Terrorism and Provocation
by Tibor R. Machan
Most of the time people are reasonable about the issue of what punishment or burden fits what kind of crime. Even in non-criminal matters, they would not agree that when you are insulted, you should beat up someone for this, or deck someone who simply bumped into you carelessly. They know, also, that when women wear provocative clothing, this does not justify the belief that they want men to go after them without their explicit consent.
Provocation is not any kind of excuse to be either violent toward or intimate with someone. When we recall the old saying that "Sticks and stones may hurt one's bones, but words can be ignored," we can also appreciate that however provocative someone may look, it doesn't justify one's taking this as an invitation to action. Nor does even solid suspicion of another of some aggression warrant taking violent action against that person, certainly not against his or her children and neighbors.
Let me try to apply this to foreign affairs. No one can reasonably dispute that the United States of America hasn't been a completely peaceful country since its inception. That is to say, our government has often acted violently toward others not because they have acted aggressively toward the United States but because officials didn't approve of how those others have acted quite apart from threatening U.S. citizens.
Sure, quite often the targets of U.S. violence have not been peaceful countries but bullies around the globe. Take the Spanish American war. Going back some years, it isn't that the Spanish were peaceful but neither did they attack the U.S. They bullied other nations that were perhaps friendly with us but they were no threat to Americans. In the more recent Balkan conflicts, also, there certainly was evidence of a great deal of mendacity among the various parties to the violence following the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Mostly they involved century-long disputes whose origins hardly anyone could recall clearly enough. The animosities were often very confused and it was nearly impossible to discern who were the good guys and who the bad. Of course, during the conflicts there were obvious cases of inhumanity among the people involved, sometimes rising to the level of out and out genocide, mass murder, greater and lesser massacres and even blatant ethnic cleansing.
Yet, none of these were the business of the U.S. Government or military, agencies that have as their duty to secure the rights of American citizens not to be the 911 of the world (contrary to an insidious bumper sticker that claims otherwise). So, when America's military did intrude in these admittedly murderous but messy affairs, there were many who justifiably regarded it as yet again more American muscle-flexing, not humanitarianism.
Then there are those innumerable shady operations of the American CIA and other organizations, embarking on covert and overt violence - or support of the same by various favorite parties - abroad where the only thing that is at stake is some so-called national interest. I say, "so called" because the interest is usually not that of American citizens as such but various special interests, often but not even always located in America, such as certain multinational companies.
But such special interests do not justify aggressive government action, either by the CIA or the U.S. military. Nevertheless, the American government has often given orders for these agencies to intrude around the globe so as to serve such special interests, under the guise that it is in our national interest. Even if it had been our national interest, it does not follow at all that such aggressive intervention would have been justified. Having an interest in something does not justify aggressively securing the object of that interest. I may be interested - have an interest - in the company of some person, in his or her support for my projects, but only peaceful means of securing such an interest would be proper. Coercive force just has no place here. The national interest isn't the same as national security.
Okay, having said this it is till a stretch to argue, as so many Hollywood celebrities and others have been arguing, that the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center could be seen as justified. One of my favorite Hollywood stars, Danny Glover, had argued just this point at a recent anti-war rally and it is very disappointing to see such a fine actor and director engage in the kind of silly rhetoric he did sadly engage in. Gore Vidal, too, seems to hold to this idea and while his criticism of our government's foreign policy is often on target, the implication that that could justify 9/11 is way off.
One can argue at length about just what sort of actions aggrieved foreigners might resort to so as to rebuff the American government's unjustified intrusions abroad. But one thing is clear beyond any reasonable doubt: Terrorism is not one of them.
The hallmark of terrorism is the serious threat against and the destruction of innocent lives, of people - including children of all ages - who have had nothing whatsoever to do with what the terrorists may be even justifiably upset about. Being aggrieved by the American government, finding its foreign affairs not perhaps just provocative but out and out invasive, can be justified often enough. Many Americans share this attitude. Of course, the terrorists in this case make no secret about the fact that their beef isn't just with certain misdeeds of the U.S. Government but with the most basic and decidedly peaceful principles on which the country had been founded, including the right to the pursuit of earthly happiness via the economic system of capitalism.
Now just as the bombing of a federal building that houses a child care center is an unjustified target for those who see innumerable injustices committed by federal authorities, so is terrorism completely without an ounce of justification. No provocation on the scale ascribable to the U.S. Government can excuse the wild attack on the World Trade Center, the victimization of airline passengers in such an attack, and similar reckless, barbaric and malicious lashing out by people who consider themselves aggrieved, let alone those who simply disagree with the American way of life that stresses happiness here on earth instead of devotion to some unknowable, mysterious supernatural future.
The requirement of due process - being very careful and precise in imposing violence upon others, making sure they are indeed guilty and deserving of the burdens imposed on them - isn't confined only to how the police and other law enforcement officials must conduct themselves in a civilized world. It applies, as well, to how people must act whenever they have complaints about others - whether involving how parents treat their children or how citizens of different societies treat one another. And that applies even when those who are targets are suspected and accused of being guilty of various more or less grave misdeeds.
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