Glorifying terrorism

Indeed. How about Sinn Fein’s “IRA: undefeated army” accessories or the infamous “sniper at work” items that have disappeared from the website but are doubtless available at certain fine retailers everywhere?

Indeed. Lordy, what would they make of this or indeed this.

The whole conceptual basis of the law seems utterly wrong-headed.

I thought the whole argument that liberty of thought and speech was a good thing had been won some time in the 18th century?

What is their argument for it? That there’s some slim chance that by preventing such speech there may be someone who in another possible world would have carried out an act of violence but they now won’t?

Vague hand-waving counterfactual nods in the direction of the prevention of possibly bad future outcomes shouldn’t trump hard won and long-standing liberties.

Additionally, it seems fairly obvious that good governance requires laws that don’t allow politicians to make the kind of case-by-case judgement calls that this law is designed to set up.

I have to say Blair and his gang look set to overtake BushCo in the “convincing us that modern Western democracy is a dying beast” sweepstakes. That’s quite a feat.

I don’t really think Blair etc really believe in democracy.

Seriously.

I think they believe the country ought to be run in the country’s best interest, and if the country is too stupid to know it’s own interest, well, then more competent individuals will just have to get on and do it.

Additionally, it seems fairly obvious that good governance requires laws that don’t allow politicians to make the kind of case-by-case judgement calls that this law is designed to set up.

I find that more persuasive when reversed. Don’t write apparently neutral and universal rules that, if applied universally and neutrally, would be disastrous. Instead, recognise that the (perceived or actual) problem is that certain people, who in general cannot be proven to have done anything specific wrong (yet), are considered unnaceptably dangerous and may need to be monitored, locked up and/or deported.

Then take the decision to do (or not do) those things. In an accountable way. Monitor the number and names of people so treated, have them visited by independant third parties, etc. And if you don’t like the result, vote out the politician who took that decision.

I find genuinely puzzling the popularity of the idea that you can write down in advance a complete, optimal perscription for managing complicated political tradeoffs between individual liberty and collective safety. How can any adult believe such a thing?

You can’t even write down a set of rules for playing a game as simple as chess. Why do so many people seem to think that every aspect of the organisation of human society is as simple an issue as how to win at noughts and crosses when going first?

soru

Via The Telegraph, possibly the worst excuse ever for detaining people for up to three months before charging them: “Another reason for requiring a longer period for questioning is because Muslims need time for prayer, often several times a day.”

Jet, you’ll note I didn’t say that the battle had been won, just that the argument had been largely won.

It’s one thing for the notion of liberty of speech and conscience to become a widely held political ideal and entirely another thing for it to actually exist.

It seems like a good bet that an early test of this law would relate to something posted on a website. Would a host of a site be responsible for comments made anonymously that were deemed to have glorified terrorism?

As bad as things might seem in the US under the Bush administration, there is really nothing I’ve heard of that has been brought to a vote at the federal or state level that comes close to being as limiting to free speech and unworkable as this proposed law. Please (and I mean it) enlighten me if I’ve missed something equally controversial in the US.

Guy Fawkes, your country needs you now.

[T]here are bound to be cases of political violence which people on one side of the issue see as terrorism and people on the other side do not.

It’s just another illustration of the unworkability of the law.

Ixnay, dude: the side which isn’t the Home Secretary’s side is illegal. (Well, half illegal, until they pass a law banning non-glorification of Glorious Acts of Liberation.)

Jet, I didn’t know that. I did know that lots of Quakers served (bravely) in dangerous non-combat jobs e.g. medics, ambulance drivers, but I wasn’t aware that there was much in the way of active combat service from the Quaker community.

Well, for British History, how about:

1) Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. ( So much for Guy Fawkes Day. )

2) The murder of Thomas a Beckett.

3) Robin Hood

4) William Wallace

Soru,

Then take the decision to do (or not do) those things. In an accountable way. Monitor the number and names of people so treated, have them visited by independant third parties, etc. And if you don’t like the result, vote out the politician who took that decision.

