Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone on this September 11th. One of the moments of silence at the annual World Trade Center ceremony is now underway or should be. Let's be with them for just a few seconds as they pause in the reading of the names of the dead.

[bells ringing]

They ring bells for the people lost on that day

[pause 00:00:35]

Then the pure silence.

Speaker 1: My grandfather, Richard J. O'Connor, we will always love and miss you.

Brian Lehrer: A few seconds live from the World Trade Center, where, as you hear, they are also reading the names of those killed in that terrorist attack, as they do each year. The 959 moment of silence is because that's the moment when the South Tower collapsed, claiming so many of the lives lost at the World Trade Center that day. Now, for those of you tuning in, expecting the Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump debate to be our lead segment today, we're actually going to devote the last 45 minutes or so of the show to the debate. That's around 11:15 until noon this morning.

We are observing the September 11th anniversary first, as we usually do on this date at this portion of the show, to coincide with the moments of silence and the exact times of the major events of that terrible, fateful day. Later this hour, we'll have our lead, Eric Adams, reporter Elizabeth Kim, after our 9/11 conversation and observance. Elizabeth Kim with the dramatic turns taking place in the multiple investigations into the mayor and several of his closest advisors. Then, as I say, around 11:15, debate excerpts and your reactions for the rest of the show until noon.

Here in the first half hour, we'll observe the two remaining moments of silence with the people at the World Trade Center as the moments come up at 10:03 and 10:28. 1003 was the moment when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers aware of what had happened already, tried to overwhelm the hijackers who were flying that plane toward Washington, DC, but the courageous effort of those passengers failed and everyone on board was killed. That's the reason for the 10:03 moment of silence.

We don't forget the magnitude of those attacks on people's lives. Here are some stats from a New York Magazine page called 9/11 By The Numbers. The total number of people killed in the attacks in New York was 2,753. Number of firefighters and paramedics killed, 343. Number of NYPD officers, 23. Number of port authority police officers, 37. Number of employees lost at Cantor Fitzgerald, the company with officers in the towers that lost the most people, 658 people killed from that one company. Number of people who lost a spouse or partner in the attacks, 1,609. Estimated number of children who lost a parent, 3,051.

Let's go back live to the World Trade Center site. They're pausing now or in a second in the reading of the names for that 10:03 Shanksville moment of silence.

[pause 00:04:04]

Remember, you'll hear the bells tolling for the victims.

[bells ringing]

[pause 00:04:38]

There's nothing wrong with your radios, just respectful silence. [silence]

Speaker 2: Wilder Alfredo Gomez, Janine Nicole Gonzalez.

Brian Lehrer: They resume the reading of the names. It's very poignant on the radio, isn't it, to hear silence, right? You turn on the radio so that there's anything but silence. There was silence appropriate, and we do it every year on 9/11 on the anniversary. Continuing with a few of these numbers, the number of days that fires continued to burn after the attack, 99, says the New York Magazine, New York 9/11 By The Numbers page. Related to that, the official September 11th victims compensation fund site says more than $12 billion have been paid out to more than 56,000 people, those made sick by exposure during those 99 days and maybe beyond, I'm not sure.

By now, thousands more people have died from 9/11-related illnesses than in the attacks themselves. I looked at the United States Defense Department website yesterday and saw that more than 7000 Americans have been killed in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's 7000 plus US service members, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the war on terror operations elsewhere. Not to mention that account reported by NBC News cites more than 200,000 Iraqis killed in that war. The US Institute for Peace last year cited at least 169,319 Afghans killed in that war. We will observe one last moment of silence at 10:28, the moment when the World Trade Center North tower collapsed.

From now until then, we will recognize the enormity of that day in the context of our WNYC Brian Lehrer show centennial series, 100 years of 100 things. We're up to thing number 20, 100 years of terrorism and counterterrorism, which we're doing today for obvious reasons. Did you know that in 1920, there was a bombing on Wall Street that killed 30 people instantly? According to the FBI's website that I saw yesterday, it also injured more than 300, and that that 1920 Wall Street bombing remains unsolved to this day. Did you know that? Maybe you know about the 1921 Tulsa massacre, white invaders attacking a well-known affluent Black neighborhood called Greenwood.

