Just Counterterrorism

Just Counterterrorism

George Clifford

Published by Ethical Musings

Copyright 2014 George M. Clifford, III

All rights reserved.

Cover photo © iStockphoto.com

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations

Figure 1: The Just Counterterrorism Model

Introduction

Chapter 1: Defining the Problem

A. What Terrorism Is

B. What Terrorism Is Not

C. What Terrorists Want

D. How Terrorism Ends

Chapter 2: The Solution: Just Counterterrorism

A. The Inadequacy of a Warfighting Counterterrorism Model

1. Jus ad Bellum

2. Jus in Bello

3. Jus post Bellum

B. The Need for a New Counterterrorism Model

C. The Just Counterterrorism Model

Chapter 3: Justice for the Attacked

A. Courage

B. Prudence

C. Justice

D. Temperance

Chapter 4: Justice for Terrorists

A. Apprehension

1. Respect Rights

2. Uphold the Rule of Law

B. Interdiction

1. Just Cause

2. Right Intent

3. Right Authority

4. Reasonable Chance of Success

5. Proportional

6. Noncombatant Discrimination

7. Rapid closure

8. Case Studies

C. Adjudication

1. Impartiality

2. Procedural Fairness

Chapter 5: Justice for Others

A. Improve Equality

B. Improve Political Fairness

C. Improve Distributive Fairness

Chapter 6: Case Study: Northern Ireland

A. Justice for the Attacked

1. Courage

2. Prudence

3. Justice

4. Temperance

B. Justice for Terrorists

1. Apprehension

2. Interdiction

3. Adjudication

C. Justice for Others

1. Improve Equality

2. Improve Political Fairness

3. Improve Distributive Fairness

Conclusion

A. Just Counterterrorism Summarized

B. Developing a Just Counterterrorism Tradition

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

List of Abbreviations

Figure 1: The Just Counterterrorism Model

Introduction

No doubt today’s Wise Men see themselves as devoted patriots. No doubt they even mean well. Yet that’s not good enough. As Paul Wolfowitz himself wrote, ‘No US president can justify a policy that fails to achieve its intended results by pointing to the purity and rectitude of his intentions.’

Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power1

On September 11, 2001, the Islamic extremist organization al Qaeda struck both New York City and Washington, DC. These attacks, now universally identified by their abbreviated date of 9/11, were a singularly transformative moment for terrorism and in United States (US) history.

Using a passenger jet as a weapon was not a novel idea. In the first recorded attempt, Algerian Islamist extremists hijacked an Air France commercial airliner in 1994, intending to fly it into the Eiffel tower. A French anti-terrorist unit successfully stormed the plane when the terrorists landed to refuel.2

The 9/11 attacks utilized a different scale and achieved unexpected results. The New York attack consisted of two hijacked passenger planes crashing into the landmark twin World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan. One jet struck the World Trade Center's North tower at 8:46 am; 17 minutes later, the second plane hit the South tower. Both airliners exploded on impact. The explosions ignited fires, fed by jet fuel, which caused the catastrophic structural failures responsible for both towers collapsing.3 Including persons on the ground as well as aboard the two planes, this horrendous attack killed almost 2,800 people.4 The exact death toll remains unknown because of the difficulty in locating and identifying the human remains scattered throughout the massive piles of intensely charred and compacted debris. The blast, fighting the fires, rescue operations, and inhalation of airborne ashes and dust injured countless thousands more.

Concurrently, al Qaeda operatives hijacked two other airliners. One they crashed into the Pentagon’s west wall. Passengers aboard the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, having learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center surmised that the hijackers intended to use the jet as a weapon to attack yet another target. Evidence collected after the crash revealed that a small group of Flight 93's passengers courageously seized the initiative and counterattacked their flight's hijackers about thirty minutes after the hijacking. Before the counterattack could succeed, the terrorists lost control of the plane or intentionally flew the aircraft into the ground. Post-9/11 investigators remain unclear about whether the Flight 93 hijackers had targeted the White House or the US Capitol. Including both the passengers aboard these two planes and persons on the ground who died in the crashes, the terrorists killed an additional 229 people.

Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and their operatives had likely hoped, perhaps even anticipated, that the two planes crashing into the World Trade Center would ignite fires that would kill most or all of the people on the floors above the one(s) into which the planes flew. Apparently, the plan's most optimistic projection was that the floors above the crash sites would collapse.5

The large number of people killed—over 3,000—marked a significant change in how terrorists operate:

Historically, terrorists have not taken the opportunities available to them to murder on a grand scale. They have not needed to. They could further their objectives and inflict widespread terror without inflicting widespread casualties. The most frequently cited aphorism making this point was made by the RAND analyst Brian Jenkins in 1974: ‘Terrorists want lots of people watching, not lots of people dead.’6

Yet thinking that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda chose the 9/11 targets primarily because of the number of people likely to die is a mistake. A well-planned and executed attack on a crowded major league or university athletic stadium, for example, might have killed many more people.

Instead, Al Qaeda chose the 9/11 targets for their symbolic value. The World Trade Center, with its distinctive shape, height, high-profile tenants, and location near the heart of the United States’ financial capital, symbolized the country's tremendous economic might. The Pentagon, which suffered comparatively little damage on 9/11, uniquely symbolizes the United States’ status as the world’s only military superpower. Although the fourth plane’s target remains unclear, both the Capitol and White House distinctively symbolize the United States’ government.

In several respects, each far more significant than the tragic deaths of thousands and extensive property damage, US reaction to the 9/11 attacks greatly exceeded what the terrorists might have imagined or hoped, helping the terrorists to achieve a remarkable victory.7 In the words of terrorism expert Louise Richardson, Terrorism is, above all a game of psychological warfare.8 For less than half a million dollars, 19 terrorists:

● Shattered the US mainland’s illusion of being impervious to foreign enemies, protected by geographic barriers that no enemy had successfully penetrated for almost two centuries

● Confronted the US population en masse with the potentially terrifying reality that a group of committed terrorists in a remote part of the globe hated them enough to commit suicide attacks against the US

● Inflicted an estimated $90 billion direct economic loss9 and as much as $3 trillion in indirect losses on the US economy10

● Underscored the vulnerability of all US citizens to attack, by seemingly sudden and malicious attacks against mostly civilians, people who were blissfully unaware of the scope of Islamic extremism, al Qaeda's threat, and its reasons for attacking11

● Shifted the threat of terrorism to the front line of political, economic, and security concerns not only in the United States but also in Europe and all other developed countries.

No wonder that Osama bin Laden, then head of the al Qaeda terror network, publicly rejoiced over the devastating blow that his organization had struck against the country he considered Islam’s foremost enemy.

In the shocked and terror-filled aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, President George W. Bush realized that a majority of United States citizens, in accord with his own predispositions, expected decisive action. After all, the 9/11 attacks were the first significant foreign attacks against the United States mainland since the War of 1812. In the intervening two centuries, only a handful of mostly ineffectual attacks had occurred, some of them directed against territories rather than states. In 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was still a US territory, not achieving statehood until 1959. During World War II, the Japanese also put some troops ashore in the Aleutians, part of the then territory of Alaska. The Germans landed a handful of saboteurs on the US east coast, but US authorities apprehended all of those put ashore before they attempted any sabotage. A Japanese sub shelled a West Coast town causing no casualties and German U-boats sank coastal shipping early in the war, but authorities kept these incidents secret to avoid panicking the public.

President Bush boldly declared, We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts [the 9/11 attacks] and those who harbor them.12 Incidentally, that statement echoes a far less publicized statement by senior Clinton administration official Thomas Pickering to the same effect.13 On October 7, 2001, less than a month after 9/11, the United States invaded Afghanistan, rapidly removed the Taliban from power, eventually killed Osama bin Laden after more than a decade of failed attempts, and struggled to establish democracy and to destroy al Qaeda during its 12-year occupation of Afghanistan. In 2003, in its next major counterterrorism move, the US invaded Iraq, quickly conquered it, and then occupied it for nine years. US domestic responses to terrorism's threat have included imposition of extensive security screenings at transportation hubs, airports, and many large gatherings, creation of a new cabinet department responsible for homeland security, and fast passage of a sweeping new counterterrorism law, the USA Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism).

