Abstract
On September 11, 2001, during the first year of this new millennium, the cities of New York and Washington D.C. were attacked by terrorists with radical Islamist ties. The loss of life—approximately 3,000 civilians—was exceeded in American history only by battles during the Civil War, although cities in other countries had far greater civilian casualties during World War II.
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Notes
For two very different but perceptive and sometimes alarming accounts of what “really” happened on September 11, 2001, and why it was not prevented, see Inside 9–11 What Really Happened, by the Reporters, Writers, and Editors of Der Spiegel Magazine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002); and Gerald Posner, Why America Slept The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (New York: Random House, 2003).
Mark A. Schuster et al., “A National Survey of Stress Reactions after the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks,” New England Journal of Medicine, 345:20 (November 15, 2001), 1,507–12.
Also see Susan Coates, Jane Rosenthal, and Daniel Schechter, September 11 Trauma and Human Bonds (Hillsdale, NJ, and London: The Analytic Press, 2003).
Sandro Galea et al., “Psychological Sequelae of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks in New York City,” New England Journal of Medicine, 346:13 (March 28, 2002), 982–87.
Alexander N. Ortega and Robert Rosenheck, “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Hispanic Vietnam Veterans,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 157:4 (April 2000), 615–19.
William E. Schlenger et al., “Psychological Reactions to Terrorist Attacks: Findings from the National Study of Americans’ Reactions to September 11,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 288 (2002), 581–88.
Roxane C. Silver, et al., “Nationwide Longitudinal Study of Psychological Responses to September 11,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 288 (2002), 1,235–44.
Haig Khatchadourian, The Morality of Terrorism (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998), 11.
Igor Primoratz, “What is Terrorism?” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 7:2, (1990), 129–30.
Richard Falk has argued that “‘Terrorism’ as a word and concept became associated in US and Israeli political discourse with anti-state forms of violence that were so criminal that any method of enforcement and retaliation was viewed as acceptable, and not subject to criticism. By so appropriating the meaning of this inflammatory term in such a self-serving manner, terrorism became detached from its primary historical association dating back to the French Revolution. In that formative setting, the staters own political violence against its citizens, violence calculated to induce widespread fear and achieve political goals, was labeled as terrorism, most famously by Edmund Burke…. With the help of the influential media, the state over time has waged and largely won the battle of definitions by exempting its own violence against civilians from being treated and perceived as ‘terrorism.’ Instead such violence was generally discussed as ‘uses of force,’ ‘retaliation,’ ‘self-defense,’ and ‘security measures.’” Not to mention “preemptive wars,” “counterinsurgency,” and “counterterrorism.” Richard Falk, The Great Terror War (New York: Olive Branch Press, 2003), xviii–xix.
Khatchadourian, The Morality of Terrorism, 4–11; Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 13–43;
and Johan Galtung, Carl G. Jacobsen, and Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen, Searching for Peace The Road to Transcend (London and Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2002), 87–89. Khatchadourian, following Paul Wilkinson, is one of the very few scholars to mention the psychological component of terrorism, viz., terror, but he also claims that “although ‘terror’ can exist in the absence of terrorism, Wilkinson wrongly thinks that political terrorism always involves ‘terror..,’ wrongly because unlike ‘terror..,’ political terrorism is almost invariable a sustained policy.” But there are many counterexamples of political terrorism, especially from below, that, especially in the cases of assassinations (of presidents, czars, prime ministers, and other state officials), are singular and/or episodic. Khatchadourian concedes, however, that “admittedly, it” (political terrorism) “shares some of the characteristics of ‘terror.’ It is ruthlessly destructive, unpredictable, and frequently indiscriminate with respect to its immediate victims, although not its real target, the victimized” (9). Hoffman also mentions the “far-reaching psychological effects”— namely fear and intimidation—of terrorist attacks (44) but his main focus, as with virtually all analysts of terrorism, is elsewhere.
See Jürgen Habermas in Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), xii–xiii and 25–43. According to Noam Chomsky, “Terrorism is the use of coercive means aimed at civilian populations to achieve political, religious, or other aims. That’s what the World Trade Center attack was, a particularly horrifying terrorist crime. Terrorism, according to the official definitions, is simply part of state action, official doctrine, and not just of the U.S., of course.” And, “alongside the literal meaning of the term.., there is also a propagandistic usage.. : the term ‘terrorism’ is used to refer to terrorist acts committed by enemies against us or our allies…. Even the Nazis harshly condemned terrorism and carried out what they called ‘counter-terrorism’ against the terrorist partisans.” 9/11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001), 57 and 90. In a subsequent book, Hegemony or Survival America’s Quest for Global Dominance (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 110, Chomsky claims that “a convenient definition of terrorism was adopted” by the Bush (II) administration, namely “terrorism is what our leaders declare it to be. Period.” Later in that book, Chomsky partly concurs with former American Secretary of State George Shultz, that “terrorism is indeed an intolerable return to barbarism,” but “perceptions about its nature differ sharply at opposite ends of the guns” (208–09). Also see the insightful online article “Defining Terrorism” by Michael Kinsley (Washington post.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8709–2001Oct4.html), who lists the political advantages of the Bush administration framing its “mission as a ‘war against terrorism,’ not just against the perpetrators of the particular crime of Sept. 11” (1) and argues that “the concept of terrorism is supposed to be a shortcut to the moral high ground. That is what makes it so useful. It says: The end doesn’t justify the means. We don’t need to argue about whose cause is right and whose is wrong, because certain behavior makes you the bad guy however noble your cause.” This political construction of “terrorism and terrorists” (as was the “Cold War” against “international Communism” and “Communist subversion” in the United States and abroad) is used to justify virtually anything, especially the use of war and “counterterrorism,” as a “moral” imperative; in fact, it is more propaganda than ethics.
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), 2.
Albert Camus, The Rebel (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), 101.
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 86.
Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 38.
Thomas Keating, The Human Condition (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), 10.
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© 2004 Charles P. Webel
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Webel, C.P. (2004). Defining the Indefinable: What are, and are Not “Terror, Terrorism, and the Human Condition?”. In: Terror, Terrorism, and the Human Condition. Twenty-first Century Perspectives on War, Peace, and Human Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-7872-1_2
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