What is a Terrorist?
Victorious
Grim Veteran
Hello all.
Let me start by apologizing for a long absence, I just needed the time to proceed in my cultivation.
But now I have found a very interesting question that has been buzzing in my mind for a while.
What is a terrorist?
What makes a terrorist stand out from another combatant? And what makes it right to deprive a terrorist of their human rights?
Because that is how the label Terrorist is used. Their assets are frozen worldwide, they are deprived of their freedom without trial etc.
And this is done worldwide without no real consensus on how to define a terrorist? Or is there? Is Saudi Arabias definition of a Terrorist as legitimate as the USA definition?
Let me conclude saying that due to my current decisions in cultivation (to be even more present in daily life) I will be more infrequent in my visits but I will surely check in every other day at the least.
Thanks
Victor
Comments
I think a terrorist is someone/an organisation/a country that does not abide by the Law of Armed Conflict. And there are laws, many of them, about what we can and cannot do.
Purposely targeting civilians, for example, is against the Law of Armed Conflict, though in war, civilians do get killed. So too is the mindless destruction of special buildings or things of cultural value - like the Taliban did with regards the ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan.
I also think there's a grey area; one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist 'n' all that, but terrorism that attacks innocent civilians or does not adhere to the law with regards prisoners of war is abhorrent.
And from a pragmatic point of view, we were taught it was in our own best interests to follow the law of armed conflict. If for example the enemy knew we'd kill prisoners, they'd be a lot less likely to give themselves up; they'd fight to the last.
But does that make it ok to keep them locked up without a trial? Shouldn't they be tried i a court of law like all other criminals?
This definition or terrorism is from Tamar Meisels, and it sounds reasonable to me:
But:
Source is simply: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism#Scholars_and_recognized_experts_on_terrorism
The discussion about terrorism in general is fuzzy and maybe futile even.
The killing of civilians has unfortunately been a part of organised warfare since the stone age.
Nelson Mandela was once a terrorist, or if you prefer a "freedom fighter".
Yes, maybe, but the targeting of them has no place in the 21st Century.
Er... I don't think it's done 'worldwide'... we cannot deprive a terrorist - or anyone else - of their human rights. A recent case was won by a known and active terrorist here in the UK, to evade deportation, because it would have affected his family life....
Well worldwide might have been an overstatement. But there are effective anti terrorist legislation in the US and the Saudis. Thats for sure.
The main difference being that the Saudi seems to use it to control any anti government sentiment at all.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/20/saudi-arabia-new-terrorism-regulations-assault-rights
I would say no place in no time at all so I can understand that as being a criteria for the definition of a terrorist.
But I do not think that everybody agrees. I think antiterrorist legislation is becoming a way for governments around the world to enforce questionable laws.
Bad or good ? I do not know.
No answers here, but some random thoughts:
"Terrorism" has been elevated to its current worldwide status as political means of instilling fear and diverting attention from other, more complex, vexing and nourishing issues. Where there is a "terrorist" under every bed and an enemy around every corner
the ones charged with leading a nation can relax about the issues of hunger or equality or good schools or racism or other issues that prey on "the least among us." Since death and destruction are so frightening, it is much easier to create an enemy than to unravel and come to some accord on issues that might unite rather than divide. As with second-rate military commanders, it is easier to put people in fear than to lead. Rights and privileges can be placed on the back burner when the world is a constantly frightening place.
No one notices that "terrorists" sometimes do horrific things but are slowly molded to mean anyone who disagrees with me.
Little or no effort is expended in working out why the "terrorists" might have felt desperate enough to turn to "terrorism" in the first place. While trumpeting "the good of the many," the good of the many is slowly undermined under a banner of safety and protection of the many. No one can see the future, but those who claim they can and act with apparent righteousness gain a toehold. Listen to Israel speak of the Palestinians or vice-versa. Listen to Dick Cheney's facile dismissal of collateral damage in the neo-conservative wish to drive home the exceptionalism he espouses.