To date, the United States’ extensive international and domestic responses have failed to end or substantially mitigate the terrorist threat. After years of valiant and costly efforts, the US remains, in the words of former CIA terrorism expert Michael Scheuer, less secure than it was on what al Qaeda refers to as ‘the Tuesday of God's glory’….14 In the period 2003-2005, the years during which the US invaded and occupied Afghanistan and then Iraq, the number of attacks al Qaeda conducted globally actually increased.15

What has gone wrong? Why has the world’s only global superpower been unable to eliminate, or even to reduce significantly, the terrorist threat? What ethical principles shape a just, morally responsible, and effective counterterrorism strategy and tactics? How can countries and the global community work to build peace in this age of terror? This book attempts to answer those questions and proposes a new model for shaping effective, ethical counterterrorism strategy and tactics.

No single ethical model for shaping and assessing counterterrorism strategy and tactics has garnered the support of a majority of ethicists. Nor have elected leaders or government officials actually responsible for counterterrorism policy and programs in any country adopted an ethical counterterrorism model. Instead, perceived opportunities to strike a blow against terrorists and short-term political considerations are the two main catalysts that drive well-intentioned but ad hoc decisions about counterterrorism strategy, tactics, and policies. These decisions have consistently proven unable to reduce terrorism significantly, much less to end it.

Indeed, the problem is even more basic. No commonly accepted definition of terrorism exists. Politicians, pundits, and the public frequently use the emotionally laden words terror and terrorism to connote a disconcertingly disparate array of problems and threats. This imprecise usage frequently refers to insurgencies, non-state terrorism, some counterterrorism measures, and criminal acts such as kidnappings and mass murders. Occasionally, people even stretch the terms terror and terrorism to describe major natural disasters. Only one commonality—the tendency to evoke the emotion of great, perhaps even irrational, fear—links all of these phenomena. Rhetorically conflating these very different phenomena into a single, ill-defined concept has contributed to the mistaken impression that terrorism is a problem without a solution and implicitly encouraged extravagant spending on counterterrorism. This ambiguity also deprives policymakers of analytical assistance in formulating effective counterterrorism strategy and tactics.

Chapter 1 presents the rationale for specifically defining the word terrorism as non-state actors utilizing a strategy or tactic of violence against innocent civilians in an attempt to achieve political goals of power for the non-state actors and greater justice for the community they claim to represent. The proposed definition seeks to circumscribe the problem with sufficient breadth to encompass both domestic and international non-state terrorism, regardless of geography or ideology, but also with sufficient precision to define a problem that has viable solutions. Reviewing and summarizing the historical evidence about the aims and fate of terror organizations demonstrates that all non-state terror groups eventually end while highlighting effective counterterrorism strategies and tactics.

Prior to 9/11, counterterrorism was generally a law enforcement responsibility.16 The 9/11 attacks, perpetrated by an international network operating from another country and benefiting from that country's support, posed seemingly insurmountable difficulties in relying upon law enforcement to bring the guilty to the bar of justice. The Global War on Terror (GWOT) that President George W. Bush declared was a rather abrupt innovation for the US in counterterrorism, depending primarily upon direct action by US armed forces and intelligence agencies instead of law enforcement agencies. Under President Obama, the US continued to regard and to respond to international terrorism as a military problem.17 Chapter 2's first section examines this continuing war on terrorism through the lens of Just War Theory, which is the most widely accepted paradigm for evaluating a war's morality. The analysis, relying on Chapter 1's definition of terrorism and lessons learned about how terrorism ends, concludes that a warfighting counterterrorism strategy is unjust and will generally fail. An analysis of the dynamics of asymmetric conflicts sheds further light on the inherent limitations of warfighting as a counterterrorism strategy.

