Ends, Means, "Suicide Bombers"

I have suggested that if the Left does not address the "terrorism" 
problematic it risks marginalization, something akin to red-baiting, and 
will be on the wrong side of history.  I don't mean we accept
Bush's "you are with us or against us," but more like "we are against them 
and you".

Ends, Means, and "Suicide" Bombers

Trotksy:

"A means can only be justified by its end. But the end in turn needs to be 
justified. From the Marxists point of view, which expresses the historical 
point of view of the proletariat, the end is justified only if it leads to 
increasing the power of humanity over nature and to the abolition of power 
of one person over another." Trotsky

Alinksy:

"Does the end justify the means?" but "Does this
*particular* end justify this *particular* means?"
----

There are parts of Trotsky and Alinsky that are admirable,  I can accept 
some of what they have to say, but here is the main issue I was not raising 
clearly.  The Stalinist formulation was that the ends *always* justify the 
means (or whatever means that are chosen).  The terrorist fomulation seems 
close to this.  The suicide bomber (a concept which some Israelis suggest is 
a sanitized term for a suicide murderer) does not engage in acts that lead 
to ?the abolition of power of one person over the another.?  Sartre enters 
the picture as follows.  He argued that there was an interpretative 
intervention between the ?material conditions? and the ?socialist? (by 
extension you could substitute the words ?activist,? ?political actor,? 
?revolutionary,? etc.). He also posited an ethics that could regulate the 
means (or the ends for that matter). Stalinists read off material conditions 
to justify various (undemocratic) organizational designs and actions as 
necessary even if these designs/acts were contingent.   The person or agent 
engaging in the interpretation was always responsible for her or his acts so 
that they were not simply the byproduct of history.  Sartre after Marx 
suggested that persons were ?free to choose in circumstances that are 
given.?  The suicide bomber underestimates their choices of political 
engagement and is in fact manipulated often by religious fundamentalists or 
even political cadres to support ends that are far from universal or leading 
to the abolition of power systems.  Discussions about ends and means must 
explore the epistemology and contingencies involved, but do address the 
ethnical dimmensions.  Neither Alinksy nor Trotsky necessarily tackle that 
in the above formulations. Admitedly, I have added some confusion to these 
deliberations by writing in a short and cryptic fashion.   The ideology of 
suicide bombers underestimates the contingencies involved, even if Israeli 
militarists have created a climate which increases the likelihood that these 
attacks take place.  Nevertheless, there is an ideological or consciousness 
milieu surrounding these actors which I believe is subject to manipulation 
and choices that are not determinate and simply read off Israeli actions.  
It?s Stalinist (or mechanically Marxist) to imply that Israel simply causes 
these actions for the reasons suggested above.

Moreover, some argue that the ?suicide bombers? are engaged in a power ploy 
in which they gain ?anticipatory power? of the results of their future 
actions, e.g. we know that the September 11th bombers exercised such power 
even if they did not live to see what that power was.  There have also been 
the rather favorable financial settlements offered to the families of the 
suicide murderer/bombers, favorable in the local economic terms?and the 
status of the militarist/terrorist cadre who benefit from the actions of the 
bombers. This hierarchy and associated ideology is also a "cause" of suicide 
bombing.  Considering these later points, the bombing is doubly not a matter 
of altruism or heroism per se.  It is basically a double tragedy which is 
confused by various sectarian ideologues and religious fanatics.  The 
troubling question is why persons on the Left ?reserve? judgment.  They do 
so because: a) they are willing to intercede an ethical choice that could 
take precedence over an intended political outcome; b) they fail to 
appreciate the dialectical link between terrorism and militarism, or 
conventional terrorism and state terrorism; c) they refuse to grant an 
authentic ?victim? status to Israelis who are blown up because that would 
mean that they had rights or options to exercise their voice in ways that 
might conflict with the ambitions of various Palestinians; d) they fail to 
see choices because of a faulty political analysis, i.e. there are no other 
options.

I think that there are other options and they have to do with the ways in 
which systems of pressures can be placed on various "extremist" elements.  
The dialogue for how to design these pressures will only
come from a very nuanced and humanistic approach that addresses moral
issues and "real politick."


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