Being safe and at peace is socially important, but since no one can actually know the future, the use of fear is a cheap date ... though not cheap as far as federal policy is concerned. The question hangs in the air, "Who benefits?" Is it the many hoping to raise families and pursue their dreams in peace or is it those whose peace and posture and re-election rests on war?
Here in the United States, there are laws against murder and kidnap and extortion. When someone breaks those laws, they are liable (with luck) for their actions. But is someone who agitates and instills fear by carelessly empowering "terrorism" any less culpable of "terrorism" than those being accused of "terrorism?"
Does anyone feel safer and more at ease since "terrorism" began topping the billboard of political charts? Of course not. But it sure takes your mind off joblessness or education and hunger and climate change.
Perhaps "terrorism" is just a terror of not being able to know the future ... and exploiting that terror.
As I say ... random and probably not all that coherent, thoughts.
Someone with terror on their mind has just as much right to exist as I do but their rights end where mine or yours begin.
And mine end where yours begin.
I remember somebody on an american chat programme referring to a troublesome neighbour as a terrorist, and nobody argued.... I have to say, I did roll my eyes at that....
>
This is very much what I suspect too.
Still I cannot say that all accounts of legislation is wrong. I still think that the IS for instance should be stopped at any cost.
I have no problem bending human rights or civil laws to get that done.
What I am wondering is why I and many others feel this way. If it is legitimate and what it will lead to.
I agree it shouldn't, but it does. The Second World War took it to an industrial scale with 1000-bomber raids on German cities, atomic bombs on Japan, and so on.
In a war situation the gloves come off, despite what international law says.
Civil wars and local disputes are particularly nasty in that respect, Bosnia springs to mind.
War is Hell.
There are many very real and practical problems in this.
Like when swedish citizens leave to fight for IS and then return.
Some people feel, me included, that they should not be allowed to return at all and others feel they should be taken care of, given a job and integrated into society as fast as possible to avoid post combat trauma and terrorist action in sweden.
But how about the next unemployed guy who did not leave to wage war with a terrorist organisation?
The questions are manyfold.
It's a tricky question and probably a legal minefield ( no pun intended! ). Would it make a difference whether they had attacked the armed forces of their home country?
I hear 2500 IS combatants are from the Saudi and that some IS combatants involved in the skirmish some time ago were indeed saudis. (unconfirmed)
Maybe you should look up how many Swedes went to Finnland and volunteered to fight against the Russians during the so-called Winter War. A lot of Americans fought there. Alot of foriegn nationals enlisted on both sides of the Spanish Civil War. An American journalist, whose written account of the the October Revolution is widely read in the US, is buried in the Kremlin Wall. The famous Flying Tigers Were actually American mercernaries. The Lafayette Escadrille in WW1 .....
People enlist in foriegn causes all the time, and are often memorialized for their effort. ISIS happens to be unpopular becaause of their religion and race. They are no more brutal in their execution of war than the United states, and in some respects more retrained.
As an afterthought.....
As many as 500 Swedes Served in the Waffen-SS. I wonder how many got to go home?
I had the opportunity once to read a piece from the 1700's. In it, the British were referring to the American colonists as terrorists.
Terrorist is a word attributed to those who don't write the history books.
I think a "terrorist" is simply anyone who either does or would wield any sort of sabotaging weapon to inspire sheer terror into people, all for the sake of upsetting the status quo.
I say this with all due respect, because I believe it to be more important to try to understand and engage the would-be terrorist; this in order to make it less likely that the status quo is seen by him as some kind of inflexible monster. The world is a very hard, cold place, and seeming heartlessness or even downright oppression do nothing to allay despair and resentment. These latter two things are the very soil out of which terrorism springs. There must be artful engagement with these folks rather than the apartheid created by a We vs Them mentality. It is their tactics that are to be denounced and not the anger or ideology which is rightfully theirs.
No man is an Island,
Entire of Itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
``--- John Donne
Great answers guys.
I am not very political, so I feel these terrorists/freedom or enslavement fighters are arbitrary definitions.
I am thinking of becoming a peace terrorist, no such thing as yet but I did suggest to the Dalai Lama (by email) that a crack sangha team could be parachuted into war zones and practice shrine building, mantraing and general benign teachings . . .