I have, in the past, argued this view. It’s often said that we don’t know what future governments will do with laws we set today: we could elect a new Hitler tomorrow, and he’d have a field-day with such draconian legislation. This is rubbish though: if politics takes a sudden lurch to the right (or indeed left) then the climate will be such that this law could be passed anyway.

However, I do think there’s a very real risk of more moderate function creep. We’ve already seen it with anti-terror legislation used by police to keep anti-arms-sales protestors at bay. The law is such that the police and prosecutors are always looking for ways to “get their man”: I’m certain these laws will be used in cases where there is little other evidence. Indeed, I have a strong suspicion that part of the effort to pass these laws *is* to get people whom the police suspect are dodgy, but about whom we can’t prove anything else.

Other points: we already have laws which are basically “incitement” laws; the level of “monitoring” which you call for is woefully laz: we don’t even know what many people being currently held are even accused off (although I grant that this is a separate issue really).

Believe me – I checked at the time – until shortly after the London bombings on 7/7, a number of websites with Yorkshire connections celebrated the Yorkshire origins of Guy Fawkes who, with fellow conspirators, planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London at the state opening on 5 November 1605.

Fawkes was drawn into the plot as the explosives expert. According to a recent assessment, he was unstinting in the quantity of explosives he planned to use for the purpose, evidently intending over-kill to make quite sure:

“Guy Fawkes could have changed the face of London if his 1605 plot had not been foiled, explosion experts have said. His 2,500 kg of gunpowder could have caused chaos and devastation over a 490-metre radius, they have calculated. Fawkes’ planned blast was powerful enough to destroy Westminster Hall and the Abbey, with streets as far as Whitehall suffering damage, they say. . . ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3240135.stm

Tours of places in Yorkshire connected with Fawkes were run by local tourist agencies. I can only assume that the celebrity status of Fawkes in Yorkshire would have been familiar to the three of the London bombers who came from Yorkshire.

For readers here less familiar with the history of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes

btw, will it be permissible to say that the Contras in Nicaragua were the moral equivalent of the founding fathers?

Interesting choice of items. Will the Brits ever recover from being thrown out of the Holy Land (and by the Jews no less)?

Another issue is how do you define “glorification”? That could be anything from a military historian or analyst praising the effectiveness of a terrorist group’s tactics while not necessarily endorsing their cause to someone celebrating the role of the ANC in getting rid of apartheid, a cause most people would applaud, even though they supported terrorist tactics at times.

Or what about calling the contras the “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”? Applying the letter of the law here would have seen at least one US President in jug.

How about praising Jonas Savimbi as a freedom fighter?

I agree that this is a stupid and awful law. But, it’s worth noting that the US has, in this century, been perfectly willing to put people in jail for 10-20 years for engaging in what can only be considered political speech (criticizing the draft) or for being mere members of unpopular organizations, or studying the wrong texts. If you read the Shenck, Debbs, Whittney, Abrams, or Dennis cases you’ll see that, first amendment or not, we have our share of simialarly stupid laws and political prisoners.

Uncle Kvetch,
I’m not trying to provoke a reaction or start an arguement. I just wonder if can show a link to an example of the rhetoric used to defend the contras? The only defensive argument I’ve ever heard is that they were the least evil of many evil choices. I just can’t believe that anyone would hold up the contras as anything other than a sorry alternative to the genocidal (okay that was cheap) Marxists they were fighting.

And one of mine too, the fat terror-loving bastard.

Jet, your comment illustrates how slippery it can be to define terrorism. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.

And despite what you think of the contras; cause, they sure behaved like terrorists.

Do you, like Lenin, believe the ends justify the means?

nabakov,
I never described any party as “freedom fighters”. I believe that only Western liberty loving cultures are capable of producing freedom fighters, and Nicaragua was certainly not part of western culture. In hind sight, it may have made sense to support the contras given that the sandinistas were such more efficient killers (genocide anyone). But without the benefit of hindsight, the sandanistas and contras were equally evil and Reagan should have left it alone rather than side with one demon over another.