The Tulsa Historical Society cites credible evidence of 100 to 300 deaths, and it says, "Black Tulsans fought valiantly to protect their homes, their businesses, and their community, but in the end, the city's African American population was simply outnumbered by the white invaders." That from the Tulsa Historical Society website. Maybe we call the Tulsa massacre an act of domestic terrorism, right? That's now a little over 100 years old. Of course, lynchings and other forms of racist violence were common in the '20s. The Klan was resurgent during that decade.

In 1924, to pin it to exactly 100 years ago, 16 Black Americans were lynched, according to a database at the University of Missouri. Also around then, very different place, very different context, the Turin massacre in Turin, Italy. It was Mussolini's fascist blackshirts attacking members of a local labor movement with estimates of about 12 to 24 people killed. That's a century-old starting point of this 100 of 100 things segment. Thing number 20, 100 years of terrorism and counter-terrorism. We have kind of a perfect guess for this.

Richard English, director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is the author of books called Does Terrorism Work?, published in 2016, and Does Counter Terrorism Work? That one is brand new this summer. He focuses mainly on al Qaeda, the Irish Republican Army, Hamas, and the separatists in the Basque region of Spain, but he can talk about a lot of other historical and current groups and incidents, too, and counterterrorism efforts. Professor English, thanks very much for joining us from Belfast for this. Welcome to WNYC, and hello from New York.

Richard English: Hello from Belfast. Brian and good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start with a definition? How do you define terrorism?

Richard English: My books have a 93-word definition, which I won't inflict on your listeners, but broadly speaking, I would think of it as politically motivated violence, which has a psychological component to it, which is part of what its practitioners see as a form of warfare. In other words, you're trying to use violence to coerce people into something which is politically motivated and going to grant political goals for you, but which has a psychological way of scaring an audience well beyond the direct victim.

Whether it's the Wall Street bombing of 1920 or the 9/11 atrocity in 2001, the audience goes beyond the people who are the victims towards trying to put pressure on political actors to give you what you want them to give you.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Politically motivated violence to bring about political change through fear, terror in terrorism, that's the psychological component you referred to. There's one piece that I expected to hear in that definition that I didn't. Aimed at civilians rather than the military or the state per se or not necessarily.

Richard English: In my view, not necessarily, Brian. Some definitions say it has to be civilians or non-combatants, but it seems to me that a lot of the terrorist organizations that we rightly focus on attack both civilians and the military and often attack the military at times when they're off duty. It seems to me that it's very hard to distinguish, for example, the truck bombings in Beirut in 1983 by Hezbollah, clearly a terrorist act in most people's definition, but the vast majority of the victims were military targets. It does seem to me that, in a sense, it's the political motivation and the idea to apply a kind of horrific psychological pressure. That's the defining quality of it, rather, I think than the definition of the target.

Brian Lehrer: I think people's tendency is to associate terrorism with groups or individuals who feel aggrieved and who are not in power, in the larger sense. Al Qaeda toward the United States, the IRA toward the British government, et cetera, but there can be state-sponsored terrorism, too, right? Like I mentioned, the Turin massacre, Hitler's brownshirts, just like Mussolini's blackshirts, also used state-supported terrorism, even if they were technically not members of the military doing it and other examples that we could choose and that people could debate of state-sponsored terrorism.

Richard English: I think that's a really important point, Brian. In fact, I think a lot of the violence that I'm referring to has been done by states. I think there's domestic state terrorism of the kind that the Nazis used on their own population. I think there's external state terrorism where you export it. Sometimes states will sponsor non-state groups elsewhere with whom they're allied. Sometimes you get groups that are a blur between non-state and state. For a time, ISIS was a kind of quasi-state. They weren't a full state, but they had some kind of state authority.

I think for a time, you could see a group like Hamas, clearly a terrorist organization, in my view, as exerting some of the power that states would normally exert. I think that the role of states in using this vile form of violence is an important aspect of the debate. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: In this country, the lynchings and Tulsa massacre and other such violence in the United States in the '20s that I mentioned to start the 100-year timeline, in part, I might call that majoritarian terrorism committed by the group that was in power. Why do people in positions more powerful than their victims resort to terrorism?

Richard English: Normally, I think it's two things, Brian. One is there's a sense that violence is the only way of achieving something that they consider to be essential. The other is often that they feel that their power or their position is under threat. Appalling Tulsa massacre of 1921, which you mentioned, there were significant numbers of KKK members in Oklahoma at the time. There had been lynchings already, but on that occasion, it was triggered by something where there was a suspicion, as it turned out, I think a false suspicion, that a Black man had attacked a white woman.

