Justifying Terrorism
There's been a lot of debate in London about whether the terrorist attacks there are connected to British foreign policy and specifically the war in Iraq. When people on the left recite this connection they are often told they are justifying the terrorism. This is just what happened when British MP George Galloway said, "If it is a question of quantum, there is far more blood on the hands of George Bush and Tony Blair than there is on the hands of the murderers who killed those people in London."
When he was asked about justification, he had a weird answer: "If I say a car has four wheels and the Ford Motor Company say it has four wheels, that doesn't make me part of the Ford Motor Company." I guess his point is that he believes invading Iraq is wrong, and so do the terrorists, but that doesn't mean he supports or is in solidarity with the terrorists.
I think that's an important point. Our invasion of Iraq is wrong. In fact it is terrorism, and we ought to end it. But why acknowledge that the terrorists may be motivated by a similar animosity toward the policies of the U.S. and Britain? Is he saying that because Blair and Bush have done far worse, it justifies what the terrorists have done? Are they simply fighting back?
I don't know, but I wouldn't dismiss the notion that they are in a defensive position up against the most powerful forces on the planet. I don't agree with their tactics, but if they are just fighting back, doesn't the blame for the attacks lie primarily with Bush and Blair? After all, if you unleash terror on the world, why would you expect anything better in return?
I think Galloway is making a good point, but I would have said it like this: "Bush and Blair started a war of terrorism in the Middle East, and they now must answer to their people who are suffering because their terror war has come home."
2 comments:
Why don't ask Galloway yourself when he comes to your town next month? (ask one of your roommates about that one)
I like the way you put it at the end of your post.
Here's something else to chew on, a quote from Trotsky's "Their Morals and Ours." It doesn't relate directly, but it's been on the brain since I gave a talk on it. How do you sympathize with the goals of people that think they are fighting imperialism without supporting the way they do it?
"Is individual terror, for example, permissible or impermissible from the point of view of 'pure morals?' In this abstract form the question does not exist at all for us. Conservative Swiss bourgeois even now render official praise to the terrorist William Tell. Our sympathies are fully on the side of Irish, Russian, Polish or Hindu terrorists in their struggle against national and political oppression. The assassinated Kirov, a rude satrap, does not call forth any sympathy. Our relation to the assassin remains neutral only because we know not what motives guided him. If it became known that Nikolayev acted as a conscious avenger for workers' rights trampled upon by Kirov, our sympathies would be fully on the side of the assassin. However, not the question of subjective motives but that of objective expediency has for us the decisive significance. Are the given means really capable of leading to the goal? In relation to individual terror, both theory and experience bear witness that such is not the case. To the terrorist we say: it is impossible to replace the masses; only in the mass movement can you find expedient expression for your heroism."
- Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours (1938)
Read it, you'll like it:
http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1938/1938-mor.htm
- mike
I've heard rumors about Galloway doing a U.S. tour. I will have to check him out. I'll also take a look at the Trotsky article.
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