea, Russia ? (Well North Korea is de jure at war but not de facto; and Russia de facto but not de jure). Where is the line between war crime & terror. & Is one worse than the other ?
As Israel regarded the atrocities of October 7th as an act of war, then that definition would exclude Hamas being terrorists.
Hamas and Israel were not 'at war' when the attack was comitted though.
All wars have to start somewhere.
Russia wasn't at war with Ukraine on Feb 24th 2022 either.
Being at war legitimatises being able to kill the combatants of the other side, but shouldn’t enable indiscriminate killing of civilians. That some of the allied actions during WWII were close to or went over, according to view, that line is the nub of the problem.
Which is why its good that Israel are not indiscriminately killing civilians.
If they were there'd be hundreds of thousands or millions of dead Gazans.
Israel is following the rules of proportionality in trying to go after Hamas, while trying to minimise civilian casualties. Its difficult as Hamas use civilians as human shields, it ties one hand behind their back, but its also the civilised way to behave so we should be congratulating them for being so civilised in the face of such horror.
That is one view. Amnesty International, on the other hands, thinks some Israeli actions can be classed as war crimes. Maybe both are true.
Or maybe not. Amnesty have an agenda.
Either way though, Israel are definitely not bombing indiscriminately, are they? Even the discredited Hamas-supplied Gazan death figures which tried to claim 500 deaths from a fictional "Israeli" bombing haven't claimed that hundreds of thousands are dying from indiscriminate bombing - which would be the case if it were actually happening in an area as densely populated as Gaza.
Is the Israeli air force claiming all the victims in Gaza are Hamas fighters, or has it actually killed hundreds of ordinary Palestinian civilians? Perhaps it is a question of definition. It was said that under Obama, the Americans declared that everyone killed by a cruise missile was ipso facto an enemy combatant.
You're making an irrelevant point to the claim. In times of war innocents will get caught up in the cross fire, especially when one side violates the Geneva Convention (Hamas) by using human shields.
That innocents die does not make bombing indiscriminate.
If Israel sends bombs after Hamas, deliberately targeting Hamas and doing what is reasonable to minimise civilian deaths but civilians still die then do you think that is indiscriminate bombing? Or is it proportionate warfare?
Indiscriminate bombing is what Russia does. Just level every building without warning and kill everyone. Israel categorically isn't doing that in Gaza, if it were millions would have died in the inferno.
There are lots of levelled buildings in Gaza but Israel warned Palestinians to move south so that's that. Sure, Israel is better than Russia, better than Hamas, but not above criticism.
If there's lots of levelled buildings but not many dead civilians then doesn't that show that Israel has been proportionate in trying to minimise civilians casualties?
And if those levelled buildings were being used by Hamas, then each of them were a legitimate target, where they not?
Destroying legitimate targets without killing civilians is a huge success as far as proportionality is concerned. Shouldn't we be praising Israel, not condemning them, for that?
O/T but does anyone have any suggestions for an alternative to the Today programme for morning news and analysis. This morning is the last straw of their bullshit attempts to be a magazine programme and they are doing their millionth f-ing piece on “Free Brittney” interspersed with clips of her music.
There is loads of serious shit for R4 to cover and there are Radio 1 and 2 where they can waste their listeners time on such nonsense. The final straw was nearly last week with Nick Robinson creaming himself about Man Utd and Eric Cantona as they did vital coverage of Eric Cantona being a singer now.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
But the Nazis chose to start the war, so their actions were not necessary.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
In 2005 Israel handed Gaza back and drew up plans to work with the PA to develop the infrastructure and aid the economy. In 2006 Hamas was elected as government of Gaza. Israel then withdrew all cooperation, and instituted a blockade of Gaza in conjunction with the Great Satan, the United States Egypt.
I think Israel is absolutely wrong to continue to build settlements in the West Bank but, as with 1947-48 I understand why they are doing it in the Millwall/hung for a sheep as a lamb sense.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
The IRA killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians over the years, but at no point did we consider bombing Dublin or Belfast to be a sensible solution.
The "strategic objectives" of PIRA and Hamas are different. If PIRA was headquartered in Dublin and amassed troops on our border which one day en masse invaded Stranrear (or Strabane for that matter) and we knew the Dublin government's avowed aim was to obliterate the UK then yes we might have.
We were never at war with the RoI. Israel believes it is at war with Hamas.
Er, the UK *was* at war with the RoI, under the latter's earlier name. OK, one can perhaps set to one side the Irish Republic declared at the GPO in April 1916. But an elected majority of Irish MPs formed the new Dáil Éireann in 1919. Whence what is generally known as the Anglo-Irish War.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
The IRA killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians over the years, but at no point did we consider bombing Dublin or Belfast to be a sensible solution.
The "strategic objectives" of PIRA and Hamas are different. If PIRA was headquartered in Dublin and amassed troops on our border which one day en masse invaded Stranrear (or Strabane for that matter) and we knew the Dublin government's avowed aim was to obliterate the UK then yes we might have.
We were never at war with the RoI. Israel believes it is at war with Hamas.
Er, the UK *was* at war with the RoI, under the latter's earlier name. OK, one can perhaps set to one side the Irish Republic declared at the GPO in April 1916. But an elected majority of Irish MPs formed the new Dáil Éireann in 1919. Whence what is generally known as the Anglo-Irish War.
What were the strategic objectives. Plus what happened in Croke Park. Proportional?
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
I've always preferred Churchill's proposal of summary execution.
That said, I was never happy with the idea of inventing, post-facto, an offence like "crimes against peace." The Nazis could easily have been tried under existing German laws, and the laws of the States in which they committed their atrocities.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
But the Nazis chose to start the war, so their actions were not necessary.
We were acting defensively, so ours were.
I must have missed the bit where Germany declared war on the UK. I always thought it was Neville Chamberlain who did.
Otherwise - it is purely a matter of taste when one decides when the European, and East Asian and Pacific, wars began.
Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
And every time such language is used by maintream and establishment Amercian politicians and media, a few more votes end up firmly in the Trump column.
Sure! Was not the same true in Germany in the late 20s? That people have decided to vote for fascism isn't a reason not to call it out. We can't deny that the GOP are going after women's basic rights when they are in the process of removing them. Sure, more shitkickers may then vote for it, but is the alternative to deny reality?
So awfully close to saying that Trump is literally Hitler.
I don’t want him to win either - but I do understand why millions of people think they have nothing to lose, and are voting for him to turn the whole thing upside-down.
Fascism, not Nazism. Hitler was not Mussolini was not Hitler. I also can understand why people are voting to bring the whole thing down - America is so broken that its almost a joke. But they are voting for a political party whose objectives and practices are objectively comparable with fascism.
Trump is no Hitler. As mad as Adolf was, he had a vision for Germany. Trump has no vision for America, only for himself. He is a patsy, the figurehead demagogue of a machine which will use him to project their power in an accessible way.
Lets put it like this. Would women vote to remove their right to contraception? To access abortion? To travel? Some would, but most don't envisage themselves as chattel. But they will vote against things - woke, elites, liberals, foreigners, unChristian values etc etc etc. Especially when those things are whipped up by propaganda to be *the* thing that is threatening their way of life. And then when abortion is banned and travel is banned anc contraception is banned, the propaganda moves on to that being a sacrifice worth paying for the battle against woke etc etc.
This is America. You can't deny the factual truth to what I post because it is happening. We can debate the spin and the choice of words, but the subjugation of women voted for by women is real.
As I said, every time such extreme language gets used by the mainstream against Trump, a few more voters move over into his column.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
AIUI aerial bombardment *was* a war crime - until WW2, a point carefully not explored at the Nuremberg trials.
O/T but does anyone have any suggestions for an alternative to the Today programme for morning news and analysis. This morning is the last straw of their bullshit attempts to be a magazine programme and they are doing their millionth f-ing piece on “Free Brittney” interspersed with clips of her music.
There is loads of serious shit for R4 to cover and there are Radio 1 and 2 where they can waste their listeners time on such nonsense. The final straw was nearly last week with Nick Robinson creaming himself about Man Utd and Eric Cantona as they did vital coverage of Eric Cantona being a singer now.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
We prosecuted them because we and our values won. Those values determined that killing millions of people on account of their race or physical condition was egregious.
