the meaning of 'terrorism' in the west post-9/11

.

thx pal

LBI this unnecessary tbh you're p much wrong afaics. This stuff is always terrorism, is always called terrorism.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

Yes, more appropriate in a separate thread. The FBI definition seems fairly straightforward.

Feel a bit weird getting into this discussion on this thread, but as another non-US person, the definition of terrorism always has and always will include natural citizens. The concentration on non-domestic terrorism is an act of propaganda, not a changing of definition.

― emil.y, dinsdag 16 april 2013 0:24 (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am sorry. And you are probably right, this is not the thread/time for it. I do not mean any harm.

But never has the definition of terrorism, especially regarding USA, been very clear. Ever since 9/11 "terrorism" seems to have been something exclusively attributed to foreign people/Muslims, through American eyes. Which is why this is such an interesting question.

But you are probably right Emily, in that it is too soon, this is not the time.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, April 15, 2013 6:29 PM (12 seconds ago)

is it drones

Apologies to all involved –– I copied that comment from the Boston Marathon Explosion thread.

Ever since 9/11 "terrorism" seems to have been something exclusively attributed to foreign people/Muslims, through American eyes.

You're basing this on numbers of Americans who are stupid enough to respond to polls.

thats true but it doesnt really make a difference to muslims who actually live here

If we can switch 'west' to 'US' in the headline then I can go back to ignoring it.

Concerning the definition of 'terrorism', from the link I posted above:

There is no single, universally accepted, definition of terrorism. Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).

The FBI further describes terrorism as either domestic or international, depending on the origin, base, and objectives of the terrorist organization. For the purpose of this report, the FBI will use the following definitions:

Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.

International terrorism involves violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any state. These acts appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. International terrorist acts occur outside the United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.

The FBI Divides Terrorist-Related Activities into Two Categories:

* A terrorist incident is a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, in violation of the criminal laws of the United States, or of any state, to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
* A terrorism prevention is a documented instance in which a violent act by a known or suspected terrorist group or individual with the means and a proven propensity for violence is successfully interdicted through investigative activity.

Note: The FBI investigates terrorism-related matters without regard to race, religion, national origin, or gender. Reference to individual members of any political, ethnic, or religious group in this report is not meant to imply that all members of that group are terrorists. Terrorists represent a small criminal minority in any larger social context.

Ever since 9/11 "terrorism" seems to have been something exclusively attributed to foreign people/Muslims, through American eyes.

"Exclusively" is strong, but I do think that "The War on Terror" as terminology to describe what's mostly been U.S. action against al-Qaeda and other Islamic outfits has probably created certain connotations.

I think the answer is that the FBI has certain criteria to classify acts as terrorist, but the way the news media and some politicians refer to things differ according to biases. I think a lot of people feel that terrorism is terrorism regardless of who is involved, and that non-terrorist acts can be perpetrated by groups that are perceived as hostile, but that's definitely not the most vocal demographic.

Ok... Didn't realize I was the 'bad guy' all of a sudden for just speaking my mind. Perhaps it was "too soon". But I nNever intended to be "that person"...

i think ppl were more offended by the deliberate ignorance than the timing tbh

You're not speaking your mind, you're shoving words in our mouths.

LBI this unnecessary tbh you're p much wrong afaics. This stuff is always terrorism, is always called terrorism.

― the gowls are not what they seem (darraghmac), dinsdag 16 april 2013 0:28 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was what I was wondering about, if the above statement was right or not. But it was the wrong time, wrong thread, wrong moment...

you're not speaking TOO SOON. it's STILL HAPPENING, for godssakes.

LBI, I don't think you're a bad guy, but it was an insensitive derail into semantics that many people asked to stop. And I say this as someone who participated in the discussion too, so I'm also culpable here.

So you thought posting stuff like "Boom. Stone cold truth." on a thread regarding an explosion with casualties was appropriate. Okay.

You're not speaking your mind, you're shoving words in our mouths.

― Dr. Adorbius (mh), dinsdag 16 april 2013 0:38 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Uhm... I am "shoving words" in your mouths? WTF?

More info:

http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations/militant-extremists-united-states/p9236

Ppl overreacting tbh, but yeah lbi <3 ya but you were a bit stoneheaded

it's pretty obvious to call any act of mass public violence an act of terrorism in a basic sense (in that "terrorizing" is most likely a primary goal) the problem is when wolf blitzer et al make a point to call it "an act of terrorism" the subtext sounds like "it was middle eastern radicals". since 9/11 american culture/media/perception-in-general has made that association, and when big-network media people use the word i generally assume their intention is to make everyone think of al qaeda. basically making a big point over calling something "terrorist" or not is either unnecessary (because duh) or assumptive (bc of the connotation). that's my read anyway

yeah. what's interesting is that once that shift has been made, domestic acts of terrorism get talked about in other ways

To whom does that sound like "it was middle eastern radicals"? Certainly not everybody.

