Is Terrorism a Threat to International Order - Term Paper Example

Is terrorism a threat to international order? Introduction Terrorism is commonly used as a term to describe violent acts against civilian targets based on nationalistic, political or religious motivations. It is an unconventional form of war which is often used to weaken or subvert a government and the effects of a terrorist attack may be seen as a threat to international order (Baylis, 2002). However, the nature of the effect on international order can be debated since some terrorist activities have gone largely unnoticed while others have changed the very way of life for the country. Undoubtedly, terrorism certainly affects those individuals who are targets or those who have lost something due to terrorist activity (NTC, 2006). However, even after the most significant and iconic terrorist strikes known to us i.e. the 9/11 attacks, the world order and the existing international relations have not changed significantly. In fact, if anything, the international order and the relationships between various countries (particularly western allies) have been more strongly defined since the attacks. Again, this definition may not remain true in the long term since international order is not solely dependent upon one evil character being the terrorist and one heroic country saving the world. The image of a country being good or bad is nearly always dependant on the perception of the people and it is irresponsible of the media or the government to present a very biased viewpoint since perceptions can be difficult to change overnight. Coady (2005) says: “There are very bad policies and very bad political leaders, but realism dictates that we recognize the presence of evil wherever and whenever it occurs. It also dictates that we take cognizance of the fact that the monsters of today were our allies of yesterday and may be our allies of tomorrow, and that our own shining virtue often appears in a different light to others. (Coady, pg. 16, 2005)” Of course the countries and individuals who are labelled as being terrorists by others quite simply reject it and take themselves as freedom fighters, separatists, even revolutionaries. Similarly, the titles given to terrorists range from evil to inhuman and responsible members of the international community are asked to shun them and force the surrender of terrorist group members since they are a threat to international order (Baylis, 2002). Undoubtedly there are several issues surrounding the debate and the first is the justification for terrorism. No Justification for Terrorism Martin & Martin (2003) report that it was St. Augustine who first gave the two principles of entering into a war i.e. the war should be jus in bello (just in action) and jus ad bellum (just in cause). This definition was accepted in the English law and is considered the basis of commonly accepted laws for waging or entering into a war with other nations. Terrorism and any apologist for terrorism will only be able to provide a lukewarm cause for the act (jus ad bellum) but the second requirement of just actions can not be accepted as they often occur. For instance, targeting innocent civilians is not permissible in any way while the first targets of any act of terror are often civilians. It must be noted that there can be no distinction made between terrorism and retaliation for terrorism which can be termed as terrorism itself (Sterba, 2003). For instance, if the US launches a strike against terrorists and kills innocent civilians in the process they can not be termed “collateral damage”. A spade has to be called a spade and killing innocent civilians defies the dictum of jus in bello. This is precisely the reason why those who try to justify an attack against civilian targets are wrong. An attack on civilians is murderous; it can not be justified by being based on a cause, or by being done against a certain nationality or even against people who have wronged us. The problem of finding a just cause for terrorism has always been the idea that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter (May, 2003). This notion has to be clarified using the legal definition of terrorism and the legal definition of war. Once that is done, it will be clear that any nation, group or person who targets civilians for political gains is a terrorist and can not justify their acts in any way. In fact, Sterba (2003) says that only two wars in recent history fulfilled both the clauses of just means and just cause. They are the war between two former British colonies, i.e. the 1971 Indo-Pak war which led to the creation of Bangladesh and the Tanzanian Intervention into Uganda when it was being ruled by Idi Amin. He goes on to say that the majority of wars throughout history have been unjust even when they have been caused by acts of terrorism against a country. For instance, he cites the examples of U.S. involvement in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama as unjustified. Moreover, the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan and the Israeli involvement in the West Bank are also called unjust in terms of cause and means. May (2003) bemoans the fact that in the real world, there are no hard-and-fast rules and it is left up to the intellectual elite as well as media personalities to judge which causes justify what level of action against certain groups. Similarly, it is these individuals who define how an act will impact the international order if at all. Certain causes may gain public support and become justifiable while others may loose public favour and become unjustified. Additionally, it would appear that the legality of doing harm to the innocent is not questioned deeply when the eventual target is to achieve a greater good (Sterba, 2003). The root of the problem according to May (2003) is that it is flawed to say that using illegitimate tactics for a legitimate cause is OK. The legitimacy of both tactics and causes has been established and mixing the two will simply pollute both. It is accepted that there are certainly ‘causes’ around the world which need diffusion and attention from the political elite. The Kashmiri cause, the Palestinian cause, the Corsican cause, the Basque cause and the Kurdish cause are all cited as examples but the legitimacy of the cause is simply tarnished by the unjust actions of the terrorists. Creating International Order An unjust act of war certainly impacts the international order but as the experiences immediately after the 9/11 attacks show, the act of war brought NATO into action with the enactment of Article 5 of the treaty. Nearly every country in the world wanted to help America and bring the terrorists to justice so much so that the few nations who recognized the Taliban regime quickly became allies to the war against terror. Pakistan was one such nation which changed its loyalties from the Taliban to follow western dictates despite the objections which were made by Pakistani fundamentalist groups (Burke, 2004). The American attack on Afghanistan was supported by the United Nations and other international bodies who accepted that the culprits of these attacks must be brought to justice. However, later actions taken by America against Iraq and threats against other countries in the Middle East were not seen in a positive light particularly in Europe. For example, the French government was not too happy about America going to war with Iraq and cracks have been said to form in the transatlantic alliance. In fact, the reactions that individuals and governments have to international terror quite often have more of an effect on international order than the act itself. Perhaps the best example of how a terrorist