Defining Terrorism and its Political Implications

U.S. Army and U.S. Code definitions of Terrorism

There are perfectly good definitions of terrorism: A succinct definition in a U.S. Army Manual defined “terrorism” as “the calculated use of violence or threat of vio-lence to attain goals that are political, reli-gious, or ideological in nature...through in- timidation, coercion, or instilling fear.”There’s a more elaborate definition along the same lines in the U.S. Code, which states: an “act of terrorism” means an activity that(A) involves a violent act or an act danger-ous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) ap- pears to be intended (i) to intimidate or co- erce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.

The British government’s definition is similar: “Terrorism is the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging or dis-rupting, and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for the purpose of advancing a political, reli-gious, or ideological cause.” I’ve been quoting and using these defi-nitions in books and articles ever since I started writing on terrorism in 1981, as soon as the Reagan administration came in- to office declaring that a war on terror, par- ticularly state-directed international terror- ism—the “plague of the modern age,” “the return to barbarism in our time,” etc.—would be a main focus of their foreign poli- cy.

And I continue to use them after Bush II re-declared the “war on terror” after 9/11.Use of these definitions elicits great anger, and for good reasons. If we use them, it follows at once that the United States has been a leading agent of terror, dramatically so in the Reagan years, but later too. And that is an unacceptable conclusion. There- fore, there has been exactly what Toscano describes: elaborate attempts to define “terror,” abandoning the effort as too difficult, etc.

That’s understandable too. It’s hard to craft a definition of terror that applies solely to the terror that they carry out against us and our clients, but excludes the terror (of- ten far worse) that we and our clients carry out against them. The same problem arises with aggression. The official definitions are unusable because they yield the wrong conclusions.

Take one case that should be uncon-troversial: President Reagan’s war against Nicaragua. The International Court of Justice condemned it as an “unlawful use of force,” supported by two Security Council resolutions that were vetoed by the United States. The court does not have an official definition of “terrorism,” but the judgment clearly falls under the official U.S. and U.K. definitions.The Nicaragua case is quite interesting The lead counsel for Nicaragua was Harvard law professor Abram Chayes. The case he presented was quite broad, but the court barred almost all of it, because in agreeing to International Court of Justice jurisdiction in 1946, the United States had exempted it- self from all multilateral treaties, including the UN and Organization of American.

This week's discussion centers upon the role of the media and dominant discourse. Complete the following steps: 
1. Find two articles each from a different news source that deal with the exact same event or issue related to international conflict and political violence.

2. Compare the coverage provided by each article. What is the focus of each article? What objective information does each article provide? What subjective claims are made?

3. Then making specific reference to this week's readings. identify at least one of the underlying narratives used by each article. How does each underlying narrative affect their coverage of the event or issue? 
When you are finished. post your comments summarizing your discussion for the rest of the class here. Then, reply to at least one of your classmates' posts.