46 was posted before I saw 45.

I don’t understand, Jet. Are you claiming that the Reagan “moral equivalent of the founding fathers” quote is some sort of myth — that he never said it?

Matt Weiner,
That Washington Post story (and google) is a real eye opener. How can power corrupt so thoroughly as to make someone betray their principles so completely?

Was the American Revolution legal? How would Paul Revere be branded, given today’s definitions?

Let’s take today’s paradigm and apply them to yesterday’s situation. How would we judge the American Revolution?

Nelson Mandela was not considered to be a Freedom Fighter by the current USA VP not very long ago. Should he have remained in jail?

General Franco overthrew a legally elected regime in Spain with an army composed of mercenaries with the support of fascist regimes and the benevolent neutrality of democratic regimes. How would this be judged by today’s standards?

Matt,

“But, it’s worth noting that the US has, in this century, been perfectly willing to put people in jail for 10-20 years for engaging in what can only be considered political speech …”

None of the cases you referred to in your comment occurred in this century and my impression is that all of them would be unlikely to be pursued under current sedition laws. US law pertaining to the First Amendment has evolved in a manner that raises the bar for limiting speech. One point of my earlier comment was to suggest that since 9/11 there have been remarkably few attempts to pass laws in the US that would reverse that trend. I could be wrong about that and I was wondering whether anyone knew of any instances where legislation has been introduced or existing laws have been in enforced in a way that could be construed as a reversal.

I do seem to recall a case in which a lawyer spent some time in jail for illegally aiding a client accused of plotting a terrorist act, but the details are fuzzy.

Among terrorists you forgot to mention:
1. The folks who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944.
2. The folks who carried out the Boston Tea Party (bonus points because they were terrorising loyal subjects of the Crown)
3. Francis Marion and other Revolutionary War guerrillas (ditto the above on crimes against the Crown).
4. The mujahadin who brought down the Soviet Empire.
5. The Contras in Nicaragua.
6. Jewish partisans in Eastern Europe in WWII, their French counterparts of the Maquis.

A regular rogues’ gallery…

I agree with most of the commentators here that outlawing the “glorification” of terrorism is dangerously vague. But it might be worthwhile to consider the problem that the law is clearly meant to address, and explore whether there are better ways to address it.

The problem, put simply, is that sophisticated modern terrorist organizations operating in free countries routinely employ front groups that perform recruiting, fundraising and logistical support for their terrorist cores. These fronts claim not to be involved in terrorism themselves, but serve as essential gateways for channeling money, personnel and assistance to terrorist cells. Key to their operations is their ability to “glorify” terrorism while denying involvement in it: it allows them to operate freely, keeping a high profile and attracting potential recruits; to gauge the seriousness of recruits and supporters carefully before revealing any secrets about terrorist operations to them; and to operate in the open financially on a fairly large scale, obtaining the necessary contributions of cash and assistance from ostensibly law-abiding supporters with a wink and a nod, while serving as a protective cocoon for the terrorist group itself.

The most prominent current users of this technique are various radical Islamist groups, but anyone familiar with the modern history of terrorism will recognize the pattern from numerous past examples. Given the spectacular success of this front-based approach to organized terrorism, and the manifest failure of the authorities to deal with it effectively in the past, it’s not surprising that the British have, in the wake of 7/11, decided to ratchet up the pressure on terrorist front groups. The particular measure of outlawing “glorification” of terrorism may well cast its net dangerously wide, but I wonder what the alternatives are, and what readers here would think of them. I’m inclined to believe, for instance, that aggressive surveillance, of the kind that usually draws brickbats from civil liberties types, is safer in the long run–in terms of both political freedom and protection from terrorism. But I wonder what the commentators here would think of that approach….

Um.

I’m assuming that the law is designed mainly to prevent Islamic clerics from praising events such as the London Subway Bombings or 9/11.