"Should" we have? Probably yes. I believe that killing millions of people on account of their race or physical condition is worthy of prosecution. But that's only because I am a product of my own society so I would say that.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
AIUI aerial bombardment *was* a war crime - until WW2, a point carefully not explored at the Nuremberg trials.
Some jurists had put forward arguments to that effect, but there was no international standard.
But, I doubt if anyone on the Allied side was thinking of carpet bombing in 1940, nor would they have countenanced it, had the Nazis not plumbed new depths of cruelty.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
But the Nazis chose to start the war, so their actions were not necessary.
We were acting defensively, so ours were.
I must have missed the bit where Germany declared war on the UK. I always thought it was Neville Chamberlain who did.
Otherwise - it is purely a matter of taste when one decides when the European, and East Asian and Pacific, wars began.
Self defence includes the defence of others.
If I see someone trying to rape a woman on the streets and I fight them off and they die in the conflict, that's self defence. I was acting in defence of the woman. The UK acted in defence of our allies.
If the rapist kills someone, he's a murderer.
If an active shooter is killing people in a rampage and a Police Officer takes him down that's self defence. Even if the shooter was going to kill other members of the public, not the Officer next.
The active shooter is committing murder.
As aggressor the Nazis actions had no justification. The same is not true for the Allies.
Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
And every time such language is used by maintream and establishment Amercian politicians and media, a few more votes end up firmly in the Trump column.
Sure! Was not the same true in Germany in the late 20s? That people have decided to vote for fascism isn't a reason not to call it out. We can't deny that the GOP are going after women's basic rights when they are in the process of removing them. Sure, more shitkickers may then vote for it, but is the alternative to deny reality?
So awfully close to saying that Trump is literally Hitler.
I don’t want him to win either - but I do understand why millions of people think they have nothing to lose, and are voting for him to turn the whole thing upside-down.
Fascism, not Nazism. Hitler was not Mussolini was not Hitler. I also can understand why people are voting to bring the whole thing down - America is so broken that its almost a joke. But they are voting for a political party whose objectives and practices are objectively comparable with fascism.
Trump is no Hitler. As mad as Adolf was, he had a vision for Germany. Trump has no vision for America, only for himself. He is a patsy, the figurehead demagogue of a machine which will use him to project their power in an accessible way.
Lets put it like this. Would women vote to remove their right to contraception? To access abortion? To travel? Some would, but most don't envisage themselves as chattel. But they will vote against things - woke, elites, liberals, foreigners, unChristian values etc etc etc. Especially when those things are whipped up by propaganda to be *the* thing that is threatening their way of life. And then when abortion is banned and travel is banned anc contraception is banned, the propaganda moves on to that being a sacrifice worth paying for the battle against woke etc etc.
This is America. You can't deny the factual truth to what I post because it is happening. We can debate the spin and the choice of words, but the subjugation of women voted for by women is real.
As I said, every time such extreme language gets used by the mainstream against Trump, a few more voters move over into his column.
Such extreme language is truth and the truth should never be sacrificed.
And considering Trump is the only first term Republican to have failed in his parties attempt to get reelected since the start of the 20th century (HW Bush was third term) I think the truth has hurt Trump, not helped him.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Fair dos. Although it may be simpler to use the state/non-state sieve to draw a line: if a state does it it's a war crime, if a non-state actor does it it's terrorism.
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
It's unclear if the firebombing was necessary. The degree to which it aided war aims is uncertain. The RAF thought so; not everyone else did. Bombing of civilian targets by both sides in the European theatre seems to have had much less impact than bombing military or industrial targets.
Here's the conclusion of the US military in 1945: "The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged." At https://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
The problem comes with total war. Where civilian populations on both sides have been heavily mobilised for war work. Then, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and/or starving civilians does serve a military function.
While it's not a legal distinction, I would distinguish ethically, between:
a) cruel and ruthless actions that are carried out, because they do objectively, contribute towards winning the war. Examples are Sherman's March to the Sea, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Naval Blockade of Germany in WWI.
b) wanton sadism, such as the actions of Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army, the Holocaust, starving POW's to death, rape etc.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
And yet the UK, Germany, US, Russia and Italy all withheld from the use of chemical weapons in WWII.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
We prosecuted them because we and our values won. Those values determined that killing millions of people on account of their race or physical condition was egregious.
"Should" we have? Probably yes. I believe that killing millions of people on account of their race or physical condition is worthy of prosecution. But that's only because I am a product of my own society so I would say that.
But that wasn't the only grounds on which the Nuremburg trials were held. If it were you would be right. But it wasn't. Nor are the various war crimes trials over the last 30 years or more just about genocide.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
I just think the question of whether something is an act of terrorism is a seperate one from whether it is right or wrong, or justified or unjustified. The ANC blowing up infrastructure in Apartheid South Africa was terrorism. The KKK burning crosses on lawns was terrorism. 9/11 was terrorism. The IRA bombing campaigns were terrorism, whether they were blowing up pubs or army barracks. We might condemn all these acts, or some of them, and will surely condemn some more than others. My point is that, in my view, drawing the boundary of "terrorism" with reference to moral judgements is an incorrect approach. Terrorism is a weapon. We don't call a gun a different word depending on its target or who wields it.
The Suffragettes called themselves terrorists, yet there's a lot of pushback if you call them that today.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
And yet the UK, Germany, US, Russia and Italy all withheld from the use of chemical weapons in WWII.
They wouldn't have if they believed it necessary to win the war. I mean they dropped an effing atom bomb on Japan but at least they didn't release mustard gas at Arnhem.
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
And yet the UK, Germany, US, Russia and Italy all withheld from the use of chemical weapons in WWII.
Because they knew that once one side used them, everyone would use them. For the same reason, States refrain from using nuclear weapons.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
The IRA killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians over the years, but at no point did we consider bombing Dublin or Belfast to be a sensible solution.
The "strategic objectives" of PIRA and Hamas are different. If PIRA was headquartered in Dublin and amassed troops on our border which one day en masse invaded Stranrear (or Strabane for that matter) and we knew the Dublin government's avowed aim was to obliterate the UK then yes we might have.
We were never at war with the RoI. Israel believes it is at war with Hamas.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
We did it, no one was prosecuted for it, and the Allied public overwhelmingly supported it.
Because we won and we controlled the courts. Had the Germans won and they controlled the courts would it have changed the basic moral case for or against war crimes?
Certain things are inherently wrong and should not be considered by civilised countries.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
The IRA killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians over the years, but at no point did we consider bombing Dublin or Belfast to be a sensible solution.
The "strategic objectives" of PIRA and Hamas are different. If PIRA was headquartered in Dublin and amassed troops on our border which one day en masse invaded Stranrear (or Strabane for that matter) and we knew the Dublin government's avowed aim was to obliterate the UK then yes we might have.
We were never at war with the RoI. Israel believes it is at war with Hamas.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
By late 1943, Oboe equipped Mosquitoes could bomb precisely enough, that they needed to run test missions to correct the maps. More specifically the way U.K. maps joined those on the continent.
With accuracies approaching 30 yards from 30,000 feet, “playing card” formations of a handful of Mosquitoes could guarantee (80%+) hitting a pinpoint target.
The technology was gradually adopted my Main Force. Perhaps the biggest barrier was that a year earlier, pinpoint bombing had totally failed.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
And Netanyahuism is a reaction to decades of “unending war until we drive them into the sea”
The pitch is - “Let’s stop playing nice, because they never have.”
Which isn’t to condone it, anymore than Trumpism. But there is a reason that Netanyahu gets votes.
Oh, yes. Extremism and violence on either side begets the same. (Although Bibi is like Trump: he doesn't care about the policy. He cares about staying in power.)
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
Except the facts don't back up that whatsoever. Netanyahu wasn't even in power when Hamas took over Gaza, Ehud Olmert was.
Israel wasn't blockading Gaza prior to the rise of Hamas, quite the opposite. From 2005 to 2007 (when Hamas took over) Israel was not only not blockading Gaza, they were encouraging the development of the Port of Gaza to help Gaza get developed.
