Michael Collins: terrorist or freedom fighter and justification of tactics

Michael Collins- Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

The name Michael Collins has very different meanings for different groups of people. For millions of people, he is considered not only a terrorist, but one of the first real terrorists. For millions of others, he is considered a great freedom fighter. The author was called upon to choose a position and support an argument about whether Collins was a terrorist or a freedom fighter. However, the reality is that Collins was both a terrorist and a freedom fighter, and the two roles are not mutually exclusive. Many people who support his position as a freedom fighter reject the terrorist label. Therefore, this paper will focus explaining why the author believes that Collins was a terrorist. There are several facts that support Collins being considered a terrorist. First, Collins developed modern guerrilla warfare, one of the preferred tactics of modern-day terrorists. Initially, he targeted governmental institutions, but was not a recognized leader of state, so could not declare war. Finally, he had a number of civilian targets and casualties, despite having a policy of not intentionally targeting civilians.

The idea that Collins was a terrorist is not a new one. Both China's Mao Tse-tung and Israel's Yitzhak Shamir thought of him as the founder of modern guerrilla warfare (Majendie, 1990). Guerrilla warfare is a type of conflict that is frequently favored by terrorist groups, though not all people who engage in guerrilla warfare are terrorists. "Collins was the brains behind a brilliantly conceived guerrilla war of hit-and-run ambushes against Britain, colonial ruler of Ireland for 700 often repressive years" (Majendie, 1990). In fact, it is important to look at how the Irish Rebellion changed the face of modern terrorism to understand exactly how Collins was a terrorist. "The Irish War of 1919 brought three concepts to the development of terrorism: (1) selective terrorism, (2) sustained terror over time and (3) cell operations" (The Delaware Criminal Justice Council Terrorism Research Page, 2007). Perhaps the most significant of those operations is the concept of cell operation of terrorism. "Cell operation decentralizes the implementation of terrorist acts and prevents the discovery and destruction of the terrorist organization. Each cell has a specific goal or objective. Each cell only knows its members and its specific task. Thus the capture of one cell does not provide avenues to other terrorists" (The Delaware Criminal Justice Council Terrorism Research Page, 2007). This is a tactic used by modern-day terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.

Another factor that labels Collins a terrorist is that he was not simply a criminal breaking laws for personal gain; while he engaged and directed a significant amount of criminal activity, this behavior was not indiscriminate. Some people might like to compare Collins to some type of modern-day crime boss, but his actions were targeted for a specific goal. He intentionally targeted government agencies. "Terrorists have gotten a bad name, and rightly so, but if ever there was a good terrorist it was the fun-loving, hard-living "Mick." Unlike so many of those who have practiced terrorism in more recent years, Collins avoided indiscriminate attacks on civilians. He vetoed schemes such as the proposed truck-bombing of the House of Commons. Instead he directed most of his energies to targeting British agents and their Irish collaborators" (Boot, 2011). In fact, while Collins was not the head of any recognized state, he believed he was engaged in a war with the goal of gaining Irish independence from England. "Led by Michael Collins, terrorism was applied to representatives of England (police, soldiers, judges, government officials, etc.) in an effort to make the cost of continued occupation too high to maintain. Thus to terrorism was added the concept of selective terrorism, acts of terror against representatives of government to force their departure from an area" (The Delaware Criminal Justice Council Terrorism Research Page, 2007).

However, the reality is that the violence did spill over to civilians. "Like any other civil war -- including the American Revolution -- the Irish War of Independence had its share of atrocities. IRA operatives killed civilians accused of being informants and British officers sometimes tortured IRA prisoners to extract information" (Boot, 2011). The fact that Irish civilians were killed, whether or not they were informants, meant that there were intentional civilian casualties. Moreover, there was violent spillover. Perhaps most significant is the fact that the violence begun by Collins has not abated in the century since his death; there is still a significant amount of violence in Ireland, much of it by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the organization founded by Collins.