{"id":2731,"date":"2024-10-15T00:11:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T21:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/?page_id=2731"},"modified":"2024-10-15T00:11:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T21:11:51","slug":"terrorism-whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/?page_id=2731","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTerrorism\u201d: What\u2019s in a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Biden administration\u2019s word-games about the Houthis show the usual sinister obfuscation of sovereignty and the law.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan 18, The American Conservative<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration designated Yemen\u2019s Ansar Allah movement\u2014better known as the Houthis\u2014a terrorist group Wednesday<\/a>, reversing its February 2021 removal of the designation. The decision followed a series of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping in late December and early January, and accompanied a series of air and missile strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Houthis are, doubtless, not very nice people; lobbing missiles at passing civilian ships is bad behavior. The U.S. and its ally, Saudi Arabia, have backed the Yemeni central government against the rebel group in the years-long civil war, causing the sort of vast human misery that we are used to seeing in American-backed interventions in far-flung corners of the world. Maybe intervention is warranted in this case, although we have our doubts\u2014as TAC\u2019s contributing editor Doug Bandow wrote today<\/a>, higher consumer prices from shipping disruption aren\u2019t a serious casus belli<\/em>\u2014and the White House should at least request congressional authorization before chucking explosives around the Middle East. For the sake of argument, let\u2019s concede it all\u2014the Houthis are menacing vital American interests from 7,500 miles away, and the gods are calling out for war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that make the Houthis terrorists<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTerrorist\u201d is a concept that has undergone an unusual degree of semantic creep. Historically, the general use of the term denoted the perpetrator of a terror, state actor or otherwise\u2014the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution, or the Red and White Terrors in the Russian and then Spanish civil wars, or the Great Terror under Stalin. (It is in this sense that Ronald Syme refers to the Roman emperor Augustus as a \u201cterrorist.\u201d) Well, fine. Sensible enough. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, while the older use persisted, the term came to rest mostly on non-state actors using violence especially against civilian populations. This is the version that made it into the U.S. Code:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) the term \u201cinternational terrorism\u201d means activities that\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(B) appear to be intended\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American law specifically excludes state actors: \u201cNo action shall be maintained under section 2333 of this title for injury or loss by reason of an act of war.\u201d Further:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4) the term \u201cact of war\u201d means any act occurring in the course of\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A) declared war;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(B) armed conflict, whether or not war has been declared, between two or more nations; or<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(C) armed conflict between military forces of any origin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As written, this makes a good deal of sense. The U.S. isn\u2019t in the business of policing other countries within their own sovereign territory, and an attack from another state already has a name\u2014war\u2014and a set of legal theories that go along with it. \u201cTerrorism\u201d more or less deals with the ancient legal category of hostes humani generis<\/em>\u2014outlaws like pirates and mercenaries who do not fit into the usual structures of sovereignty and the law. This was the sense Rep. Ron Paul of Kentucky had in mind when he proposed reviving certain anti-piracy legal structures<\/a> to deal with Al-Qaeda in the sequel to the September 11 attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet around that time, the American language lost its straightforward grasp on the meanings of words. Perhaps the coinage \u201cWar on Terror\u201d was responsible; maybe it was the conflation of the non-state Al-Qaeda with their chums, the Taliban, who were in fact in charge of a country. (The ultimate irony of our Central Asian adventure may be that, in the end, we did not in fact negotiate with \u201cterrorists,\u201d but the once and future de facto<\/em> Afghan state.) In any case, \u201cterrorist\u201d became a category encompassing anyone we didn\u2019t like who didn\u2019t have an embassy in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top of Form<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottom of Form<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This vague and capacious legal category is, however, quite useful if you want a blanket justification for the use of military force without the pesky impedimenta of republican government. The Trump administration killed the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani because he was a \u201cterrorist.\u201d The Obama administration killed an American citizen without the benefit of due process because he, too, was a \u201cterrorist.\u201d Now, the Houthis claim to be the legitimate Yemeni government and actually hold territory that they administer successfully, even in the face of massive pressure from the Saudis and the Aden government; they may be committing acts of war against us in the plain language of the law, but it does not seem they are committing terrorism. Yet they are \u201cterrorists\u201d again, after a stint of not being terrorists. Does this not make a mockery of the law?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As ever, Lewis Carroll provides the relevant citation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cWhen I use a word,\u201d Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, \u201cit means just what I choose it to mean\u2014neither more nor less.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Alice, \u201cwhether you can make words mean so many different things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Humpty Dumpty, \u201cwhich is to be master\u2014that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jude Russo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jude Russo is the managing editor of The American Conservative<\/em> and a contributing editor of The New York Sun<\/em>. He is a 2024\u201325 James Madison Fellow at Hillsdale College and was named one of the ISI Top 20 Under 30 for 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Biden administration\u2019s word-games about the Houthis show the usual sinister obfuscation of sovereignty and the law. Jan 18, The American Conservative The Biden administration designated Yemen\u2019s Ansar Allah movement\u2014better known as the Houthis\u2014a terrorist group Wednesday, reversing its February 2021 removal of the designation. The decision followed a series of Houthi attacks on Red Sea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2731","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2732,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2731\/revisions\/2732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}