Hear me out...

[JdePietro]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

2009 has been one heck of a rollercoaster ride, part of me is glad to see it go and the other part of me sighs for the unknown horrors that are yet to come. For the last 5 years or so I have made it a practice of taking a pop-culture word or phrase and removing it from my vocabulary. Words that serve no purpose but to cause anger when used in a conversation or they just don't make sense and further rape what is left of an already forgotten language.

This year I am strongly considering the word "Terrorist."

For starters, if you look this word up on the Merriam Webster site it will not come up. Narco-Terrorist is as close to the word as you can get. Secondly using two other websites for reference has given me two different definitions.


http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=82105&dict=CALD&topic=taking-action-against-people-in-power
Terrorist:
someone who uses violent action, or threats of violent action, for political purposes.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Terrorist

–noun 1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.
3. (formerly) a member of a political group in Russia aiming at the demoralization of the government by terror.
4. an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France.

–adjective 5. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of terrorism or terrorists: terrorist tactics.

Now it may sound like I’m splitting wood here but this is not my main reasoning behind this, but rather something to ponder perhaps with the tinfoil strapped soundly in place, why is the word so hard to define?

The crux of my issue is Having grown up in the 90’s I have never learned to trust the news. I was never exposed to a non biased media element and so I disregard most everything they say. This word however is thrown around in the media more than any other word I can think of. They most often apply it to any organization from the middle east.

Our current pop-culture definition of the word is anyone of middle eastern decent. I object at this on many levels of my being, but ask any “Red blooded American” what a terrorist is and I can almost guarantee that is the answer you will get. 

Just for arguments sake lets use one of the definitions provided above.

“Someone who uses violent action, or threats of violent action, for political purposes.”

Well now hold on a second, isn’t that exactly what our founding fathers did? Didn’t France have a revolution shortly after our own using those same actions for those same reasons? I guess to further contemplate this you need to define “violent action”.

Violent:
1 : marked by extreme force or sudden intense activity <a violent attack>
2 a : notably furious or vehement <a violent denunciation> b : extreme, intense <violent pain> <violent colors>
3 : caused by force : not natural <a violent death>
4 a : emotionally agitated to the point of loss of self-control <became violent after an insult> b : prone to commit acts of violence <violent prison inmates>
— vi·o·lent·ly adverb

Action:
the accomplishment of a thing usually over a period of time, in stages, or with the possibility of repetition.

I found it easier to find the definition of words separately, but there you have it.
None of these two specifically mean physical force. Force can be defined however you wish and violent is defined by the viewer.

Now you can argue that our founding fathers fought for their rights to life liberty and the pursuit of  happiness, land also comes to mind, but what does a terrorist fight for? Historically man only fights for resources, land, or freedom. If you buy the media assumption that “Islam extremist” hate us for our freedom, well then I got a bridge I can sell you also. Having never been to the middle east and not knowing anything but what I am told leaves me with nothing to know. I refuse to believe in something so intangible as media knowledge. I draw my own conclusions for the reasons we are in a conflict with the middle east but that is an argument for another thread.   

I go back to my statement about not trusting the media because as I have now explained the media is in control of the definition of the word. My thoughts concerning next year is how exactly will the word be used. Is it that much of a step to think that soon gun right groups won’t be targeted by the word or for that matter any group that holds opposing opinions from the current administration. One thing I am sure of is the government is really good at making up laws to protect itself and if it can garner support for suppressing its people by using a word that the media is allowed to define I think it will be easier for the masses to swallow.

In short I don’t like the word, it describes to much, its meaning is too loose and I don’t like that we are becoming numb to it via constant exposure. I feel that it would be far to easy to twist and garner support for action against opposing views to the current administration. I do not know if this word will ever be applied to me but I don’t think it is that far out to think that some of the definitions apply to me. Examine the word in your own thoughts and tell me what you think. 