There are 60 posts above, and none of them seem to show any appreciation of this. Every other poster has seemed to assume, or pretended to assume, that this law just came out of the blue and is to be applied to Guy Falkes and the like.

Note that any event over 20 years past is exempt, unless specified. I presume the Holocaust might be specified, and probably few if any other events.

Because they are not social problems. You see, the law is intended to deal with the actual social problem of (a few) Muslim clerics praising terrorism and encouraging an environment in the sometimes quite insular mosque communities where some young men might get the wrong idea about where honor and glory lie.

If someone writes Boo-Yah For The Contras on his 3-reader website, so what? That is not a social problem and the Home Secretary frankly won’t give a rat’s ass. Does anyone on this site actually think that the Home Secretary is going to include the storming of the Bastille or whatever on the proscribed list. Then why are you pretending that. It contributes to no reasoned discussion.

Whether the law is proper or workable I don’t know. That it might be used in questionable cases for which it was not intended is a risk, certainly, as with many laws.

I wonder, then, what law you all would propose. Perhaps someone has an actual, useful seggestion about how the law might be modified to reduce this risk.

I agree that the response to the London bombings and the situation that they exposed should be reasoned and fair and proportional.

I do not agree that the response should be to do nothing and to pretend that nothing is wrong.

By my calculation, Rambo III – where Rambo and Bin Laden and his band of merry mujahadeen Islamist crazies – singlehandedly repel the Soviet occupation (actually I never saw the movie but I’m guessing this is what it is about) was made seventeen years ago. Does this count as glorifying terrorism?

Who, if not ‘some politician’ – elected, incidently, in a liberal democracy – should decide what to ‘glorify’? Perhaps a pro Bin Laden rally in Trafalgar square will be more in the spirit of ‘a free society’?

Yes, we need this law, to stop the numerous daily pro bin Laden rallies currently happening in Trafalgar square!

–WTF are you talking about? Take your straw man argument elsewhere. Free citizens should decide for themselves who to glorify, not politicians. We don’t elect people to do our “glorifying” for us.

Regarding the Debs case and sundry other instances of anti-war speech being criminalized during the first world war: yes, it’s true that the general interpretation of the 1st amendment has broadened since then, but it’s also good to remember that Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous “can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” limitation on free speech, which is generally considered a “common sense” measurement, was made in during a decision UPHOLDING the Sedition Act and the jailing of draft opponents. It is not impossible to imagine a near American future which that sort of logic makes sense again

An absurd law, to be sure, but Britain has a number of absurd laws regarding freedom of the press and of speech.

Blasphemy is illegal in Britain, for example. No making fun of Jesus.

You might not guess from the way the London Press chases after royals, but Britian has lese majeste laws on the books, and they are (sometimes) actually enforced. No British paper, for example, could actually report that a former servant to Prince Charles claimed that he once walked in on the Prince getting a blowjob from his valet.

Then, there’s the Official Secrets Act. The government can declare almost anything a “secret”, even things, which are not secret, by any reasonable definition, and thus, prevent their publication. Margaret Thatcher declared the menu at a State dinner an Official Secret to prevent editorial comment on its sumptiousness at a time of privations among the poor.

None of this touches on British libel law, which is much abused by plantiffs.

Why Britain has a undeserved reputation for legally free speech and free press, when those were American innovations, I can only wonder.

Meanwhile in NewEngland:

Wiretap mosques, Romney suggests
…
”How many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who have come from terrorist-sponsored states?” he said, referring to foreign students who attend universities in Massachusetts. ”Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?”

”How about people who are in settings — mosques, for instance — that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror,” Romney continued. ”Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what’s going on?”
…
The Heritage audience was highly receptive to Romney yesterday, giving him a rousing welcome and lengthy applause as he concluded his remarks. The foundation promotes study of issues important to conservatives.

An obvious question is whether glorification of terrorist acts by states (including illegal resort to war) falls under the ban.

