Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict
- 2 Friends, Foes, or Brothers in Arms? The Puzzle of Combatant Equality
- PART I COMBATANTS IN ASYMMETRIC WAR
- PART II NONCOMBATANTS IN ASYMMETRIC WAR
- 7 Blackmailing the Innocent: The Dilemma of Noncombatant Immunity
- 8 Killing the Innocent: The Dilemma of Terrorism
- 9 Risking Our Lives to Save Others: Puzzles of Humanitarian Intervention
- PART III CONCLUSION AND AFTER WORD
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
8 - Killing the Innocent: The Dilemma of Terrorism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict
- 2 Friends, Foes, or Brothers in Arms? The Puzzle of Combatant Equality
- PART I COMBATANTS IN ASYMMETRIC WAR
- PART II NONCOMBATANTS IN ASYMMETRIC WAR
- 7 Blackmailing the Innocent: The Dilemma of Noncombatant Immunity
- 8 Killing the Innocent: The Dilemma of Terrorism
- 9 Risking Our Lives to Save Others: Puzzles of Humanitarian Intervention
- PART III CONCLUSION AND AFTER WORD
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
BAGHDAD, Iraq, February 2008: Two mentally disabled women were strapped with explosives Friday and sent into busy Baghdad markets, where they were blown up by remote control, a top Iraqi government official said. The bombs killed at least 98 people.
This is an unusually horrifying act of terrorism. Ordinarily, we are accustomed to seeing terrorists do their own work. Those they recruit for suicide missions are not, as many studies have shown, religious zealots, economically deprived, illiterate, or mentally unbalanced. Instead, they are like grass-roots political activists who are willing to use extreme means to achieve their ends. But sending two mentally disabled women seems “demonic,” as some U.S. officials put it to describe a particularly repugnant form of terrorism that crosses all the red lines.
Interestingly, an incident like this forces us to think hard about terrorism. If some forms of terrorism are demonic or particularly reprehensible, it seems that other forms are more acceptable. Some cross the red lines, others stay within certain boundaries and are, to some extent, tolerable or at least understandable. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak once declared, “If I were a Palestinian at the right age, I would have joined one of the terrorist organizations.” Barak is saying what many people think: I may not agree with terrorism, but I can certainly understand the motivation that leads those to join terror organizations.
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- Information
- Moral Dilemmas of Modern WarTorture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict, pp. 178 - 204Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009