Chapter 2's second section begins by enumerating four design criteria for shaping and assessing counterterrorism strategy and tactics, along with the rationale for each, that any proposed model should satisfy. The criteria emerge out of Chapter 1's review of how terrorism ends. In particular, a counterterrorism model should be demonstrably effective, comprehensive, ethical, and sufficiently flexible to encompass non-state terrorism's geographic and ideological diversity. Since effectiveness is a sine qua non for any counterterrorism model, the design criteria might appear to point toward a consequentialist or utilitarian approach. However, for reasons the section elucidates, an ethic centered on justice is in fact essential. The section finishes with an appraisal of the two existing counterterrorism approaches (law enforcement and warfighting) and of several recently proposed models, explaining why all fail to satisfy the design criteria. States therefore need a new model for assessing and shaping counterterrorism strategy and tactics.

The third section of Chapter 2 introduces the proposed Just Counterterrorism Model, which is developed in chapters 3-5 and outlined in Figure 1. Each of the Just Counterterrorism Model's three components concentrates on one of the three groups of stakeholders identifiable in conjunction with any terrorist act: Justice for the Attacked—the community that the terrorists have attacked or threatened; Justice for Terrorists—the terrorists; and Justice for Others—the community that spawned and then enables the terrorists to operate. A component's criteria, along with any subordinate constituent elements that a criterion may have, provide a practical paradigm for determining or assessing counterterrorism strategy and tactics as it pertains to that set of stakeholders. The Just Counterterrorism Model does not prescribe a set of universal counterterrorism ukases. Instead, the Model is contextual, i.e., the Model is a flexible paradigm for shaping or assessing counterterrorism strategy and tactics in response to a particular terror group.

A corollary of Chapter 1's argument that issues of political power and justice constitute terrorism's ideological and motivational core is that any effective counterterrorism strategy must build upon an ethic of justice with respect to the three groups of stakeholders affected by any terror strategy or tactic. Justice, however, is a notoriously difficult idea to define. John Rawls, arguably the twentieth century's most prominent philosopher interested in the theory and praxis of justice, defined justice in terms of fairness; his concept of justice as fairness, for reasons explained in Chapter 2, determines and informs every facet of the Just Counterterrorism Model.

Rawls maintained that justice encapsulates and expresses a community's virtue. The four cardinal virtues of the western philosophical tradition that emerged out of the ancient Greek philosophical tradition and Christianity— courage, prudence, justice, and temperance—provide a conceptual framework for understanding a community's virtue. Thus, Chapter 3 (Justice for the Attacked) uses the cardinal virtues, interpreted from a Rawlsian perspective, as the four criteria for describing an attacked community's ethical, efficacious response to terrorism. Succinctly summarized, people need courage to resist succumbing to terror and to continue with life in the face of unknown threats. Prudence helps a community's leaders and opinion makers to select sound, affordable defensive measures that will reduce future vulnerability to terror attacks without unduly compromising the community's values. A just community responds to terror threats and attacks by adhering to the rule of law, seeking justice for terrorists, and promoting improved justice for the constituency upon whom the terror group's continued existence depends. Lastly, temperance signifies choosing efficacious even if significantly delayed counterterrorism responses over quick responses, regardless of their probable efficacy.