Another example: the assassination by the Czech resistance in June 1942 of Reinhard Heydrich, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia and one of the architects of the Final Solution.

Natalie,

In the news today, I read that:

“BRITAIN is desperate to avoid a diplomatic row with Israel after Ariel Sharon apparently snubbed an invitation from Tony Blair to visit London, claiming that he feared arrest.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1784018,00.html

All of which may convince some that antisemitism is deeply embedded in Britain – except that:

“Israeli leader Ariel Sharon has been branded a ‘war criminal’ and a ‘fool’ by former Labour minister Gerald Kaufman.

“In a blistering attack, the veteran MP, who is Jewish, said Mr Sharon had reduced his country to an ‘international pariah’ whose actions were staining the Star of David with blood. . . ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1933309.stm

“Britain’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, today delivers an unprecedentedly strong warning to Israel, arguing that the country is adopting a stance ‘incompatible’ with the deepest ideals of Judaism, and that the current conflict with the Palestinians is ‘corrupting’ Israeli culture. . . ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,781113,00.html

ermm I think everyone should calm down just a little bit – the “glorifying terrorism” part of this proposed legislation is just that – it’s a proposal the chances of something so woolley and ill defined actually becomin law are pracically nil.

an aside to bob b at number 80

perhaps I misunderstand you but it seems you cite these things as evidence of “anti-semitism”?

Jonathon Sachs is an anti semite?

really?

How about, on the day that this worthless law is passed, a public protest: outside Number 10 or parliament, in which a group of us stand and praise various acts of terrorism and then wait to be arrested?

I might add that one of the posters above would seem to be wrong. According to Jonathan Freedland in today’s Guardian, at least some of the events that it will be forbidden to praise will be over 20 years old.

Failing that, how about a law making it illegal to praise imperialism and colonialism (i.e. the British Empire), as both Blair and Brown have done recently? The precedent here could be Germany’s law making it illegal to praise the Holocaust and aspects of Nazi-ism (displaying the swastika etc.).

The highly respected John Quiggan asks,

An obvious question is whether glorification of terrorist acts by states (including illegal resort to war) falls under the ban.

If we support the state monopoly on violence, as we must, then clearly state acts of killing are not terrorism.

Thus in Chris Bertram’s original post:

* The assassination by Mossad of Palestinian leaders in foreign countries.

and

* The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service in 1985.

are not terrorism and can be freely glorified as responsible state actions and not the crazed killings carried out by individual actors.

HTH

Bob B, I confess I really do not understand what point you are making in comment #80. I do not mean this sarcastically or insultingly.

Mrs Tilton writes:

If you are the Otto who has been commenting on afoe, I wonder whether you wish the July 20 conspirators had tried it.”

My comment as a whole: “Well, it’s always possible to resist the spiritual and temporal powers without targetting civilians, or indeed employing violence at all for that matter. I wish more people would try it.” was addressed to the point of Jason K’s post @2 (FYI sometimes comments refer to earlier comments, not the original post). The July 20 conspirators certainly targetted no civilians, which is perhaps the most important point re. terrorism. Of course in most political situations, but not re. Hitler, usually a lot of progress can be achieved without violence at all.

Btw, if your implication here was that someone who argues that German Turks vote according to their position in the German labour market (and thus aren’t potentially available to the CDU even tho many have conservative social views), must somehow be suspected of wildly reactionary views of German history, then I am sorry that my disagreement with your afoe post seems to have demented you and you should close comments on your afoe posts for your own calm of mind. Of course, if that’s not your implication, then no problem.

I would assume that discussing the Boston Tea Party in certain United Kingdom circles will now be a punishable offense.

‘In fact, if someone was to, say, set up a Pledgebank pledge to do exactly that, I’d be happy to sign it…’

What does everyone else think? Is anyone else up for it? I certainly am…..