It would be silly to deny that there are a great many US citizens who would be quick to agree that "terrorism" means "muslims blowing up bombs". Other definitions do not cross their minds. Certain conservative loudmouths like Rush Limbaugh and other talk radio megaphones encourage this ignorance.

It would be just as silly to deny that post-9/11 a great many US politicians are among those who think this way, so this sort of ignorance has a quasi-official existance. But there's no good reason to give in to this ignorance or to concede one inch of legitimacy to it.

Quick, think of a terrorist. Whats he look like? xp

we need a new word. how bout "scaryism"

He?

Ever since 9/11 "terrorism" seems to have been something exclusively attributed to foreign people/Muslims, through American eyes.

sorry, that one just rubbed me the wrong way. Some Americans seem to have a strong willingness to believe foreign-borne terrorism is the only terrorism, but making the step that it's exclusive and a standard American stance is offensive.

Aimless otm

Quick, think of a terrorist. Whats he look like? xp

am I supposed to have an answer for that? because I don't.

Aimless's last post otm, too

most recent terrorist in the US to me would be that idiot who attacked a sikh temple

the s/he is a real pita to bother with on a phone aimless, behave

we can talk about how the media coverage of terorrist events have changed without conceding that that definition is the controlling one on ILX

or the FBI

Ya obv enough crut- but there's a large section of the population could agree on a rough sketch like

xp yeah sorry again crut, dayo otm not *you* you, the general you

General crut

in fact, here: nobody on ilx believes that terrorism is exclusively perpetuated by foreign, non-US parties. got it? good. okay let's go

I don't think I subscribe to this idea of a general "you" or "we"

to answer 乒乓's question from the other thread, i don't think mass shootings are called terrorism because the motivation is usually purely (sometimes inscrutably) personal rather than broadly political.

oh yeah, rough population sketch would be some weird caricature of a middle eastern dude. but a loud minority or vague profile isn't the same as "americans," imo

I had a real headdesk moment when the first visible comment on a nytimes article about the events in Boston had a North Korea conspiracy theory

btw: http://i.imgur.com/sS0F3Cr.png

xps
At this time it was clearly a deliberate act of extreme violence. The existance of multiple bombs confirms the deliberation. The extreme violence is equally evident. But Wolf Blitzer has no grounds for calling it "terrorism" yet, because no motive can yet be attributed to this act and terrorism requires a certain, relatively narrow set of motives to qualify as terrorism.

to answer 乒乓's question from the other thread, i don't think mass shootings are called terrorism because the motivation is usually purely (sometimes inscrutably) personal rather than broadly political.

― goole, Monday, April 15, 2013 6:53 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah but oftentimes the motivation was sourced from political and ideological movements, no?

the norway shootings were broadly reported as a terorristic act, right?

ime the defining characteristic of terrorism is knitted jumpers

most recent terrorist in the US to me would be that idiot who attacked a sikh temple

― Dr. Adorbius (mh), Monday, April 15, 2013 6:49 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah like... when a white supremacist does this, it's categorized as... a lone white supremacist. sort of ignoring all the ideological motivations, that are usually p obviously on the surface!

The local and international press reaction to the 2005 bombings in Trinidad and the more recent ones in Dnepropetrovsk was interesting. They looked very much like terrorist attacks and caused horrific injuries to random civilians but nobody ever claimed responsibility for them so nobody really could agree on whether it was "terrorism" or not.

To whom does that sound like "it was middle eastern radicals"? Certainly not everybody.

― LADIES ONLY PHYCHIC NIGHT (crüt), Monday, April 15, 2013 6:46 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, not everybody, but my point is it's not just who's on the receiving end. if glenn beck is using the word i know what he's really trying to get across with it. when big media guys (regardless conservative/liberal/whatever) make a big question out of it i tend to think they're working with the same definition.

I think you would be hard pressed to find any person in the us (not counting militia nutjobs as people here) that would argue with calling Timothy McVeigh a terrorist still to this day

yeah like... when a white supremacist does this, it's categorized as... a lone white supremacist. sort of ignoring all the ideological motivations, that are usually p obviously on the surface!

