Is a terrorist just someone who believes passionately for a cause? How many of us would sacrifice our lives?

Answer 1

I believe all acts of war fall under the category as acts of terrorism.
Innocents die no matter how you phrase it or how justified the cause may be.
When we say an act of war, it just is a cleaner version of terrorism, at least it makes us feel better and more justified about the killings.

Answer 2

The terrorists that America is currently dealing with are people who are brainwashed into blowing themselves up. Sure they believe in their cause but they have also been mentally programmed through cult-like methods and group psychology to be suicidal for what they are taught to believe is a social, political, and spiritual greater good.

Al Qaeda operatives are just about as stupid as rednecks, who just want to shoot and blow everything up, only rednecks come from a richer civilization and actually have guns and bombs and don't have to be brainwashed to do suicide attacks. In the end they're all behind someone's messed up political agenda, and they all believe that only bloodshed and violence can bring peace. They are the worst pair of warlike ideologies to be fighting eachother right now.

By the way if you're wondering why America is in Iraq in the first place, read up on the Project for a New American Century, it's pretty disturbing.

Answer 3

radical Islamic fundamentalists who use terrorism as a means to destroy others who do not believe as they do are evil to my way of thinking. There has to be a way for all of us to have our own beliefs and get along. As far as sacrificing goes they ain't sacrificing anything by the way they believe. They don't think like we do this life here means little to nothing to them their lives start when they die and the more Innocent people they murder along the way the higher their place in the after life will be. There are a lot of people in Iraq and other places from the U.S. and other free countries who are sacrificing the good lives they had back home to fight this evil to keep us safe. And many have died for you and me because of their strong belief in individual freedom. So no a terrorist is not just anything but a poor misgudied soul who has been brainwashed from almost birth to hate murder and be a coward for the devil. And that is the truth.....

Answer 4

It isn't a question of sacrificing one's own life, but of being willing to sacrifice the lives of innocent people.
If, for instance, the 9/11 hijackers had instead protested by setting themselves on fire (you may remember the Vietnamese monk Quang Duc, who did that very thing in 1963) their act would have been admirable, no matter what their cause.
The decision to crash airliners into buildings for the express purpose of killing civilians is something else entirely.

Answer 5

A fanatical believer of a cause is defined as a terrorist when (1) he/she targets people/bussinesses indiscriminantly and/or (2) by the majority of those targeted. Simply put, though I dont agree with what the alquada is doing, by the same token, I would imagine that america is seen as a country of terrorists by those who feel that we persecute them. We are neither saints or devils but simply humans that need to grow up. And as for sacrificing a life. Its one thing to kill yourself in the pursuit of what you feel is right and another thing entirely to kill others in that same pursuit. In the first, your a martyr and in the second, your a terrorist.

Answer 6

Sacrificing ones life is one thing. Murdering Innocent women and children is the act of a coward. I served two tours in Viet Nam. I knew many that sacrificed their lives. I think your question is immature and you have not an inkling about what you are talking. The suicide bombers are not hero's. Yesterday one left his own little children in an explosive laden car to blow up when he ran away. You need to grow up a lot before you ask questions like this.

Answer 7

I am a an ordinary Muslim, some may call me a moderate one.

But if someone try to persecute my family, try to to take my home away, my crop, my land, force my family out from our home, destroy my home, drag any of my family into their prison, and ruin my family's life, and I have limited power to challenge them, and when I feel I cant bear all the oppression, and sooner or later when I feel TO DIE is better than TO LIVE, I would surely strap my body with the most disastrous bomb and strike at my enemy's place.

The Japanese do kamikaze too, remember?

US have done that with WMD in Hiroshima in WW2 when they are losing to the Japanese in Southeast Asia. The victims were civilians or soldiers, if I may ask.

Answer 8

Sacrificing your life for a cause is one thing. The people who faced off with tanks in Tieneman square were ready to sacrifice for a cause. In Moscow when they faced off with tanks in red square, that was sacrificing for a cause.

Strapping bombs to people and blowing up bus loads of children, or buildings full of people, is terrorism. That's not sacrificing your life for a cause, that's taking innocent lives for a cause.

Answer 9

A terrorist is someone who simply believes that nothing is more important than change, real fast, where he is.

Answer 10

Terrorists fight for their beliefs. Thus, someone who really stand for his faith is considered a terrorist just like a Muslim.