CKNW Editorial
for September 26, 2001

I don’t want anyone to infer from what I’m about to say any suggestion that the terrible events of September 11^th are to be, in any way, diminished by the acts of terrorism I’m about to discuss. There has never been anything quite like those events in peacetime.

I think we have to understand what terrorism is and why it happens.

Terrorism is aimed more at morale than doing actual damage. I know that after September 11 that is hard to credit but it’s true. Terrorists , more often than not, overlook obvious military targets in favour of civilian ones. It’s true that the September 11 bunch hit the Pentagon and may well have planned to hit the White House or the Capitol but still they knew that they couldn’t score a military victory no matter what they hit.

Terrorism, like guerrilla warfare, is used by the weaker of two adversaries … and you can understand why. Terrorists, not being mighty nations, can’t have nuclear weaponry and the power to deliver it … they don’t have large navies and armies. Their weapon is terror. And their stock-in-trade are people who are quite willing and, indeed in some cases, happy to give their lives.

Guerilla warfare is a form of terrorism. The Viet Cong had no way of matching US might in the war in Viet Nam so they applied the tactics of terror. With the exception of the Tet offensive, the Viet Cong rarely met its enemy in open combat.

One of the difficult and perhaps painful pills to swallow here is that one person’s terrorism is another’s patriotism. Resistance groups in Europe in the last war used terrorist tactics and few would say they were wrong. When Britain lacked the ability to assault Hitler head on she sent in commandos for quick strikes. After the war Zionists, the Irgun and Stern Gang employed terrorism against the British because that was the only weapon they had the capability of using. Many Jewish people get rather touchy on that subject but it’s there and the terror used very much hastened the desire of Britain to get out of Palestine which in turn hastened the formation of the State of Israel.

Whether or not the cause is a just one doesn’t alter the fact that assaults on civilians or even soldiers not actually at war is terrorism. The Irish Republican Army believes, devoutly and with passion, that Ireland should be united and that the British Army must leave. A great many people dispute the merits of their argument including most Protestants and many Catholics in Northern Ireland. But the fact remains, the IRA tells itself and believes that theirs is the cause of righteousness and that they walk hand in hand with God. So do the Basques. So did Communists in days of yore. Though they admittedly didn’t invoke God’s help. So have, in times we hope are past, has the FLQ in Quebec.

I want to make it clear again that I make no judgments on any causes -–I only point out that causes, not having armies, navies and airforces sufficient to meet whom they consider the enemy employ terrorism and have since time immemorial.

What, then, is this all in aid of?

A caller yesterday is what prompted it when he asked why, hereafter, the Bin Laden forces simply don’t send kids with knapsacks full of dynamite into buildings and shopping centers. In fact, this is, in my opinion, where the danger now lies.

Fanatics in Palestine walk into crowds in Israel and blow themselves and others to smithereens. Bombs still explode in Ireland and are doing so increasingly in Spain. I don’t say we must expect this in North America – but we must anticipate it. And we’ll have to learn to live with it.

I recently had a letter from a former Vancouverite, now an Israeli, telling me what it’s like to live with terror every day. She tells me that it’s really a double edged thing – after the innocent victims of the latest Palestinian outrage are buried, one tends to erase, quickly, the incident from the mind. Yet, in another very real sense, it and other incidents like it never go away. Terrorism, she tells me, is always with you.

How awful it is to contemplate this. How unbelievable it is that we in North America might well have to get used to acts of terror against civilians … that we, for so long blessed with peace, must somehow try to explain these things to our kids and grandkids.

But those who hate us, believe that they are justified in that hatred. Their version of God is on their side. They can’t challenge us in traditional warfare so they fight how they know best. What they know best is relatively cheap, easy to deliver, and very effective – if we let it be.

The answer is, in my opinion, twofold.

First, we do all we can in every way we can to combat terrorism and protect ourselves.

Secondly, we do like my Israeli pen pal does … we go on leading our lives. I can understand why people are canceling airline flights but, speaking frankly, it is irrational and in its way, a form of surrender.

In a way it’s rather like the story I like to tell about St Francis of Assisi who was hoeing his garden one day and was asked by a passer-by what he would do if he knew he was going to die that evening.

"Why", he said, "I’d go right on hoeing my garden".

Thus we, keeping a wary eye out for trouble of course, must go on hoeing our gardens.