Unfortunately then Hamas took over, so the blockade became necessary and was instituted by Olmert in a reversal of his and Sharon's prior plans to encourage the development of Gaza without an Israeli occupation.
If anything Netanyahu is a response to Hamas rather than the other way around, and even then he's only barely been able to be elected even with Hamas.
You appear to have misread what I wrote. I said, "it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO". I didn't say it was Bibi.
You, as usual, completely skip over the continued settlement building in the West Bank.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
It's unclear if the firebombing was necessary. The degree to which it aided war aims is uncertain. The RAF thought so; not everyone else did. Bombing of civilian targets by both sides in the European theatre seems to have had much less impact than bombing military or industrial targets.
Here's the conclusion of the US military in 1945: "The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged." At https://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
Could it be argued that it was legitimate in that it damaged morale - if you are German soldiers at the front and your family are being bombed, killed and the thought enters your head that your generals and propaganda are telling you that Germany is winning but if we are winning how is it that the Allies can fly all the way to the fatherland and level it night after night? Obviously there is a flip side in that if you are a German soldier and your family are killed in an air raid you have nothing left to live for and so will fight more brutally to avenge them.
Also if you are bombing German cities you are (and I’m aware that this is a very cold thought and isn’t my personal choice but an idea) potentially reducing the flow of future combatants against you. If you wipe out scores of teenage boys then you are reducing the number of men available over time to be armed and trained against you. As we saw as the Russians and Allies pushed into Germany children and women joined in the fighting and so (again please understand that this is a pure cold calculation you might have to make in total war) they are potentially legitimate targets in the same way that if you bomb an army training camp full of new recruits - they haven’t fired a shot at you yet but they will and so legitimate to target.
If either of these two arguments are made in the context that they are worth considering if they can in even a small way shorten the war, push Germany closer to a potential surrender and thus save more lives and destruction in the long term then are they acceptable?
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
No. I took it as read. The glass is shaped like her perfect breast
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
Basically, it started with the hollowing out of the middle class and the offshoring of manufacturing with little social safety net, not helped by initiatives aimed at helping “minorities” which completely bypass poor white people, and there’s millions of Americans for whom the dream isn’t working, who can no longer afford housing for a family on a working man’s salary, if they can even find the work in the first place.
Since 2020, things have got even worse for this group, many of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic, see 7m illegal immigrants now depressing unskilled and semi-skilled wages further, an opioid epidemic literally killing people in these communities, and a government which comes across as being happy to spend money in Ukraine and Israel, but not on fixing the problems in their own communities or responding to their own disasters.
There’s some recent polling that suggests black support for Trump is actually increasing (slightly, and from a very low base), as his various legal difficulties resonate with the way that the ‘justice’ system comes after them.
There is Good News for these voters - tens of millions of people also agree with them that the American Dream is broken. A lie. A means of oppression. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more. And by reelecting Trump they can finally smash the system for good.
We can see where the GOP has gone and continues to go. Once handed power they will - like the Nazis - never hand it back. They will - like the nazis - promote a fictionalised ideal whilst oppressing and surppressing all who disagree or do not fit the mould. And like the nazis, they will end democracy and blame it for all the ills of the past.
Trump isn't a fascist like the GOP. He isn't interested in banning women from having access to contraception or abortion or travel. He isn't anti-foreigner. He just wants to be the Biggest Thing Ever. So as a convicted mobster he has found himself the talisman which will dismantle the old America and bring about the new righteous America.
This new world will consume him, canonising his virtues as a saint whilst burying and ignoring his massive sins. The irony doesn't matter - the criminal womanising demoagogue as figurehead of their pseudo Old Testament "Christian" nation.
Good news for Michael Moore who gets some smashing documentary content. Bad News for the world. We've already seen that Trump and the GOP would have given in to Putin (whilst making idle threats they don't mean about nuclear defence against him). Would likely have told Netanyahu to wipe Gaza off the map and had the good old boys run up a number 6 against any American muslim they could find. Whilst baiting China to take Taiwan so that he can stoke anti-chink hatred at home.
This is the world which awaits us.
And every time such language is used by maintream and establishment Amercian politicians and media, a few more votes end up firmly in the Trump column.
Sure! Was not the same true in Germany in the late 20s? That people have decided to vote for fascism isn't a reason not to call it out. We can't deny that the GOP are going after women's basic rights when they are in the process of removing them. Sure, more shitkickers may then vote for it, but is the alternative to deny reality?
So awfully close to saying that Trump is literally Hitler.
I don’t want him to win either - but I do understand why millions of people think they have nothing to lose, and are voting for him to turn the whole thing upside-down.
Fascism, not Nazism. Hitler was not Mussolini was not Hitler. I also can understand why people are voting to bring the whole thing down - America is so broken that its almost a joke. But they are voting for a political party whose objectives and practices are objectively comparable with fascism.
Trump is no Hitler. As mad as Adolf was, he had a vision for Germany. Trump has no vision for America, only for himself. He is a patsy, the figurehead demagogue of a machine which will use him to project their power in an accessible way.
Lets put it like this. Would women vote to remove their right to contraception? To access abortion? To travel? Some would, but most don't envisage themselves as chattel. But they will vote against things - woke, elites, liberals, foreigners, unChristian values etc etc etc. Especially when those things are whipped up by propaganda to be *the* thing that is threatening their way of life. And then when abortion is banned and travel is banned anc contraception is banned, the propaganda moves on to that being a sacrifice worth paying for the battle against woke etc etc.
This is America. You can't deny the factual truth to what I post because it is happening. We can debate the spin and the choice of words, but the subjugation of women voted for by women is real.
As I said, every time such extreme language gets used by the mainstream against Trump, a few more voters move over into his column.
Such extreme language is truth and the truth should never be sacrificed.
And considering Trump is the only first term Republican to have failed in his parties attempt to get reelected since the start of the 20th century (HW Bush was third term) I think the truth has hurt Trump, not helped him.
Which bit is extreme language? They ARE removing the right to contraception. Sterilisation. Abortion. The right to travel if they suspect a woman is travelling to access banned services.
People do not like to be told they are wrong. We know that. But these things are happening, so is the proposal that we don;'t call them out for what they are?
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
It's unclear if the firebombing was necessary. The degree to which it aided war aims is uncertain. The RAF thought so; not everyone else did. Bombing of civilian targets by both sides in the European theatre seems to have had much less impact than bombing military or industrial targets.
Here's the conclusion of the US military in 1945: "The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged." At https://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
"Only a few weeks" of impeded military production per bombing (and bombings were not just one offs) could be the difference between victory and defeat.
Would it have been better if we'd been able to just bomb the industrial plants? Of course but the technology didn't exist to do so.
Would it have been better to not do any bombings and see the Nazis potentially win instead? Of course not.
War justifies difficult choices, the question is proportionality and since there was no better proportional option, it was proportionate at the time.
It wouldn't be today, but only because better technology exists today. Not because social mores have changed.
The problem comes with total war. Where civilian populations on both sides have been heavily mobilised for war work. Then, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and/or starving civilians does serve a military function.
While it's not a legal distinction, I would distinguish ethically, between:
a) cruel and ruthless actions that are carried out, because they do objectively, contribute towards winning the war. Examples are Sherman's March to the Sea, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Naval Blockade of Germany in WWI.
b) wanton sadism, such as the actions of Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army, the Holocaust, starving POW's to death, rape etc.
I think one can make a good case that the bombing of Hiroshima belongs in (a). I cannot see very much evidence, with the benefit of hindsight, that the bombing of Nagasaki made much difference to the winning of the war.
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
Ach, twenty pages not including the intro and appendices: too long to read quickly, too short to get from the library[1]. Will look at it after. Thank you.
Meanwhile, here's the abstract
"...This historical reassessment of the World War II British bombing campai~n notes that though in 1940 Churchill declared that he was waging "a military and not a civilian war" to destroy "military objectives" and not "women and children," within eighteen months both types of targets would be struck by Bomber Command. The author searches for the reasons in "three contiguous realms" of strategic influence: moral (and legal), political, and military. The study concludes that although for much ofthe war "area bombing" of cities was a "tragic necessity" meeting the "'reasonable man's' standard of what was decently allowable given the blunt weapons the Allies had" and the evils they faced, nonetheless Allied leaders could have and should have abandoned indiscriminate bombing in the last phases of the conflict, when more precise means were at hand and "Nazi power had been ovennatched."..."