This triggered violence where there were anxieties on the part of the white majority and the people who were in power, which led to the appalling violence that you described. Normally, there's a sense that violence is urgent, that it's essential, and often that there is a need to do something to protect a position of authority or to pursue political change. It can be in either of those directions. In the US, as in so many countries, there is, tragically, a very long and diverse history of terrorism for different motivations from different groups, from left and from right in different directions.

Often something which is a big part of the history of different societies, and something, therefore, which, although terrorist actions make us think about the terrorism happening today, I think taking a long view, as you're doing today, looking back and looking forward, by implication, about long processes and long dynamics, is a more helpful way of doing it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go through some other historical episodes in a timeline fashion, as we often do in these segments. One of the subjects in your books is Israel-Palestine, and your focus is relatively recent. You've already mentioned Hamas. People make allegations about Israel as well, in incidents or alleged incidents of state-sponsored terrorism in the contemporary times. If we go back to the 1930s, in this 100-year chronology, it was British Mandate Palestine, then the Brits having been given control after World War I by the victorious allies.

Would it be accurate to say there were terrorist attacks by both Arab and Jewish groups against the Brits because each wanted them out, even though each wanted power for themselves?

Richard English: Yes, and against each other. Indeed, in the 1930s and the 1940s, there was much terrorism in that part of the world, including one of the few examples I think you can cite of nonstate terrorism seemingly achieving its central goals. That's quite a rare thing to happen. But I think you could make the case that the Jewish terrorism of the 1930s and the 1940s, at the very least, accelerated the British withdrawal and therefore the foundation of the state of Israel in the 1940s.

Indeed, if we'd been having a conversation in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, the focus of attention primarily would have been on Jewish terrorism against Britain and against British targets, and that had some horrific episodes, such as the 1946 King David Hotel attack in Jerusalem, for example. In Israel-Palestine, as in so many other parts of the world where conflict is still present today, there are very long entangled routes to it. And normally, as you suggest, on all sides. In other words, it's not just one side that's carrying out this violence. There tends to be a cyclical and often an escalatory aspect to it, which is part of the reason that so much blood is spilled.

Brian Lehrer: On the arab side, there were things like the uprising in the late thirties, 1936 to 39 period, aimed at the Brits, also aimed at Jews who were emigrating to Israel. I think it's fair to say things happened on both sides there.

Richard English: Absolutely. I think Israel-Palestine is obviously one of the most contentious and painful ones to discuss. The difficulty is that sometimes people will want you to start at a particular point because that's where the other side started the terrorism, but I think that's probably not the most helpful way of doing it. I think what you're suggesting is right, to keep going back into the history and seeing that there are cycles of this violence in different contexts, in very different contexts, but in ways that inform the anxiety of each population.

I suppose my position, Brian, would be, as someone who studies this stuff, my main thing is to try and think about dynamics which help us to understand how to lessen human suffering in the future. I think that means honesty about the violence which has come from all sides and about the consequences of it for the victims, which on this day of all days, is something which I think it's appropriate for us to focus on.

Brian Lehrer: You're in Belfast. When do you date the beginning of the so-called troubles, or Irish terrorism against British rule there, or whatever terms you use for this, that?

Richard English: I wrote a book on the IRA some years ago, and one of my IRA interviewees, who actually was living in New York at the time, said that for him, the struggle began in the 12th century. So I think in some ways, you could see it going back to British involvement in Ireland from an Irish republican point of view. I think in terms of the modern IRA, the early 20th century is when they emerged, and the IRA of the Northern Ireland troubles emerged at the end of the 1960s, the Provisional IRA.

In Ireland, as in Israel, I think the way of seeing it is to see the contemporary cycles have explanations which are about today or about any particular period, but they're always built on inheritances. They don't come from a blank slate. In that sense, in Ireland, Irish republicans and nationalists would see the ultimate root cause of things as being British colonialism and British involvement in Ireland. People on the Unionist or protestant side would tend to emphasize the violence by IRA actors against often civilians and against their own community.

