Is Terrorism Evil, Pure and Simple?

So, let me pose some timely ethical-philosophical questions that might seem to many to be regular no-brainers. Was Osama bin Laden utterly and definitively “evil”? Was the abominable atrocity of 9/11 an expression of “evil” beyond the moral pale for decent human beings? And is “terrorism” per se “evil”?

The simple answer to the above questions is of course yes. That is, the answer is yes in the simple sense that the violence, loss, and pain that bin Laden and other “terrorists” have inflicted on the lives of innocent people is heinously cruel and contrary to the supreme ethical axiom of the sacredness of life. So much for the questions above for now, I really just wanted to get them out of the way, I’ll get back to them again later but I’d like to cut now to the chase of a more knotty ethical-philosophical problem.

Namely, I’d like to think critically about whether it’s morally right-minded to pick out and stand pat with the kind of questions I’ve just posed and answered, the kind of questions many people right now are asking and reducing to simple moralistic answers.

Huh?! Well, since the assassination of bin Laden many of us have been asking the question Was he, and are those of his terrorist ilk, quite simply and categorically evil? And is it therefore morally justified to harbor hatred for them, and to expediently exterminate them when the opportunity presents, without any compunction and without due process or respect for their human rights? Which is to say that thanks to current events we’ve been provoked to think about the fundamental ethical question of the nature of “evil”, and of how “good” people should respond to it.

Unfortunately, and predictably, however, many of us seem to be approaching these quite deep questions in a rather superficially and self-righteously selective fashion. What I mean to say is that we’re not really exploring them in a critical and enlightenment-seeking way at all; rather, we’re blatantly begging the question of evil. That is, we’re framing our questions about evil with a black & white reductiveness that turns them into leading questions, leading questions that lead us right to the self-satisfying answers we desire.

We mechanically ask Was bin Laden evil? with a complacently one-sided simplicity that makes it a foregone conclusion that nice Western middle-class people are the preeminent paragons of moral goodness with the divine right to define our enemies as pure evil. For all sanctimonious intents and purposes we pare down the question of evil to the point that it’s partisan, devoid of complexity, and virtually rhetorical. Indeed, we turn it into a mere shell of the heady, profound, and self-critical question it should be, because the sorry truth be told a great many of us are far more interested in self-validation than sincere philosophical reflection that might knock us off our moral high horse.

When someone does try to add some philosophical multi-dimensionality to the problem of evil, when one tries to look at it with an approach that isn’t closed-mindedly holier-than-thou, the brickbat of “moral relativism” and the epithet of “situational ethics” start flying. Even worse, he who would inquire into the nature of good & evil too questioningly and thereby threaten to take away his neighbor’s unexamined sense of entitlement to harshly judge his enemies is liable to libeled as a sympathizer with evil.

Well, I’ll accept these risks and ask again the questions I led with, this time trying to tease out a bit more ethical complexity. Was Osama bin Laden purely evil in the broader context of the evils visited upon the Third World by globalization, aka the West’s modern form of economic, political, and cultural imperialism? Was Osama more evil when he fought the West than when he fought the West’s Cold War foe, the Soviet Union? That is, are we being morally relativistic when we deem him an evil terrorist for violently hating us, and a praiseworthy “freedom fighter” when he directed the same violent xenophobia at the commies? Are bin Laden’s “terrorist” brethren all morally inferior to the men and women in our armed forces who often take part in wars (terrorism on a massive scale) that lack moral justification every bit as much as the attack on 9/11? In other words, is it really righteous of us to be piously black & white in our morality when we judge our enemies, and to make excuses for our own society and its military personnel when it comes to the terror and death we perpetrate? Doesn’t our duplicitous double standard belie our definition of evil?

Come on here, aren’t the hypocrisy and injustices of the self-proclaimed “good guys” usually more relevant than we’d like to admit to our understanding and assessment of the evil of the “bad guys”? Which is to say, isn’t justice, or the lack thereof, a pivotal moral issue, one that frequently and fundamentally factors into the real-world nature of “evil”? I.e., doesn’t the justice factor in many cases significantly change the face of evil? And doesn’t it often transfigure what at a cursory glance appears to be pure and unilateral evil into a transpersonal bigger picture that we all have a hand in drawing together? Sure, this cosmically composite big picture of evil that we all co-create remains as ugly as ever, but not as clear-cut and not one that depicts us somewhere up on a saintly plane above reproach. By all rights it should force a soul-searching reevaluation of our basic concept of evil, and the convenient way we tend to morally pigeonhole our adversaries.