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
And yet the UK, Germany, US, Russia and Italy all withheld from the use of chemical weapons in WWII.
Because they knew that once one side used them, everyone would use them. For the same reason, States refrain from using nuclear weapons.
Isn't that ultimately why we have any rules of war? We won't do X because we don't want X done to us.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
Except the facts don't back up that whatsoever. Netanyahu wasn't even in power when Hamas took over Gaza, Ehud Olmert was.
Israel wasn't blockading Gaza prior to the rise of Hamas, quite the opposite. From 2005 to 2007 (when Hamas took over) Israel was not only not blockading Gaza, they were encouraging the development of the Port of Gaza to help Gaza get developed.
Unfortunately then Hamas took over, so the blockade became necessary and was instituted by Olmert in a reversal of his and Sharon's prior plans to encourage the development of Gaza without an Israeli occupation.
If anything Netanyahu is a response to Hamas rather than the other way around, and even then he's only barely been able to be elected even with Hamas.
You appear to have misread what I wrote. I said, "it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO". I didn't say it was Bibi.
You, as usual, completely skip over the continued settlement building in the West Bank.
I quoted this from the Times of Israel yesterday, from an article absolutely describing Netanyahu's association with Hamas so not shirking the issue:
"Hamas became stronger and used the auspices of peace that Israelis so longed for as cover for its training, and hundreds of Israelis have paid with their lives for this massive omission."
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
It's unclear if the firebombing was necessary. The degree to which it aided war aims is uncertain. The RAF thought so; not everyone else did. Bombing of civilian targets by both sides in the European theatre seems to have had much less impact than bombing military or industrial targets.
Here's the conclusion of the US military in 1945: "The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged." At https://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
"Only a few weeks" of impeded military production per bombing (and bombings were not just one offs) could be the difference between victory and defeat.
Would it have been better if we'd been able to just bomb the industrial plants? Of course but the technology didn't exist to do so.
Would it have been better to not do any bombings and see the Nazis potentially win instead? Of course not.
War justifies difficult choices, the question is proportionality and since there was no better proportional option, it was proportionate at the time.
It wouldn't be today, but only because better technology exists today. Not because social mores have changed.
I am not arguing that Arthur Harris or the bomber crews were fanatical terrorists. This was total war. And we won, which means we get to define what is a war crime and what is not.
But to deny that these bombing raids aimed to create terror by incinerating as many civilians as possible is to deny reality. That was explicitly the mission. We can justify it any way we like - as we won - but we made a clear and unambiguous choice to brutally mass murder civilians to try and shorten the war. To save more lives later. Which is a reasonable objective - same with nuking Japan. But its still an act of terrorism - to provoke terror for a reaction.
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
No. I took it as read. The glass is shaped like her perfect breast
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
Next week the Gazette will send you to the Paps of Jura.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
As you (and I) with Richard's header, I agree with quite a lot of that, too. Which shows how confused is the concept of "terrorism".
But you're quite wrong to say it's characteristically carried out by the weaker party. Terror originated with the French revolutionary government, and has been a means to political ends adopted by many totalitarian regimes ever since.
As for Richard's question 'what is the new form of terror', one candidate is China's new quiet terror.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/chinas-age-of-malaise ..Xi has always spoken more bluntly in private. In a speech behind closed doors, shortly after he came to power, he uttered what remains the clearest statement of his vision. “Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse?” he asked, according to excerpts that circulated among Party members. One reason, he said, was that the Soviets’ “ideals and beliefs had wavered.” More important, though, “they didn’t have the tools of dictatorship.” With dogged efficiency, Xi has set out to strengthen belief in the Party and to build the tools of dictatorship. He has succeeded more in the latter than in the former. These days, the most prevalent belief in China is that anyone—from the truest believer to the canniest tycoon—can disappear. This fall, there was fresh evidence: yet another powerful general, the defense minister, Li Shangfu, never arrived at a meeting he was scheduled to attend...
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
While in many conflicts it is surprisingly easy to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. plus in those situations the "source of the conflict" is the fact that the bad guys want conflict. Eg Ukraine was at peace, before Russia invaded. Eg Israel had stopped occupying Gaza and was helping the Palestinians build the Port of Gaza to aid their development before Hamas took over. We can divide some conflicts by saying democratic Ukraine good, authoritarian Russia bad. Similarly democratic Israel good, Islamofascist Hamas bad.
Rather than seeking elusive "de-escalation" in those situations, we should be seeking to aid victory for our allies who are good over those who would do them harm and in victory they can maybe have a lasting peace.
Israel had stopped occupying Gaza, but has been continuing to blockade it. The Netanyahu government has had no interest in Gaza being able to function anything like a normal state, and it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and to build settlements on occupied territory in contravention of international law. Israel continues to discriminate against Arab Israelis and non-citizen Palestinians. And Israeli democracy has been deteriorating under Bibi!
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
Except the facts don't back up that whatsoever. Netanyahu wasn't even in power when Hamas took over Gaza, Ehud Olmert was.
Israel wasn't blockading Gaza prior to the rise of Hamas, quite the opposite. From 2005 to 2007 (when Hamas took over) Israel was not only not blockading Gaza, they were encouraging the development of the Port of Gaza to help Gaza get developed.
Unfortunately then Hamas took over, so the blockade became necessary and was instituted by Olmert in a reversal of his and Sharon's prior plans to encourage the development of Gaza without an Israeli occupation.
If anything Netanyahu is a response to Hamas rather than the other way around, and even then he's only barely been able to be elected even with Hamas.
You appear to have misread what I wrote. I said, "it was past Israeli administrations that supported Hamas to destabilise the PLO". I didn't say it was Bibi.
You, as usual, completely skip over the continued settlement building in the West Bank.
I quoted this from the Times of Israel yesterday, from an article absolutely describing Netanyahu's association with Hamas so not shirking the issue:
"Hamas became stronger and used the auspices of peace that Israelis so longed for as cover for its training, and hundreds of Israelis have paid with their lives for this massive omission."
Israel being a functioning democracy, Netanyahu's role is controversial and even now he and the defence establishment are briefing against each other as to how they got here and what should be the next steps.
The problem comes with total war. Where civilian populations on both sides have been heavily mobilised for war work. Then, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and/or starving civilians does serve a military function.
While it's not a legal distinction, I would distinguish ethically, between:
a) cruel and ruthless actions that are carried out, because they do objectively, contribute towards winning the war. Examples are Sherman's March to the Sea, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Naval Blockade of Germany in WWI.
b) wanton sadism, such as the actions of Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army, the Holocaust, starving POW's to death, rape etc.
I think one can make a good case that the bombing of Hiroshima belongs in (a). I cannot see very much evidence, with the benefit of hindsight, that the bombing of Nagasaki made much difference to the winning of the war.
The bombing of Nagasaki demonstrated that the US could produce nuclear weapons on a weekly basis. Fission was actually widely known about - Japanese research had been small scale. They had worked out that vast efforts would required to enrich uranium (they didn’t know about plutonium).
As Niels Bohr put it, you needed to turn a whole country into an enrichment processing facility. When he was shown the Manhattan Project, he commented that he was right in his prediction.
When Japanese scientists briefed the war cabinet after Hiroshima, they included this information - the war crazy types jumped on the possibility that the US could only drop one or two bombs a year.
This was why, from the beginning of the Manhattan Project, it had been assumed that two bombs would need to be dropped. One to demonstrate the weapon, the second to prove it could be done rapidly.
After Nagasaki, that last clutched straw was removed, and the Emperor moved against the war hawks - and broken the stalemate in the war cabinet.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
As you (and I) with Richard's header, I agree with quite a lot of that, too. Which shows how confused is the concept of "terrorism".
But you're quite wrong to say it's characteristically carried out by the weaker party. Terror originated with the French revolutionary government, and has been a means to political ends adopted by many totalitarian regimes ever since.
