When I was a kid, I had a discussion with a family friend who happened
to be a lawyer. I did not understand why the person who executes a
death sentence is not committing premeditated murder.
He explained to me that murder is the _unlawful_ killing of a person.
The execution of a death sentence is lawful, therefore it is not
murder.
Regardless of one's position on the morality of capital punishment...
and regardless of whether you _like_ the definition of the word
"murder..." it _is_ the definition, and it is possible to understand it
and to apply it in deciding what acts should be labelled murder.
Similarly, terrorism is "the _unlawful_ use or threatened use of force
or violence by a person or an organized group against people or
property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or
governments, often for ideological or political reasons." Definition
AHD4, emphasis mine.
Now, deciding what is and is not lawful can be difficult enough in
domestic matters (as I am well aware at the moment, living as I do in
Massachusetts) and it is far more complicated in international affairs.
So this doesn't really answer any questions. But it does _raise_ some
questions.
If, for the sake of argument, you assume that the intention of the U.
S. bombing of Nagasaki was not primarily to take out a military target,
but to create "shock and awe" in the Japanese populace, military, and
Emperor, in order to convince them to surrender--that is, to intimidate
or coerce them--then it was terrorism if unlawful, and was not
terrorism if lawful. On the whole, given that the U.S. was attacked and
was in a state of declared war with Japan, I think most would label it
as lawful.
On the other hand: would our characterization of the bombing of
Nagasaki be affected if its purpose was neither military, nor a
psychological message aimed at Japan, but a psychological message aimed
_at Stalin and at the Soviet Union_--one saying "We have these weapons
of mass destruction and we are willing to use them?" Perhaps that would
make it a terrorist act after all--but one directed at the Soviet
Union, not at Japan.
Something that I don't recall seeing recently in the arguments about
whether or not 9/11 was terrorism is this. Since we in the United
States were, in fact, terrorized, we are inclined to see it as a
terrorist act. The question is, what specific actions was Osama bin
Laden trying to intimidate or coerce us into taking? I'm not very clear
on this. Now, suppose the psychological message was aimed _at Arabs_
and was "Al-Qaeda is big, strong, courageous, and capable of attacking
the United States with impunity. Join us." If this was the nature of
the act, then, by the dictionary definition, would it constitute
terrorism?
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith(a)alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at
http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/