[tombogan03884]

In 1963 there was a "summit" meeting in Havana of current radical groups, where one of the speakers (his name was Carlos Marghsomething, he wrote a manual on terrorism ) said "The purpose of terror is to terrorize". In other words, the objective of an act of terrorism is to influence the thinking of the target government through fear of potential consequences, as Stalin said, "If you kill one man, you can terrify a thousand".
 One mans "Terrorist" is another mans "Freedom fighter".  Between the rise of the Palestinians in the 50's and 60's and the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90's "terrorist" groups sprang up all over the world, The IRA, and UVF in Ireland, Action Direct in France, ETA in the Basque region of Spain, Baader Mienhoff in Germany, Red Army Faction in Italy, Sendoro Luminoso in Peru, Japanese Red Army, SWAPO and the ANC in South Africa, and of course the various Palestinian factions, and our own Weather underground and SDS.
I  guarantee that I have missed some in this list but I covered enough of the bigger groups to make my point that terrorists groups spring up any where around the world, in fact, the Iconic "Star" of the 70's and early 80's was "Carlo's" (AKA the Jackal ) currently serving a life sentence in a French prison he was a Venezuelan name Ilyich Ramariz Sanchez .
The things that ALL these seeming disconnected groups had in common were :
1) Marxist ideology
2) use of violence against NON military targets to achieve political goals
3) Support of one type or another from the Soviet Union
4) All shared the objective of destabilizing the existing social order through the use of Violence to lay the ground work for a     Socialist Utopian state
The use of violence is also a propaganda weapon in these cases, with each attack the Government takes stricter security measures, these tend to pi$$ off the Innocent population, the more strict or violent the repression the more PO'd the population becomes and the more sympathetic to the revolutionaries, and of course as the authorities lose popularity they become more repressive and are more likely to commit acts that will further out rage the neutral population and generate even more support. This was the objective of the terrorist acts carried out by the Founding Fathers such as the Boston Tea Party.
The reason I  pointed out Carlos earlier was because he was special, starting as a spear carrier for the Palestinians in France he came to a leadership position because Mossad killed the people above him in his organization as part of their retaliation for the Munich Olympics atrocity of 72, after making a name for himself with high profile operations such as the kidnapping of the OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, he began a fundamental change in the way Marxist terrorists operated, that shows in actions like the Lod air port attack,and The Entebbe Highjacking, He "internationalized terror. The grenade attack at Lod air port in Israel was not carried out by Palestinians, but by members of the Japanese Red Army, the Entebbe hi Jacking team was composed of a mix of Palestinians and Germans of the Baader Mienhof gang. Additionally he did not stick with one sponsoring state but contracted his services to the PLO, Syria and Libya among others, and while he claimed to have converted to Islam, he was a lousy Moslem since it's a known fact that during his last days in Sudan he went out clubbing and drinking every night.
The next big name in international terror was another free lancer, Abu Nidal, operated through out the middle East during the years of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and was probably known to the then young Usama Bin Laden, who took the next logical step and created the multi national terror mega corporation. The only Major change other than organizational ability and size was that Bin Laden's terror was not aimed at achieving a "Political" goal, so much as a "Spiritual" one.
He also arranged his organization so that it was no longer dependent of a national government to pay the bills or supply the training, these things were done "in House" as in any well run business, Training camps in Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan operated by his Afghan veterans were funded by Afghan opium, African gem stones (Tanzanite is a gem found only in one tiny area of Tanzania, in 1998 Al Queda controlled about 90% of production, which lead to a moratorium on sales that lasted a couple years while the AQ connection was purged ) and dummy Charities where Saudi Royalty and other wealthy Arabs could donate to help the poor with funds that made their way to the coffers of AQ.
A guerrilla fighter is some one who as part of a rebellion, or resistance group uses fairly standard small unit tactics of raids and ambushes, even assassination, against military targets of a larger, better equipped and trained regular army in order to achieve military objectives.
The terrorist on the other hand targets civilians in order to generate fear in the minds of the foes leaders. Whether you and I are afraid  is irrelevant, even body count does not matter to the terrorist, although he may use mass as part of the effect as on 9-11, what matters is creating the image of helplessness, as when the Towers fell, George Bush wasn't going to Superman up the side of the building and hold them in place. But the Draw back to terror is that some times an act like that does not instill fear into the target leaders, instead in causes a deep rage, usually expressed in some type of massive violent retaliation, like invading Afghanistan and Iraq.  

