The Coup/The Rough Guide to Undiscovered World

Thanks Brett.  I am going to try to find those sources.  Good for the files a the very least.

And I think you and others are right to point to Obama.  I'm talking generically about the use of drones.  There is good reason to be suspect of Obama, not least because of his apparent respect for Reinhold Niebuhr, whose so-called Christian realism departs (in my judgment) from the just war tradition because it tends to reduce all questions on the use of force to consequentialist judgments on doing what it takes to preserve democracy, no matter the cost to the 'bad guys'.  (Michael Walzer did a similar thing in the massively influential Just and Unjust Wars with his 'supreme emergency' exception that tends to give democracies a pass on moral restraint when their existence is threatened.)

Needless to say, btw, Romney would be worse.  Much, much worse.

I, too, will be glad to get back to music, but it's been fun.

Rodney: I read every word of your thoughtful reply and I thank you. I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't thought carefully about these issues. I've cited a couple of sources (Gerges on al Qaeda in the Sept./2011 Boston Review, Bacevich's book "Washington Rules") that I think present substantive and intelligent arguments of the kind I don't pretend to offer here. These are certainly difficult questions, though accounts of, say, Obama's own study of just-war theory seem more like a fig leaf than they do evidence of a moral policy. One more piece of suggested reading, for those who think the morality/efficacious​ness of drones is still debatable: a 9/25/12 article in the Telegraph (UK) titled "'U.S. drone attacks are counter-productive and terrorize civilians'" (not an op-ed, title is pulled from a Stanford/NYU study). (Sorry, don't know how to do links on this site.)

Brett,

Tautology perhaps in the sentence, but I don't think it's fair to the whole argument.  I do think it's fair to imply (as I take it you did) that terrorist is a loaded term.  So, quickie stab before I go to eat:

I take it that a terrorist is someone who twists the just revolution tradition.  (That tradition seeks to show how revolution against 'legitimate' authority is justified.  I know Ockham wrote about just tyrannicide [and Aristotle, among others, distinguished between tyrants and monarchs, only the latter of which were legitimate], and Calvinists were critical in developing just revolution ideas in the West in early modernity.)  What I would argue separates a terrorist from, say, a freedom fighter or just revolutionary are methods of warfare.  Terrorists, as is implied in the name, make war not upon just political targets, but social ones.  (And, yes, the difference between the two is complicated, but I do think it worth maintaining, which is a reflection of my strong commitment to the just war tradition.)

Just revolutionaries might kill civilians, but that is not their intent or purpose, but rather a negative effect almost inherent in the use of force in war and war-like situations.  Terrorists aim at civilians.  In World War II, the Allies engaged in state terrorism when they intentionally targeted civilian populations to demoralize the enemy.

I would distinguish terrorists and just revolutionaries from criminals in that they have political not (just?) anti-social ends.  Assuming those ends are morally justified, then both the terrorist and the just revolutionary might be right in terms of ad bellum criteria in using force.  The just revolutionary will also aim at moral action in in bello terms (proportional means and discrimination between combatants, which may include political targets such as elected officials, and non-combatants, primarily).  Terrorists ignore just distinctions.

A further complication is international terrorism.  Unlike domestic terrorists like the KKK, Islamist radicals do not fall within the jurisdiction of the United States, so policing options that might be available here are not available internationally.  My own preference (at the moment, reflection and further data might change my mind), would be for covert ops and assassination, not drones, because they could likely be better controlled to minimize civilian casualties.  But I understand why drones may practically be a better option.

All that said, unless drones are brought under a tighter international legal and political regime, I think they will be increasingly delegitimized.  As an improvisation to a complex situation, they make sense; as permanent policy such unchecked use of power/force will tend to become corrupt (if it already hasn't).

And there can be no moral response to Islamist terrorism that does not address the just demands that underlay some (many?) Islamic complaints.  Given U.S. support for corrupt regimes in the Middle East, we have made ourselves a fair taget for just revolutionary activities.  But no one is a just target of terrorism.

Whoops.  That wasn't so quick.

I know all there is to know about the Hitler Game

I’ve had my share of the Hitler Game

First there are disses, then there are lies

And then before you know where you are, you’re sayin’ goodbye

…Don’t want no more of the Hitler Game