Legitimate Methods Employed in Conflicts - Essay Example

Can Terror ever be legitimately employed in Conflict? The phenomena of terrorism can be understood by the analysis of the orthodox theory of terrorism. The orthodox theory of terrorism perceives terrorism as a threat to the existence the world states. These views have their origin from the supremacy and the centralized powers of the state, which protects the discourse of legitimacy and sovereignty, and which the state exercises monopoly over (Beyer 2009, p 62). The roots of terrorism and the subsequent use of violence from the state perspective lie in the need to preserve and protect the values of legitimacy and sovereignty. The Theory on orthodox terrorism is designed to make the state perceive terrorism as illegitimate, illegal and a violent challenge to the state. This perception is only applied to internal terrorism within a state or to external terrorism. The orthodox theory on terrorism also allows the state to use terror acts, as a response to any perceived internal threats. The orthodox discourse is protected under the social contract and enforced by the Regime terror theory or the state rule by fear and violence. The Orthodox terrorism theory perceives the use violence as synonymous with the state and is necessary for the state to exist. The idea of terrorism and violence is rooted in the state. Thus, the only way to deal with violence and come up with a solution is to re-evaluate the role of the state and provide an alternative international system and a form of political governance (Beyer 2009, p.63). The orthodox discourse suggests the state plays a crucial role in generating of terrorism because of the responses it adopts most times. Terrorism is perceived as a natural condition of any state. The state generates terrorism as a response to the threats of terrorisms. The terrorism by the state is used to maintain political power and order. Terrorism is a state oriented tool, which focuses on the implications of political violence by evaluating the state powers and the challenges of terrorism from within the state and other countries. The acts of terror by states can be seen as the prime response to the threats of terrorism in the post September 9, 2001 attacks on U.S (Beyer 2009, p.63) The orthodox theory of terrorism describes the terrorists as the violent political opponents of the state having illegitimate design on states power. This makes it possible for a state to pursue the agenda to eliminate state opposition regardless of whether the conflict is caused by terrorism or not. This legitimate use of violence by the state allows the state to pursue the policies of terrorism against the states’ opponents, both inside and outside the states’ boundaries. This is because of the legitimacy provided for by the terrorism discourse (Beyer 2009, p.64) The United States of America and Israel states view acts by terrorists as the same in every part of the world. Therefore, there is a need to pursue the war on terrorism. The countries that hold same perspective on terrorism emphasizes that the same counter measures such as preventive attack and military obliteration must be utilized against all terrorist. These states also hold the principle that there should be no negotiation with terrorists and their supporters and the counter measures must be applied in both cases. (Held 2008, p.13) Held holds the view that if the policy of legitimate use of terror against terrorism can have moral repercussions as many civilians might be killed. This is because it is difficult to differentiate between the legitimate targets from the civilians. The argument is that the public vote in the political leaders and supports the policies against the terrorists. Thus, the public should be exempted from having such violence used against them (Held 2008, p.14) The actions of state in pursuant of terrorism have killed many civilians than the terrorists. In most cases, the states that utilize counter terrorism measures disregard the arguments that they target the civilians and the civilians may die in due course of the war. The use of terror on the targeted people and the civilians unintentionally provides most states superior powers that make them dominant. However, this domination is what most terrorists groups oppose and use terrorism as their weapon because they are weak. Terrorism is seen as morally unacceptable while the use of force is seen as justifiable to some degree (Held 2008, p.15) The war against terror arises when a state exercises its rights of defending itself from impending attacks from another party. The political power to counter any aggression has its base from the political power that is legitimately originate from the community (Coady, 2007, p.68). The contract theory provides most states with the right of self defense against other states in the international boarder. Some criticisms of the contract theory urge that it is strong and weak. It is also insensitive to human rights by giving states international status and the rights to wars with other nation states (Coady 2007, p.69) The department of Defense and the Department for justice in U.S on March 21, 2002 provided new guidelines to the military tribunals, which were to be used in the trial of prisoners detained in Guantanamo bay. Much of the prisoners are from the war against terror groups in Afghanistan. Some of the prisoners may be tried while others are not tried. The prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are not granted means to appeal, rights to counsel and repatriation that are stipulated in the Geneva Convection (Butler 2004, p.51). In the need to protect the U.S security and state emergency, the Geneva Convection is suspended on the national and international levels. New and elaborate administrative bureaucracies are established after the suspension of the law. The organization officials are granted power to decide those to be tried or those to be detained indefinitely (Butler 2004, p.51) The state is a powerful organ and makes use of the various organs of government to reinstate and reintroduce its various forms of sovereignty. The state allocates its self power by maintaining some prisoners will be detained indefinitely. The state also appropriates power by detaining some terror prisoners indefinitely. These powers are distinguished from those of the military, civilians and at the international level. The many military tribunals may be granted power to acquit, but the powers are checked by the U.S Department of Defense. The suspension of the laws is aimed at constraining and monitoring certain populations, which