It it an act of terror - 9/11 attack on Pentagon

9/11 attack on the Pentagon was act of terrorism?

  • YES

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • NO

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Neither YES or NO

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jackehammond

Active member
[Note - To American members: Let's try and keep the hyper emotions out of this debate and discusses this rationally - Jack a US Citizen]

Folks,

About a year or two after the truck sucide bombing of the Marine HQ in Lebanon there was a discussion in USNI Proceedings the largest publication in the US for member of the US Navy and Marines (ie also one of the oldest US military publications). The authors in an article asked a hard question: Was the attack and bombing of the Marine HQ that killed over 200 Marines "an act of terrorism"?

To the surprise of a lot of people, many USN and USMC officers wrote back and stated "No it was not an act of terrorism. It was an act of war by Syria and Iran and should be treated as such."

That article stated two items that if either was present could not make it an act of terrorism: 1. The purpose of the targeting is to kill combatants or 2. lawful combatants. To wit, an "act of terrorism" has to be done by unlawful combatants and the targeting has to be the sole purpose of the killing of innocent unoffending civilians. Lawful combatants can though commit war crimes and war atrocities. But not "acts of terrorism".

This brings the question of the poll: Was the 9/11 crash of the airliner by AQ into the Pentagon an "act of terrorism"?


Jack E. Hammond
 
no, it was an unconventional military attack, however...the airliner was full of civilians...so where does that leave it?

also in conjunction with the other 9/11 attacks it would count...overall...as an act of terrorism
 
Yes, I consider it a Terrorist attack.

Bin Laden has no official army, thus I don't believe it is any time of unconvential military attack.
 
chewie_nz said:
no, it was an unconventional military attack, however...the airliner was full of civilians...so where does that leave it?

also in conjunction with the other 9/11 attacks it would count...overall...as an act of terrorism

Dear Member,

You are good! In military ethics class this is what they hit on right off the bat -- ie compared to the 1983 Marine HQ bombing.

But then, while lawful combatants US military forces in past wars have bombed and shelled areas even though they knew their were a lot of civilians they argued? (btw it is rhetoric question there is a good counter answer)

Again, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Jack E. Hammond
 
Terror attack?

I agree that this was NOT an act of war - since the weapon chosen was full of "innocent civilians".
 
I'm not sure really. Though I kindof believe it was a terroristic attack on America, but then again I consider it a military attack. Hell, I dont know.
But does it really matter weither we call it a military attack or terrorist?
 
I guess I don't recall Al Qaeda declaring a formal declaration of war on America. (You know, in writing, not just what appears to be the ramblings of a lunatic, somthing we would believe.) I don't remember Al Qaeda giving America an ultimatum or warning of their intentions. (Once again, formal and direct, like we gave Saddam and Co.) And I don't see how an attack meant to kill as many CIVILIANS as possible is really a military attack. Now if they had focused on the Pentagon (Which was a secondary target to that of the White House.) or a Naval Yard or anything like that I would be more compelled to believe it might be a military attack. But the main target was the World Trade Center and the as many as 10,000 CIVILIANS who could have been in the building at that time. I was somewhat disturbed by the attack on the Pentagon but not nearly as much as the attack on the WTC pissed me off. The Pentagon is a legitimate military target and a group/nation seeking to cripple the US would have to hit the Pentagon first so that was always to be expected. But why the World Trade Center? To strike TERROR into the heart of every American, no military objective what-so-ever. Plus if it was a military attack what was the goal?
 
It was an act of war, the fact so called civilians were onboard is beside the point. In War everyone and everything become a target and if it wasn't for genevea and the UN,both of which need to be revamped in order to try to be more forceful to stop these attacks,then war wouldbe much worse then it is. I however believe thier is no conventional and unconventional types of war. In war sometimes what people though are set limits need to be broken. After all the rules of this so called conventional war have only been around about 60's years since World War 2 when much of our so called 'modern equipment' first came alive of the designers board.
 
It was an act of terror, because like has been said, they used a plane full of civilians as a flying bomb. If they would have used anything else that would be diffrent.
 
Good to see you again Sherman. It's been a while.

Although I partially don't agree on you on the issue that an act of self defense is not an military action. Any action that requires the usage of the military is considered a military action.

But if self defense is comitted by militant groups through arms, that's a seperate issue.
 
I did not mean self defense by the military force. What I meant is that civilians defending their lives from terrorists are not commiting a military action, and are not combatents.
 
It was a terrorist attack because the aim of the pentagon strike was not to decapitate the US Army leadership but rather to terrorise the American populace by saying "Your generals can not defend themselves, much less the American people"
 
Crashing a plane full of unarmed civilians is an act of terrorism. Crashing it into the Pentagon does not make it "more terroristic" since it's a military structure.
 
I say yes

The target itself was indeed a military target. People working in the Pentagon assume the roll as being a fat juicy target for any enemy of the United States.

Using a civilian plane filled with civilians definately made that attack an act of terror. Plane full of Americans flying into the Pentagon = more infedels killed.
 
Even if you can accept the Pentagon as a legitimate military target, or even harder of a stretch, the Al Que'dah as being a legitimate military, you cannot get past the use of a civilian airliner with a planeload of civilians as the weapon. You can't get around that by any stretch of the imagination. That alone makes it an act of terror whether you agree or disagree with the first two cases.
 
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