Chapter 4 (Justice for Terrorists) extends Chapter 2's argument that waging war on terror has the de facto, even if unintentional, effect of glorifying terrorists by implying that terrorists are warriors comparable in status to military personnel. In fact, terrorists are criminals whom governments should seek to bring to justice. The chapter's sections of Apprehension, Interdiction, and Adjudication each explicate one of Justice for Terrorists' three eponymous criteria. These criteria apply Rawls' concept of justice as fairness directly to terrorists. Briefly, Apprehension connotes law enforcement agencies, in cases of domestic terrorists or of international terrorists operating in an area where the rule of law prevails, working to identify, arrest, and interrogate terror suspects while upholding the rule of law and respecting rights. Interdiction connotes a state's response to terrorists in a location where the rule of law does not prevail. Its seven constituent elements—just cause, right intent, right authority, reasonable chance of success, proportionality, noncombatant discrimination, and rapid closure—adapt Just War Theory criteria to the exigencies of counterterrorism in areas where the rule of law does not prevail. Together, these seven elements delineate a protocol that balances respect for state sovereignty with the need to deny international terrorists safe havens from which to operate. Adjudication connotes legally trying terrorist suspects arrested by Apprehension or captured in an Interdiction, acquitting the innocent, and punishing the guilty. Impartiality and procedural fairness are Adjudication's two constituent elements and apply to trials and punishment. Among other topics, the chapter addresses torture, the use of drones in counterterrorism, and the tension between intelligence gathering and security, on the one hand, and freedom and privacy, on the other.

Just Counterterrorism contends that persistent, widespread, and egregious injustice, combined with real or perceived powerlessness to improve the situation, spawns terrorist organizations and enables them to flourish. No community, given terrorism's immorality, affords a terror organization the support the group needs to survive and to operate in the absence of substantive injustice. Ending the threat posed by one terrorist organization without reducing (or ending) the injustice that was the group's precursor leaves conditions intact for the emergence of new terror groups. The Just Counterterrorism Model's final component, Justice for Others, developed in Chapter 5, argues that Rawls' concept of justice as fairness should shape a state's policies to improve equality, political fairness, and distributive fairness (Justice for Others' three criteria), thus ameliorating the injustice in which the terrorism has its roots. Supporting justice for others, in conjunction with pursuing justice for terrorists and promoting justice within an attacked or threatened community, is analogous to not only defending against and killing mosquitoes in one's yard but also to draining the swamp in which the mosquitoes breed.

As this Introduction's epigraph emphasized, results matter when dealing with terrorists and terror groups. In order to warrant adoption by scholars or implementation by the political leaders and government officials responsible for counterterrorism, any proposed counterterrorism model—ethical or otherwise—must offer a reasonable chance of success in reducing or ending terrorism. Consequently, the Just Counterterrorism Model's development in Chapters 3-5 relies upon numerous examples, drawn mainly but not exclusively from US efforts against al Qaeda and Israel's struggle against Palestinian terrorists. The examples illustratively suggest the efficacy of the Model's components. To demonstrate the Just Counterterrorism Model's potential for formulating and subsequently assessing effective, comprehensive, ethical counterterrorism, Chapter 6 is a case study of Great Britain's long counterterrorism struggle in Northern Ireland. Because Northern Ireland counterterrorism did not involve any interdictions, the Interdiction section of Justice for Terrorists (Chapter 4b) ends with two mini-case studies that use Interdiction's seven constituent elements to assess the US practices of extraordinary rendition and targeted killing.

Just Counterterrorism's development of the proposed Just Counterterrorism Model is an exercise in applied ethics that takes Sun Tzu’s famous dictum in The Art of War to know one’s enemy seriously. Ethical models that address the contemporary threat of terrorism must accurately understand the nature and dynamics of the problem in order to have a reasonable chance of being efficacious and attractive to public policy decision makers. The proposed Just Counterterrorism Model may not be the definitive, permanent solution to domestic and international terrorism. However, this volume argues that the Just Counterterrorism Model's blueprint for an efficacious, ethical, and comprehensive counterterrorism model represents a significant step forward from current ad hoc, politically expedient approaches and other proposed counterterrorism models.

Finally, I gratefully acknowledge my debts to all those whose assistance made this book possible: my students from 2003 to 2005 at the Naval Postgraduate School, who provided inspiration and insight; my colleagues in teaching there, Mark Smith and Darrell Wesley, exceptional dialogue partners; the many people with whom I discussed the ideas that grew into, or who read earlier drafts of, Just Counterterrorism; and Marcia Talley for the cover. Most importantly, this book would have been impossible without the support and unfailing encouragement of my beloved wife, Susan.

