The Lawfare Blog has proposed its own similar lexicon of violence, and it is even less useful. It has two major flaws, which I will explain once I give you the lexicon.
Violent Extremist Organization: An organization that takes action to further a Violent Extremist Ideology.There are two big issues here, as I mentioned.
Violent Extremist: An individual who take actions to further a Violent Extremist Ideology.
Resident Violent Extremist: A Violent Extremist who takes actions to further a Violent Extremist Ideology in the same State in which they are considered a national under the operation of its law.
Non-Resident Violent Extremist: A Violent Extremist who takes actions to further a Violent Extremist Ideology in a different State than that in which they are considered a national under the operation of its law.
Supported Violent Extremist: A Violent Extremist who receives support for their actions from another Violent Extremist or a Violent Extremist Organization.
Unsupported Violent Extremist: A Violent Extremist who does not receive support for their actions from another Violent Extremist or a Violent Extremist Organization.
Inspired Action: When a Violent Extremist takes action that is inspired by a Violent Extremist Ideology.
Directed Action: When a Violent Extremist takes action based upon direction they received from another Violent Extremist or a Violent Extremist Organization.
Spontaneous Action: When an individual with no known previous plausible ties to a Violent Extremist Ideology, Violent Extremists, or a Violent Extremist Organization, suddenly takes action, with little planning or preparation, to further a Violent Extremist Ideology.
Opportunistic Claim: When an individual with no known previous plausible ties to a Violent Extremist Ideology, Violent Extremists, or a Violent Extremist Organization engages in violence, and a Violent Extremist or Violent Extremist Organization claims responsibility without providing proof that they inspired or directed the action.
1) All of this is ultimately rooted on the definition of "Violent Extremist Ideology," which is unspecified. Thus, the whole thing is groundless. Specifying exactly what a Violent Extremist Ideology is -- so that it captures all and only the right kind of actors, leaving legitimate political actors alone -- is the real work to be done, and it's untouched.
2) This approach elides essential differences. By essential differences I mean things that make the other things necessary. The first lexicon accurately captured that a commitment to jihad was what was making all the violence necessary. The right wing groups are doing whatever they're doing for entirely different reasons. Violent Communist groups, like the Maoists in the Philippines, are necessarily committed to violence out of a different essential understanding of the world and their place in it. Since ultimately you have to get at the motivations of violent groups in order to make the violence go away, collapsing these essential distinctions is a terrible idea.
The motivation for all of this is to try to treat different kinds of radical groups "equally," I suppose. Yet equality isn't what we're interested in here: we don't have to be afraid of being unjust to people who run over children with big trucks. We need to retain an understanding of just what is moving them to do all these things, because it is that motivating force that we ultimately have to deal with.
11 comments:
Perhaps they dare not go there (define "violent extremist ideology" ) because it will expose their true aim, or at least their inherent bias. When "hate speech = "violence", and speaking about matters of concern = "hate speech", everyone who espouses a different opinion becomes a "violent extremist", even if they have never, by traditional standards, harmed anyone.
It seems the old rhyme "sticks and stones..) has been effectively obliterated in favor of a victimhood ideology.
I propose one possible discriminator:
Are they attempting to conquer us? [Yes/No]
This is, of course, America-centric, but that's not a bad thing. (Our interest in preventing other people from being conquered by an outside violent force exists, but it is not the same as our interest in not being so conquered ourselves.)
The element of conquest, of imposition, seems central to understanding why this is a problem that goes beyond "some nutcase went crazy and hurt people". The latter problem can be dealt with by criminal law, but trying to deal with an attempted conquest by designating the overt acts as "crimes" and trying them in court is what's always seemed feckless to me, and oblivious to the meaning of terrorist acts. The ambition to conquer the victim society is what makes it a warlike posture, rather than a series of unconnected crimes.
Raven:
It had occurred to me that this nicely fits with Putin's approach to treating all forms of resistance to state authority as illegitimate. The UN's "Countering Violent Extremism" fails as an approach to jihad because it won't name (or think about) the root cause of the conflict. But it nicely succeeds at suggesting that anyone whose political program doesn't ultimately submit nonviolently to the state are all to be opposed with the united will of all states everywhere.
Jaed:
I like that distinction. Do they want to rule you, or are they only fighting to be free of you? The latter kinds of groups are better.
Evil, yes or no.
That's what it all came down to, for the Leftist alliance and Islam in Iraq circa 2005. While there are organization and ideology differences, it all comes down to something simpler in the end.
If a Democrat disagrees with you, you are an extremist.
I don't doubt that I'm an extremist. :) What I want to know is whether I am going to be put in the category of holding to a "Violent Extremist Ideology." I mean, plausibly yes: I do support the use of violence if necessary to enforce some Constitutional norms that the government seems increasingly disinclined to uphold.
So, do I fit in the same boat as the jihadists who want to overthrow the Constitution entirely, and build a caliphate in its place? Or is there an essential difference that's kind of important here?
Not to the left. You both don't hold the correct ideology, and that's all that matters...
The SPLC and ATF have already ruled on whether patriotic biker clubs are the same as jihadists. In fact, they ruled those patriot right wing militia gun owners were worse.
Has any Mosque had an assassination squad snuff them out as completely as Waco's police did to biker members? Or even the first Waco. Or even Ruby Ridge.
Btw, I mentioned the SPLC being Leftist and evil before to Grim.
Grim merely noted that the SPLC were some old Jewish fund raiser.
I doubt I said they were Jewish, which is not something I carefully track. I certainly don't view it as a negative.
I am, however, in no need of having the SPLC mentioned to me. I am well aware of them, both of the good they once did and the harm they sometimes now do.
Based on my recollection, I said the SPLC were Leftists and active in their hierarchy. You provided a background link to their history, concerning their fund raising potential, and implied in your remarks that they were neutral or harmless.
http://splcwatch.org/financial/splc-fundraising/
That wasn't the link, but the story seemed to be that the SPLC came from harmless liberal roots, cashing out from raising funds from frightened liberals, including Jewish liberals of course.
This was before Waco 2 happened. I saw the SPLC as being more directly leveraged, as they put right wing militias and groups like biker clubs on their list, concurrent with the FBI and other alphabet soups talking about suppressing right wing militias, training against domestic battles by right wingers, etc.
I also don't think they did any "good" in the past, as the KKK was already being rejected by Democrats and defunded. Once the KKK lost the protection of politicians like Robert KKK Byrd, they could no longer operate as a death squad free of interference.
Post a Comment