― 乒乓

yeah nobody ever called eric rudolph a terrorist or called the olympics bombing in 96 an act or terrorism

yeah, i mean what happened with mcveigh has sedimented and fossilized. what's interesting to me is the stuff that's happened post-9/11 that probably fits under the definition, slides in way before the tag, but is not generally discussed in terms of terorrism

I sort of feel like the breakdown is guns = isolated incident, bombs = terrorism

Im unsure do i need to know who and why before bombs in public places become terrorism tbh

yeah nobody ever called eric rudolph a terrorist or called the olympics bombing in 96 an act or terrorism

― balls, Monday, April 15, 2013 6:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

again i'm interested in how this stuff plays out in a post-9/11 media age

curious where dayo and le batreau spent the past four years that the napolitano report on domestic terrorism wasn't a huge controversy and continuing source of outrage and paranoia from the right (despite, yknow, having clearly been warranted as can be seen by the many acts and arrests for domestic terrorism since obama was inaugurated)(though maybe those didn't happen on this parallel earth either). keep focusing on spree killings though and wondering why an act w/ a different m.o. might be categorized differently from another act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Sikh_temple_shooting

none of the 72 citations (many of them news articles) mentions 'terrorism' although the article does point out that the FBI classified it as domestic terrorism + eric holder called it that too

well i spent two of the last four years overseas. LBI is from europe iirc.

are you guys just teenagers or are you seriously unaware that the 'muslim = terrorist' stereotype predates 9/11? or is this just convenient ignorance again?

but good job on being opaque with your point there balls, i couldn't understand you more if i tried

cool tone you're taking there balls, i'm listening to you a lot more seriously now

weird that spree killings aren't usually described as terrorism, keep banging yr head against that wall

dayo why the fuck would i bother trying to get thru to someone either being willfully ignorant or just actually dumb as fuck?

i literally did say that the muslim = terrorist stereotype had absolutely no existence prior to 9/11, cant believe u caught me saying that

Never heard of that report fwiw

it does predate 9/11 but it definitely got a lot more intense after 9/11. i never felt like the average non-Muslim America cared too much about Islam one way or the other pre-9/11.

sorry if my tone offends the guys who made a bomb joke on the boston marathon thread though

avg non-Muslim American

xp

oh ffs

"bomb joke" come on

it does predate 9/11 but it definitely got a lot more intense after 9/11. i never felt like the average non-Muslim America cared too much about Islam one way or the other pre-9/11.

― horseshoe, Monday, April 15, 2013 7:06 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

thank you hs, this is what i'm trying to get at

horseshoe, I feel like some people cared A LOT but that was because they were thinking of Nation of Islam

which reinforces your point really

LBI, I don't think you're a bad guy, but it was an insensitive derail into semantics that many people asked to stop. And I say this as someone who participated in the discussion too, so I'm also culpable here.

― emil.y, dinsdag 16 april 2013 0:41 (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks... I suppose...

I have been on ilx for 11 years, since 2004. I have been through the many clusterfucks, both the fun and the traumas, of real live events happening at the very second. I have learned to appreciate and understand the double entendres too, the "what is deemed ok and what is not". And I apologize, for yes I can see now that I brought up the discussion about terrorism too soon, apparantly. But I am also appalled by the replies I got, very personal and basically discarding me, deeming me a bad person. When the question of "what is terrorism?" is very much alive. It's all over CNN, NBC: they are all speaking about this right now, as we speak. Yet I am ostrasized for asking the same questions.

I did not mean or intend any insensitivy. I did not mean any "insensitive derail" or ask questions too soon. I do think, and have learned now, that a mass can turn onto you out of the blue, and people join in, and it becomes a hundred persons facing just one individual.

Madness. I am mostly here for the fun, the football, the music. I did not ask insensitive questions. I did not intend any insensitivity. I did not insult anyone directly, not to my knowledge - But it is wondrous to see how after just some comments, a mod intervention even, I am suddenly the object everyone appreciates pointing their anger towards...

Bye then.

obviously the intensity of the stereotype is a binary, good thing that whole coining of the "war on terror" didn't change things at all for anyone

never felt like the average non-Muslim America cared too much about Islam one way or the other pre-9/11.

Dunno about that! The mid eighties were the zenith of Arab baiting. Remember Libya and Leon Klinghoffer?

Even in 1994 we got True Lies.

LBI, it's cool. tempers are high. let's move on.

in the 80s, "Muslims" were still behind "Soviets/Communists" and "black people" in the scary boogeyman stakes

yeah the terrorist Arab was an image in American mythology but almost quaintly so? i just feel like it was kind of exotified, not "these people live among us!" this is obvs impressionistic on my part. it was annoying to me as a religious kid that none of the non-Muslims I knew differentiated Islam from, say, Hinduism in their minds (i went to a high school with a significant Indian American minority and we were all lumped in the same non-Christian group.) i was living in DC in 2001 and after the attacks i saw people reading books about Islam on the subway. i'm not saying that's bad necessarily, it was just weird for me.

xp also what Dan said

you can probably draw some significance that acts of domestic terrorism have to be, well, qualified as acts of 'domestic terrorism'; 'terrorism' by itself is still gonna make people think of foreign sources in today's world, isn't it?

