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Man-Caused Disasters?
Monday, Napolitano had the opportunity to make good on the presidents appointment. In an interview with SPIEGEL, the secretary made light of her apparent omission of the term terrorism in her first testimony to congress:
SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
I take issue with this line of thinking for a few reasons.
- The term "man-caused disasters" has no precedented use, culture, or strategic meaning. I can think of dozens man-caused disasters (hat tip to Matt Fuller, graduate of Bradley University) that have nothing to do with the phenomenon of terrorism. This term is vague to the point of losing all usefulness.
- Is this term just a replacement for the word terrorism? Is there a new definition that has yet to be revealed? Or is this just like saying "fudge" in place of an expletive.
- Is it just me or is that term oddly sexist? MAN caused disasters... Its probably just me.
The term terrorism, or terrorist, is useful because it paints a rough picture of the type of combatant being discussed, and how to deal with them. As a general rule, terrorists do not follow the laws of war, because they target civilians for political gain. The United States has a Foreign Terrorist Organization list, published by the State Department, which is used across agencies to define specific threats to US interests.
It will be interesting to see if the name of the FTO list changed to the Foreign Man Caused Disasterist Organization list. That does have a nice ring to it.
Get your boots on soldier... on second thought don't, the DHS has no clue with whom we are fighting.
Photo: The News & Observer
Photo: The News & Observer
2 comments:
in one sense i applaud this and in another i think it's quite silly.
think about what the term terrorist meant just 30 years ago - it referred to people who held planes hostage to get what they wanted. I suppose you could say they caused terror for a short time for gain. Today the term refers to enemy combatants who may or may not be centralized, who, as you aptly pointed out, tend to not follow the rules of war. They're concerned with destruction. Terror is their goal only as much as any combatant's goal is terror.
My problem with "terror" as an umbrella term is that with it's current definition, all criminals are essentially terrorists. And when talk about terrorists and "the terrorists winning" begins to be hazy. It also elevates criminals and, I tend to agree with her, perpetuates a fear culture.
But this response of "man caused disasters" is a silly solution that makes even less sense. It is even further devoid of meaning!
Why can't these people walk the line between two ridiculous terms?
Im not sold that terrorism is a ridiculous term. I think it is misused at times to describe non privileged combatants, and its sometimes used to further a political agenda. It's like any other political buzzword, overused, and rarely understood. However, that does not strip it of its original meaning. Nor does that give you the right to make up a term, and i like the way you put it, "devoid of meaning".
Maybe the DHS should focus on a campaign to retool the word and communicate that to the inter-agency, as well as to the American people.
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