As for Richard's question 'what is the new form of terror', one candidate is China's new quiet terror.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/chinas-age-of-malaise ..Xi has always spoken more bluntly in private. In a speech behind closed doors, shortly after he came to power, he uttered what remains the clearest statement of his vision. “Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse?” he asked, according to excerpts that circulated among Party members. One reason, he said, was that the Soviets’ “ideals and beliefs had wavered.” More important, though, “they didn’t have the tools of dictatorship.” With dogged efficiency, Xi has set out to strengthen belief in the Party and to build the tools of dictatorship. He has succeeded more in the latter than in the former. These days, the most prevalent belief in China is that anyone—from the truest believer to the canniest tycoon—can disappear. This fall, there was fresh evidence: yet another powerful general, the defense minister, Li Shangfu, never arrived at a meeting he was scheduled to attend...
(The whole article is well worth a read.)
I would say that state terror and terrorism are different things.
The problem comes with total war. Where civilian populations on both sides have been heavily mobilised for war work. Then, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and/or starving civilians does serve a military function.
While it's not a legal distinction, I would distinguish ethically, between:
a) cruel and ruthless actions that are carried out, because they do objectively, contribute towards winning the war. Examples are Sherman's March to the Sea, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Naval Blockade of Germany in WWI.
b) wanton sadism, such as the actions of Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army, the Holocaust, starving POW's to death, rape etc.
I think one can make a good case that the bombing of Hiroshima belongs in (a). I cannot see very much evidence, with the benefit of hindsight, that the bombing of Nagasaki made much difference to the winning of the war.
The bombing of Nagasaki demonstrated that the US could produce nuclear weapons on a weekly basis. Fission was actually widely known about - Japanese research had been small scale. They had worked out that vast efforts would required to enrich uranium (they didn’t know about plutonium).
As Niels Bohr put it, you needed to turn a whole country into an enrichment processing facility. When he was shown the Manhattan Project, he commented that he was right in his prediction.
When Japanese scientists briefed the war cabinet after Hiroshima, they included this information - the war crazy types jumped on the possibility that the US could only drop one or two bombs a year.
This was why, from the beginning of the Manhattan Project, it had been assumed that two bombs would need to be dropped. One to demonstrate the weapon, the second to prove it could be done rapidly.
After Nagasaki, that last clutched straw was removed, and the Emperor moved against the war hawks - and broken the stalemate in the war cabinet.
That's a story one can tell. It can be debated. Nagasaki came very soon after Hiroshima. The Japanese government was still arguing what to do after Hiroshima. One can make a case that they would have surrendered given a few more days.
So far we have had about 20 different definitions of terrorism, that overlap on a lot of cases but also disagree on plenty. If you are trying to be understood clearly and consistently and don't have time to show context it is not a good choice of word.
This is a really useful thread header. I agree with a lot of it, but I think the overall thrust is wrong. Understandably the topic is quite emotionally loaded and the header seems to be coming from a desire to define terrorism based on whether it is justified/unjustified or to put it in simpler terms, right or wrong. To me, this question is an orthogonal one (and a hard one to answer a lot of the time) to a definitional question of what terrorism is. In my view it is important to focus on the word "terror" - terrorism should be seen as a form of psychological warfare, designed to achieve specific political goals through acts of violence. The IRA's goal was to make the British public question the British state's involvement in Ireland. Al Qaeda's goal was to make the West disengage from the Middle East. Hamas's goal is to make the Israeli public question their state's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and to inflame Arab opinion against Israel to keep the issue on the front page and prevent Arab states from concluding peace deals with Israel that don't address the Palestinians' concerns. Terrorism tends to be carried out by non state actors because it is a form of asymmetrical warfare that tends to be carried out by the weaker partner in the conflict. The stronger partner has other means at their disposal. Israeli attacks on Gaza are therefore not terrorism. Similarly, the bombing of Hamburg or Hiroshima are not terrorism. Whether they are war crimes is a different issue. Whether any of these things are right or wrong is a third question altogether, and one I'm always surprised at how many people feel themselves qualified to answer. In many conflicts it's hard to divide the two sides into good guys and bad guys. Rather than seeking elusive moral clarity we should focus our efforts on helping both sides to de-escalate and find a lasting peace that removes the underlying causes of the conflict.
I think to some extent that misunderstands what I have written. It is not an attempt to base the definition on justified/unjustified. Exactly the opposite in fact. What I have said is that there are certain acts - specifically in this instance the targeting of civilians - which are wrong irrespective of whether or not they might be justified or necessary. This is why I talk in terms of defining the act not the perpetrator. The aim would be to say that, even if necessary, even if you are on the wining side, even if you are on the side of the angels as far as the ultimate conflict goes, there are certain acts which are not acceptable irrespective of need, cause or justifiation.
Good people sometimes do bad things.
And I see terrorism and war crimes as equivalent acts, requiring similar condemnation and punishment but which, due to the aplicatio of law against states, require slightly different approaches in how they are prosecuted.
Well the UK firebombing of Germany was both necessary and justified.
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
It's unclear if the firebombing was necessary. The degree to which it aided war aims is uncertain. The RAF thought so; not everyone else did. Bombing of civilian targets by both sides in the European theatre seems to have had much less impact than bombing military or industrial targets.
Here's the conclusion of the US military in 1945: "The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged." At https://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
"Only a few weeks" of impeded military production per bombing (and bombings were not just one offs) could be the difference between victory and defeat.
Would it have been better if we'd been able to just bomb the industrial plants? Of course but the technology didn't exist to do so.
Would it have been better to not do any bombings and see the Nazis potentially win instead? Of course not.
War justifies difficult choices, the question is proportionality and since there was no better proportional option, it was proportionate at the time.
It wouldn't be today, but only because better technology exists today. Not because social mores have changed.
I am not arguing that Arthur Harris or the bomber crews were fanatical terrorists. This was total war. And we won, which means we get to define what is a war crime and what is not.
But to deny that these bombing raids aimed to create terror by incinerating as many civilians as possible is to deny reality. That was explicitly the mission. We can justify it any way we like - as we won - but we made a clear and unambiguous choice to brutally mass murder civilians to try and shorten the war. To save more lives later. Which is a reasonable objective - same with nuking Japan. But its still an act of terrorism - to provoke terror for a reaction.
What I think is important is to remember that, whatever ones views of Harris and Bomber Command*, after the war we and the rest of the 'civilised' world made an active decision to proscribe certain actions going forward. Some of these actions were ones we had ourselves indulged in during previous conflicts but we made a clear and unequivocal choice that such actions shold no longer be tolerated by ourse;ves or any other nations. This formed the basis of the 1949 Conventions and of subsequent international law.
So to some extent what happened in WW2 is moot. We decided afterwards to change things and to introduce new laws and standards to which we would hold ourselves. Israel and the UK, amongst others, were early adherents to this. Those are the rules under which we should operate today.
*and I am not as critical as might appear, nor do I necessarily agree with any sort of retrospective condemnation. I am arguing merely from the philospohical point of view as far as actions in WW2 are concerned.
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
No. I took it as read. The glass is shaped like her perfect breast
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
Next week the Gazette will send you to the Paps of Jura.
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
No. I took it as read. The glass is shaped like her perfect breast
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
Next week the Gazette will send you to the Paps of Jura.
You could write a ridiculous, unpublishable travel piece dedicated to places and foodstuffs named after sexually characterised body parts
Might have a go
Catania is, btw, cloudless and HOT. 26C and rising at noon. In late October. Mad
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
So we should not have prosecuted the remaining Nazi leadership after WW2? (I know this is actually an argument made by many eminent lawyers both at the time and since) Or the Serbian and Croatian leadership after the break up of Yugoslavia?
But the Nazis chose to start the war, so their actions were not necessary.
We were acting defensively, so ours were.
I must have missed the bit where Germany declared war on the UK. I always thought it was Neville Chamberlain who did.
Otherwise - it is purely a matter of taste when one decides when the European, and East Asian and Pacific, wars began.
I’m sure you’re wrong, actually. Neville Chamberlain never declared war on the UK.
"Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, said France would deport foreigners deemed a threat without waiting for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to hear their appeals. If their removal was judged to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights, Paris would pay a fine but not allow them back."
I which case there is no point having either war crimes or anti-terrorism laws. Because either side can claim that a conflict is an existential crisis on some level.
