What is terrorism to you?

Question

Who are defined as terrorists, and who are the ones who get to make the definition?

Answer honestly. This is not a TROLLING question. I want to know *your* feelings, not the MEDIA'S.

Thanks :]

name some terrorists also, if you can think of more than one...

Ha ha Tom :-\

Blanzer, obviously you can't read. I said 'your' opinion. Well, I guess maybe you don't have one, huh? That's why you rely on anti-arab bigoted biased Jewish media crap like that link you posted.

BTW Tom, the first people to come to the Americas came here illegally. It wasn't empty ya know.

What about Cho, the V. Tech shooter?

Unibomber?

I personally think the absolute worst terrorists are child molestors. Now thats the real definition of terror to me, for parent and child. Those scum bags need stiffer sentences. How many child molesters ya think have committed the crime since 9/11? Why isn't that in the media??

Guru, isn't that what we call 'war'?
war used to be faught on a battle field, now, it fits your description of terrorism.

Answer 1

Well one person's "terrorist" is another person's "freedom fighter." I usually use a loose definition of terrorist: one who seeks to do damage to a particular group, either by attacking people who belong to that group or by attacking their infrastructure or both. These particular people use destructive means to obtain their objective. These people and/or their organizations use secrecy, deception, and the "cover of darkness" to do their attacking (clandestine operations). Look at the Ku Klux Klan for example: it has repeatedly used violence against blacks, jews, catholics, and others it deemed "enemies," it moved in secrecy, it's members hid their faces and bodies in identifiable clothing (white robes & hoods) which, while hiding the identities of the attackers, let the victim know the group behind the violence. It also used the "cover of darkness" to do it's work, literally using nighttime as it's time of operation. Now for many people in the world a "terrorist" is any person, group who uses its military/economic might to opress others, so many Palestinians see the Isrealis and their American/European allies as "terrorists." In American history, the various native inhabitants of this land were so-called "terrorists" because they often used stealth in their attacks, and because they were "savages" who did not abide by European manerisms & customs. The Native Americans looked upon the whites as "terrorists" for invading their land, attacking their villages, and forcing survivors into encampments (reservations- "concentration camps" perhaps?).

Answer 2

Hm...this is a very thoughful question. I guess everyone has a different outlook on what terrorism is. I think my definition of terrorism is still undefined. I guess a terrorist for me would be defined as a person who wants to do bad things purposely that effect not only the people around them but the people who find out about the terrorist attacks as well. The ones who WANT to be feared by others.

Answer 3

International agencies and standards are conflicted about the definition that you seek. The challenge is that even one's own actions and one's own government can be viewed as acting like terrorists if the definition isn't carefully constructed. A parent can terrorize a child, for example. Or a government can terrorize a population.

The use of terror as a form to manipulate people to act in a particular way at the threat of violence including death.

Answer 4

The IRA comes to mind

They could not defeat the British Army - so they set about to destabalise society and make it hard to govern while killing people who supported the Loyalists

Both sides were dirty - War and terrorisim do not start because one side is snow white -

The Loyalists wanted and demanded the protection of their Crown - The land had been taken over in 1653 when Catholic forces were crushed by King William of Orange

Land food and religion were in focus here

The IRA wanted the Catholic majority in Northern Ireland to live free from the persecution of the Protestant minority that ruled the land - The Orangemen or Protesants with help from the Brritish goverment oppressed and ruled

The IRA bombed school busses blew up bridges and cars send letter bombs through the post etc The military patroled the streets as a consequence

It was a mess - Orginised armies against people Bloody Sunday a group of unarmed men were cornered in an ally way and the troops opened fire kiling them

Does any of this sound familar ?

Take out Ireland and put in Israel - Take out British Army and put in US army - take out Catholic and put in Palistinian

A religious war of people against troops - ruled over by a regional minority with better guns and orginzational infrastructure

It too is a mess and niether side is snow white in this


What gets me is that the majority of people in Canada and America have historically had British (English Irish Scottish and Welsh) roots

No one ever suggested we straighten out this mess - Because we all knew it was nuts - We all heard it from our parents and grandparents the endless cycly of war hate and violence

We knew better than to go in there


But Israel Palestine and so on -

They are not "our people" - so somehow it is different -

What people need to realise is NO it is not different


We all hoped the wars in Ireland would stop that the military would stop being so oppressive and antagonize the Catholics - We all hoped for the IRA to lay down it's weapons and to stop the terror the bombs and the death

But we stayed out of it knowing full well that our presence in that could only make it worse - and we did not want to make it worse

The exact same thing goes on in the middle east and we are all over it

Maybe we don't want it to stop over there or we don't care or we think it is so radically different than our own recent history that we can interfere

Our presence is making this worse - There is no doubt

We need to respect the peoples of the middle east and let them sort it our themselves - they have to live there we don't

We respected Britian Irland and so on -

We should respect the same conflict in another portion of the world

Terror is the attempt to make it hard to govern and to kill and promote violence as a means to political ends often as a result of exploitation and persecution.


Ireland had many sides to it so does this one - We can not paint one side as god and the other as a devil and epect less than what is happening -

Answer 5

To me , terrorism is indescriminate violence caused by a group of cowards with the intent of causing maximum casualties so as to create a panic situation in the population at large ...

For these people , the end always justifies the means no matter who gets killed or maimed in the process !

Answer 6

To me terrorism is an over-blown version of being the second biggest bully in the school yard. You don't have the balls to really go after what or who it is you're really scared of so instead you lash out at all of the bystanders or people indirectly involved to get them to change what you are unwilling to face. The real question is what are both parties afraid of?

Answer 7

Those who create or use fear in order to achieve a private or personal aim. In this sense both Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush can both be called terrorists.

Answer 8

Terrorists are people and groups (including governments) who have the clear aim to change others behaviour, not by violence itself directly, but by inducing the fear [= terror] of possible violence - often through random acts of violence whose main aim is fear, not death.

Answer 9

terrorism to me was nothing more than my mother with a switch in her hand.

Answer 10

unconventional warfare.