Redefining terrorism

[LFK]

Spend some time carefully reading this article:

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2005/feature_burgess_julaug05.msp

It is long, but important. The author argues that the world should take the model of piracy and adapt it to terrorism. Under international conventions, any entity (state or private) may hold pirates to justice. It all but defining pirates as outlaws (using the ancient English common-law definition of outlaw). It would greatly clarify our modern dilemma in many minds. Think the author is on to something?

 

[JB]

Re: Redefining terrorism

This is something new???

Were terrorists not outlaws everywhere always?

What did the left think they were?

 

[Pony]

Re: Redefining terrorism

 

[LFK]

Re: Redefining terrorism

This is something new???

Were terrorists not outlaws everywhere always?

What did the left think they were?

You would have to ask one of the left to get the correct answer, but everything I have read indicates that the left thought they were terrorists. Was that just a rhetorical question used as an example of trolling? Or, were you suggesting that there is already a global agreement on this issue that just happens to coincide with what the right proclaims?

The "problem" that this article addresses is that sometimes other countries view terrorists as "freedom fighters." By coming to a common understanding, nations could pursue and persecute terrorists just as they do now with people who commit piracy.

 

[LFK]

Re: Redefining terrorism

 

[JB]

Re: Redefining terrorism

Okay. I understand now.

I guess "freedom fighter" and "terrorist" could be confused by a culture that approves of indiscriminate mass murder of civilians.

My post was modified by the unintended emoticon. The first line should have read, "This is something new?" with a question mark rather than the face.

 

[bekosh]

Re: Redefining terrorism

There is no need to do or change anything. Under the Geneva conventions (Article 4, section 2) In order for "freedom fighters" to qualify for the protections of the Geneva & Hague conventions they must...

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

If they violate any of these rules, they lose the protection of the conventions and become illegal combatants and thus war criminals, liable for punishment up to and including summary execution.
I'll quote Stuart Slade on the reason for this.

The laws of war exist in order to create a firm divide between the combatant and the non-combatant for the protection of the latter. They evolved from the experiences of the Thirty Years War and a consensus that the involvement of non-state players in said war had come very close to destroying civilization in Europe. The sovereign state's monopoly of organized violence and the criminalization of non-state players indulging in organized violence come from that perception. If you resist combatants by force of arms you are an illegal combatant and should - and probably will - be summarily executed.