Dear Grandma, ‘Israel’, has no historic right to exist, nor economic, nor political, (an economic colony of the US), is a terrorist state. Sharon is an internationally declared war criminal: two of its previous PMs, Begin and Shamir, publically acknowledged their terrorist acts: neither dared even enter Brtitish air space. Two other PMs were fellow travellers.

BTW, “Anti-semitisim” is a further blurring by the Zionist lobby. Arabs, which includes the original and present owners of Palestine, are Semites. It must be arguable as to whether 2,000 years of cross-breeding in Northern Europe really and truly entitles modern (European) Jewry to claim semitism. Read The Bible Unearthed or The View From Mt Nebo.

Also BTW, the Boston Tea Party was staged by smugglers who were Very Upset that the home (English) government had greatly reduced the tea tax.

I wrote last night, but it was not posted, that the Blearies are all from the Red Stalinist 60s, so they are instilled with Stalinist Control mores.

The inflammatory aspects of Bliar’s proposal will be greatly softened by the House and something will appear on the statute book which will no doubt be an infringement on the present colossal freedoms, but in these times it seems necessary to do something. At least it is unlikely to go so far as to force the public libraries to keep a record of what everyone borrows for ten years as is the case in the USA.

What about the actions of Umkhonto weSizwe, the military arm of the ANC, during the anti-apartheid struggle?

I’d suggest that there is a, rather obvious, act of terrorism that would indicate the arbitrary nature of the 20 year rule, as well as the lack of thought in general behind this amendment.. the bombing, and attempted assassination of the elected government of the time, of the Brighton Grand Hotel in 1984.

“How about people who are in settings—mosques, for instance—that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror,” Romney continued. ‘’Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what’s going on?”

I’m glad to see we agree, Abb1–this sort of thing is clearly both necessary and far more likely to be effective at identifying and disrupting terrorist front organizations than any crude ban on vaguely-defined classes of rhetoric.

Jet, where do you get this notion that the Sandinistas were guilty of genocide? They were corrupt and repressive and sometimes murderous, but “genocide” doesn’t really apply, unless we use the term in that very loose way ideologues have in referring to any atrocity committed by a government they don’t like. I don’t doubt you can scrounge up some rightwingers who use the term but then I can find lefties who talk of Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians as “genocide” with an equal level of accuracy. The word only really applies in Central America in the 80’s to Guatemala’s treatment of its Mayan Indians, when Reagan was enthusiastically defending their human rights record.

Comrade Simon,
I disagree that wiretapping mosques is likely to be effective. Saboteurs and enemies of the people are not stupid, and they certainly read the Globe – they will move their meeting outside the mosques.

We need to wiretap all conversations; each and every conversation that happens, there is no other way. To suggest wiretapping only the mosques is, in fact, an act of treason; Comrade Romney is objectively on the side of the Taliban here.

No, Otto; my implication here is that somebody who regards the Union’s recognition of the need to play to the anti-Turkish bigotry of its base with equanimity because, hey, ‘the Turks’ (the lot of ’em, apparently) are going to vote SPD ‘in any conceivable circumstances’ may safely be expected to harbour all sorts of wildly reactionary ideas. No big deal, though; lots of CDU-Anhänger do.

And thanks, but comments will remain open at afoe, and you remain welcome to speak there. The threshold for a banning is somewhat to the right of the CDU.

Mrs Tilton:
If you can’t take disagreement with parts of your analysis without being prompted into making wild, nay demented, accusations of bigotry, then political blogging with comments, or any form of intellectual inquiry, is really not for you. Ad hominem intemperateness and useful discussion do not mix. Go and drunkenly shout at yourself instead if you must. Chasing people down on other blogs and making criticisms of their posts there without reading the previous ones that they are responding to suggests that hasty irritation got the better of you yesterday. Maybe the election tension is getting to you and all will be well next week?