I think the best way of doing this is taking a long time frame. In the cycle of the Northern Ireland troubles, the late '60s is when they began. In terms of IRA violence as a whole, the early 20th century would be the starting point.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're using the first part of the program this morning to observe this 23rd anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York, at the World Trade Center, and elsewhere on that date. In the context of our WNYC centennial series, 100 years of 100 things, we're using this occasion to look at 100 years of terrorism and counterterrorism, and not just in the United States, with Richard English, director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

He's the author of books including Does Terrorism Work? Published in 2016 and Does Counterterrorism Work? That one is brand new this summer. He also edited in 2021, the Cambridge History of Terrorism. And listeners, to be honest, I'm not sure exactly what your role is in this history conversation, but if you have a comment or a question or even a personal story, 212-433 WNYC call or text as we go through some of this history and address the central questions in the titles of Richard English's books, 212-433 WNYC 212-433-9692.

Let's pause for a minute in the timeline and let me ask you about the very title of your book, Does Terrorism Work? I think you've spoken about how it gives you pause to even approach it that way, because what if the answer is yes? What if evidence and scholarship shows that it does work or works in certain circumstances? Do you wind up inadvertently encouraging terrorism just by answering a research question honestly?

Richard English: It's a really painful question to ask, and I found that a very difficult book to write, Brian, partly because what you're writing about is so bloodstained and so full of agony and pain. As you say, the implications of the answer might not be what we want. What I argue in the book is that terrorism tends not, in the most instances, to achieve its central primary goals. In other words, the headline goal that terrorists pursue tends not to be achieved. What they tend to be more likely to achieve are what I will call either tactical successes or secondary goals.

Revenge against enemies is very frequently achieved. Sustaining resistance into the future is very frequently achieved. You often find operational successes so very tragically and appallingly. The 9/11 operation was tactically and operationally a success, which is a deep tragedy. In terms of the strategy of al Qaeda, in terms of driving American influence out of Muslim countries, in terms of revivifying a certain kind of Islamic faith, it was hopelessly unsuccessful.

Sometimes I argue what you find is that you might have tactical successes, you get publicity, or you have an operation that works. You might get revenge against enemies, but the overriding goal of the central strategic purpose tends not to be achieved. Now, to one level or one extent, that's a comforting answer for us because it means that terrorism is mostly not going to achieve its central goals. I think also what it points to is that some of the things it does achieve are things which are really likely to cause most people to find it to be repellent.

If it achieves revenge, then people will look at that and think that's a horrific outcome. If it achieves publicity, which it always tends to do, it achieves publicity for things which most people find to be unjustified, to be callous, and to be merciless. In that sense, while the answer of my book was not one I could prejudge, it ended up being something which did end up with me thinking that terrorism is the most effective way of pursuing political change. To some degree, there might be historical comfort in that.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Professor English. We'll do more timeline we're up to the 1950s in our 100-year history of terrorism and counterterrorism. We just asked Professor English to talk a little bit about the title of the one book, Does Terrorism Work? We'll get into Does Counterterrorism Work? and of course, we'll get into contemporary examples. One listener texting just now. Given your guest's definition of terrorism, could the January 6th insurrection be considered an act of terrorism? We'll get your answer to that, Professor English, and much more.

We'll take that 10:28 moment of silence for when the North Tower collapsed as we go back live to the World Trade Center. Brian Lehrer on WNYC, stay with us.

[MUSIC-Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue in our 100-year centennial series with 100 years of 100 things. Thing number 20 on this 9/11 anniversary, 100 years of terrorism and counterterrorism with Richard English from Queen's University in Belfast who's written multiple books on the subject. Here's a question about the word terrorism from a listener in a text message. Listener writes, "Terrorist is a term all authoritarians use. Apartheid, South Africa, Russia, Israel." They cite "US military. Interested in your guest's perspective." I guess some people would say in all the cases that the listener cited, may be resistance as opposed to terrorism, they mean very different things.

Richard English: Terrorism is indeed a condemnatory term. It's something which is used by people generally to try to say that this is the bad guy you're describing. It's undoubtedly true that many authoritarian regimes have described their opponents as terroristic. I think it's also true that many liberal democratic states which are non-authoritarian have described non-state political violence as being terroristic. That, too, is a way of trying to delegitimize them. Clearly, it's a term which tends to be disputed by those actors themselves, who would tend to point to state wickedness as the key thing to focus on.

In my books, I tend to try to look at the term in an analytical way. In other words, if we see something that's terroristic, whether we like the cause or not, we should call it that. If the argument of my books is right, then it tends not, despite what its practitioners think, it tends to be not the best way of pursuing political change. It's far more likely historically that terrorism will cause awful human suffering than that it will bring about the more benign political goals that its practitioners want to justify it in terms of.