Well yes. That's right. Which state would refrain from a course of action because it would be breaking the "law" and which, if not undertaken, might result in the extermination of that state.
It is a fiction.
And yet the UK, Germany, US, Russia and Italy all withheld from the use of chemical weapons in WWII.
Because they knew that once one side used them, everyone would use them. For the same reason, States refrain from using nuclear weapons.
Isn't that ultimately why we have any rules of war? We won't do X because we don't want X done to us.
Well, the argument is that we should behave morally, regardless of what others do.
But, that is very much a counsel of perfection.
I agree with you that, in practice, the rules of war developed upon the basis of reciprocity.
The Greek city states allowed their enemies to bury their dead with honour, and treated envoys as sacrosanct, because they expected such treatment in reverse. One of the many things that 300 gets badly wrong is showing Leonidas throwing Persian envoys down a well, and portraying it as badass. It was an earlier king, Cleomenes, who did it, and the Spartans considered it a shameful deed, so much so, that when they learned that Xerxes was planning to invade, two Spartan nobles travelled to Persia, offering their own lives in exchange for those of the murdered envoys.
The problem comes with total war. Where civilian populations on both sides have been heavily mobilised for war work. Then, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and/or starving civilians does serve a military function.
While it's not a legal distinction, I would distinguish ethically, between:
a) cruel and ruthless actions that are carried out, because they do objectively, contribute towards winning the war. Examples are Sherman's March to the Sea, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Naval Blockade of Germany in WWI.
b) wanton sadism, such as the actions of Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army, the Holocaust, starving POW's to death, rape etc.
I think one can make a good case that the bombing of Hiroshima belongs in (a). I cannot see very much evidence, with the benefit of hindsight, that the bombing of Nagasaki made much difference to the winning of the war.
The bombing of Nagasaki demonstrated that the US could produce nuclear weapons on a weekly basis. Fission was actually widely known about - Japanese research had been small scale. They had worked out that vast efforts would required to enrich uranium (they didn’t know about plutonium).
As Niels Bohr put it, you needed to turn a whole country into an enrichment processing facility. When he was shown the Manhattan Project, he commented that he was right in his prediction.
When Japanese scientists briefed the war cabinet after Hiroshima, they included this information - the war crazy types jumped on the possibility that the US could only drop one or two bombs a year.
This was why, from the beginning of the Manhattan Project, it had been assumed that two bombs would need to be dropped. One to demonstrate the weapon, the second to prove it could be done rapidly.
After Nagasaki, that last clutched straw was removed, and the Emperor moved against the war hawks - and broken the stalemate in the war cabinet.
That's a story one can tell. It can be debated. Nagasaki came very soon after Hiroshima. The Japanese government was still arguing what to do after Hiroshima. One can make a case that they would have surrendered given a few more days.
The war cabinet were split 50/50
If you are going to try and make a case that they would have surrendered, which actual people were going to change their vote?
From, historically, saying that the entire Japanese people should fight to the death. Literally. They were taking about getting *everyone* to charge at the American invaders with bamboo spears in a glorious death etc.
After the Emperor broke the dead lock, those voting to fight on tried a coup against the Emperor. Which only failed because an American conventional bombing raid caused a blackout in Tokyo and the troops participating in the coup could find there was round the Imperial palace in the dark.
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
No. I took it as read. The glass is shaped like her perfect breast
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
We did it, no one was prosecuted for it, and the Allied public overwhelmingly supported it.
Because we won and we controlled the courts. Had the Germans won and they controlled the courts would it have changed the basic moral case for or against war crimes?
Certain things are inherently wrong and should not be considered by civilised countries.
Certain things are inherently wrong = religion.
Not to say that's good or bad but eternal values are and ought to be found in religion and nowhere else.
It is the rather elegant analogy of Sumption arguing against apologies for historical acts by the current generation. To say that there are eternal values and that they don't change, or are "inherent" is essentially the same as religious belief.
Mentioned in the book “King Solomon’s Mines” I believe
The roof of our music school was called “the queen of Sheba’s tit” for some reason. Maybe she was famously pointy breasted.
And around the corner were two bollards to stop cars going down a tiny lane where one had its top knocked off for as long as anyone knew so that one was convex topped and one concave and they were called Adam and Eve.
I am about to eat the breasts of Saint Agatha. OK one breast, but still a good effort
Shouldn't as an accompaniment you have had a glass of champagne in a coupe?
No!
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
Do I really have to explain my Marie Antoinette allusion. Pff.
No. I took it as read. The glass is shaped like her perfect breast
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
You really believe the origin myth?
Of the cakes? Yes maybe
It seems unlikely this is an unbroken tradition stretching from the 4th century AD but I can believe it’s very old. Or maybe it does really go back to Isis
Here’s a weird one. I was once in a small city near the Mexican capital and found a market apparently obsessed with selling bread rolls inexplicably dotted with red sugar icing. Quite a strange delicacy. They were nice enough but I couldn’t work out the fuss
Then later I read that the aztecs, on feast days, would make special cakes and decorate them with spots of human blood - from human sacrifices. They offered to them to conquistadors as a treat and couldn’t work out why the Spanish were doing barfing gestures
I am pretty sure those Mexican market cakes were an ancient gastronomic folk memory of that Aztec tradition, perhaps continued unbroken but unwitting as time went past
I genuinely enjoyed the article but in WWII the British Bomber Command adopted area bombing and "dehoming" was a specific aim of this.
In early/mid WWII bomb accuracy was measured in miles. They could not accurately bomb small targets. But attacking the ground with bombs was more feasible than, say, invading France, so they had to work out what to do. So they tried to work out what would be the most efficient use of British bombers and after some debate area bombing and dehousing was adopted instead of, say, logistics bombing to attack railways/hubs or developing a longer-distance bomber to attack ships
Since this policy was specifically designed to target civilians and no realistic means available to reduce civilian casualties, it meets your definition of terrorism.
Details of the dehousing policy can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing . If you have a taste for military history you might want to try Bomber Command by Max Hastings, which is in turn inspiring thru his depiction of how to ramp up production from ten to thousand bomber raids, and deeply depressing in his depiction of the casualties thus produced.
As I say in the article, we have an alternative term we use for the acts you describe - war crimes. I think this is a better definition not least because , in the modern circumstance, it is supposed to be defined and judged independently of winners and losers. You can win a war and still be guilty of war crimes in the eyes of the international community.
I have absolutely no doubt that, in modern terms, the area bombings of WW2 by all sides would be defined as war crimes - the equivalent of state enacted terrorism.
Very probably. But those actions were necessary, in the eyes of the perpetrators, in order to win the war and defeat the Germans.
True. But many perpetrators of war crimes see their actions as necessary. The same can be said of torture and the execution of prisoners
More to the point, it was some of these actions which were legally acceptable at the time which led to the creation of the laws covering actions in war after WW2.
It's really only because precision bombing (which still kills plenty of civilians) is now a possibility, that we treat incendiary bombing as a war crime. It would not be treated as such, if bombing were no more accurate than in WWII.
Not true. There were plenty at the time and just after the war who considered it a war crime. Indeed the German bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam were described as such even though the legal term didn't even exist.
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
We did it, no one was prosecuted for it, and the Allied public overwhelmingly supported it.
Because we won and we controlled the courts. Had the Germans won and they controlled the courts would it have changed the basic moral case for or against war crimes?
Certain things are inherently wrong and should not be considered by civilised countries.
Certain things are inherently wrong = religion.
Not to say that's good or bad but eternal values are and ought to be found in religion and nowhere else.
It is the rather elegant analogy of Sumption arguing against apologies for historical acts by the current generation. To say that there are eternal values and that they don't change, or are "inherent" is essentially the same as religious belief.
Tell that to the church of England - for whom God-given rights and wrongs seem to correspond entirely to the ethics and morals of the elite of the day.
Comments
The Dad bit is relevant here, because one of the joys of parenthood is saying "I don't care who started it, I'm disappointed in how both of you are acting."
It's too easy to look for a simple goodie:baddie binary, rather then messy, non-uniform shades of grey. (Is it a problem with the UK folk memory of WW2 and the Falklands, where the good/bad division was pretty unambiguous?)