One other point: Most arguments advance by people disagreeing with part of what others have just said. I never defended e.g. Kauder’s comments. I just pointed out that 1. demand for redistribution frequently dominates demand for social conservatism so that the CDU would not be the ‘natural home’ for German Turks you suggested and 2. enforcing laws on dual citizenship was not good evidence of racist pathology (which you then seemed to agree on). That’s it. So you really have no basis for suggesting that I “regard the Union’s recognition of the need to play to the anti-Turkish bigotry of its base with equanimity”, unless you think that disputing any part of an analysis is a mere subterfuge for unspeakable disagreements with the parts that are not criticised. That’s a common view, of course, but it doesn’t make for a profitable conversation.

Otto,

I think I’ll have one more go at this before taking up your advice to get drunk and shout at myself.

And yes, perhaps electoral tension does have me on tenterhooks, even though (or perhaps rather, specifically because) I am relegated to an observer’s role.

You didn’t defend Kauder’s remark. But nor did you attack it. I doubt very much that Kauder is personally a racist. But that simply makes him all the worse; just as Dick Cheney is probably no homophobe, but is willing to cavil at homophobia for electoral benefit. Insofar as I understand the ideals ‘Christian democracy’ purports to champion, I should have expected any decent supporter of the Union to be all over Kauder’s remark. You weren’t, though. (In fairness, I have some friends who strongly support the Union and absolutely hate that sort of thing.)

Also suspect is your amazing lumping of all German Turks into a single monolithic group, as well as the apparent implied support for discrimination (that another respondent pointed out). Here I am wiling to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume, absent further evidence, that this was down merely to linguistic imprecision on your part.

What remains, however you might like to spin things, is that the Union parties in Germany are, to an extent that should be inconceivable in the post-Nazi world, völkisch belastet. There is no possible excuse for that.

In the unlikely event you wish to continue this chat, we should do it at afoe or else by email; we are wandering much too far OT here. To touch briefly back on topic, though I agree with you that the 20.7. conspirators didn’t target innocent civilians (though truly innocent German civilians would have been few and far between in those days). But most cases aren’t quite so clear cut. One of the examples cited was ETA’s ridding Spain of Franco’s designated successor. I have no use for ETA. They are normally little more concerned about innocent civilians than are the IRA; and indeed, though I do not generally like violence, it is a pity that insufficient violence has been brought to bear on ETA. But this particular act was a service to decency, no matter who performed it. So tell us, would it have been better had Franco’s plans not been disrupted as they were?

abb1 at 88: in the civilised part of the world a ‘criminal’ is someone convicted in a criminal court. The ‘official investigation’, ie the Kahan commission, was not a criminal trial. And it didn’t accuse Sharon of ‘criminal responsibility’.

Bob b at 90: Relax: Dewsbury and Beeston are safe from bulldozing at the moment. However, Tony is obviously learning from the Israelis: a senior Met policeman was in Jerusalem last week for a few lessons from Israeli cops. I guess some Labour voters regard blowing up the Tube as a ‘universal crime’.

sean at 94: Dropping bombs at midnight (or midday for that matter) and causing collateral damage is not terrorism per se. Targeting innocent civilians is. As for anti-Semitism, double standards applied to Jews/Israel is a useful rule of thumb.

maunga at 97: Oy vey, boychik. What did they put into your chicken soup?!

Donald Johnson,
There were no Contras in the East, only the “counter-revolutionary” Miskitos. And we all know how Socialism/Communism/Marxism deals with counter-revolutionaries. Go educate yourself.

Oh good grief, Jet, I know the Sandinistas were guilty of atrocities against the Miskitos. I’m old enough to have read about them at the time. It’s a question of scale and no reputable human rights organization ever said that what the Sandinistas did to the Miskitos was comparable in scale to what what happening in Guatemala or El Salvador. It was more like the level of state violence you had in Honduras at the time (when Negroponte was covering up for their military.) Apparently you have no evidence for your assertion, or rather, you have the sort of evidence that says that because the Sandinistas and Stalin were both Marxists, they were both guilty of genocide. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the flaw in your “logic”.