I think your listener is absolutely right that authoritarians have used it as a way of denouncing. I think it's also true to say that states which condemn terrorism by other actors need to be honest sometimes about their own histories. I think some of our discussion today has gone into that territory. I think the terrorism term, it may be a term that people don't like, but it's not going to go away, so my approach to it would be to try and describe it honestly, to analyze why people do it and what the consequences are, and ultimately, I think, to try and have a conversation, which means that we minimize the likelihood of such human suffering in the future.

Brian Lehrer: We are coming up to 10:28 in the morning on this September 11th, 2024. 10:28 on September 11th, 2021, was the moment when the North Tower collapsed, collapsed at the World Trade Center, killing so many of the victims of that day, and so they take a moment of silence at the Trade Center ceremony at exactly 10:28. Let's join them for that.

Speaker 2: Your accomplishments and personality have always been a constant in my life.

Brian Lehrer: They do this as a pause in the reading of the names of the people killed there on that day as they get rid of ready to pause. [silence] Again, you'll hear the tolling of the bells.

[bells ringing]

[pause 00:27:20]

Speaker 2: When I see Boy Scouts, marines, police officers, or firefighters, my thoughts go to you and your life of service. When I see acts of kindness, determination, and above all, loyalty, I think of you and everything my father and aunts have told me about your dedication to our family. I have grown in the light of your memory, and it has made me a better person. I hold these thoughts close today and I say a prayer for you as well as the other victims and their families. May you and every victim of this tragic day always be honored and remembered.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: As they continue now at the World Trade Center site with the names of the dead on that day read alphabetically. Professor English returning to the timeline, let me take a number of things and bundle them together so we move through the 100 years a bit and get your take on if they represent a period or periods in any way. Then we're going to get to whether the nature of terrorism has changed over the 100 years. I was reading at least one other article by somebody else saying it has changed in some specific ways that I'll ask you about, but one from this country in the 1950s.

As the American University School of International Service website puts it, in March 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists entered the House of Representatives visitors gallery armed with handguns, indiscriminately shot at members, and unfurled a Puerto Rican flag. They wounded five congressmen. Also in the 1950s, elsewhere in the world, much bigger the Algerian war for independence, which had elements and attacks that were labeled terrorists by the French. In the 1960s and '70s, we saw various terrorist attacks from the left in the West. In this country, we think of the Weather Underground, maybe the Symbionese Liberation Army, and others.

Europe had the Red Brigades in Italy, also groups in Germany and Spain. Very different maybe than Puerto Rican nationalists or Algerian independence fighters, but as you look at the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, are all of those of a piece to some degree agree?

Richard English: I think they were seen as constituting an alarming age of terrorism as it was sometimes referred to, Brian. I think in some ways, there are strong differences between them. The violence in Algeria by the FLN, the Front de Libération Nationale, fighting for independence from France, was a terrorism used by a national movement within the country in question and indeed had considerable success. The FLN emerged as the ruling party in 1962 after independence.

Puerto Rican course and some of the Palestinian violence that was practiced around the world, different again, in that it's around national courses, but it's happening internationally, and therefore the audience and the targets are outside the particular country itself. Then the more ideological violence, if you like, the leftism of whether underground or the SLA is a different kind of course and in some ways, I think much less likely to attract large-scale support than you had with the Algerian case that you referred to.

I think there are strong differences between them. Where I think the similarity is that there was a sense that this was something alarming, that this was something that could affect you anywhere. You could be in Berkeley like Patty Hurston, you could be kidnapped by the SLA, you could be in another country and you could be attacked. You could be getting onto a plane in the late 1960s and be hijacked. Something of the sense of fear for anyone everywhere was part of it.

The dynamics of it, I think the big difference is that a group like the FLN is much more likely to gain large-scale support as part of a national liberation movement, if you like, as anti-colonial courses than the Weather Underground, who fizzled out, really by the mid to late 1970s, or the SLA, which had very little support. In that sense, I think there is a different dynamic. In Europe, nationalist groups like the Basque terrorist ETA or the Provisional IRA in Ireland had much higher levels of support than the Red Army Faction in Germany or the Red Brigades, another leftist group in Italy. There were different dynamics.

What brought it together was to some degree a popular panic, that this might change the nature of what living in societies was like, that this might affect you wherever you went and whoever you were.

Brian Lehrer: Paul in Verona, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Paul.

