A question of balance

Terror tactics are horrifying and repugnant causing us to recoil. They are used when conventional warfare: i.e. soldiers fighting soldiers, is not pragmatic.

The terror tactics used in Rhodesia during the time of its ‘liberation’ war included the murder of unarmed non-combatants in pitiless, gruesome fashion. This included the execution by shooting of headmen and many tribespeople “pour encourager les autres” accompanied by mutilations, abduction and rape. It included the execution of survivors of a passenger aircraft they had shot down; the murder of missionaries including the bayonetting of a 6 month old baby.

Of course, Europe had its own terrorists like the Red Army Faction  which engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies, and shoot-outs with police.

Governments also use terrorism. In World War II, the Nazis executed villagers in reprisal for attacks on them by resistance partisans.

The Japanese Army is estimated to have executed millions of Chinese and Korean civilians during the same period.

Let us not omit the ultimate terror tactic deployed by the US on Japan in 1945 – the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed over 200, 000 people.

Sadly, terror tactics clearly have some “legitimacy” in societies across the world.

This somewhat shatters our moral high ground when considering the Hamas massacres of Israeli residents and indeed the Israeli retaliation and the US support for it.

There is some distaste for the Hamas tactic of hiding amongst the “innocent” population, but it is a brutally clever tactic. Why should non-combatants not share the fight in a liberation struggle?

Of course, this type of thinking means that the only tactic to stop this type of warfare is eradication and suppression – obliteration will buy a few years until new ideologists fire up the youth of a new generation. Unavoidably, non-combatants will also be obliterated.

We can express our horror and repugnance, but we can not condemn the morality if we too are guilty.

It goes without saying that terrorists should be stopped before they attack.

But, how is this possible?

One answer which many will not like, is universal surveillance: the continuous monitoring of every meeting, conversation and movement of ….. everybody.

Don’t be alarmed, surveillance of communications and movement is commonplace in the military and security industries, including the police. Many private houses and vehicles already have security camera systems which track you whenever you pass by; you are watched in supermarkets, bars and train stations. Internet traffic is monitored and filtered by service providers.

Why do we still need a warrant to monitor criminal activities? AI bots can monitor and notify suspicious behaviour for investigation, in real time as it happens.

It will be far more effective in stopping terrorists and criminals than analysis of historical data, so what is the downside?

After all: “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”!

I wrote this poem for a poetry class some years ago.

Screen

Everyone everywhere should be screened

Let the camera capture

your face, your life, your ups and

downs.

And hers and his and theirs.

All must be screened – t’will

make us feel safer and happier, until

we think about

Who screens

the Screeners.

Look at the screen

be obscene and herd:

you’re on tv!

This is our new morality

I was on tv

did you see me?