There was no alternative, so it was proportionate to the military aims and because we were in an existential state of total war at the time even what would normally be considered civilians were regrettably military targets.
Thankfully the technology has progressed in the past 80 years so Israel for instance can bomb Hamas without needing to firebomb Gaza as we would have justifiably done in their shoes 80 years ago.
So when Wittgenstein (or Humpty) says anything at all, if the theory is correct it is impossible to have any idea at all what they mean, as meanings are unavailable.
Which means the theory is not even coherently sayable.
It is a fiction.
I don’t want him to win either - but I do understand why millions of people think they have nothing to lose, and are voting for him to turn the whole thing upside-down.
Remember that the aim of firebombing German cities was not to target their military capabilities. It was to so terrorise the population that it broke the will of the German people to fight.
As the war transpired we didn't really benefit from the german population pushing back against the nazi regime. The allies had to wage war literally to the capital and then block by block until the nazis surrendered. Fire bombing Dresden didn't advance the war at all. I'm not saying it was a crime - it was total war. But it was terrorism. The deliberate and explicit choice to incinerate innocent civilians with the aim of terrorising others to give up.
I know that in theory, theory and practice are the same. But in practice, they are not.
That innocents die does not make bombing indiscriminate.
If Israel sends bombs after Hamas, deliberately targeting Hamas and doing what is reasonable to minimise civilian deaths but civilians still die then do you think that is indiscriminate bombing? Or is it proportionate warfare?
Indiscriminate bombing is what Russia does. Just level every building without warning and kill everyone. Israel categorically isn't doing that in Gaza, if it were millions would have died in the inferno.
Hamas is, in part, a consequence of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is not to condone Hamas's actions, but it is moral naivety not to recognise this context. It is the official policy of the UK government and that of most of our allies that we do not condone Israel's actions in Palestine, that we recognise continued settlement building as being contrary to international law and contrary to hopes for a lasting peace.
Where that takes us in the context of the mess in the Middle East. Probably nowhere. I guess worth acknowledging that for good or ill (mostly ill) Hamas are in charge in Gaza. So presumably have the monopoly of violence within Gaza and, if you believe Nozick, Gaza can act for the universal protection of its state.
However, what they did at the start of October could surely never be justified on those grounds. So was it a terrorist act by a state, a terrorist act by a group of terrorists or something else?
I guess this why folks get tied in knots over this. I personally think it is an easier to describe the act rather than the person / entity that did it. However, clearly if you commit a terrorist act, then surely you are a terrorist? So that doesn’t work either.
We were never at war with the RoI. Israel believes it is at war with Hamas.
Trump is no Hitler. As mad as Adolf was, he had a vision for Germany. Trump has no vision for America, only for himself. He is a patsy, the figurehead demagogue of a machine which will use him to project their power in an accessible way.
Lets put it like this. Would women vote to remove their right to contraception? To access abortion? To travel? Some would, but most don't envisage themselves as chattel. But they will vote against things - woke, elites, liberals, foreigners, unChristian values etc etc etc. Especially when those things are whipped up by propaganda to be *the* thing that is threatening their way of life. And then when abortion is banned and travel is banned anc contraception is banned, the propaganda moves on to that being a sacrifice worth paying for the battle against woke etc etc.
This is America. You can't deny the factual truth to what I post because it is happening. We can debate the spin and the choice of words, but the subjugation of women voted for by women is real.
The entire population, civilian and otherwise, was being mobilised one way or another to fight the war effort. Either being on the frontlines, or working to support those who were, so they were all military targets.
From a less famous Churchill quote in 1940:
There is another more obvious difference from 1914. The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere to be seen. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage."
Torsten Bell
@TorstenBell
·
1h
We’ve known we had a problem for a while - moving to phone surveys in the pandemic missed loads of renters and there is a huge discrepancy with other surveys since (labour force survey shows no increase in employment on pre-pandemic levels, tax/business data shows a 1m increase!)
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1716712123420512319
The pitch is - “Let’s stop playing nice, because they never have.”
Which isn’t to condone it, anymore than Trumpism. But there is a reason that Netanyahu gets votes.
But as a rule of course the various WW2 resistance groups did not find it necessary nor beneficial to target civilian populations becuase, generally, they were their own civilians within their own country. Blowing up your own countrymen to put political pressure on occupiers who don't care much about them in the furst place tends to be counter productive.
Of course both sides in the Troubles and Hamas currently didn't/don't seem to care much about their fellow countrymen and do indulge in acts of terrorism against their own people.
(Having said the term terrorism is largely meaningless.)
Israel wasn't blockading Gaza prior to the rise of Hamas, quite the opposite. From 2005 to 2007 (when Hamas took over) Israel was not only not blockading Gaza, they were encouraging the development of the Port of Gaza to help Gaza get developed.
Unfortunately then Hamas took over, so the blockade became necessary and was instituted by Olmert in a reversal of his and Sharon's prior plans to encourage the development of Gaza without an Israeli occupation.
If anything Netanyahu is a response to Hamas rather than the other way around, and even then he's only barely been able to be elected even with Hamas.
And if those levelled buildings were being used by Hamas, then each of them were a legitimate target, where they not?
Destroying legitimate targets without killing civilians is a huge success as far as proportionality is concerned. Shouldn't we be praising Israel, not condemning them, for that?
Britney Spears’s memoir is the most sickening tale in modern pop
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/review-britney-spears-the-woman-in-me/ (£££)
We were acting defensively, so ours were.
the Great Satan, the United StatesEgypt.I think Israel is absolutely wrong to continue to build settlements in the West Bank but, as with 1947-48 I understand why they are doing it in the Millwall/hung for a sheep as a lamb sense.
That said, I was never happy with the idea of inventing, post-facto, an offence like "crimes against peace." The Nazis could easily have been tried under existing German laws, and the laws of the States in which they committed their atrocities.
Otherwise - it is purely a matter of taste when one decides when the European, and East Asian and Pacific, wars began.
"Should" we have? Probably yes. I believe that killing millions of people on account of their race or physical condition is worthy of prosecution. But that's only because I am a product of my own society so I would say that.
But, I doubt if anyone on the Allied side was thinking of carpet bombing in 1940, nor would they have countenanced it, had the Nazis not plumbed new depths of cruelty.
If I see someone trying to rape a woman on the streets and I fight them off and they die in the conflict, that's self defence. I was acting in defence of the woman. The UK acted in defence of our allies.
If the rapist kills someone, he's a murderer.
If an active shooter is killing people in a rampage and a Police Officer takes him down that's self defence. Even if the shooter was going to kill other members of the public, not the Officer next.
The active shooter is committing murder.
As aggressor the Nazis actions had no justification. The same is not true for the Allies.
And considering Trump is the only first term Republican to have failed in his parties attempt to get reelected since the start of the 20th century (HW Bush was third term) I think the truth has hurt Trump, not helped him.
The cake is incredibly sweet but exquisitely fragrant with pistachio. It needs the bitterness of the coffee (which is superb, one of the best coffees I’ve ever had)
A brilliant breakfast
It’s weird how, even at its crappiest, Italy can do these things so well
The breast cakes are a tradition stretching back 1700 years to a lovely Christian virgin in Catania who resisted a Roman lord’s advances and got her breasts torn off as a punishment. Other historians claim the tradition is even OLDER and dates back to the worship of the mother goddess Isis across the Mediterranean in Hellenic times
Magic
In 1943 Churchill himself asked the question "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
There were also plenty of books and papers written about the bombing after the war but long before the advent of modern precision bombing which criticised it very strongly.
For a summary of how the wartime bombing campaign was viewed, particularly by Churchill, I would recommend "Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing" by Christopher C. Harmon which is published by the US Naval War College.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA529814.pdf
Here's the conclusion of the US military in 1945: "The city attacks of the RAF prior to the autumn of 1944, did not substantially affect the course of German war production. German war production as a whole continued to increase. This in itself is not conclusive, but the Survey has made detailed analysis of the course of production and trade in 10 German cities that were attacked during this period and has made more general analyses in others. These show that while production received a moderate setback after a raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. As a rule the industrial plants were located around the perimeter of German cities and characteristically these were relatively undamaged." At https://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm
The problem comes with total war. Where civilian populations on both sides have been heavily mobilised for war work. Then, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and/or starving civilians does serve a military function.