Paul: Hi Brian. Thanks for having me on. This is a great subject, a big topic. I grew up in Belfast. I was born in the '60s, grew up through the troubles in the '70s and '80s, so it sits, unfortunately very close to me. There's a number of things that strike me here, and I think the professor's done a really interesting job of opening up the dialogue here. The phrase comes to mind, one man's terrorist or one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. It definitely depends on what perspective you sit from and how you're seeing it as to how you perceive that.

I think rather than asking, does terrorism work or not, because it appears that it does, how do we create a world that has sufficient equity and justice where people don't need to turn to terrorism? Also, is terrorism just another form of warfare? Warfare begins when dialogue ends.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Paul. Several anyway, big questions baked in there, including is terrorism just another form of warfare by those who don't have an actual military, is the implication.

Richard English: I'm very glad to answer those. Thanks, Paul, for that. I think the point about that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter reflects something which is, as you know, Paul, very true in the city I'm speaking from in Belfast, where depending on who you're speaking to, the identity of who the real terrorists are will vary very much. I suppose my point about how we can create something which is going to make it less likely if, like me, you're going to argue that whatever your cause, terrorism is not likely to achieve your central goal.

It's something which is going to cause suffering, there's a responsibility then to say, "What can you do to pursue other ways of bringing about your political goals?" Now in this part of the world, as you know, what happened eventually was that there was a peace process where for the most part, people turned away from the use of violence towards political expression of their causes and politically disagreeing, still very strongly disagreeing, still having very divergent views. There was a sense that politics was going to get greater momentum than political violence.

I think that's probably the thing which you need to look at. Now as I would see, countering terrorism not just about trying to do tactical things to prevent people from being blown up or murdered or shot or injured or whatever, but also about trying to contain terrorism so people see it as something which isn't the way forward. Then saying, is there a political process where you can try to address the grievances that you have? Is there a political issue which can be addressed in terms of the human flourishing for your society, for your community?

Obviously, in the Israel-Palestine sense, this is one of the really pressing issues because even those like myself, who argue against the use of any terrorism, against the use of the sort of atrocity that happened in October, for example, you have therefore to say, "Is there a way that the Palestinian people can see some sort of way of redressing the grievances of dealing with human flourishing?" That's never easy, but it seems to me that that's part of our responsible reaction to terrorist violence.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Though in the always complicated, endless rabbit hole of Middle East conversations, a lot of Israelis would say there was a political process toward peace in the 1990s that Hamas and maybe some others actively tried to defeat with their acts of terrorist violence. During that period there were also transgressions on the Israeli side, continuing settlements, which they weren't supposed to do but there was a political process. At least from the Israeli perspective, Hamas was trying to end it, not make it achieve its goal of a Palestinian state and Israeli security.

Richard English: Undoubtedly, it's true that Hamas were one of the wreckers, and they weren't the only ones, as you say, but they did considerable damage to that process. An interesting thing to reflect on is that had we been having this conversation in 1993 when the Israeli-Palestinian process was going well and things were very bloodstained in Belfast and very depressing, the orthodoxy then was peace will happen in Israel-Palestine, but it could never happen in Northern Ireland.

Now the argument tends to be the other way around. People tend to say what was always going to happen in Northern Ireland can never happen in Israel. My sense is that if you look at the opinions, even into the late 1990s, a majority of Israelis were saying they wanted some form of peace process. I do think that we need to consider the protection of Israeli citizens, which is absolutely vital to be something which is part of a wider process of long-term deal.

I think otherwise, there's a likelihood that you'll get a cyclical repetition of violence. Is that seeming likely at the moment? Of course not because of the atrocities. Is it impossible? I don't think it is. People did used to say, say that things were impossible in Northern Ireland, and now they say it was inevitable. I don't think it's absolutely impossible it could happen in Israel. I think we do need something which approaches the understandable grievances of people on all sides there.

It's very difficult because, as you say, you have spoilers on each side. You also need the international community to commit in a very responsible and sustained way, which is very difficult. I do think it's something which over the next 50 years is going to be vital in that part of the world if the future is going to be brighter than the past.

Brian Lehrer: Worth noting in your title that you teach at the Senator George Mitchell School at Queen's University in Belfast. For people who don't know that US senator from Maine is honored there because he brokered the Northern Ireland peace agreement, or did a lot of the brokering anyway. Queen's University in Belfast, one of the schools there at which our guest, Professor English, some name for an Irish person, English.