Vive La Dharma Revolution
Terrorist/terrorism takes on a totally different meaning when you realize that your country is a terrorist country to a whole lot of other people in the world. We have our reasons for excusing it, and most of the time we think they are pretty good reasons. But it doesn't change the fact that often what we do is the epitome of terrorism. We just decide that the reasons other terrorists put forward aren't valid, and ours are. Violence begets violence. We terrorize, and so create those who want to terrorize others. Just like any other bully situation. Someone with no power who is bullied seeks to bully someone else. We perpetuate a lot of the terrorism and then try to pretend we are above it.
The report about what we did to obtain information in the days and years after 9/11 that came out not long ago is a great example. Plenty of Americans excuse the behavior because they find it useful to getting information. But if it is done to Americans, hell hath no fury like an American scorned!
To me, a terrorist is anyone who seeks to invoke a sense of terror in people. It's broad, but it has to be because otherwise we try to create definitions that leave our own countries out of it when really we're right in the middle of it.
Though in a way the major world powers could be accused of that, not just the nuclear arsenals but the ability to drop a missile more or less anywhere from a drone.
***not read ANY posts
A terrorist is an individual who wishes to use terror by means of violence, the threat of violence, or harm to inflict terror in a group for people of personal gain
/thread
Or is a terrorist someone who does something unexpected when have we come feel safe in our environment. We need to be a little sensitive to the spectrum we live in...
There is more than one type of terrorist and I am not condoning terrorism, but there are some, such as religious radicalists, extremeists, politicians and world leaders, manipulative media correspondent, bankers, paedophiles and rapists etc who wield equal powers as 'terrorists', as they also make your safe world view wobble. When you look at the French terrorist attack, you might be forgiven if you were objectively looking at the world, that the people killed on that day could not be statistically ruled out of the death figures of France for the week/month/year.
However, it is the effect of their seemingly random or irrational or unpredictable actions that we find difficult to deal with, and enables us to apply the label easily.
Why are we not equally outraged with what is going on in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, UK, USA, Europe etc.., +160 other countries... There is always something that is morally abhorent somewhere, sometime to someone. History hasn't taught us this really has it?
Sounds like George W Bush to me.
@SpinyNorman I include world powers in that as well. Not just radical individuals.
Ah, welcome back and that is an excellent question, an important one for a person to ask and TRY to answer. It's one of those questions that a 'quick answer' to is a sign you've (generic you've) missed a vital point.
I 'work' online and sometimes in person with persons of both sexes in or coming out of abusive relationships. Some were raised in homes with an abusive parent or relative, and head off into life 'conditioned' to tolerate bad behavior and end up in serial abusive relationships, raise their own kids in them, and thus perpetuate the sickness.
Anyway, I've used the term 'terrorism' to describe the psychological abuse meted out from one person to another. The 'interpersonal terrorism' is not unlike inter-ethnic or inter-country terrorism. This interpersonal 'terrorism' is my soapbox, placed firmly next to @federica's sexism soapbox (so honored to share your street corner my dear).
Terrorism isn't specific to any group or ethnicity or religious ideology or government pogrom. It is an 'as above, so below' kind of thing.
The intent and purpose of terrorism, interpersonal and inter-everything else, is to keep the opposite party continuously 'off balance', wary, and poised between fight and flight.
Nothing like that unease and lack of stable ground to stand on to keep a person MISERABLE, paranoid, prone to propaganda (including on the interpersonal level). A person's ability to perceive accurately is undermined, and so much of our human experience rests upon that basic level of 'how safe am I in this world?' (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
You don't need to shoot a bullet or set the charge on a bomb after that first time, if that 'first time' is a doozy. In a love relationship, in a relationship with a world region, terrorism hits below the belt and in effect forces individuals and groups at an INSTINCTIVE level.
"Terrorism" is uber-common, it is a very useful and effective tool used . . . everywhere. I don't see where it ISN'T used, no area of life is exempt. Whether it's done between an abusive wife to her husband and children or from a region to another region, it's the same dynamic with the same desired effect.
I think many of the responses here have confused the writer's own mindset on what should and shouldn't be done with a somewhat neutral definition of what terrorism is.
My own personal definition of terrorism is -- actions to "have one's way" outside of the present international way of conducting international relations.
As I have been reading this thread I can't help but think back to the film "A Few Good Men": "Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it."
And it reminds me that people in much of the world can't sit and chat about Buddhism on the internet, as we do every night, day in and day out. And it isn't just the most despicable regimes that control such things (e.g., North Korea). In relatively freedom-loving Thailand (a Theravadan Buddhist country for the most part), people (whether citizens or guests) are afraid to say something even slightly negative about any member of the royal family.
As Nicholson's character says in another piece of dialog in that film (which I couldn't find), most of us don't really want to know what is done so that we can live the lives we do.
What is a Terrorist?
A human being (be it an ignorant, selfish, greedy, angry one)
A terrorist is one who harm those that it targets who are unable to defend themslves:- a schoolyard bully, an abusive parent, spouse or caretaker, neighbourhood gangsters, schoolteachers, the Mexican drug cartels, Nazis, the Christians inquisitors, Buddhists who targets the Rohingyas, the Zionists who targets unarmed Palestinians etc. It so happens that the ones hogging the news are largely militant Islamists ie. Boko Haram, ISIS, al Qaeda.
The strategy of “terrorism” is about avoiding the direct confrontation with the opposing armed forces and targeting the civilian population directly.
It’s done for instance because the opposing armed forces are too strong for you or because they are too difficult to find.
Guerilla warfare is based on support of the community and is often accompanied by terrorist acts like burning down villages of people who (supposedly) support your enemy.
The bombing of entire cities in WW2 was partly directed at demoralizing the population and was in that sense a “terrorist” strategy.
So what I think is that terrorist strategies are quite common and are used universally depending on the situation. They have a purpose.
I sometimes wonder what the purpose of Islamist terrorists is. They can’t possibly think they’re going to convert us to their version of Islam like that. Maybe they feel that indiscriminate violence makes them look powerful and will get them admiration and support in the Muslim world?
I sense a political agenda in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it really is. With IS It seem to be about building a power base and gaining territory, expanding influence. The spin they sometimes put on terrorist attacks in the west is retaliation for attacks on them, though of course those attacks will probably just make the western powers even more determined to stamp them out.
Boko Haram I know less about, but they look like insurgents intent on ruling by fear.
Japan for instance has no business in Syria or Iraq. So why the internet-circus around executing a Japanese civilian?
It must be entirely for the sake of propaganda. The message is, look we are cruel and we will not stop.
My guess is, they are advertising themselves to young Muslims. They say come to us. We are the most radical, the cruelest, the most fundamentalist Muslims in the business; we are the real thing.
Blood is their advertising. It gets them free, prime time, attention on every TV station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&v=82BC2IzHg-o&x-yt-cl=84503534
This is one of he considerations I am trying to take into account. Why is it ok to fight one war and not another?
I think one considerable difference is that the Finns fought to protect their country while the Nazis fought to expand and annect other lands. I can find sympathy for the first but not the last.
Also I think @Tosh has a good point in this. Terrorists fight by instilling fear in others. They target civilians with deadly force.
Intention is kamma.
So even if many civilians get killed in regular war the aim was never to kill them.
On the third hand, if that is the criteria then were Nagasaki and Hiroshima acts of terrorism? as @zenff pointed out?
/Victor
This is a very good definition of terrorism. The very core I think! Thank you.
As defined by @Hamsaka , our very own governments and Churches, use 'Terrorism' all the time, to keep us in a state of fear, paranoia, obeisance and suspicion.
Everything unfamiliar, everything alien, everything with a ote of hostility, or potential aggresion, is terrorism - and all governments control the masses through the need for an army in the constant fight against the enemy.
Religion uses the same tactics, but aimed more at the soul than at the person.
Fear.
One of the gretest manipulating tools ever devised.
Nothing new, sadly.
History is destined to repeat itself, is it not?
(Incidentally, my dearest USA friends, do not drop the central vowel: It's Terr-O-rism' not 'Terr'ism'. You're either with us - OR against us.... grammatically speaking!
