The nature of popular terrorism
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- Terrorism: Theirs and ours
- A Presentation at the University of Colorado, Boulder by
Eqbal Ahmad, 12 October 1998. The terrorist of yesterday is
the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the
terrorist of today. Official documents explain terrorism,
express it emotively, polemically, to arouse our emotions
rather than exercise our intelligence by defining it.
- International Terrorism
- By Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus,
December 1998. The disproportionate focus on terrorism
relative to its real threat and to other foreign policy
concerns suggests that the issue has become heavily
politicized. U.S. policy has emphasized unilateral military
rather than political solutions to the terrorism problem,
which has isolated the U.S. in the international
community.
- ‘Terrorism’: The word itself is
dangerous
- By John V. Whitbeck, Daily Star (Lebanon), 12
July 2001. With the world's sole superpower declaring an
open-ended, worldwide “war on terrorism”, the
notorious subjectivity of this word is no longer a joke. The
word is dangerous because people apply it to whatever they
hate as a way of avoiding rational thought and discussion
and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral
behavior.
- Extremism, terrorism and
fundamentalism
- By Anwar Syed, DAWN, 13 October 2001. Not all
terrorists are fundamentalists, but given the need and the
opportunity, fundamentalists and extremists are likely to
resort to terrorism if they think it will advance their
goals. The definition of terrorism and the issue of
motive. The Islamic fundamentalist dismisses the liberal
position as heresy or as something approaching apostasy.
- Who terrorizes whom?
- By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, smygo list, 18
October 2001. From the 1950s the United States has been
heavily engaged in terrorism, and has sponsored,
underwritten, and protected other terrorist states and
individual terrorists. As the greatest and now sole
superpower, the US has also been the world's greatest
terrorist and sponsor of terror.
- The Politics of Terrorism, or Civilians
vs. Civilians
- By William Pfaf, The International Herald
Tribune, 10 January 2002. The war against terrorism
needs to be freed of the hypocrisy, cynicism and partisan
exploitation that surround it. It began as a war against
evil but turned into a war against the Taliban government in
Afghanistan. You can go to war with a government, but the
Pentagon cannot attack evil.
- No Military Solution to Terrorism
- By Richard Norton-Taylor, International Herald
Tribune, Thursday 10 January 2002. Bombing will not
bring anyone to account, or to justice. Political
self-expression that goes through the mosque and madrassa
will mean resentment, even hatred of western societies. The
globalization juggernaut of cultural intrusion into these
traditional societies will certainly fuel this hatred and
make religious terrorism even more likely.
- Dissecting the Meaning of Terrorism
- By Andreas Toupadakis, Media Monitors, 28
March 2002. It would be prudent to finally come face to face
with the full spectrum of terrorism, which is simply the
spread of terror, instead of talking about this or that
individual terrorist or nation.
- Musharraf wants root cause of terrorism
eliminated
- DAWN, 3 June 2002. President
Gen Pervez Musharraf called upon the world community to
eliminate the root causes of international terrorism
without which the dream of eradicating terrorism would not
be fulfilled. Outstanding political issues such as
Kashmir, Palestine, immense poverty of less-developed
countries, illiteracy and gap between rich and poor
countries.
- Condemned to Violence: As long as we ignore
downtrodden people, terrorism will not go away
- By Ramzy Baroud, The Washington Post, 2
December 2002. “'Terrorism” is seen only in one
context: the effect, but never the cause. We cannot be so
blinded by our anger to the point that we fail to see how
violence begets violence. If we are keenly interested in
bringing terrorism to a halt, we must have the courage to
examine its roots.
- [On War with Iraq]
- By Pat Buchanan, 12 February 2003. Why do these Islamic
radicals so hate us? Historically, terror was a weapon of
the weak and stateless against Western powers they could not
defeat with arms. In each case, terror was used to expel an
imperial power or drive out foreign troops. In each case but
one, terror ended when the Western power went home.
- Grievance-Driven vs. Ideology-Driven—A
fundamental difference in terrorist groups, or a false
dichotomy?
- By Francisco Gil-White, The Emperor's clothes, 6
August 2003. A pro-Israeli-aggression perspective:
Arafat's organizastion is a product of German Nazi
movement; regardless of what the specific causes of
terrorism in one place or another may be, it must carry with
it an ideology: namely, that attacking innocent civilians is
fair game.
- The west and Islam in Indonesia
- Opinion by Juwono Sudarsono, Indonesian Ambassador to UK,
Jakarta Post, 4–5 November 2003. What
were the reasons for so much hatred against the West among
al-Qaeda and its followers? Sept. 11, 2001 was in a sense an
inevitable consequence of the combination of America's
pervasively dominant role as the world's
“24/7” superpower and the unique combustible
atmosphere of modern Middle East political economy.
- ’America's aggression is fuelling
extremism’, says Iran's ex-president
- By Robert Fisk, The Independent, 4 September
2006. The policies of the neo-conservatives have created a
war that creates more extremists and radicals.
- Nobel Laureates: Poverty Breeds
Terrorism
- Prensa Latina (Havana), 25 September
2006. Ten Nobel Peace Prizewinners warn that poverty breeds
terrorism and demand that the billions spent on weapons of
mass destruction be used instead to feed the hungry people
of the world.