Chapter 1: Defining the Problem

What is terrorism? Accurately defining that term is the essential first step in developing an ethical and effective counterterrorism model. Regardless of the type of problem, effective problem-solving models usually begin by developing a clear statement of the problem. A good definition of terrorism provides the foundation for understanding why terrorism is always immoral, differentiates terrorism from other problems, helps to explain why groups adopt a terror strategy (overall campaign plan) or terror tactics (plans for specific acts or engagements), and assists in identifying the dynamics or conditions required to defeat a terror group.

Furthermore, unless one begins with a clear definition of the problem of terrorism formulating ethical and effective responses—that is, developing an ethical and effective counterterrorism strategy and tactics—depends upon chance successes achieved in a potentially costly process of trial and error. Wrong or inept counterterrorism moves can increase the risk of being attacked by terrorists, cede critical advantages to terrorists, and waste scarce resources. Partially understanding, or even misunderstanding, terrorism can also cause counterterrorism moves to have adverse ramifications by inadvertently exacerbating the terror threat when terrorists take advantage of political ineptitude, policy weaknesses, and public outrage.18

Illustratively, the United States since 9/11 has achieved some very visible and noteworthy counterterrorism successes. US forces eventually killed Osama bin Laden. Costly domestic defensive measures and numerous actions abroad have diminished the direct threat from al Qaeda and its closest allies. Most significantly, the US has not suffered another major terrorist attack. However, those successes are no substitute for a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy,19 which would most likely have enabled the US to achieve substantially larger, more enduring counterterrorism success as well as greater security at less cost. In fact, the United States has paid a high price for counterterrorism blunders since 9/11, costs largely attributable to relying on ad hoc, disjointed moves rather than a well-researched, carefully planned, and comprehensive counterterrorism strategy to shapes effective tactics. These costs, discussed more fully in the next two chapters, include the deaths of thousands of US citizens in two wars, extensive domestic invasions of privacy, capitulation to a culture of fear, the wasteful expenditure of trillions of dollars, and the loss of much international good will and respect. In spite of its costly counterterrorism moves, the US in 2014 probably remains almost as vulnerable to terrorist attacks as it was pre-9/11. Israel's reliance on a similar ad hoc, disjointed approach has proven no more satisfactory,20 underscoring the necessity for states to implement a coherent counterterrorism strategy to be effective in ending terror.21

A. What Terrorism Is

Although no single definition of terrorism enjoys universal acceptance,22 some of the best-known definitions overlap considerably, suggesting that a consensus may be emerging. Harvard professor of international relations Louise Richardson in her book, What Terrorists Want, succinctly defines terrorism as deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes.23 Political philosopher C.A.J. Coady defines terrorism as the organized use of violence to attack noncombatants or innocents (in a special sense) or their property for political purposes.24 Likewise, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.25 By 2003, the Bush administration had arrived at a similar definition of terrorism: premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents. Those who employ terrorism, regardless of their specific secular or religious objectives, strive to subvert the rule of law and effect change through violence and fear.26

Collectively, those definitions presume that terrorism consists of acts that have, as Richardson explains, seven crucial characteristics:

1. The perpetrator(s) must have political motivations for committing the act

2. The act is violent or threatens violence

3. The act’s purpose is to send a message, not to defeat the enemy

4. The act and victim(s) usually have symbolic significance

5. The act is the deed of a sub-state group

6. The victim and the audience of the act are not the same

7. The act must deliberately target civilians.27

A brief analysis of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, when a car bomb exploded in an underground garage at the Center and killed one hundred people in 1993, usefully illustrates those characteristics:

1. The perpetrator(s) must have political motivations for committing the act. The Islamic Group, headed by radical Islamist cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, carried out the attack. The Islamic Group's openly expressed political goal was overthrowing Egypt’s government and replacing it with an Islamic state.

2. The act is violent or threatens violence. The attack killed 100 people. Although this was far more than the six who died in the first al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, also in 1993, the Islamic Group's attack probably never had the potential or intent to destroy the complex.

