When you're under attack from a vastly superior military, your options for response are very limited.
It's hard for us in the US to even conceive what it would be like to be in that situation. The only analog is a War of the Worlds style invasion by aliens.
[1] and I still hold the idea that I held in 2003, that the Iraq war was a completely idiotic veture
Al Qaeda had very specific grievances. They wanted US troops to leave Saudi Arabia, where they first put bases before the Persian Gulf War.
(Aside: Bin Laden offered his irregular forces to Saudi Arabia to help defend the kingdom from Saddam. He was rejected. That pissed him off some, but the presence of infidels in the land of Mecca pissed him off even more.)
Not saying terrorism is a legitimate response, but it's much more explainable than "they hates us for our freedoms."
That was a position used to justify action, rally supporters, and which was quite overtly an instrumental (rather than terminal) goal in their grand strategy --- which was -- like that of Daesh -- to achieve a pan-Islamic caliphate.
(It's worth noting that al-Qaeda was formed several years before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that prompted the creation of those bases, and adopted the position of opposing the bases after the Saudi government turned down bin Laden's offer for al-Qaeda fighters to defend the Kingdom against Iraq in favor of accepting aid from the United States. And both al-Qaeda's long-term goals and their anti-Western rhetoric existed before those bases.)
> Not saying terrorism is a legitimate response, but it's much more explainable than "they hates us for our freedoms."
Sure, but not for the reasons you propose: al-Qaeda's opposition to the West is because their strategy for achieving dominion in the Islamic world is the time-tested strategy of totalitarians everywhere -- sell the target population on the threat of an external enemy, and use that to sell the idea that the totalitarian leaders and their proposed system of rulership are necessary to combat that external threat. Its not a response to anything the West does, although anything that the West does that creates (or can be fuel for propaganda to create) widespread grievances (legitimate or not) in the populations in which al-Qaeda seeks to establish its caliphate will be leveraged. Daesh is much the same in this respect.
Back in 1991 after Saddam invaded Kuwait, I remember thinking "why the hell do we have to solve the problem? Why not force Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States to take responsibility for their security?"
Practically all the Islamist terrorism that the US has experienced since then has flowed from that decision.
The likelihood of terrorism should be part of any decision making process when it comes to the Mideast, no different than estimating potential body counts from land invasion.
At least Eric Shinseki wasn't afraid to estimate the real costs of the Iraq war.
al-Qaeda has for more than a decade overtly targeted China over its policies in Xinjiang, and the Chinese government claimed that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement behind many attacks there was tied to al-Qaeda (and, indeed, some senior leaders of that organization were killed in fighting against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.)
BTW if you ever go to a Uighur restaurant try the horse. Tastes like chipped beef.
It's not always easy from the outside to tell them apart from their propaganda.
Rule of law does not excuse or lessen atrocities, it defines them. Moreover, the laws of war are specifically designed to lessen/avoid atrocities by limiting: 1. When a nation-state may engage in the use of armed force, and 2. How a nation-state may actually use armed force.
Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian populations? No matter what you answer, you must acknowledge IS is responsible for planning/executing military style attacks against civilians specifically.
We can agree to disagree, certainly there is nothing wrong with an all life is sacred approach, but you should not feel deeply disturbed that the law distinguishes between responding to a military attack with the use of force targeted at those most responsible and a non-state actor engaging in terrorist/quasi-military attacks against civilian populations?
Are you saying that codified law is the only thing that determines what is and isn't an atrocity? As in, anything that's legal isn't an atrocity? I certainly do not agree with that.
> Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian populations?
I don't have any clue, but I don't think that's the primary concern. I think there can be unacceptable civilian casualties even if there is a legitimate military target in the middle of civilians.
> No matter what you answer, you must acknowledge IS is responsible for planning/executing military style attacks against civilians specifically.
Of course, but why is that relevant? The existence of a worse actor does not make the acts of another actor more excusable.
> We can agree to disagree, certainly there is nothing wrong with an all life is sacred approach, but you should not feel deeply disturbed that the law distinguishes between responding to a military attack with the use of force targeted at those most responsible and a non-state actor engaging in terrorist/quasi-military attacks against civilian populations?
That's not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is the notion that a formal law in any way determines the acceptability of a violent act.
It matters here because my top level comment was a reply to someone emphatically stating there is no difference between the actions of the US and IS and I disagree. I believe there is a difference in the actions of US and IS, I used the law to distinguish between two acts. If someone said there was not a difference between the act of 1st degree murder and manslaughter, I would disagree and turn to the law to give examples of the differences.
>That's not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is the notion that a formal law in any way determines the acceptability of a violent act.
No doubt, to many laws of war is an oxymoron. However, the laws don't determine what the acceptable violent acts are, instead humankind determines what is not acceptable based on International consensus and through the treaty/UN we codify it into law.
One example, humans decided land mines as a weapon of war were to indiscriminate and had potential to far outlast armed conflicts and were outlawed by treaty and then codified into a UN Resolution, every year since then annual deaths of landmines has decreased from ~10k/year down to ~3.5k/year. Moreover, often times these laws of war have nothing to do with violence, but make sense such as requiring all military actors in armed conflict to be identified by uniform so as to be distinguished from civilians. Other laws such as Arms Reduction Treaty lead to Russia/US disposing of some combined 50-60k nukes.
US = an nation state with an identifiable military subjected to rule of law
>and both sides are very clearly not very precise in who they actually target (the bombing on Doctor's Without Border, anyone?). Both sides cause tons of civilian casualties
For better or worse the US is operating on intelligence specifically designed to avoid/minimize civilian populations, which is very difficult when IS doesn't wear military uniform (as required by the laws of war to distinguish military actors from civilian populace) and hides among civilians. I don't know if it is "tons" or what that even means in relation to human death figures, but I'll concede it happens, still it should be defined as collateral damage because the goal of US operations is not to kill the civilian populace but those individuals bearing the most responsibility.
On the other hand IS specifically designs its quasi-military attacks to be inflicted directly on the civilian populations with the goal of maximizing civilian casualties.
These are not just differences in justifications, but differences in actions...at least according to the law. Now I could see your issue if the US was secretly funding, training and arming non-identifiable combatants and recruiting/embedding them all over the globe to specifically orchestrate indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations.