Blood and rage

Frank Pulley

Doing a Wiki search on Burleigh to get his bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burleigh, I found this pejorative piece of nonsense in the bio piece, obviously written by someone who thinks the destruction of the twin towers was just a little inconvenience, like a traffic jam in Bloomsbury when one is on the way to deliver a book review to the Guardian:

>Recently his books have become controversial and accused of showing a marked dislike for all things Islamic. In his Guardian review of Sacred Causes, on 28th October 2006, John Gray wrote: "Burleigh is at his most unbalanced when discussing Islam. Much of his analysis is presented in a graffiti-like style that makes the tabloids look effete and precious. A photograph of the World Trade Center in flames is captioned with the statement 'This act of mass murder announced the onset of unlimited Islamist aggression against western civilisation', and there is much demotic rant against multiculturalism and what Burleigh describes as 'the grim prospect of "Eurabia"'. In this atmosphere of feverish emotion, facts tend to get lost and longer historical perspectives forgotten. Like Christianity, Islam has a powerful apocalyptic tradition that can easily turn to violence. But there is nothing peculiarly Islamic about suicide bombing, which was first developed by the Tamil Tigers - a Marxist-Leninist party that until the war in Iraq had committed more suicide bombings than any other group."<

Actually Mr Gray, he sounds like a very reasonable guy to me and brimming with acumen; he didn't use a single word that was not exactly descriptive of what we have had to face for some time now. I have put him on my Amazon list of books to buy. Eat you heart out John Gray, I shall not even bother to google your bibliography as I get the gist already: moonbatery!

Thanks Melanie; you do indeed spread the word.

Bill in Chicago

The success of the Saudis? You mean like this:

http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=12232

Or this:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334392,00.html

Saudi Arabia is the heart of the problem, not the solution. That fact could hardly be more obvious:

http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

D Gray

Brilliant overview of the book,A bok that might have passed me by had it not been for our Melanie....I think I'll send a copy to John Humphreys...

Clued Up

Fighting fit for FITNAH, are you? It's up at www.LiveLeak.com/view?i=7d9_1206624103

field

I think the situation is a little more complicated than this article suggests.

The French Resistance for instance committed many acts which could be described as terroristic. The recent actions of Tibetan protestors in burning out Han Chinese properties clearly had as part of their aim to terrorise Han Chinese into fleeing Tibet.

My view is that you do have to analyse:

1. The context. Are the actions taking place in the context of brutal oppression for instance or in a country with a free democratic system?

2. Are the victims of the terrorist actions non-combatants?

I think really one has to look into these issues in great detail.

Would a civilian architect for the gas chambers be described as a non-combatant or part of a brutal oppressing power?

I think really there is no substitute for looking at each case in great detail and relying in part on one's emotional response - does it feel right given our common values?

The context is always so important. In the Israel-Palestinian instance the context includes the Arabs' attempt to extinguish the nascent Jewish state and a continuing wish to do so. Were the Palestinians content with a much more limited goal, then the justice of their cause would be far more apparent and with justice goes right of action.

I've personally never denied the right of Palestinians to fight Israeli soldiers. There is a war over land there and has been for at least 60 years.

The Nazi and Soviet systems of oppression were so horrible that non-combatants actively engaged in propping up or expanding the system through their work cannot really dissociate themselves from the evils of the system.

Alex du Toit

This seems to be a more complex issue than meets the eye. Burleigh;s book seems to be critical of acts like those committed, for example, by enemies of apartheid in South Africa, which were what the apartheid government called 'terrorism' but which I think anyone would agree were justifiable acts against a truly immoral government based on white racial superiority. Likewise, can actions by French, Dutch, and other peoples in Nazi accupied countries be damned as terrorism? Would it be terrorism for Cubans to take violent action against that country's present government? These matters can't all be put in the same category

David Star

Having spent 32 years as a teacher, including 2years in Israel, I found that my students grasped the meaning of "oxymoron" immediately with the following phrases.
"British Integrity"
"French Culture"
"European Civilization"

EyeSee

Melanie says terrorism is never right and a few respondents disagree, citing French Resistance, or South Africa. If the French decided to strike back at their oppressors during a war by attacking civilians then, yup it lacks moral support. Similarly I get fed up with hearing how wonderful the ANC were just because the political system out there was obscene, as if that justified any nature of response. Just like the IRA cowards showed a distinct aversion to engaging the military, when killing civilians, any civilians was so much easier and less risky. If you like the idea of violence and killing people, you don't join the scouts. There may be some political thought somewhere in terrorist organisations, but basically they are staffed by murderers.

field

EyeSee -

So you are saying it would be wrong to kill a civilian contractor working on building the gas chambers at Auschwitz (supposing such contractors were used)?

And are you saying it would be wrong for say a Tibetan to hold the family of a Chinese occupying governor hostage to prevent the execution of 20 Buddhist Monks for engaging in peaceful protest?