No, I’m not saying that there’s only the morally commutual big picture, that there’s no such thing as true evil and personal responsibility. There most certainly is such a thing as evil. What exactly is evil, evil qua evil? Evil is simply one’s choice to reject, and to do something that opposes the creativity, beauty, and sacredness of existence. The view I’m expressing here, then, is not the amoralist view that evil is a mere illusion that doesn’t exist; rather, the view I’m expressing is the critical view that pure evil is a simplistic and smug-making notion that seldom if ever really exists, that no one ever really makes a pure and unmitigated choice to reject and oppose the good. “No man is an island”, the wrongful choice that individuals make to commit evil, the culpable choice that they make inwardly, in their own hearts and minds, is always shaped by external circumstances of some kind. Whether it’s the home a “bad guy” grew up in, the socioeconomic environment he was born into, the waves of history he finds his life swept up in, or what have you, the choice for evil is never contextless.

In the case of “terrorists”, the larger, extenuating context they must be viewed in is the imperialism, inequities, and injustice meted out to the disenfranchised masses of the modern world order. From the blighted boroughs of New York to the brutal slums of Bangkok, a sinful imbalance of economic and political clout is leading many onto the path of violence, in one form or another. Whether it’s the domestic imperialism of the corporatocracy directed at the poor of our own inner cities, i.e. the increasingly appalling asymmetry of wealth and power in our own society, and the way it drives young people into criminal gangs and a life of predatory violence; or the neocolonialism and exploitation practiced overseas by the affluent nations, and the way it impels aggrieved campesinos and lumpenproletarians to take up arms and take on the role of guerrillas and terrorists, in either case the poverty and privation, inhumaneness and injustice endemic to the current world system breeds evils.

The world’s evils are not merely the product of the sick and twisted minds of the likes of Osama bin Laden, they’re underlyingly engendered by a cruel status quo that poisons people’s character and degenerates their humanity – on both ends of the politico-economic food chain. ‘Tis the vicious circle of evil that the greedy behavior of the ruling class debases them into a predacious, parasitic pox upon the house of man, whose underprivileged habitants in turn are infected with a vexation of spirit that can turn them to the dark side. The ranks of al-Qaeda and Hamas are full of average Joes (or Yusefs) whose powerlessness, poverty-strickenness, disgruntlement, and rankling desire to retaliate is the direct result of the depraved indifference that’s been shown for their human worth and dignity by the governmental and plutocratic powers that be.

Alas, being morally right-minded and righteous does not mean self-servingly glossing over this existential reality, and exclusively and judgmentally focusing on the badness of those whom you fear; it does not mean glibly dismissing the reasons for their actions as mere excuses; and it does not mean denying our assailants the same excuses we so generously give to our own leaders and warriors.



The conclusion is located directly below

 

Conclusion

But, of course, we really do apply an ethically lame double standard. When our elected officials, who are more in service to the leisured fat cats than the laboring little guy, instigate a war that benefits the billionaire boy’s club at the expense of some other country’s “collateral damage”; when our troops, in robotlike fashion, go off to slaughter their fellow humans in a morally unjustifiable, mercenary invasion/occupation, do we hold them to the same unforgiving and stringent standard of personal responsibility? Hardly. We rationalize that soldiers have to follow orders, that they don’t get to pick and choose the wars they fight, and that they have noble intentions, blah, blah, blah. And although we’re a bit more cynical about our politicians nowadays, we still give them some slight benefit of the doubt as to their motives and stop short of condemning them as flat-out evil.

The way our casuistic moral reasoning works for us really is quite speciously hypocritical indeed. For instance, we don’t wish to give a nanosecond of thought to the twistedly idealistic intentions of a bin Laden, but we maintain that the patriotic motivations of American air force pilots who bomb and incendiarize civilians absolves them of their crimes against life!

To sum up then, if we honestly believe that those who engage in murder and mayhem in our name, that “our” killers deserve to be handed moral alibis and cop-outs galore, then perhaps on closer and more fair-minded examination we would find that “terrorists”, that “their” killers deserve similar moral alibis, that “terrorism” is by no means pure evil.