3. The act’s purpose is to send a message, not to defeat the enemy. Those killed were not Egyptian government or military personnel, not even Egyptian civilians, but innocent non-Egyptian civilians who lived and worked in New York City, all of whom were almost certainly unaware of the Islamic Group’s existence.

4. The act and victim(s) usually have symbolic significance. The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in no way directly threatened the Egyptian government’s stability. Instead, the Islamic Group sought to call attention to their cause by attacking a high-profile symbolic target. Since the 1979 Camp David Accords, the United States has annually given Egypt significant economic assistance and the World Trade Center was a highly visible symbol of US economic power. The attack succeeded in bringing the Islamic Group much notoriety.

5. The act is the deed of a sub-state group. The Islamic Group was a small sub-state group with little formal power and negligible influence in Egypt or anywhere else.

6. The victim and the audience of the act are not the same. The Islamic Group wanted to send a message, in a broad sense, to the global community and, more narrowly, to Egyptian decision makers. Islamic Group members believed that they fought on behalf of Egypt’s people for whom the Group wanted to establish the blessings they believe derive from living in an Islamic state. They believed that those blessings include ending foreign intervention in Egypt’s internal affairs, improving the standard of living for the poorest Egyptians, and freer exercise of their version of Islam. Other Islamic Group goals, such as the destruction of Israel, many people will regard as ethically problematic or objectionable, although those goals are likely to evoke passionate, positive responses from the Group’s Egyptian constituency.

7. The act must deliberately target civilians. The World Trade Center was in no sense a military or government target; the attack's victims were civilians.

Richardson’s seven definitional criteria helpfully illuminate four essential truths about terrorism frequently lost in visceral, emotion driven responses to terrorist acts. First, effective counterterrorism is always theoretically possible. Contrary to much anti-terrorist rhetoric,28 terrorists are neither insane nor nihilists without values who believe that life is meaningless. Although the thought that most terrorists either suffer from mental illness or grew up with seriously deprived childhoods may offer some reassurance that the world is not on the precipice of chaos, those ideas are erroneous. Terrorists, in general, do not fit the profile of fictional Dr. Hannibal the Cannibal Lecter29 or of actual sociopaths motivated by sadistic or masochistic tendencies. Nor do most terrorists grow up in broken homes or in the socio-economic underclass.30

Instead, terrorism results from intentional, rational, goal-oriented choices by a weak sub-state group and its members who are trying to rectify real or perceived injustices. Terrorists generally regard themselves as soldiers fighting to achieve specific objectives on behalf of a constituency.31 Consequently, viewing each terror group as a distinct problem with its own underlying rationale, while recognizing that the group may have tentacles connecting it to other terror groups, frames counterterrorism as a discrete set of manageable and achievable tasks.

Second, contrary to what most terrorists and some theorists argue,32 terrorism is never a moral response to injustice. No justification of terrorism has ever demonstrated that attacks against an oppressor's armed forces, police, or other means of oppression always fail under certain circumstances, leaving terror as the only possible means of ending injustice. More broadly, no one has shown that attacks against the innocent are morally justifiable in consequentialist terms, i.e., producing more good for the larger community than harm done to the innocent. Deontological justifications of terrorism are invariably couched in divine command language, i.e., the terror group (or its leader or spiritual guide) believes that God has commanded the group to adopt a terror strategy or tactics. These justifications ring hollow to people who do not share the theological outlook of the group, its leader, or spiritual guide. In sum, the various arguments for the morality of terrorism are unpersuasive.33

In stark contrast to any popular image or propaganda that attempts to portray terrorists as freedom fighters, defenders of justice, or modern-day Robin Hoods, terrorists are criminals who immorally target the innocent. Terrorists dehumanize the innocent by reducing them to a means to an end,34 thereby increasing social injustice. From a Rawlsian perspective, terrorism is always wrong because it denies the basic rights of the innocent people whom the terrorists threaten or attack. Among these basic rights are the rights to life and liberty.35 Dissident attacks, even in the