While it's not a legal distinction, I would distinguish ethically, between:
a) cruel and ruthless actions that are carried out, because they do objectively, contribute towards winning the war. Examples are Sherman's March to the Sea, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Naval Blockade of Germany in WWI.
b) wanton sadism, such as the actions of Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army, the Holocaust, starving POW's to death, rape etc.
Certain things are inherently wrong and should not be considered by civilised countries.
With accuracies approaching 30 yards from 30,000 feet, “playing card” formations of a handful of Mosquitoes could guarantee (80%+) hitting a pinpoint target.
The technology was gradually adopted my Main Force. Perhaps the biggest barrier was that a year earlier, pinpoint bombing had totally failed.
You, as usual, completely skip over the continued settlement building in the West Bank.
Also if you are bombing German cities you are (and I’m aware that this is a very cold thought and isn’t my personal choice but an idea) potentially reducing the flow of future combatants against you. If you wipe out scores of teenage boys then you are reducing the number of men available over time to be armed and trained against you. As we saw as the Russians and Allies pushed into Germany children and women joined in the fighting and so (again please understand that this is a pure cold calculation you might have to make in total war) they are potentially legitimate targets in the same way that if you bomb an army training camp full of new recruits - they haven’t fired a shot at you yet but they will and so legitimate to target.
If either of these two arguments are made in the context that they are worth considering if they can in even a small way shorten the war, push Germany closer to a potential surrender and thus save more lives and destruction in the long term then are they acceptable?
But almost certainly an aristo-urban myth. UNLIKE THE BREAST CAKES OF SAINT AGATHA
People do not like to be told they are wrong. We know that. But these things are happening, so is the proposal that we don;'t call them out for what they are?
Would it have been better if we'd been able to just bomb the industrial plants? Of course but the technology didn't exist to do so.
Would it have been better to not do any bombings and see the Nazis potentially win instead? Of course not.
War justifies difficult choices, the question is proportionality and since there was no better proportional option, it was proportionate at the time.
It wouldn't be today, but only because better technology exists today. Not because social mores have changed.
Meanwhile, here's the abstract
"...This historical reassessment of the World War II British bombing campai~n notes that though in 1940 Churchill declared that he was waging "a military and not a civilian war" to destroy "military objectives" and not "women and children," within eighteen months both types of targets would be struck by Bomber Command. The author searches for the reasons in "three contiguous realms" of strategic influence: moral (and legal), political, and military. The study concludes that although for much ofthe war "area bombing" of cities was a "tragic necessity" meeting the "'reasonable man's' standard of what was decently allowable given the blunt weapons the Allies had" and the evils they faced, nonetheless Allied leaders could have and should have abandoned indiscriminate bombing in the last phases of the conflict, when more precise means were at hand and "Nazi power had been ovennatched."..."
Notes
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
"Hamas became stronger and used the auspices of peace that Israelis so longed for as cover for its training, and hundreds of Israelis have paid with their lives for this massive omission."
But to deny that these bombing raids aimed to create terror by incinerating as many civilians as possible is to deny reality. That was explicitly the mission. We can justify it any way we like - as we won - but we made a clear and unambiguous choice to brutally mass murder civilians to try and shorten the war. To save more lives later. Which is a reasonable objective - same with nuking Japan. But its still an act of terrorism - to provoke terror for a reaction.
Which shows how confused is the concept of "terrorism".
But you're quite wrong to say it's characteristically carried out by the weaker party.
Terror originated with the French revolutionary government, and has been a means to political ends adopted by many totalitarian regimes ever since.
As for Richard's question 'what is the new form of terror', one candidate is China's new quiet terror.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/30/chinas-age-of-malaise
..Xi has always spoken more bluntly in private. In a speech behind closed doors, shortly after he came to power, he uttered what remains the clearest statement of his vision. “Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse?” he asked, according to excerpts that circulated among Party members. One reason, he said, was that the Soviets’ “ideals and beliefs had wavered.” More important, though, “they didn’t have the tools of dictatorship.” With dogged efficiency, Xi has set out to strengthen belief in the Party and to build the tools of dictatorship. He has succeeded more in the latter than in the former. These days, the most prevalent belief in China is that anyone—from the truest believer to the canniest tycoon—can disappear. This fall, there was fresh evidence: yet another powerful general, the defense minister, Li Shangfu, never arrived at a meeting he was scheduled to attend...
(The whole article is well worth a read.)
As Niels Bohr put it, you needed to turn a whole country into an enrichment processing facility. When he was shown the Manhattan Project, he commented that he was right in his prediction.
When Japanese scientists briefed the war cabinet after Hiroshima, they included this information - the war crazy types jumped on the possibility that the US could only drop one or two bombs a year.
This was why, from the beginning of the Manhattan Project, it had been assumed that two bombs would need to be dropped. One to demonstrate the weapon, the second to prove it could be done rapidly.
After Nagasaki, that last clutched straw was removed, and the Emperor moved against the war hawks - and broken the stalemate in the war cabinet.
So to some extent what happened in WW2 is moot. We decided afterwards to change things and to introduce new laws and standards to which we would hold ourselves. Israel and the UK, amongst others, were early adherents to this. Those are the rules under which we should operate today.
*and I am not as critical as might appear, nor do I necessarily agree with any sort of retrospective condemnation. I am arguing merely from the philospohical point of view as far as actions in WW2 are concerned.
Might have a go
Catania is, btw, cloudless and HOT. 26C and rising at noon. In late October. Mad
https://archive.ph/y3UlT
"Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, said France would deport foreigners deemed a threat without waiting for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to hear their appeals. If their removal was judged to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights, Paris would pay a fine but not allow them back."
But, that is very much a counsel of perfection.
I agree with you that, in practice, the rules of war developed upon the basis of reciprocity.
The Greek city states allowed their enemies to bury their dead with honour, and treated envoys as sacrosanct, because they expected such treatment in reverse. One of the many things that 300 gets badly wrong is showing Leonidas throwing Persian envoys down a well, and portraying it as badass. It was an earlier king, Cleomenes, who did it, and the Spartans considered it a shameful deed, so much so, that when they learned that Xerxes was planning to invade, two Spartan nobles travelled to Persia, offering their own lives in exchange for those of the murdered envoys.
If you are going to try and make a case that they would have surrendered, which actual people were going to change their vote?
From, historically, saying that the entire Japanese people should fight to the death. Literally. They were taking about getting *everyone* to charge at the American invaders with bamboo spears in a glorious death etc.
After the Emperor broke the dead lock, those voting to fight on tried a coup against the Emperor. Which only failed because an American conventional bombing raid caused a blackout in Tokyo and the troops participating in the coup could find there was round the Imperial palace in the dark.
“Sheba’s Breast Hiking Trail”
https://lidwala.co.sz/activities-tours/shebas-breast-hiking-trail/
Mentioned in the book “King Solomon’s Mines” I believe
Prime Minister Liz Truss
Not to say that's good or bad but eternal values are and ought to be found in religion and nowhere else.
It is the rather elegant analogy of Sumption arguing against apologies for historical acts by the current generation. To say that there are eternal values and that they don't change, or are "inherent" is essentially the same as religious belief.
And around the corner were two bollards to stop cars going down a tiny lane where one had its top knocked off for as long as anyone knew so that one was convex topped and one concave and they were called Adam and Eve.
It seems unlikely this is an unbroken tradition stretching from the 4th century AD but I can believe it’s very old. Or maybe it does really go back to Isis
Here’s a weird one. I was once in a small city near the Mexican capital and found a market apparently obsessed with selling bread rolls inexplicably dotted with red sugar icing. Quite a strange delicacy. They were nice enough but I couldn’t work out the fuss
Then later I read that the aztecs, on feast days, would make special cakes and decorate them with spots of human blood - from human sacrifices. They offered to them to conquistadors as a treat and couldn’t work out why the Spanish were doing barfing gestures
I am pretty sure those Mexican market cakes were an ancient gastronomic folk memory of that Aztec tradition, perhaps continued unbroken but unwitting as time went past