In truth, although it might be hard-to-swallow truth, terrorists are merely bringing back to us some of the pain we’ve wantonly wreaked on the Third World, merely bringing the fight for freedom from Western greed and exploitation home to us. And, if we don’t consider the pilots of the Enola Gay to be fiendish evildoers for bringing the war home to Japan, incinerating and irradiating thousands of innocent children by dropping A-bombs on them, that is; if we don’t regard the RAF and U.S. pilots who carpet bombed Dresden to be vile villains, etc., well, then “terrorists” have a right to the same easygoing verdict of not guilty, not guilty of being evil.

In their minds they too are fighting a just war, a war of self-defense. And no, they are not the least bit delusional about this. In the era of colonialism we, the wicked WASPs of the West, mighty and manifestly-destined whitey, openly dominated the populations of the LDCs (less developed countries), and today we continue to do so on the down-low. They, the “terrorists” do not simply do bad things because of their senseless and sinister inner badness, they have plenty of real provocation, if not justification.

Sure, some “terrorists” are out-and-out fanatics, but this doesn’t alter the fact that our bloodsucking corporate elite has incurred their wrath for us. When our minds reflect upon the evil of terrorism we need to include the globalizing upper crust of our own society in the equation. Being intellectually honest and moral people mandates this.

No doubt life would be easier and feel more cozily safe if the people of the Third World were all Uncle Toms, but they do have the moral right to be Nat Turners. When the rebellious slave Nat Turner rose up and killed whites who had been treating his people like animals, he was not evil incarnate, he was viewed as a terrifying evil incarnate by overseers, but he was just a human being pushed beyond the limits of decency. Likewise, so-called “terrorists” are merely the afflicted and abused fellaheen and peons under the boot heel of First World hegemony, lethally lashing out at the source of their grievances. I don’t endorse or advocate their use of homicidal violence, but neither can I dismiss it as unreasonable and pure evil.

What of evil then? Evil is an aspect of life, after all, and life, to borrow an analogy from quantum physics, comes not merely in individual particles but in waves as well (it depends on the perception of the observer – you might call this moral complementarity). Of course we all know that evil pops up in the behavior of individuals, but it’s also diffused throughout the waves of life and history, not isolatedly concentrated in the criminals and terrorists we love to hate. The upshot is that ethically speaking there are no lone gunmen in the universe. No, the evildoing of malevolent miscreants such as Osama bin Laden does not cut them off from humanity; rather, it’s inseparable from the history we’ve all helped to create. Being a person of moral integrity means owning up to this, not merely dam*ing bin Laden and his type to hell as absolute evil.

 

What a crazed rant. And so much of it.

Evil does not exist. If it does show me where it is. It's in the minds of man, that's the only place it exists.

As to terrorism. There's a saying which is spot on. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Look at the origins of the US. Which side were the terrorists and which the freedom fighters? For one side surely was terrorist.

 

it provides live targets for our military

 

Evil most certainly exists. And for me, a very very bright line is when civilians are deliberately and directly targeted. That's the essence of terrorism -- a terrorist goes after the unarmed and the noncombatant. A soldier goes after other soldiers. No "Freedom Fighter" who targets civillians is a real freedom fighter. If bin Laden and Al-Qaida had been only targeting millitary targets, there would be no terrorism. They obviously did not -- thus by any definition of the word, they are terrorists.

Not every conflict on the planet has had terrorism on one side or another. No one in the American Revolution was deliberately targeting the civillian population. They fought the millitary -- army to army. And much the same in the civil war -- The Union fought the Confederate Army, not the civillians in the south.

 

Evil to those of a religious persuasion.

Criminal to everyone else.

 

Evil is subjective. Terrorism used against us warrants our retaliation. We've supported terror against others, so it's not a clear cut good and evil dichotomy.

All it really comes down to is that we destroy those who stand in our way, as we should.

 

Very well written! My compliments; one would be hard pressed to find something with which to argue from your post. Problem is, most people won't read it.

 

I find it repugnant, but it should be seen in terms of 'asymmetric warfare'. Vocab such as 'evil' encourages an emotive reaction that fails to recognise the behaviour of those involved. Counter-terrorist policy can then be hindered.