Richard English: Born in Belfast as well so even more so.

Brian Lehrer: A teacher is named after George Mitchell. Peter in Princeton, you're on WNYC. Hello, Peter.

Peter: Hi. Should I turn off something?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, turn off your radio in the background so you don't hear a delay.

Peter: Give me a second.

Brian Lehrer: We have the delay, folks so that if you say words we're not allowed to say on the radio, we can press a button and they don't go out. Peter, go ahead.

Peter: Do you hear me now?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Peter: I guess I'm hearing the broadcast or something though [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Just listen through your phone. Just listen to your phone.

Peter: Got it. I'm calling because while it's really distracting because there's something-- sorry, let me turn down the volume maybe, and that will help. Do you still hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I still hear you. You were breaking up as you started your question. Let me help with this for time. I think your point is going to be, according to my screener. Tell me if this is wrong, that 9/11, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were extraordinarily successful at transforming the nature of politics within the United States. Is that your main point, Peter?

Peter: That is roughly my main point. I want to say that the overall picture painted by your guest makes a certain amount of sense in discussing terrorism as an abstract and generalized phenomenon. With respect to 9/11 and the United States, the attack was, as you just said, extraordinarily successful in transforming the nature of politics, of political practice, of civic life, of all of the things that are essential to and constitutive of democracy in the United States.

The United States has suffered enormously from those consequences to the present day, without going into the details from the first day to the end. You will see, if you look, for example, online at the Social Science Research Council, on November 1st, 2001, I published an article called Defend Politics against Terrorism, proposing that we pay most attention to that consequence.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, I'm going to leave it there for time. I do want to get Professor English to respond on to your argument, which is that whether or not 9/11 succeeded in getting the United States to withdraw from Saudi Arabia or other involvement in the Muslim world. Which maybe is how al Qaeda leaders would have put it, democracy, civil liberties, got hampered in the United States and diminished. I guess, Professor English, that brings us to the title of your most recent book. Does Counterterrorism Work? Because the kinds of things that Peter is referring to as objectionable were really part of the counterterrorism effort launched by the Bush administration, correct?

Richard English: Yes. Thank you, Peter, for that point, and thank you, Brian. In my recent book, I do argue that one of the key things we need to recognize is that how we respond to terrorism changes society far more than the violence itself. That includes things like, do we preserve the ways of life which are normal? Do we preserve the kinds of liberties that are normal? Do we preserve the ways in which we distinguish ourselves from violent actors, in terms of how we treat suspects and so forth?

I think after 9/11, across much of the world, including the US, there were aspects of that response which were overreactions, which did degrade the nature of society and which did damage. The United Kingdom has similar experiences to some of that. The two points I'd make about that also true. First, that the main goal of al Qaeda wasn't to mean that we undermined civil liberties and liberal democracies. It was something else, and in those things, I think they failed.

The second thing is, I think one of the crucial things about effective counter-terrorism is exactly in tune with what Peter I think is suggesting. Is to maintain the things that we think it's important to preserve in terms of democratic freedoms, in terms of civil liberties, in terms of the way in which we maintain democratic political life. Indeed, to do that in a way is one of the best ways of defeating terrorist violence. I do think in the United States of America, more than two decades after 9/11, USA is still very recognizable from pre-9/11. Much of the things that were there in terms of normal life pre-9/11 are still there. I think the degradations are a risk.

My argument would be, if I'm right, that terrorists are not likely to achieve their central strategic goals, we must not overreact and we mustn't undermine ourselves as liberal democracies. We mustn't undermine the things that make the precious freedoms of liberal democratic societies part of the way in which we want to live.

Brian Lehrer: Give me one thought on the George Bush neocon strategy, which, if I can put it this way, was to try to overthrow the Taliban and Saddam Hussein governments and replace them with Western-style democracies, more or less. The notion was it would be a win-win. Good for US national security after 9/11 and good for most of the people there. Would you agree with that description of what they were trying to do, and does that counter-terrorism to the title of your book, even [crosstalk] work?

Richard English: I discuss this in the book, and I think your description of it is very appropriate, Brian. I think that in terms of counter-terrorism, the venture in Iraq was a disaster. It prompted more terrorism than it got rid of. It was also true that it somewhat undermined the war on terror because some of the justifications for it, for example, that Hussein had connections with the 9/11 atrocity, turned out not to be true. I think the Afghan mission was a much more legitimate one in terms of countering terrorism because of the Taliban's sustaining of al Qaeda prior to the attacks.