[deepwater]

A guerrilla fighter is some one who as part of a rebellion, or resistance group uses fairly standard small unit tactics of raids and ambushes, even assassination, against military targets of a larger, better equipped and trained regular army in order to achieve military objectives.
The terrorist on the other hand targets civilians in order to generate fear in the minds of the foes leaders.

this is what I always thought of when I heard the word.  a political or religious minority terrorizing the majority into submission. if the rest of you guys won't join us because you agree with us, then we'll make you join.

Fujimori gained alot of support here in Peru when he started to use harsh tactics against the Sendero Luminoso pinko commie bastards and put an end to the bombings and killing. my wife's uncle was a cop at that time and they blew his car up. he survived. 

[JdePietro]

Thank you Tom. That is a lot to take in and I really appriciate the time you took to write it. I will be reading and re-reading it over the next couple of days to come to a decision. Thank you.

[tombogan03884]

 There was a book published back in the eighties by Claire Stirling called "The Terror Network" that covers a lot of the Marxist groups.

[Sponsor]

[JdePietro]

A question comes to mind. In your list of "common views" you have 2) use of violence against NON military targets to achieve political goals.

That to me would seem to define the word very easily and less broadly. Why is this not found under common definitions?

Secondly, do you agree that the word is missused? The light your provided on the issue seems to suggest that the ideals behind organized terrorism is of the marxist variety, commonly people confuse fringe religion with that of a whole and associate anyone of that profile with the word. I would have to point out that those engaged in the middle east are fighting our military with gurrilla tactics from wars past. Again I feel it is both correct and incorrect.

?

[tombogan03884]

A question comes to mind. In your list of "common views" you have 2) use of violence against NON military targets to achieve political goals.

That to me would seem to define the word very easily and less broadly. Why is this not found under common definitions?

Secondly, do you agree that the word is missused? The light your provided on the issue seems to suggest that the ideals behind organized terrorism is of the marxist variety, commonly people confuse fringe religion with that of a whole and associate anyone of that profile with the word. I would have to point out that those engaged in the middle east are fighting our military with gurrilla tactics from wars past. Again I feel it is both correct and incorrect.

?

Quote ; A question comes to mind. In your list of "common views" you have 2) use of violence against NON military targets to achieve political goals.
That to me would seem to define the word very easily and less broadly. Why is this not found under common definitions?

I don't know but I think part of it comes from the mind set that because things like the shooting at Ft Hood, or the bombing of the Khobar Towers were aimed at military personnel they are considered military targets, it does not take into account that they were unarmed at the time and just as helpless as civilians, it might have been more accurate if I had said "they attack defenseless targets"

Is the term misapplied ? No, I don't think so. While it is true that they have specific agenda's of either political or religious change the fact that the attacks themselves  achieve no short term military purpose, (such as attacking police stations for arms, or destroying a TV station to prevent the foe from broadcasting THEIR side of the story) is the thing that separates a guerrilla fighter from a terrorist. I'll use 2 murders for an example, Back around 1990 a direct descendant of Christopher Columbus was appointed to head the Spanish anti Terrorist unit, As it happened he was good at his job, so the Basque Separatists , the ETA blew him up, (They so much explosives that it blew his car OVER the apartment building, it landed on a balcony on the other side )  This of course instilled fear in the mind of his replacement and the officers serving under him who did NOT have personal security details, but it also served the immediate military objective of removing a particularly effective opponent. Compare this to the video taped beheading of Daniel Pearl in Iraq, while it no doubt stirred fear of capture in the minds of troops, it served no other short term objective, and in fact was probably counter productive since no Westerner could watch it with out being revolted by people who would condone such conduct.

