Insane Logic of Terror

By Crispin Sartwell

The insane logic of terrorism runs something like this: p hurts q, so q kills r. What marks terrorism off from other forms of violence is that there is no connection between p and r.

I thought of this again when I heard about the 14 bombs left in rural mailboxes across the Midwest, which injured six people. The bomber apparently left the following words: "If the government controls what you want to do they control what you can do. . . . I'm obtaining your attention in the only way I can."

The bomber might think of himself as a revolutionary. I think of him as an evil idiot who frags rural mail carriers and farmers.

The founding fathers of the American republic of necessity defended the right of armed resistance against tyranny. And I have actually heard the actions of Osama bin Laden and Palestinian suicide bombers defended along these lines. One of the professors at the college where I teach describes bin Laden as a "freedom fighter."

But when you're flying airplanes into buildings, or walking into shopping centers and detonating yourself and everyone around you, you're not fighting for or even against anything. You're just killing people. Now I am sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. I am even sympathetic to some of the resistance of Islamic fundamentalism to the American corporate jihad. If someone is dropping houses on your people with bulldozers, you are not only within your rights to fight back; you have got to fight back.

But indiscriminate killing is simple pathology. I don't see how it helps your cause to mutate into a monster. Even if it did, it is unconscionable. Let's say I get into a scrap with you on the street today. You kick my butt. That makes me mad. I go home, get a gun, and head to the mall, where I start picking people off. What does that have to do with you, or even with my rage toward you? It's not vengeance; it's not resistance; it's useless, mindless killing.

I know the arguments: the Palestinians are a small power facing one of the biggest armed forces in the world. Presumably, the mailbox bomber feels the same way. But without now pronouncing on the legitimacy of armed resistance in any given situation, I want to say that there is always the possibility of a real fight: of sabotage, for example, of guerilla actions directed against the actual power that oppresses you.

In fact, the very size of these powers makes them cumbersome and immobile. Big powers are big targets.

If you can't fight the sources of power itself, then you can't be a revolutionary. And if you think you're making revolution by killing shoppers or letter carriers in order to "get attention," you are deeply and obviously wrong.

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Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Contact him at www.crispinsartwell.com