HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Nov. 5, 2004 We have been throwing the word 'Terrorism' around for a couple of years now, but I'm not sure we all mean the same thing. Looking around and searching the web I think I would define it as 'the attempt to achieve a political end by scaring people with violence'. So you can have State terrorism - as in the famous French Reign of Terror, or Stalin and Sadam controlling their people by random imprisonments and executions. Or you can have 'private' terrorism from the IRA or Al Qaeda or Timothy McVeigh. There is also guerrilla warfare which might use terrorism but usually does not. So during the Vietnam conflict, the Viet Cong attacking Americans was usually not terrorism - it was warfare on a small scale. Usually they did not control villages by terrorising them (although they were quite prepared to when it suited them). If they shot a village headman to discourage contacts with the Americans, that was terrorism. If Americans burnt down a village to discourage the villagers from feeding the guerrillas, that too was terrorism. For me it is a toss-up as to what is currently happening in Iraq. Clearly there is an undeclared war going on between Islamist guerrillas and the American-led forces. That's not terrorism; the guerrillas don't have any illusions that they might win by frightening the American soldiers. They are trying to drive the Americans out militarily. Most of them are Iraqis and they don't want foreign troops in their country so why shouldn't they fight? Wouldn't you want to do the same if your country was occupied without your consent? Why should we argue about a word? Well, if you are running a War on Terrorism it helps to know exactly what your enemy is. Let's face it, a small group of fundamentalist Arabs terrorised America very effectively on 9/11. For them it was a massive success. The planes stopped flying for days (unless you were an escaping Saudi businessman), the Americans tied themselves up with the Patriot Act, and extralegal detention and questioning was openly introduced. It would only take a ten clever guys setting off bombs in American cities to repeat the effect, and I'd guess it is only a matter of time before some of them try it. You might disagree. Perhaps the ten clever guys will be frightened off by the War against Terror in Iraq. Or perhaps they will just fail to see the connection and plant the bombs anyway. ------------ About the author: Eric lives in tropical Queensland and writes books - some naughty, some nice - that can be found through Renaissance eBooks (renebooks.com) He reads widely and when he is not thinking about lunch, worries about the state of the world. Email: ericge@westnet.com.au Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