[JdePietro]

What do you feel is the reason they fight us, and does a reason play into what defines you as a terrorist.

Also does it not advance their goal by using a word derivitive of the very think they wish to instill? Wouldn't it take a little wind out of their sails if we gave them a name more bothersom than scary?

[tombogan03884]

This is a great thread  

What do you feel is the reason they fight us, and does a reason play into what defines you as a terrorist.

 Ignorant peasants being manipulated by a combination of religious fanatics who resent Western advances since the 15th century and want retain their power over every aspect of life, and a wealthy class of rulers who realize the only way to maintain their current position is to distract the masses with an outside threat . The same principle as the Magician waving his right hand while doing the trick with his left.

Also does it not advance their goal by using a word derivitive of the very think they wish to instill? Wouldn't it take a little wind out of their sails if we gave them a name more bothersom than scary?

I don't know if it would take the wind out of their sails to start calling them "deluded psycho's", or "Jihadists" instead of terrorists. What it WOULD do is clarify who we are speaking of, for example, even though terror as a political weapon was developed by Muslims of the Assassin's cult
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin
They do not have a monopoly on it's use, every extortionist and shake down artist uses some for of terror tactics to get his victims to pay up.
Not only does use of more accurate terms define the motive ( Jihadist = Muslim radical, Gangster= extortionist, Marxist Revolutionary etc. )
but it also separates the anti Western fanatic menace from those fighting for freedom from oppressive regimes, examples would be the Sandanista's in Nicaragua referring to Contra's as terrorists, or the Russians labeling the Mujaheddin as terrorists during their occupation of Afghanistan. Both of these groups as well as the Viet Cong were in fact Guerrilla movements seeking to achieve military goals through the use of standard unconventional warfare tactics, for  instance the VC did not kill a village head man just to get on the news, it was done to achieve the military objective of keeping the food and information flowing from the locals, but they were all labeled as "terrorists" by their opponents in an effort to cast them in a worse light.
You have hit on an interesting point here, wars are won or lost in the minds of the leaders, not necessarily the fighting abilities of the troops, our own experience in Vietnam is a perfect example, we were nearly unbeatable on the battle field but we lost the war in the streets of Washington and the Peace conference in Paris, The major battles of the war were not in Khe Sahn, or LZ XRay, they occurred in the minds of the American leadership.
This is the basic premise of Psychological warfare, and Semantics, or word usage plays a major role in that, would you rather be found with a "Courtesan" or a "high class whore", different names for the same thing, look at the change from "Suicide bomber" (A martyr, sacrificing himself for the cause) to "Homicide bomber" (some nut case that blew up a bunch of innocents).
No matter what we call them they will not change their philosophy so I think "Terrorist" while over used and not always applied accurately is understandable to the average person.

[JdePietro]

Thank you for putting up with my numerous spelling and mystyping errors.

so I think "Terrorist" while over used and not always applied accurately is understandable to the average person.

That right there is what sparked my thought on this, I refuse to allow myself to fall victim to a greater media ignorance, further more as I feel it is my responsbility to educate my fellow man in areas I can, I feel it is imperative to ignore all encompassing terms that are "easy to understand" instead of calling a spade a spade.

We as a country have a long history of seeing our enimies in a false light, we make them into monsters or subhumanoid beings without wit, without heart and it makes it easier for us hate them, to kill and burn them. This of course is a lie fed to us as long as need be and then it is noted that they were not evil and indeed bleed red and need our help.

War and hatred are the worst things man kind has brought to the table. We are capable of so much beauty and passion but those things will forever be overshadowed by our evil. I have a strong belief that evil can be conquered by knowledge and I owe that to my generation.