Why media shouldn’t take sides in the ‘war on terror’
BY PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY (ONE MAN’S VIEW)
6 May 2005

WHAT is terrorism? Who is a terrorist? A definition is hopeless, says Professor Richard Rubenstein of the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. "Terrorism is just violence you don’t like". The lack of agreed definition means no one really knows how to fight the war against terrorism — apart from demonising Muslims and introducing anti-terrorist laws that steadily erode our hard won civil liberties and lead to imprisonment of innocent people.

Instead, governments, in hand with the media, concentrate on scaring the daylights out of us with stories of terrorist cells in our urban midst, terrorist poison plots and ‘dirty’ atomic bombs. There is also a lot of ignorance about Al Qaeda.

After listening to a Professor of Islamic Studies lecture to an Australian think tank about terrorism, I asked him, "What exactly is Al Qaeda?". He thought for a while and replied, "a franchise operation". I agree. The idea that Al Qaeda is a global organisation with coordinated global aims and branches everywhere is ludicrous.

Even the Western media has moved away from this view but it still talks about ‘terrorist’ organisations having ‘links to Al Qaeda’ without ever telling us what those links are. Phil Rees, a documentary filmmaker has spent a lot of his career doing stories on terrorists, or, as he would prefer to call them, militants.

He says ‘terrorist’ is a term employed by governments to denigrate those who adopt violence because there is no other way to make their voices heard. He says it is important for journalists to report the views of terrorists, to try to understand their motives. He denies the charge levelled against him that "to do so legitimises that violence and suggests a moral equivalence against terrorism and those who combat it."

He scoffs at the former New York Mayor, Rudolf Guiliani, for his statement after 9/11: "Those who practise terrorism lose the right to have their cause understood. We’re right, they’re wrong. It is as simple as that." "No", says Rees, "it is not. The public should be informed about the causes of violence and be allowed to decide for themselves who is right and who is wrong."

This is a view that any serious minded journalist must support. Their reasons for terrorists choosing the path they do are depressingly similar. They feel that they have been oppressed, slighted, exploited and scorned by the West, particularly by the United States, its allies and the corrupt local regimes imposed on them. They say that it is the governments of the West that are the real terrorists. It is a fact that the USA and Israel are bigger killer of civilians that their ‘terrorist’ foes. So why don’t journalists describe them as terrorists too?

"If we don’t want to describe Britain and America as terrorist nations, then the only principled alternative is to purge the word from the lexicon of journalism", Rees says. This is a good suggestion but I suspect that Rees knows this is not going to happen. Instead the failure to define terrorist is being used as a cloak to legitimise American military aggression because it portrays the challenge as such a loosely defined threat that it will never disappear.

In his book, Dining With Terrorists, Rees writes, "By being unable to explain exactly who is a terrorist, the ‘war on terror’ can mutate into a war against any ideology that challenges America and her allies. Terror can become a code for opponents who question the status quo and a catch-all for ideologies as diverse as Islamic militancy, emerging nationalism or anti-globalization. The world is in danger of accepting the confused idea of an endless conflict against an undefined enemy".

Covering this never-ending war on terrorism is posing an enormous challenge to journalism. The media is finding it increasingly difficult to remain an impartial observer. The New York Times, a voice of liberal America, accepted during an internal enquiry that it had reported stories in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq that ‘pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets on the shoulders of editors.

Rees says the anti terrorism policies of Western governments are restricting the journalist’s role as an impartial observer. "The world will become a more dangerous and less understood place if journalism takes sides in the ‘war on terror’." I wholeheartedly agree.

Phillip Knightley is a London-based journalist and widely published commentator

The media is finding it increasingly difficult to remain an impartial observer.

Yeah, like the media has ever tried to remain impartial...

They have a good point about how people should consider the cause of the terrorists, although terrorism is never right no matter what the cause is. So while terrorists may have some good concerns, they are definately going about it the wrong way. I don't think any cause warrants killing innocent people.

I don't think the argument here is that terrorism is justified, but do the perpetrators forfeit the right to have their cause considered? If you believe that, then how do you ever end terrorism? I mean our military hasn't been a shining beacon of success in that area in Iraq.

They have a good point about how people should consider the cause of the terrorists, although terrorism is never right no matter what the cause is. So while terrorists may have some good concerns, they are definately going about it the wrong way. I don't think any cause warrants killing innocent people.

Unless that cause kills less innocents than doing nothing, right? At least that's what you said in this thread.

I define terrorism as violence intentionally targeted on non-combatants for the purpose of trying to influence politics. The American Military, while it may often clumsily swing its sword with a wide arc causing much "collaterral damage" does not specificly target non-combatant civilians. Even a rebel military group can fight a war without blowing up an unemployment line wiht a car bomb. So it's not as simple as whether we like thier cause or not.

I define terrorism as violence intentionally targeted on non-combatants for the purpose of trying to influence politics. The American Military, while it may often clumsily swing its sword with a wide arc causing much "collaterral damage" does not specificly target non-combatant civilians. Even a rebel military group can fight a war without blowing up an unemployment line wiht a car bomb. So it's not as simple as whether we like thier cause or not.

That said, ignoring their cause just because they are using terrorist tactics, as American policy currently does, is just plain stupid. You can't defeat an enemy when you are willfully ignorant of his motives. The best weapon we have is always intelligence, and if we want to "win hearts and minds", we have to make an attempt to understand those minds first.

Why the hell isn't that the official definition of terrorism? Generally thats what we mean when we say terrorism. An attack against uniformed enemy combatants is legitimate by international standards, while an attack on civilians in not 'legitimate' violence. By terrorism we usually mean illegitimate, or illegal violence, generally for political purposes. I say generally because I don't think that say, those crazies in Japan with the nerve gas had some grand political plan, they just wanted to bring about the end of the world. Unless of course we have somehow been able to politicize Armagedon...

By your definition, the US bombing in Beirut ~20 years ago wasn't terrorism... Do you agree with that?

It was sneaky, dirty and much like what the dirty Nips pulled off at Pearl Harbor, but those men wore uniforms and were thus fair game to be targeted. However, it gets shaky here because I'm fairly certain that the people who targeted the Barracks are the same that target Israeli citizens and other people they just don't like. Thus they are a 'terrorist organization'. However, if the perpetrators were legal combatants, then you can't charge them with a crime for attacking the US barracks.

B ... say huh??

This thread died almost a year ago. c_b must have been digging through the RM attic to find it.