 

"A soldier goes after other soldiers..." A patently untrue statement. What about the air force pilots who bomb villages full of noncombatant peasants, and cities full of innocent civilians?! What about G.I.s and jarheads who take part in corporate greed-motivated invasions and occupations that take the lives of thousands of civilians for the economic gain of our plutocracy?! What about all of the civilians tortured and murdered by the "security forces" of client states who were trained by this country's special forces personnel. To say that soldiers are just grown boy scouts with guns who only kill our government's designated "bad guys" is the height of willful naivete, intellectual dishonesty, and double-standardy thinking.

Well then, unless you can rationalize remaining in denial about the reality that your heroes in uniform kill innocent civilians, you have to admit that they are essentially "terrorists"; that they and their death-dealing are the moral equivalent of "terrorism". Or worse, since rather than acting, like "terrorists", out of sincere belief in the righteousness of their actions, our military personnel are often guilty of "just following orders" like some kind of Nazi drones. In this sense, a "terrorist" is worthy of more respect than the typical U.S. soldier. But I somehow doubt that you're going to be able to agree with a word of this. Oh well, live and grow, perhaps one day you'll see the moral light regarding the evil done by big militaries, serving big governments, that are the puppets of big business. To put it quite simply, killing to help make Halliburton and the rest of the corporate elite richer, now that's evil.

 

How about learning about how military operations are conducted before making blanket statements?

There are a great many "Laws of Land Warfare", both written and unwritten. Primarily among these is that you leave civilians and civilian communities alone. This was the case in the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and today.

However, just as in the rule of Chemical Weapons are illegal, it is also accepted that if one side attacks civilians or uses Chemical Weapons, then all bets are off. Both England and Germany tried to prevent bomber attacks on Civilians in WWII. But once the Blitz on London started, the gloves came off. If Hitler had never bombed London, Liverpool and Birmingham, the US and UK would likely have never bombed Berlin, Dresden and Nurenburg.

And along with these rules and laws is that you never ever ever place weapons or soldiers in and among civilian communities. Ever. The minute you do so, the civilian community looses all protection that it has as a protected location.

So when I hear people whine about the Air Force bombing a villiage full of civilians, I get really mad. Not at the Air Force, but at the disgusting pukes that decided to hide their soldiers and weapons among a civilian community. They are the real war criminals.

Even the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare 1907 state that attacks against undefended towns and dwellings is illegal. However, in 1923 they also stated in a revision that "air bombardment is legitimate only when is directed against a military objective".

I suggest you read up on your Laws of Land Warfare a bit. Also look up the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deals with Human Shields.

 

Not quite correct. The Germans first dropped bombs on London by accident. Churchill's order to attack Berlin pre-dated the Blitz

 

Yes, I am aware that the first bombs dropped on Londen were done by accident. However, by that time they had already conducted unrestrained aerial bombardment of other cities, like Warsaw and Rotterdam. So there was no way for the UK to know that it was an accident, and not a move to the kind of unrestricted bombing they had conducted on other cities.

After 2 nights of "accidental" bombings on London, the UK responded in kind, bombing Berlin. Because Der Paper Hanger had been saying for a long time that nobody would be able to attack Berlin, he lost a lot of face (much like Japan after the Doolittle Raid). So in response, Hitler then lifted his restrictions on bombing UK cities and the Blitz was on.

 

No way? Don't make stuff up now. Churchill didn't take much to come out with his "'absolutely devastating exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland" comment. They of course already knew that precision bombing was a myth

 

As to the question of "Was it right to execute Bin Laden with out due process", the answer of coarse is to the affirmative. Bin Laden carried out against our country an act of war. By doing so he laid forfiet any and all rights to trial and instead became an enemy combatant. If he would have surrendered peacefully outside a military conflict, I am sure he would have faced trial just like Sadam Hussien.

Whether or not he was evil is a very interesting thought. Judged by the moral principles of the majority of the world, there would be no question. Though, if you were to give the same query to a extremist of Islam, he would answer in the negative.

Needless to say he infringed on our rights to life and liberty and therefore recieved just reward.

 

"when our troops, in robotlike fashion, go off to slaughter their fellow humans in a morally unjustifiable, mercenary invasion/occupation, do we hold them to the same unforgiving and stringent standard of personal responsibility?"

