This just came in on another mailing list I manage, and I think
addresses many of these issues very well:
----start of article----
Subject: Seven Deadly Sins
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 08:24:34 -0400
Lord Mountbatten--"...For in the last resort, civilization stands or
falls not by covenants, but by the sword..."
"The Seven Deadly Sins of Terrorism: Lord Mountbatten Didn't Die For Your
Sins" written by Paul Johnson (British journalist; former editor of the
New Statesman) The unedited version can be found in the New Republic,
September 15, 1979, page 19-21.
Most of you will recall that Mountbatten, (related to the Queen of
England and was also a British Lord), was assassinated in a terrorist
attack carriedout by the Provisional IRA.
---------------
"The Seven Deadly Sins of Terrorism: Lord Mountbatten Didn't Die For Your
Sins" by Paul Johnson
(edited)
September 15, 1979
The wrong approach to terrorism is to see it as one of many symptoms of a
deep-seated malaise in our society . . . . This analysis usually ends in
the meaningless and defeatist conclusion that society itself is to blame:
'We are all guilty.'
International terrorism is not part of a general human problem. It is a
specific and identifiable problem on its own. . . . It is a remediable
problem. To say it is remediable is not to underestimate the size and
danger of the problem. On the contrary: it is almost impossible to
exaggerate the threat that terrorism poses for our civilization. . . .
One reason why it constitutes such a grave and growing threat is that
very few people in the civilized world--governments and parliaments, TV
and newspapers, the public generally--take terrorism seriously enough.
Most people, lacking an adequate knowledge of history, tend to
underestimate the fragility of a civilization. They do not appreciate
that civilizations fall as well as rise. . . . There was a common factor
in all these great [falls]. They occurred when the spread of metals
technology and the availability of raw materials enabled the forces of
barbarism to equal or surpass the civilized powers in the quality and
quantity of their weapons. For in the last resort, civilization stands
or falls not by covenants, but by the sword. . . .
Menacing improvements in terrorism have been brought about by the
international availability of terrorist support, supply, and training
services. Terrorism is no longer a purely national phenomenon, which can
be destroyed at the national level. It is an international offensive--an
open and declared war against civilization itself--which can only be
defeated by an active alliance of the civilized powers. The impact
ofterrorism . . . is intrinsically evil . . . for a number of . . .
reasons--what I call the seven deadly sins of terrorism.
First - Terrorism is the deliberate and cold-blooded exaltation of
violence over all forms of political activity. The modern terrorist
employs violence not as a necessary evil, but as a desirable form of
action.
The Second deadly sin is the deliberate suppression of the moral
instincts in man. Terrorist organizers have found that it is not enough
to give their recruits intellectual justifications for murder: indeed the
abandonment of any system of moral criteria becomes an essential element
in its training. (Recruits are made to experience and participate in
moral depravity like murder or rape because they cannot be expected to be
an effective terrorist as long as they retain moral elements of a human
personality.)
Third is the rejection of politics as the normal means by which
communities resolve conflicts. To terrorists, violence is a substitute
for the entire political process. [Which explains the difference between
Bin Laden and Arafat and Sinn Fein, which used terrorism as a bargaining
chip to gain themselves a place in the political process, but now that
they are at the table, want to participate in the political process.]
The Fourth Deadly Sin is that it necessarily and actively assists the
spread of the totalitarian state. Countries that finance and support
terrorism are without exception despotic states.
Fifth, international terrorism poses no threat to the totalitarian state.
That kind of state can always defend itself by judicial murder,
preventive arrest, torture of prisoners and suspects, and complete
censorship of terrorist activities. Terrorism can only get a foothold in
a state where the executive is under some kind of restraint, legal,
democratic, and moral.
Sixth is that terrorism exploits the apparatus of freedom in liberal
societies, and thereby endangers it. In meeting the threat of terrorism,
a free society must arm itself, but that process of arming itself
threatens the freedoms, decencies and standards that make the society
civilized, because of the emergency actions that must be taken. These
actions may threaten those freedoms.
The Seventh deadly sin is that if a free society reacts to terrorism by
invoking authoritarian methods, it damages itself. But even worse, if
free societies in their anxiety to avoid authoritarian excesses, FAIL to
arm themselves against the terrorist threat, then the terrorists triumph.
The seventh and deadliest sin is that terrorism can sap the will of a
civilized society to defend itself. We have seen it happen. We find
governments negotiating with terrorists . . . to concede to their
demands. We find governments providing ransom money . . . releasing
convicted criminals in response to demands . . . conceding them the
status of political prisoners. . .. We find newspapers and TV networks
placing democratic governments and the terrorists on a level of moral
equality. We find governments failing time and again, in their duty to
persuade the public that terrorists are not misguided politicians. They
are criminals. They are extraordinary criminals, indeed, in that they
pose a threat not merely to the individuals they murder without
compunction, but to the whole fabric of society.
In short, the seventh and deadliest sin of terrorism is its attempt to
induce civilization to commit suicide.
----end of article----
--
Bill
--
INTERNET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
UUCP: camco!bill PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
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URL: http://www.celestial.com/
``It's time to feed the hogs''
-- Unintended Consequences
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