Are you saying it would be wrong for an aggrieved Zimbabwean to assassinate Mugabe even though he has stolen three elections, destroyed his country's economy, allowed its wealth to be stripped out by his party cronies, tortured and killed his opponents and caused the horrible painful deaths of thousands of babies and young children from disease and malnutrition?

These are difficult examples I think and whilst we can broadly agree that civilians should not be targeted by people for political purposes, we cannot apply that principle without regard to context. In context we see other principles are at play: the right of people not to be murdered themselves; the right of people to choose their government; the right not to be starved to death etc.

Alex Bensky

No, terrorism is never excusable. It is not condoning certain forms of it to note that there are terrorists and terrorists.

I hold no brief for the pre-1948 Jewish terrorists in Palestine (back when the only people in the world who called themselves "Palestinians" were Jews). But those terrorists never thought about, say, massacring Arab Olympic athletes or hijacking and blowing up airliners. Nor did they bomb Arab institutions, like mosques, in other countries. And I don't think it even occurred to them to wire their children to blow up as many innocents as they could.

We could discuss, field, the moral situation of Palestinians fighting Israeli soldiers. But that's one thing the Palestinian fighters rarely do, and almost never by choice. They prefer seders and buses.

Nick Kaplan

Field; the only reason your arguments present any difficultly seems to be because you haven’t defined or applied the term innocent. It would be wrong to kill a “civilian contractor working on building the gas chambers at Auschwitz” if he did not know what he was constructing or what purpose it was for (i.e. if he was doing it through innocent motivations). However, it would be perfectly acceptable to kill such a person if he knew exactly what he was doing, and was doing it because he knew the result would be the mass murder of innocents. The only grey area in such a case would be if the contractor was being coerced into his job, in which case his innocence is much harder to determine (one could say killing was permissible as he should be willing to sacrifice himself to save many more, or not permissible as his role probably makes very little difference and would be done by someone else anyway). In your second example, the holding hostage a Chinese family is unacceptable (so long as they are innocent), the killing of the ‘occupying governor’ (as long as he is responsible for the execution) would be acceptable. I don’t even know what’s at issue with Mugabe; he deserves whatever he’s got coming to him. I am not disputing the existence of moral grey areas, but when it comes to terrorists killing innocents there is no grey, it is perfectly clear, whatever the end, your action is wrong.

EyeSee

Field: You see you have modified your stance. Now you question killing those directly responsible (ie Mugabe). How are you on this; a German soldier may not approve of anything Hitler is doing, but his nation is at war and he is swept up in it. We both seem to think, as a combatant he is a fair target. Islamists deliberately seek to horrify by their actions, so terrorism is their number 1 option, even if it could be different. And the only oppression in their world is from their leaders. Islam under a bunch of murderers is seeking to wreck the Western way of life and we have the likes of Jack Straw, a pathetic, grubbing man to represent us. Or God help us the completely incompetent Brown!

field

Nick Kaplan -

No I haven't applied the concept of innocent. But it is fraught with difficulty as well. Haven't you noticed how the Muslim Council of Britain and others always condemn the "taking of INNOCENT lives". Which means, they aren't necessarily condemning the action as a whole. It could be a part condemnation or not even a condemnation at all. I woudl regret the raids on Peenemunde by the RAF to the extent they killed innocent people. But if I found out only SS people died or were injured, I wouldn't have a worry about that.

You argument is used by Palestinians to justify killing of civilian settlers on the grounds they aren't innocent - they are part of a state machine that is (in their view) stealing Arab land and oppressing Arab people.

You seem confused about the civilian gas chamber contractor. You are ending up (potentially) with a situation where you are quite happy for a million people to die just because you don't want one innocent civilian contractor to die.

And, in any case, how do you decide who knows what and who therefore is innocent and who is not. As a matter of pragmatic action, that is not possible.

The Chinese governor example seems more evenly balanced to me. I couldn't do it myself but then I'm not a Tibetan who's seen his country subjected to a brutal oppression for the past 50 years.

Mugabe seems easier but he is a civilian of sorts. Also, it is generally considered unethical to direct the assassination of state leaders, however unpleasant. So we may be in the position where it is legitimate for the oppressed Zimbabwean to assassinate the tyrant, but not for a Briton to do so.

field

Eye See -

I'm not modifying my stance. I'm just pointing out that there are complexities here and people can (with some justice) argue different positions.

Alex - I'm not defending Palestinian terrorism. I'm not even convinced the Palestinians have a very just cause - if you go for broke (try and eliminate another country) and lose then you suffer the consequences. But again it's complicated because the Palestinians weren't an independent entity in 1948 or 1967.

There were certainly differences between Jewish terrorists and Palestinian terrorists - as there are between Palestinian terrorists and Chechnyan terrorists. Throw in IRA terrorists as well if you wish.

The common link of course is the use of terror in itself to achieve political aims (not as a by product of a military struggle e.g. where one army say uses various means to terrorise the opposition in the hope they lay down their arms).