Jet, the question here is whether what the Sandinistas did to the Miskitos should be called genocide. They forcibly moved them, partly in response to contra attacks (by Miskitos, something you don’t seem to know about) which killed civilians. The Sandinistas killed civilians themselves. The Sandinistas were quite brutal, as I mentioned earlier and all this is bad, both what the contras did and what the Sandinistas did, but neither qualifies as “genocide” unless you want to stretch the term to include atrocities found in almost every war. (The fact that they are found in almost every war doesn’t make them okay, but it also doesn’t make them genocide.) You’re the one who said that the contras might have been the lesser of two evils, because of the “genocide” of the Sandinistas. Well, if I wanted to play by your definition, I could call what the contras did “genocide”–they targeted civilians too. But it’s the scale I’m talking about. When you talk as though the contra terrorism was justified when compared to the Sandinista “genocide”, you clearly imagine that there’s some vast difference in the scale of the atrocities. If anything, the contra atrocities were larger. I could accuse you of downplaying the contra atrocities, but unlike you, I try not to make false accusations. You did denounce the contra atrocities–you just mistakenly think that the Sandinistas did to the Miskitos what Reagan’s pal Rios Montt did to the Mayan Indians in Guatemala.

But if you want to count the treatment of the Miskito Indians as genocide, then the contra attacks were genocidal, the Honduran death squads (tiny compared to what was going on in El Salvador and Guatemala) were genocidal, and what happened in Guatemala was ultra, super genocidal. The Vietnam War was genocidal on a monstrous level–I’d almost be willing to defend that proposition, but Daniel Ellsberg disagreed, though literally millions of Vietnamese peasants were bombed out of their homes. Some of America’s actions in Iraq are “genocidal” by your definition (see Fallujah). What Israel did in 1948 more than qualifies as genocide, by the Jet definition–they massacred hundreds of Palestinians and forced the majority (hundreds of thousands) from their homes and in the later stages of the war, they did this for demographic and not military reasons. That is, at the beginning of the war, according to Benny Morris, the Israeli expulsions were motivated by military considerations (similar to why the Sandinistas moved the Miskitos), but by the end of the war they wanted to greatly alter the demographic balance. Incidentally, in saying “military considerations” I’m not giving my benediction to either the Sandinistas or the Israelis. I’m normally a harsh critic of Israel, but I don’t call their actions in 1948 genocide because, well, I don’t think that using words inaccurately would make me a better person.

By the way, you don’t seem to know much about the chronology of what happened in Nicaragua–the worst acts of Sandinista brutality towards the Miskitos happened in the early 80’s. That’s when the Reagan Administration started using the word genocide, at the very same time they were denying the (comparable or larger) atrocities of the contras and the vastly more numerous murders of their pals in El Salvador and Guatemala. Your argument that in hindsight we know that the Sandinistas were guilty of genocide and at the time a reasonable person could have thought the contras and Sandinistas were equally evil just isn’t how it all happened.

With that said, I’m out of here.

Abb1,
Those wikipedia articles are extremely suspect in my book. Most of the documentaries are pay to read, so I don’t have more than descriptions, and the few extremely biased article. But I somehow doubt that massive amounts of Contras crossed to the other side of the country and set up shop as the Sandinistas claimed. The Miskotos themselves were the rebels the Sandinistas were fighting who didn’t want to be under “Creole” rule. If there was a Contra/Miskoto connection, it was probably through the conduit of the CIA.

I used to work a dock with a guy who claimed he fought the Sandinistas. He certainly claimed the fighting in the East was genocide, but then he thought pretty much everything the Sandinistas did was genocide since they were trying to erase his culture.

And you can wear it upside down: a ‘crime’ is something that is committed by…a criminal.

I don’t think you can: committing a crime makes you a criminal; while, obviously, not all actions carried out by a criminal are crimes.

Your legalistic definition just doesn’t work in real life and you only invoke it to muddy the water when you got hots for one particular monster ot another. You probably won’t insist on the guilty verdict to call Hitler or bin Laden a criminal.