Terrorism Short Paper

Running head: Terrorism Short Paper

Throughout time there have been individuals that have committed heinous acts to achieve some goal. Many of these acts can be classified as terrorism. Terrorism is any act that uses or threatens the use of force designed to bring about political change (Waller, 2011). Often innocent people are the target of such force. Many times throughout history, people do not intend to act like a terrorist and they mean good, but they are compelled to such action in the greater good. In the text that follows, opinions and arguments for and against whether terrorism can sometimes be justified will be presented.

Can terrorism ever be justified?

Terrorism has many definitions, but they all have a commonality. That common factor is that terrorism concerns innocent people. Waller provides a tactical definition of terrorism, “the organized use of violence to target noncombatants (innocents) for political purposes” (2011 p. 331). This definition means that even the state can commit terrorist acts.

In order to show that terrorism is immoral, the just war tradition will be presented as a background. The just was tradition has two divisions, the just as bellum and the jus in bello (Waller, 2011). The jus ad bellum is concerned with legitimate war and appropriate measures. There must be just cause to go to war and war must be a last resort according to the just war tradition. There must also be reasonable prospect of success and the violence used must be proportional to the wrong acts being committed (Waller, 2011). The second division of the just war tradition is the jus in bello. The jus in bello has two principles, the principle of discrimination and the principle of proportionality. These principles limit the kinds of violence and the degree that violence can be used (Waller, 2011). In the just war tradition, it is obviously immoral to attack the innocent. It violates the principles of the jus in bello division.

Another way people justify terrorism is through supreme emergency. Supreme emergency is when there is no other way to eliminate the evil or terrorism than to use more terrorist actions. This is flawed because people have different views on what is evil. The book provides the example of the bombings of Germany in WWII as a case of supreme emergency to change the tide of the war. The supreme emergency provision justified these actions and made them exempt from being defined as terroristic (Waller, 2011). This way of thinking is flawed because many other people such as the Palestinians and Al Qaeda could use this logic to justify their actions.

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