We know that the RAF campaign in World War 2 came close at times to being a terror campaign, when its aim was to "dehouse" the civilian population. Terror can certainly be used by official state armies and to the extent it is then the armies become terrorists.

I think I simply want to emphasise that every conflict deserves its own detailed analysis and careful application of ethical principles. We always have to realise that parties to a conflict will engage in propaganda. We have to get beneath the surface and I think examine in particular the real aims of the parties.

Carolyn

Melanie,
I am surprised at both you and Mr.Burleigh for accepting the ascertion that the Saudis have eviscerated the radicalism from those they reprieved from Gitmo.With what, exactly, did they replace their 'terrorist' thinking? Wahhabism, to fit into the acceptable Saudi line of thinking? That's jihadist as well.I would take nothing the Saudis put into the public for the truth.They know the West, sufficiently, to know what they want to hear.Most likely, that was to signal the US they had fulfilled their 'bargain'.They gave them food, a clean place for sleeping and living, time for prayer, etc.They didn't have to go out scrounging in some training camp in the wild.The Arab definitions of many of our words are very different from our's.
In regards to the Zionist Jews, I really must take exception to your including them
with the IRA, the PLO,and radical Islamists, otherwise known as AlQaeda,Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah,Islamic Jihad,etc., or the German Nazis before Hitler and after the Allies won the war.
It's factually inaccurate, and as has been stated above, context is everything.The Zionists were trying to survive.They did not
initiate terrorism as a tactic to eradicate an entire people and culture as the others professed and profess as their goal- to annihilate the Jews and
Israel.The Einsatzgruppe were in the main the elite of the German Nazis, whose mission was so horrible and obscene, it actually sent several to the hospital so they could be buoyed and returned to killing thousands upon thousands a day.The IRA, of course, had a separate purpose, although they did train the PLO.
In the matter of the King David Hotel, which was aimed at the British whose role in the Near East at that time is no longer recounted accurately but revised, the Irgun sent a warning prior to attacking it.That doesn't excuse it, but I don't recall any of the Arabs warning anyone.
Such a claim as summarized in your blog, if indeed presented that way in the book, discredits it,immediately.
I have researched, studied, and written about these kinds of murdering campaigns.I have interviewed and known many involved on many levels from WWII and who participated in realizing the
dream of Zionism and a Jewish National Homeland and in building the nation of Israel.No,there is absolutely no comparison.
Thus, even though I have read
Michael Burleigh's "The Third Reich" with admiration, this blog's review of this book does not bode well for its further pursuit, nor my time.

Martyn

Neither Melanie Phillips nor Michael Burleigh appear bothered by state terrorism.

The Japanese victims of atomic bombs at the end of World War II, the children injured by napalm and chemical weapons in Vietnam, and those disappeared by death squads in central and South America were all victims of terrorism.

A solution to the problem of terror involves recognising that we should be "neither victims nor executioners"

field

Martyn -

You are certainly right in part. A relative of mine,a POW, was saved by the atom bombs on Hiroshima. But there is no way Hiroshima can be described as other than a terror attack - an attack on civilians designed to effect a political outcome. The only quibble is whether the Japanese were actually "terrorised" into submission. It wasn't so much that they fear death individually, I think it was more that they believed they faced the prospect of complete extermination and it was that which decided them to agree to surrender.

I don't think the Vietnamese napalm attacks were really terrorist in nature. The Americans weren't deliberately trying to kill or terrorise civilians on that occasion. The motive was nearly always to deny the enemy an operational base. The "Dirty Wars" of Latin America have had elements of both military objects (killing leftist guerillas and their supporters) and terrorism (attacking and torturing leftists so as to terrorise the general population into quiescence).

As I say above, you really need to look at each case in a lot of detail.

Sergey

State terrorism is unlawful government persecution of its own citizens, like collectivization, Gulag in Soviet Union, communist labou camps in Vietnam and so on. Firebombing of Drezden, Hirosima or napalm bombing of Vietcong bases is a war, not government terrorism. And the topic of government terrorism is altogether different from non-government terrorism and should be treated separatly.

Mojo

Of course, Martyn, we shouldn't have won World War II, should we? Just think how we could be living now.

And we should never have fought to stop the spread communism either - just look at the life of luxury they live in now.

phil

So Field ,Nick et al just a few moral conundrums for you 1-how do you judge the SS man who kills innocents in order to stop other SS killing his own family for refusing, this one makes me think very hard .2 hiroshima to avoid millions more dying 3 Dresden ,now thats a difficuly one which of those acts are terrorism ?-my real point is it seems to me the above had a reason however abominable but these Islamist militants do not have to do these acts they seem to be doing it with joy and indiscriminately-your views would be appreciated

phil

Field ,Nick et al -amazing last night on newsnight Hassan Butt (ex Jihadi leader )came on and said exactly what i put in my last post here -by the way Field you always used to post when I didnt agree with you so why do you never respond when I do ?:)lol---ok in boxers terms i realise i have left my self open to a left hook -cest la vie