The History of Terrorism

[tw]

The simplest terrorist is an idiot easily perverted into extremist ideas. The kid who writes terroristic sounding letters. It changes when principles that create terrorism are justified. One need only look at some terrorists - Gandhi, Mandela, Viet Cong, most all early leaders of what would eventually be called Israel, etc - to appreciate these are also terrorists and yet they have so little in common with the kid. In that kind of terrorism, the driving principles were indeed justified AND ignorant power brokers never understood they had created (justified) the problem.

xoxoxoBruce noted in Iraq; Bad as it has been a symptom of terrorism that is based in justified principles:

Sageman compiled a database of the motives and backgrounds of 500 jihadists and found that the average terrorist is middle-class, sane, well-informed, and educated. The typical occupation: engineer.

When terrorism really becomes 'dangerous', then intelligent people are driven into the ranks of extremists. xoxoxoBruce has demonstrated what changes to make terrorism either dangerous - or implies that terrorism is also justified by injustice.

We remember those successful terrorist organizations - because their justified cause could attract centrists - smart people. Israel is doing an excellent job recruiting centrists into terrorist ranks. Hezbollah was created because of an Israeli extremist Likud - and Ariel Sharon in particular.

Terrorism- ... with the purpose of instilling fear in a population and overthrowing an existing power structure.

is probably a valid definition once we eliminate the 'example' of terrorists:

use of asymetrical military tactics against civilians and military alike

Asymmetrical means conventional power brokers don't know how to categorize something that they also refuse to knowledge and that got serious because of naive power brokers.

The word terrorism has this implication that all terrorists are dangerous or evil. Neither is true. Terrorism that is dangerous occurs when principles that justify terrorism are justified. So justified as to attract the intelligent from centrist ranks.

You may not like what bin Laden did. But if you don't understand why from their perspective, then you cannot 'solve' or 'grasp' the problem. To understand terrorism means you must acknowledge a world chock full of perspective - not view in terms of 'good verses evil'. Terrorism that is dangerous is due to ignorance of why terrorism was justified.

Those who only view in terms of 'black and white' will never understand why some terrorist organizations attract so many intelligent people - ie Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, why is Israel's outright attack on Beirut's airport and innocent cities such as Tyre and Sidon also not called terrorism? It is driven by extremist rhetoric that just happens to exist in a recognized government. Why then is that not terrorism when Israel's purpose was to "install fear in a population and overthrow the existing power structure"?

11 September was not some isolated event directly traceable to hate. America made itself a target when it promised to leave the Middle East and did not. You may not think that was justified or a serious problem. But your perspective is not relevant. To those who regarded that lie as serious as the Crusades: intelligent people were then easily recruited to extremism politics. That 'justification' is what makes a dumb terrorist group become so dangerous. That outright 'denial' of why some terrorist organizations are so smart is directly traceable to myopic political perspectives that even assume everything in terms of 'black and white' / 'good verses evil'.

What makes defining terrorism difficult are those who first want to view the world in 'good verses evil' rather than first learn about a world where all perspectives are both good and evil. With so much bias, then terrorism only exists in the 'eye of the beholder'? Well then, beholder, why are some terrorist groups lead by people who then became world famous and respected leaders in Israel, India, and S Africa?

Too often people want to define terrorists in emotional terms such as hate rather than first learn the other's perspectives. A definition that does not emcompass all perspectives cannot be an honest definition. And yet that is what too many want to do. They want to define terrorists only in terms of their emotional biases. IOW as Maggiel said

"war on terror" is actually a codeword ... to deflect spurious accusations of "racists" and "crusaders".