include terror suspects and convicts (Butler 2004, p.56) Terrorist actions are perceived as political actions, which involve the use of threat or violence. The violence can be directed towards people or property. The property is itself an object of terrorists attacks. The utilization of violence or threat is intended to generate fear, terror, and anxiety or cause a breakdown in the levels of trust in a society. The individual using terror acts are members of organized group and insurgents. The state may use terrorism to uphold the laws or maintain the political powers. The intention of terrorism ranges from coercion or intimidation of the targeted group to make the group subject to the political demands of the perpetrator. This is mainly through building morale, creating publicity or enforcing obedience among the group members. Terrorism also involves issuing warning to the Publics of impending terrorists’ attacks to prevent deaths of people (O’Keefe 2002, p. 23) The use of terror raises mixed reactions from many people with some supporters urging that terrorism is the remaining resort when serious grievances are needed to pursue political powers. On the other hand, the opposers perceive Terrorism as not the ultimate means since other means can be evaluated. Some critics also urge that states that use terror are politically powerless so is the terrorist group that use terror tactics (O’Keefe 2002, p. 25) The Just war theory provides a framework that helps in assessing the morality of war. The war between states is viewed by this theory as the convectional form of political violence. The question that emerges is that war is not the only form of political violence and should not be justified. The Just war theory applies a double stand in analyzing of the use of political violence. When the state uses violent means, this is seen as acceptable. However, when violence is used by non states actors, the reaction is a condemnation and which in most cases causes horror. Therefore, terrorism is condemned by a majority, and the use of violence such as a declaration of war by a state is viewed as legitimate even if it may not be fully justified. The difference in assessing the state use of violence emerges when innocent civilians are killed, and the killing is deliberate (Valls 2000, p. 65) There has been a lot of confusion from political leaders and the mass media, who have been using the term terrorism as a synonym to political violence. There has also been confusion over the terms terror and terrorism. The purpose of using force is to strike terror on the enemy, which is a main weapon through history. In many occasions, terrorists select targets at random, which makes the victims defenseless. Terrorists use death as a weapon to advertise their cause of actions. Terrorists activities are meant to elicit an overreaction from the state that helps to win the minds and hearts of the citizens (Abadinsky, 2009, P.7). The term terrorism is a subjective terminology, which means there are no any verifiable criteria to differentiate terrorism from other forms of activity in the society. The criteria for identifying terrorism by the general public involve common sense. This is through recognizing of campaigns against terrorisms such as suicide bombing, which deliberately target the innocent civilians (Wilkinson 2011, p.4) Terrorism can be differentiated from other forms of violence and conflicts by a number of characteristics. Terrorism is directed at a wider target and is meant to create fear. It also involves the attacks on symbolic targets, which include the civilians. Terrorism is also considered extra normal in that it violates the norms that regulate protest, dispute and dissent. Lastly, terrorism is used to influence the political behavior of governments and the communities’ social groups (Wilkison 2011, p.4) Terror is used to instill and manipulate fear so as to achieve various purposes. The aims of terrorism can be strategic or tactical. The core aim of terrorism is to divide the incumbent authorities of a state from the citizens. This division is what characterizes the use of terror by the state. The acts of terror are appropriate if the insurgents’ enjoy a low level of the political support, but the potential of support are immense. This is important because if the potential of support is low, then terrorisms will be counter-productive. Also, states that use terrorism are likely to suffer from counter terrorism, and terror attacks as rival terrorist groups or vigilante natural emerge. The use of terrorism can also lead to emergency of revulsion and outrage to states, which may affect the states public support from the use of violent means (Wardlaw 1989, P.34) Goodin proposes that states can also act as terrorists. The acts of terrorism by nation states have become evident since the September 9, 2001 attack on U.S. The national leaders speak of war and insinuate that states can go to war, whereas the non-state actors are incapable of going into war on any legitimate grounds. The acts of terrorism committed by states during wartime to restore peace are not unjust wars and are justified. Thus, this can be interpreted as terrorism is a war carried out by agents, who are not entitled to go to war. From this statement, the analysis is that the use of violence by non-state actors’ amounts to acts of terrorism. On the other hand, the use of violence by the state does not amount to terror acts (Goodin 20006, p.50). References List Abadinsky, H. (2009). Organized Crime, Edition 9, London, Cengage Learning. p .7 Beyer, C. (2009). Effectively Countering Terrorism: The Challenges of Prevention, Preparedness and Response, Sussex, Sussex Academic Press. pp. 62-64 Butler, J. (2004). Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, London, Verso. pp. 51-56. Coady, C. A. J. (2007). Morality and Political Violence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. pp. 68-69. Goodin, R. E. (2006). Whats Wrong With Terrorism, New York, Polity Press. p.50. Held, V. (2008). How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence: Morality and Political Violence, Oxford, Oxford University Press. pp. 13-15. OKeefe, M. P. (2002). Terrorism and Justice: Moral Argument in a Threatened World, New York, Melbourne University Publishing. pp 23-25. Valls, A. (200). Ethics in International Affairs: Theories and Cases, London, Rowman & Littlefield. p.65 Wardlaw, G. (1989). Political Terrorism: Theory, Tactics and Counter-Measures, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p. 34 Wilkinson, P. (2011). Terrorism versus Democracy, London, Taylor & Francis. p.4 Read More