I think it was an overambitious attempt. In some ways, what I would argue is that if you're thinking of counterterrorism, you've got to think about setting realistic goals which you'll consistently pursue. In that case, I think Iraq was a mistake and Afghanistan was more justifiable. I think that if you look at the way in which the Iraq violence was used as a justification for further terrorism, and the head of the security service in the United Kingdom had been very clear about this, that the involvement of the UK and Iraq, as she put it, spurred some young British Muslims to turn to terror.

In that sense, I think that aspect of the Bush response was overreactive and was unhelpful. Much else that happened in the war on terror did save lives. There were plots that were thwarted. There were lives that were saved, but I think the Iraq mission was something in terms of counterterrorism, which turned out to be counterproductive rather than effective.

Brian Lehrer: As we start to run out of time getting to the contemporary period, like right now, one of the listeners asked that question in a text message that I said we would get to before. Does January 6th count as terrorism in your definition?

Richard English: It does. I think it was a somewhat amateurish form of terrorism, but it was lethal. It had fatalities. It was clearly politically motivated. Behind the people who were involved in it, there was a sense of political concern, of economic and political marginalization, and clear political goals. I think January 6th was clearly terrorism. I think this is an absolutely crucial thing for us to discuss as well, Brian, because as we come up to a feverish election period in the United States, one of the things that's absolutely crucial is that the stark divisions of politics that there are in the United States of America are ones which are expressed peacefully rather than violently.

That we therefore are aware of the danger of domestic terrorism being something which is a real threat. Was January 6th terrorism? I think that it was. Is there a threat of increased violence in the United States over coming decades from similar sources? I think that there is, and it's absolutely vital, not just for America, but I think globally, that the USA preserves its peaceful way of doing democratic business and in that sense, I think January 6th was a warning to everyone.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, the FBI in the last few years has been saying, and this even was before January 6th during the Trump administration, when the FBI declared that right-wing domestic violence is the biggest terrorist threat in the United States today. There are also others. There was the plot that was reportedly foiled, that was going to target Jews in New York City around October 7th. There was the assassination attempt on Trump, though we don't really know if that was politically motivated. That guy was reportedly staking out Biden rally sites as well.

It is from multiple places in the United States. Primarily, according to the FBI, in recent years, the threat is from the right. Just comment on something I read on a website called Digital History that says over the 100 years-- as we finish our 100-year frame here, over the 100 years, terrorism has changed, at least in that it has moved more from a group activity to an individual activity. I'm curious if you agree with that at all.

Richard English: In some ways, terrorism is constantly evolving in each terrorist group. Each terrorist period is unique. On the other hand, I think there are lots of continuities, too. You started out the discussion with the talk about the Wall street bombing, which appears likely to have been carried out by anarchists, though we're not certain. Late 10th, early 20th--

Brian Lehrer: 1920.

Richard English: 1920, yes. Late 19th, early 20th-century anarchism, including the 1920 Wall Street bombing, that anarchist violence of that late 19th, early 20th century often involved very small groups and sometimes individual dynamite bombers. While it's true that what are sometimes called lone wolf or lone actor terrorists have become very prominent, and our capacity to know about them immediately has become much more global because of technological awareness and the fact that things can be live-streamed or whatever. I think there was always the tendency for there to be some small group or lone-act terrorists beforehand.

What I think is important to recognize is that part of the reason that it makes counterterrorism so difficult is that, as you mentioned, there are so many diverse sources, so many diverse causes. If you're dealing with small group or lone actors rather than organizations, then predicting or monitoring what they're doing is much more difficult. I think, generally speaking, terrorism has a lot of continuities to it, and certainly the responses to terrorism that are effective have continuities to it. Not to overreact, to make sure you stay within the law, not to exaggerate what you can do militarily, and to make sure that you try and make sure that normal life can continue in societies like the US as much as possible.

Yes, there are changes over time. They will continue to happen technologically and politically and so forth. There are also continuities, and we shouldn't forget the things that we can learn from the 100-year framework that you've been setting out today.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, that's the 9/11 edition of our centennial series, 100 years of 100 things, 100 years of terrorism and counterterrorism. We thank our guest, Richard English from Queen's University in Belfast, author of Does Terrorism Work? and the recently released Does Counterterrorism Work? Thank you so much.

Richard English: Thank you, indeed. Brian.

 

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