Do you truly believe that if we left these terrorists unchecked that they would simply forget about us? We are only uforgiving and stringent with our responses as to oust all attempts of retaliation. They would exterminate us like rats if given the chance, which they have had. If you question whether they are truly terrorists then you were either mentally or physically too young on September 11th, 2001. Our troops do not slaughter fellow humans in a morally unjustifiable way. The rules of engagement are so insulated with the ideas of people who have never even seen combat and who are more sympathetic to our enemies than to our own. If you truly think that terrorists are "not that bad" then you are truly unpatriotic and there is no hope for you.

 

Terrorism is evil. Loss of innocent life makes a patriot into a terrorist. The american army are terrorists. Those who are attacking them should be more accurate and thier justification to attack would seem true to many.

Insurgents are not terrorists. Terrorists are the people who do the terrible acts that ruin the entire force. American have killed over 100,000 innocent people in the last ten years.

If they didnt war over 100,000 innocent people would still have thier lives and more than 100,000 families could have been alive today to fight for thier own freedom.

Educate these men in Iraq, Iran , Afghanistan to stand in opposition to first the invading forces then terrorists within THEIR country.

 

I agree that evil does not exist, I also agree on the "crazed rant'.
I do not agree on terrorism. I define terrorism as the attack on CIVILIANS, and with that definition in mind, it NEVER works. Acts of violence committed against military forces do work.
The American military did NOT attack civilians as a policy. They fought and attacked military targets, that does NOT make them terrorists. It does make them a rebellious force. You might say that the American War of Independence was a British CIVIL war, and as such was mainly fought soldier against soldier. There were exceptions on both sides, but the exceptions do NOT mean the Military were terrorists. And no, neither Americans nor English were terrorists.

 

It's pretty far along the dark side.

 

Large-scale conflicts can often degenerate into all-out war, where both sides are compelled to do whatever it takes to win, including using 'dirty' tactics.
The line between war and terrorism can often be a blurry one.

 

Not really.

The biggest difference is that the military of a nation follows laws and rules, not only of the nations it belongs to but the treaties and conventions that nation also agrees to. A Terrorist organization does neither of these.

Also in a nation-state, there is a clear chain of command, and individuals responsible for the conduct of their armed forces. In a terrorist organization, this does not exist. Also for a military force, their primary target is the military of another nation. For a terrorist organization, it is generally the civilian population of the country they are operating in (or other areas that are generally seen as "civilian soft targets", like shopping centers, ships, aircraft, etc,

 

I've been milling over this statement since it was posted. I say to you, terrorism is ruthlessness.

God will judge evil, for evil is complicated. Terrorism, from man's view is ruthless. I'm great I the English language, or as I put it, English.

Are there evil weirdos among the terrorists? Bloody oath.

 

Not really.

Look no further then the American Revolution. Yes, the Sons of Liberty did a great many reprehensible things. But by and large, they did not declare war upon the Loyalists, and urge their followers to massacre them and anybody who fought in support of the king.

That to me is the biggest difference. "Freedom Fighters" if they are reputable operate by a code of conduct of some sort, and have an organized chain of command. Also their targets are primarily military in nature, and political secondary. They are never soft civilian targets, only designed to kill civilians and to cause fear.

I can even respect a foe who targets a military base with a rocket attack or maybe even a truck bomb. I have nothing but disdain and a desire to deficate down the neck of individuals who think attacking schools, religious buildings, hospitals, or shopping malls is "fighting for freedom".

Case in point, when the American Revolution was done, roughly 90% of the "Loyalists" remained in the US, and suffered little to no repercussions. Only around 70,000 decided to leave the new country after the revolution was won, primarily moving to Canada. Compare the number of massacres of Loyalists after the American Revolution, with say the numbers of "Loyalists" that remain in ISIS occupied regions of Syria and Iraq.

 

the entire Muslim race must be hunted down and exterminated

 

Thx for a thought provoking original post

There is a cliche that war is simply diplomacy by other means

I think terrorism is war by other means. We label it as evil when it is directed at us.
These days, we tend to be on the more powerful side of asymmetric conflict
And so there are abundant means to pursue our goals without resort to terrorism
But the "good guys" have at times embraced terrorist means, or crass vengeance.

Don't misunderstand me.
I agree that on balance we have tried---mostly successfully--- to hold ourselves to a higher standard
But we should not pretend that we are so superior as to have transcended evil