act is understood differently by various cultures is given in the first speech that George W. Bush gave after the 9/11 attacks in which he used the word ‘crusade’ to signify the nature of America’s war on terror. The fallout from the use of this word (keeping in mind its cultural connection to the brutal wars between the Muslims and the Christians in the Middle Ages) was felt across the world as the middle eastern media as well as the western media considered it the call for a war of civilizations (Carroll, 2004). While government officials almost apologized for the President using this word and clarifying the context in which it was used, in all probability, President Bush was not looking for a war against all Muslims but the Middle East could certainly see it as such (Li, 2002). When the speech given by the President was translated into Arabic for broadcast into the Middle East, the closest translation to crusade was ‘war of the cross’ (Carroll, 2004). Clearly, even a single word used carelessly in a conflict situation can lead to problems and hostilities since one culture may color a word very differently from another. Of course the cultural context of the crusades in their time was completely different but the images conjured by the word would certainly not mitigate the fears of the Muslim nations (Li, 2002). Fixdal recognizes the effect international terrorism and the other acts of violence have on international order. However she links the final effect of the act to the reaction which governments have to such attacks. She takes a cautious view of governments attacking other nations or intervening in matters like genocide due to the problems associated with applying the same process in other countries or regions around the world. She says: “Equating genocide or other kinds of large-scale violence with threats to international peace and security is an understandable resort to a highly dubious argument for justifying humanitarian intervention. Among the many objections, two are particularly cogent. The first, which we shall encounter again below, is the "if..., why not" argument: if Iraq, why not Iran? If Bosnia, why not Indonesia? (Fixdal, Pg.1, 1998).” This links to the idea that if America is justified in attacking Afghanistan because the Taliban supported Al-Qaeda masterminded their plots from Afghanistan, then India might be fully justified in launching an attack on Pakistan since Pakistani infiltrators and terrorists have been known to take part in attacks on civilians in India (Mendelsohn, 2005). The second argument presented by Fixdal (1998) is even more serious and is strongly linked with the ideas presented by Coady (2005) since they both suggest that if terrorism becomes accepted as a part of life then it would lose its potency and greater acts would be required before the international community could be pushed into action. Conclusions and Observations It is a remarkable fact that the killing of a hundred American civilians gets a lot more news coverage than the death of thousands of Africans. It leads me to question the value associated with the life of an individual living in London as compared to one living in Darfur and wonder who has the better life. There was a time when it was said that simply by being born British, a person had won the lottery of life. Does it mean that being born in East Timor today means that you have lost the lottery of life? A terrorist attack in London will certainly have a significant impact on international order, stock markets, global trade, individual travel and the quality of life. In fact, even the threat of an attack or the news of an impending attack can shock the stock markets forcing early closures or reduced trading. On the other hand, genocide in Sudan is largely ignored until a spill over into neighbouring countries threatens to destabilise the region which could possibly have a negative influence on global oil prices (Chomsky, 2001). In the final analysis, I believe that terrorism is indeed a threat to international order but this is dependent on the given justification of the terrorist act, the international response to the attack and the target concerned rather than the act of terrorism itself. Works Cited Academic Publications Baylis, J. (2002). Strategy in the Contemporary World. Oxford University Press. With a changing world, the strategy involved in international relations has also changed significantly and this book talks about the developing international world order which has many countries competing for power in a collaborative and competitive manner. Burke, J. (2004). Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam. Penguin, 2004. This book presents the historical background and current information about fundamentalist Islamic hardliners and the Al-Qaeda group. Carroll, J. (2004), The Bush Crusade, Nation, 279(8), 14-22. The article discusses the effect which using the word ‘crusade’ had on the international community in reference to the war on terror. Li, X. (2002). Dichotomies and Paradoxes: The West and Islam. Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations, 16(4), 401-418. The relationship between Islam and the west is a deep one but it has many qualifications and soft spots some of which are discussed in this paper. Martin, G. & Martin, C. (2003). Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues. Sage Publications. The various implications of labelling individuals as terrorists and understanding the difference between just and unjust actions were discussed in this book. Mendelsohn, B. (2005). Sovereignty under attack: the international society meets the Al Qaeda network. Review of International Studies, 31(1), 45-68. The sovereignty of many countries has been placed under threat because of and due to the war on terror. That was itself was caused by the actions of the Al-Qaeda group which is discussed in this paper. Sterba, J. (2003). Terrorism and International Justice. Oxford University Press. This book discusses the ideas of terrorism and international justice and considers various question regarding the use of force to combat terrorist activties. Reports Coady, C. (2002). The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention. United States Institute of Peace. The report shows how and why humanitarian intervention may be ethically questionable especially when the sovereignty of a nation is at risk. National Commission on Terrorism (NTC). (2006). Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism. 105th Congress. This report to the American congress discusses how terrorist activities have changed since 9/11 and how the American government is moving to counter the terrorists. Websites Chomsky, N. (2001). The New War Against Terror. Retrieved October 9, 2006 from CounterPunch.org website: http://www.counterpunch.org/chomskyterror.html This transcript of a speech given by Noam Chomsky decries the war on terror while millions of individuals are starving around the world largely attributed to the actions of past American governments. Fixdal, M. (1998). Humanitarian Intervention and Just War. Retrieved October 8, 2006 from Mount Holyoke University Website: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/fixdal.html This online paper helps in giving an understanding about how war can be justified even though it may be an act of terror or involve elements of terrorist activities. May, C. (2003). When Is Terrorism Justified? When the intellectual elite tell you it is, stupid! Retrieved October 10, 2006 from National Review website: This website discusses the justification of terrorism and how certain activities (even though they are terrorists acts) are praised by the intellectual elite while others are shunned. Read More