On the victims of terrorism and their innocence

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 9, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 55-62

  Le Vine, Victor T ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031312670     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546559708427415     Document Type: Article

References (16)

1. Cindy Combs, Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall 1997) p.8.
2. Ibid.
3. Alex P. Schmid, Political Terrorism. A Research Guide (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books 1983) pp.76-80.
4. Tom Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa Since 1946 (New York: Longman 1986) pp.231-55.
5. Associated Press, 2 Feb. 1997 (washingtonpost.com).
6. Susan Sperling, Animal Liberators: Research and Morality (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1988).
7. Arguable, that self-restraint ended with the shooting of two clinic workers in Springfield, Missouri, in Dec. 1991 and the murders of abortion doctors David Gunn in March 1993, and John Britton and his escort in July 1994. The organization involved, like Operation Rescue and Missionaries to the Preborn, continue to insist that they do not deliberately seek to do violence to clinic workers or doctors, and argue that the woundings and killings were aberrations, done by individuals who deliberately went beyond the operational guidelines set by the organizations.
8. The term fida 'iyyun appears to have a historical connection with the Hashashin (Assassins), an 11th-12th century Shi'a Muslim group that sent out young men to kill for the Faith; it was expected that they would die in the attempt. The term is also associated with shaheed, or martyr in a jihad (holy war). See, in this issue, Raphael Israeli, 'Islamikaze and their Significance', pp.96-121.
9. Between 1 Oct. and 6 Dec. 1996, more than 300 people were killed in Algeria in attacks by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), its armed affiliate, the Armed Islamic Group, and their competing offshoots. The 'multiplier effect' consisted not only of increasing the number of attacks, but of escalating the horror of the attacks themselves - more and more, the victims were not just shot or bombed, but were decapitated and/or had their throats slit - as was the case with 19 victims slain in the village of Benachour, 30 miles south of Algeria, on 5 Dec. 1996 (Associated Press, 6 Dec. 1996). Since 1992 to the beginning of Dec. 1996, more than 60,000 people had died in the insurgency.
10. The point is David C. Rapoport's. See his 'The Politics of Atrocity', in Yonah Alexander and Seymour M. Finger (eds), Terrorism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (NY: John Jay Press 1977) pp.50-51. It can hardly be accidental that in recent months, whenever it appeared during 1995 and 1996 that the British government and Sinn Fein seemed close to a lasting cease-fire, it was broken by an IRA outrage. Rapoport, ibid., in 1976, made the same point: 'Whenever serious moves toward a political agreement, short of total victory for one side or another, occur in Northern Ireland or the Middle East, one can expect a daring outrage calculated to frustrate them'.
11. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 2nd ed. (NY: Basic Books/Harper Collins 1992) pp. 197-206.
12. Robert L. Phillips, War and Justice (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press 1984) pp.86-100.
13. Jenkins' full statement is cited in Schmid (note 3), pp.129-30.
14. For details on the Aldo Moro case, see Robert Katz, Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday 1980).
15. Five times prime minister of Italy, Aldo Moro was not only among the most senior of Italian statesmen, but at the time of his kidnapping and murder, arguably one of the most respected and esteemed public figures in the country.
16. The size of the bomb remains a matter of dispute. The Air Force's review of the bombing estimated the force of the bomb as the equivalent of 20,000 pounds of dynamite. (The bombed building housed Air Force personnel.) A Defense Department commission, headed by retired General Wayne A. Downing, sharply differed with the Air Force's conclusions. According to Gen. Downing, Our estimates approximate the bomb size to be 3,000 to 8,000 pounds, most likely about 5,000, not 20,000'. Quoted in a report by John Kifner, 'In Saudi Bombing, Debate on Placing Blame', New York Times (national edition), 6 Dec. 1996, pp.A1,A7.