)
Yus, we must 'ave the Queens English spoke proper on all hoccasions.
It's pretty hard to have a "city" as a target and not kill civilians living there. Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Berlin, Tokyo, Coventry are all examples. The people who planned those raids, knew there would be high numbers of noncombatant casualties, yet they carried out the attack anyway. In the case of Hiroshima, the city had been left out of raids prior to the atomic bomb attack so we could see just how devastating the bomb would be. On the flip side, millions of lives may have been saved. The US is still using Purple Heart medals cast prior to Hiroshima against the casualties we would have suffered in an invasion of Japan. But cities like Dresden, or Berlin where people were incinerated in their bomb shelters.
If such things are not terrorism, then I don't know what to call it.
Whoever coined the phrase 'a just war' needs their marbles feeling....
pfft enunciating extra syllables is a waste of time
Where I live, we slur our syllables horribly, though "terrorism" is not one of our grammar victims. 
Granted, we don't add extra letter "u" in all over the place, either,
War and terrorism is all about "us versus them" but when you have groups like IS and Boko Haram etc, how do you get away from that duality? They put themselves out there specifically to cause that dualism. How do you get rid of that mentality when dealing with groups like that when they are so far off the rails of what should be acceptable for humanity? (not that other examples are not, also). Heck, the 2000+ people that Boko Haram executed a couple weeks ago barely made the news. Not nearly as much press as the award season, that's for sure. Part of their goal seems to be to horrify humanity. How can we not see that as dualistic?
Well, put it into perspective. We are horrified at the 3000 people killed in the WTC and the 2000+ Boko Haram killed.
Now, that's bad.
Consider that the US wasn't even counting civilian dead during the last conflict in Iraq.
Consider that the B52 can carry around 20 tons of high explosives. How many people can that payload kill? The B52 can also carry 8 strategic nuclear bomb. That's 8 cities.
One of our Ohio-class missle submarine can take out 24 cities. We have 18 of those subs.
We have about 450 strategic nuclear missles on the ground pointed at the rest of the world.
With a national mentality insane enough to consider that such weapon systems are necessary, and a demonstrated willingness to use them, how do they deal with us?
I grew up in a time when nuclear war was talked about as if it was an inevitability. Try being a 5 year-old trying to get to sleep at night thinking about that.
Who's a "terrorist"?
I've never said the US doesn't terrorize. Quite the opposite, which I pointed out in the past few days (though in the other thread I think, not here). I didn't mean it to be solely from the US point of view. Just in general. When you have such vast differences, is there a way to even see things from a non-dualistic point of view? Can we see them, or can they see us, as just another human being? Because we really don't, not on either side. We talk about that a lot in Buddhism, just seeing everyone as a person with problems that have causes and conditions. That we have to eliminate the duality, the us versus them. But where do we (or they) start?
Aside from the ridiculous notion that we need as much as we have to be safe (and we still aren't safe) the amount of money we spend to pretend it makes us safer could solve numerous problems in out country that would indeed make us actually safer. Like our vast mental health problems and kids without food and clothes. Taking care of ourselves makes us safer, makes us as a people more secure. Not aiming missiles at the rest of the world. But no one seems to understand that. We think we're prepared for major attacks but we're at the point where the smaller attacks will eat away at us more than larger ones. And we attack each other, and ourselves. We do more damage to our own country than any outsiders could ever do. Sad.
The entire cold war was about threatening to wipe out major cities; which I think would amply qualify as an act of terrorism.
I don’t think any of the guys making these plans ended up in jail.
I’m not trying to make any terrorist look good, but I’m just saying that the strategy of targeting the civilian population in war is quite common.
On the cushion. We can't expect others to give up dualistic notions like us vs them if we continue to harbor them ourselves. That recent thread on sexism should show all of us just how far there is left to go.
In Tonglen practice you always start with yourself. Cultivate your own equanimity, then you'll see what the next step will be.
You are right, of course, @Chaz. Sometimes I lose sight. Thank you
It depends on whose side is in power at the time whether it is a terrorist doing the killing or a soldier doing the killing.