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The Wrong War

2002; Council on Foreign Relations; Volume: 81; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/20033238

2327-7793

Grenville Byford,

Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

WARS have typically been fought against proper nouns (Germany, say) for the good reason that proper nouns can surrender and promise not to do it again. Wars against common nouns (poverty, crime, drugs) have been less successftil. Such opponents never give up. The war on terror ism, unfortunately, falls into the second category. Victory is possible only if the United States confines itself to fighting individual rather than the tactic of terrorism itself. Yet defining who is a is more complicated than it might seem-and even if it were not, choosing one's enemies on the basis of their tactics alone has little to recommend it. The OxfordEnglish Dictionary says that a is someone who attempts to further his views by a system of coercive intimidation. ... The term now usually refers to a member of a clandestine or expatriate organization aiming to coerce an established government by acts of violence against it or its subjects. This definition is fine as far as it goes, but in practice the use of the term is more problematic. The dictionary's citations describe the following terrorists or groups involved in terrorism: the Russian government of Tsar Alexander III, the French Resistance during World War II, the Zionist Irgun in Palestine, the Kenyan Mau independence movement, the African Na tional Congress (ANC), Irish nationalists, and Greek Cypriots. At least some of these groups are widely admired, and it is telling that the citations referring to the Greek Cypriots and the ANC raise questions as to whether the terrorist label was properly applied. Like beauty, it would seem, terrorism is in the eye of the beholder.