My post about looking at terrorism in terms of both legitimacy of outcomes and legitimacy of process has prompted a friendly reply from Eddy Canfor-Dumas (Head of Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues, of which John Alderdice is a Co-Chair):

An interesting response to what I think is a profound analysis by John Alderdice.

You say ‘Blowing up random people to make a political point is not a form of warfare recognised by anyone serious.’

Do you know ‘Just and Unjust Wars’ by Prof Michael Walzer? In this he points out, inter alia, that if terrorism is defined“in the strict sense” as “the random murder of innocent people”, then terrorists are merely walking where soldiers have already trod. He points to the deliberate targeting of civilian populations by both Allied and Axis Powers in the Second World War as an example.

I’d welcome your thoughts on this. 

I think that his example makes my point. It’s precisely because wars have rules and indeed laws that terrorists have to be regarded as especially objectionable.

Look at his WW2 example. Yes, in part because of the prevailing ‘mass’ ideologies of the time, civilians were deliberately targeted by conventional armed forces in huge numbers. The Allied powers did their fair share, but the Nazis and Soviet Union did far more.

Yet those horrors nonetheless took place as a result of military decisions taken in a context of a conventional war started and waged according to international law. Amazingly enough (and hard though it is now to imagine) even at the Auschwitz cluster of POW camps the Nazis followed various proper principles in dealing with Allied POWs, allowing letters and parcels to reach them. These courtesies were denied Soviet POWs who received far more cruel treatment – the USSR had not signed the relevant conventions, perhaps because it would not accept the idea of treating prisoners properly (see eg Katyn).

Since WW2 we have seen extraordinary advances in weaponry (above all pinpoint accuracy) and rather less extraordinary advances in the law of war. Nonetheless time-honoured principles apply. Proportionality (using only as much force as is necessary to achieve a legitimate military goal). Proper targeting (aiming at military targets only, and trying to limit civilian or non-combatant casualties). No hostages. No using human shields. And so on.

Today’s soldiers are drilled on how to apply these principles in practice. UN peacekeeping troops carry little cards describing the rules of engagement – when they can and cannot threaten to use military force.

And (if you can face it) look at that Israeli video showing the death of Hamas leader Ahmed Jabri. The fatal missile is shot to hit the target’s car just when it has gone past adjacent vehicles, ie in a way seemingly done to minimise the risks to other people nearby. Hence anguished analysis of the ethics of drone warfare.

These days Western governments pore over international law to try to find a principled way forward in highly difficult situations. See eg the decision by HMG to recognise the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Syrian people.

You may or may not think that this decision is smart or wise. But at least it was reached  in a civilised, measured way by people with a clear democratic mandate and taken with full consideration of international law rules.

Therefore what? What does it mean to say that today’s terrorists are "merely (sic) walking where soldiers have already trod"?

I think that this sort of argument (and in a way it props up Lord Alerdice’s thinking in the piece I linked to) is pernicious and sinister relativism. It takes examples of extreme behaviour carried out in a completely different context and suggests that that behaviour is a precedent – and somehow a legitimising precedent – for anything terrorists do now. It’s nothing but the Law of the Slippery Slopes wearing dishonest trousers. There is no fixed point at which we can say a mouse is too big to be a mouse, or an elephant too small to be an elephant. So a mouse can be as big as an elephant.

Where to draw the line between Good and Evil? Nowhere clear. Therefore Good is indistinguishable from Evil. Therefore Evil = Good. QED

Thus the terrorist defending himself before the Westminster APPG on Conflict Issues:

You once killed someone breaking your own rules. Therefore you can’t criticise me for killing someone according to my rules.

Oh, and by the way, I accept no rules anyway. I’ll do what it takes to achieve the goals that I and my heroic co-fighters alone have proclaimed to be the supreme values deciding who lives and who dies. Just like you in fact.

You have your so-called democracy. I have mine.

Care to respond?