Terrorists on DS9

[SpyOne]

I always found the contrast between Kira's view and Shakaar's view of the resistance to be interesting. Kira viewed them as terrorists and used that term to describe both herself and Shakaar (though not to his face). Shakaar, on the other hand, used the term soldier to describe their actions in the resistance.

This discussion reminded me of a quote from a recurring character on the show West Wing: Sir John Marbury. (see the quote in context here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL3vz5oeAfw)
In brief, he referred to a member of Sinn Feigh who was affiliated with the IRA as a terrorist, and was admonished that "we need to be careful how we use the word 'terrorist'". His reply is that "A terrorist is a terrorist even if he wears a bow tie and sings Danny Boy."

There is no doubt that the Bajoran resistance was terrorist in nature: there was no hope of overcoming the Cardassians militarily, so their goal had to be political. They were attempting political change through violence, to wit attempting to convince Cardassia that the occupation of Bajor was not worth the cost in Cardassian lives. And while they didn't seem to kill a lot of civilians, that was only because they were not provided with many Cardassian civilians to attack: a dead occupier is a dead occupier.

It is odd, given the US attitude towards terrorism since the Reagan Administration at least (I simply lack personal memory of the attitudes during administrations before that), that the Bajorans were always portrayed as terrorists, yet they were also always the sympathetic ones; they were the good guys. I agree that it is far less likely that story would be told today.

I am reminded of another quote. I can't remember exactly who said it, but I believe it was a high-ranking US Admiral speaking in August 2001 who said of the bombing of the US Embassy and Marine Corps Barracks in Beiruit: "Beiruit is where America taught the world that terrorism works."

 

[Timo]

They were attempting political change through violence, to wit attempting to convince Cardassia that the occupation of Bajor was not worth the cost in Cardassian lives.

Yet that sounds like a standard military goal, too. Wars are about politics, about forcing the enemy to bow to your will, generally through taking away sufficiently many enemy lives since few other threats really work. Indeed, a military operation that targets materiel without jeopardizing too many lives is the sort of war that is more readily labeled as terrorism (say, Israeli elimination of Iraqi nuclear capabilities in 1981).

That in mind, the sole working distinction between military strikes and terrorism would in fact seem to be scale. The smaller the strike, the less military and more terrorist it becomes - even though larger strikes (such as aerial bombing campaigns against entire nations) factually create more terror and are more exclusively aimed at creating such.

Alternately, it could be argued that the primary goal of terrorism is to goad a response, whereas a military operation would do quite well without an enemy response, thank you. But that runs into the blur that is guerilla warfare, where creating of response is again of paramount importance: it's not the number of ammo depots you blow up, it's the number of battalions the enemy has to dedicate to guarding them as the result.

The Bajoran resistance operations might not have been aimed at frightening the Cardassians as such, really. Rather, the target might have been the otherwise passive general population of Bajor, and the main aim one of showing that something can be done against the Cardassians, even if all it can ever really amount to is symbolism. Successful guerilla warfare would simply send the message that hating Cardassians is all right, a message the planet might otherwise not accept or understand.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SpyOne]

Wars are about politics, about forcing the enemy to bow to your will, generally through taking away sufficiently many enemy lives since few other threats really work.

On the contrary, I would say that war is about achieving your goals with as little loss of life as possible. Killing the other sides guys accomplishes nothing, depriving them of an army removes opposition.
Regrettably, some loss of life is inevitable, but it is never the goal unto itself.

In this context, I would say that if your goal is to secure a location:
attacking that location with the goal of killing or driving off the defenders would be a military action.
attacking that location with the goal of convincing opposing command that holding that place will be too expensive to be worth it is also a military action.
attacking that location with the goal of, by killing and maiming soldiers, convincing the opposing populace to pressure their government into withdrawing their troops is a terrorist action.

It's a gray area, I admit.
Reminds me of another favorite quote: "War crime? All wars are crimes, some are just larger than others."

Terrorist or soldier: which is which is pretty subjective, and often depends upon what side you are on.
In the movie The Flying Tigers, an American pilot crashes an airplane loaded with explosives into a Japanese train running through occupied China. He does this because the train is carrying material to Japanese troops, and because he has realized that the US will soon be going to war against Japan. Rather than aim the plane at the train and bail out, he elects to pilot it to the target because he feels that making sure the target hits is more important than his life.
This pilot was a civilian who was attacking the forces of a nation with whom his own nation was not at war (although it has at the time been attacked, and a declaration of war is imminent). I am fairly certain that the mission was also not part of the mercenary work he had been doing, and regardless he had been fired from that work earlier.
He is held up in the film as a hero, although I am sure the Japanese would regard him as a terrorist.