... they are not: What Makes a Terrorist. (Hat tip, Vikram Johri, who pithily observes that "the higher the level of education, the greater is the tendency to fit oneself into assumed identities.")
Presumably terrorists cause sterror to arise, and so, of course, people who start wars are terrorists. What should we do to our White House terrorists. Or is there a saturation point which once you go beyond in your capacity to cause terror, you are now no longer a terrorist but some kind of legitimate idealist? Who crreates most of the instruments of terror in this world, btw? Would it by any chance be the major powers of teh world with pride of place to America? Lets hear it for those children annihilating landmines that our pillars of scoiety terrorists continue to produce and export.
A terrorist is someone who aims to instil terror in civilian populations. That was Bakunin's idea, anyway. The fear will cause them to act against an established order that is no longer capable of protecting them. To say that to wage a war against terrorists is itself terrorism - or that war is necessarily the same as terrorism - is to equivocate. So if I respond violently to someone who attacks me physically, I am no better than the attacker. Well, that's crap. And yes war is, has always been, and will be terrible and violent. It will also sometimes be necessary.
Presumably terrorists cause sterror to arise, and so, of course, people who start wars are terrorists. What should we do to our White House terrorists. Or is there a saturation point which once you go beyond in your capacity to cause terror, you are now no longer a terrorist but some kind of legitimate idealist? Who crreates most of the instruments of terror in this world, btw? Would it by any chance be the major powers of teh world with pride of place to America? Lets hear it for those children annihilating landmines that our pillars of scoiety terrorists continue to produce and export.
ReplyDeleteA terrorist is someone who aims to instil terror in civilian populations. That was Bakunin's idea, anyway. The fear will cause them to act against an established order that is no longer capable of protecting them. To say that to wage a war against terrorists is itself terrorism - or that war is necessarily the same as terrorism - is to equivocate. So if I respond violently to someone who attacks me physically, I am no better than the attacker. Well, that's crap. And yes war is, has always been, and will be terrible and violent. It will also sometimes be necessary.
ReplyDelete