Shell-shocked

[xela]

Nothing like terrorists blowing people up just a couple miles away, including at least one small child, to give a guy perspective. I hope you and yours are alright. (I doubt this is news to anyone who cares, but on the off chance it is: About the first thing I did when I learned the news was ask on -c thetans whether everyone was home safe. They were.)

I spent much of the day either writing (or working, in order to distract myself from writing) a tear-fueled, angst-ridden post about the state of my life. I will get back to that at some point, because the past two months of not posting and trying to bury my troubles in work have not been good for me, and I really do need to be talking with my friends about this stuff. But right now, we all have bigger concerns.

I have no point here, save to let anyone who cares know that I was nowhere near. I still haven't heard from everyone I care about, but neither do I have any reason to believe any of them were at the Marathon.

I'm aghast, of course, and furious without having any idea whom to be furious at. This makes me especially angry at the usual inanities of the news media. I don't know how many times, before I gave up listening, some damned fool or other on 'BUR asked, in some form, "Was this an act of terrorism?"

Seriously? Under what conceivable definition does setting off bombs and blowing up children in the midst of a crowd of civilians enjoying a spring afternoon fail to qualify as terrorism?

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Thankfully you and yours are safe. Speaking from my own experience (unfortunately) you will feel better when all your friends and relatives have checked in safe with you, even if you're sure they were not in the area.

Ah... I have very strong feelings about this sort of thing. I grew up in London under the threat of IRA bombs, and it's something I had to see regularly as a child, as a kid I didn't understand why people could do such things and I still can't understand. I have vivid memories from my childhood of thinking, "but why do they always claim responsibility? As if this was something to be proud of. Aren't they ashamed?"

Studying one night at University I felt the windows rattle from an IRA bomb exploding round the corner, after that we had to have security to let anyone into the college, I resented that so much.

This shit makes me so angry, there is no excuse. Um... sorry, I can feel an angry rant starting and I need to curb my commenting. Welcome to my childhood. :(

And thank you for checking in here. Even though I only know you over LJ, it is a relief to hear you were not caught up in this.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I do worry about the propensity of people in authority to react to this sort of thing by trying to lock everything down.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

"fail to qualify as terrorism"
Because terrorism seems to be used specifically to mean attacks perpetrated by non-white Muslims. As an example of why I believe this to be the definition, when Andrew Stack flew a small plane into the building in Austin, TX, killing the manager of the IRS office, (February 18, 2010) the police and Homeland Security people were quick to tell everyone that it was *not* an act of terrorism. He had left a suicide note on his website complaining about the IRS. He deliberately attacked an office of the US Government, killing a federal employee (and wounding civilians), but that didn't count as terrorism. I wrote an irate letter to the homeland security folks at the time, and never received a response.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

That's obscene.

[dpolicar]

They mean, of course, was it part of our well-defined "terrorism" narrative, which involves foreigners and Islam and all that stuff we're comfortable hating and are prepared to turn our lives upside-down in fear of.

As opposed to just killing people and destroying property and, well, terrifying people.

Which I guess we're more OK with.

I don't know.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

My own feeling is that terrorism is a muddy enough topic without mixing racism into the pot. In the aftermath of Sept 11, 2001, I did a lot of thinking about what is terrorism? and realized that if I tried to define it by methods, there just wasn't any way not to classify someone I'd been brought up to believe was a martyr — John Brown — as a terrorist. So stepping back from the emotional morass — hard now; harder still in late 2001 — all I was left with was that old saw about the difference between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter.

[dpolicar]

If we define "terrorism" by methods -- specifically, military action with the primary objective of civilian casualties, intended to change government policy -- then either we say terrorism is always worthy of condemnation and thereby condemn various martyrs, freedom fighters, national heroes, etc., of our own tribes, or we say that terrorism is not always worthy of condemnation and try to figure out what we actually condemn.

I prefer either of those options to defining our terms such that we condemn the tactic if and only if we disapprove of the objective being pursued.

Put another way: maybe ends can justify means, or maybe they can't, but ends don't define means.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

That's a useful way to think about it, yes. At the very least, it reduces the problem of terrorism to the previously unsolved (but much unsolved) problem of targeting civilian populations. Harry Truman kills and maims thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the belief that he will thereby save many more lives, and significantly reduce the net general misery in the world. The means were beyond brutal, but reasonable people can argue that the ends justified them. John Brown massacres settlers at Pottawatomie in the belief that this will help end the far greater evil of slavery. Again, the means were beyond brutal, but reasonable people can argue that the ends justified them.

[dpolicar]

Yeah, Hiroshima/Nagasaki are my usual go-to examples. I can't think of a sensible way to define "terrorism" that doesn't include the bombing of those cities, nor am I especially motivated to.

Mostly my position on targeting civilian populations is that it turns my stomach and makes me want to reject it out of hand, but if I take seriously the idea that war is something a nation does in pursuit of national goals and values (as opposed to something a military does for its own purposes that it somehow manipulates a nation into funding), then it seems to follow that civilian populations are as legitimate a military target as any other.

Then again, I'm the guy who has never understood why killing thousands of soldiers is considered more moral than assassinating a single government leader, so clearly my thinking about war is at best atypical.

Anyway, if the bombing of those cities was justified (which, as you say, reasonable people can argue it was), then terrorism is sometimes justified, and the conversation can't stop at "it's terrorism!" Which, just for clarity, is not in the least iota meant to suggest that the bombing of the Boston Marathon in particular was justified. If someone wants to make that point, they'll have to do it on their own.

[gigglefest.livejournal.com]

I hope you have a chance to finish that other post, too.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm planning on it.