I didn't know what Islam was till I was like 11 :/

i'll cop to being 7 years old during the atlanta olympics bombing and 14 for 9/11, so i'm more than open to being told what the climate of america was like during those time from those older, and i'd like to hear it directly from your mouth balls

You're not hearing anything from my mouth balls, young man.

that sentence is screaming for a comma

xp: damn

; )

haha crut that's pretty early i wouldn't worry about it. i'm talking about kids i was friends with who couldn't tell you a single thing about Islam or Hinduism. or how Disney's Aladdin had those bindi-fied girls in it. i'm not saying any of this is anyone's fault exactly; it's just an interesting shift to me.

Yeah thats unfortunate

no wait... i was 9 when the atlanta stuff happened. balls.

if you were younger than me during the Atlanta Olympics how did you get older than me by 9/11???

the first link i got about the napolitano report was this? http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/07/645421/right-wing-extremism/ which seems to say that the right has lobbied pretty hard to make sure that terrorism refers primarily to acts done by al-qaeda?

xpost lol

What age were u when u saw the viking simpsons episode

http://i.imgur.com/OOhzlW9.png

To be honest, I don't remember hearing much at all from american media about terrorism before 9/11 - I saw a lot of fucking stupid articles calling the July 7 2005 bombings "UK's 9/11".

But most importantly, we've hurt LBI's feelings.

we're the real terrorists :(

horseshoe otm: i think pre-9/11 arabs/muslims were def in 'probable badguy' territory, but post 9/11 there was a lot more emphatic fear placed on islam itself as source of terrorism.

What age were u when u saw the viking simpsons episode

― the gowls are not what they seem (darraghmac), Monday, April 15, 2013 7:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

it was definitely around the same time period - i p much grew up w/ the simpsons, would always catch it at 7 on fox (or was it 7:30)?

stay classy af

I have been on ilx for 11 years, since 2004.

I rest my case!

"Terrorism" def used in the eighties and nineties. I even heard it in connection with the mass killings of Srebrenica and Kosovo (accurately or not).

Lol well if u caught it on fox no wonder it was all skew-whiff huh

and the Assayas film Carlos shows the peak of terrorism chic in the seventies.

I mean, the difference is that in 2001 3000 Americans died.

Arabs aren't scary bogeymen when they ain't killing our own.

hmm, maybe what caused balls to get squeezed by all this was me (unintentionally) implying that 'terrorism' was not a concept and used before 9/11? thats not what I was saying at all!!

curious if muslim = terrorist dates back to wave of highjackings or maybe (almost definitely) munich but i'm guessing the first fever pitch of what we'd recognize as anti-muslim american hysteria is circa iran hostage crisis. wish i could find snl 'turkish storekeeper' sketch circa 1993 w/ a storekeeper having to deal w/ iran hostage crisis, 86 berlin bombings, achille lauro, etc. somewhat wonder if 79 might've been worse for anti-muslim hysteria (or at least it was more widespread, 'norma'), in 2001 there was widespread awareness that muslims and arabs would be unfairly targeted (even the president warned against it). also don't think i've seen anything post-9/11 in the culture at large or just day to day that resembles what you'd routinely see circa 1986.

also though soviets were obv the more ominous threat (to the extent that the right could find itself loving muslims if they were on the right side, cf red dawn dedicated to the fedayeen) their depiction was never as dehumanizing as w/ arabs, cf depiction of germans during wwII vs depiction of japanese.

curious if muslim = terrorist dates back to wave of highjackings or maybe (almost definitely) munich but i'm guessing the first fever pitch of what we'd recognize as anti-muslim american hysteria is circa iran hostage crisis.

Hollywood cashed in on Arab bogeyman tropes for years. Remember this? I watched it on my first date with a girl lol

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1020/183055.1020.A.jpg

haha never watched it, soon as i saw it had nothing to do w/ martika i was like 'fuck this'

Who knows what the Libyans were gonna do with that plutonium before Doc and Marty showed up

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CxfP3EzIJHs/UWyCrrbaMmI/AAAAAAAAMRA/UTUWp3FbQ5A/s400/CNN.jpg

one of the standard righwing complaints about hollywood the past few years is that they've shied away from anti-arab hysteria post-9/11. don't want in any way defend argo on any front and definitely get where the accusations of racism and jingoism are coming from (though i think stuff like 'o no - a crowd of muslims!' is more just hack filmmaking and the need to lazily juice up the suspense in what's already a good enough story to film straight) but that that movie actually included a 'these ppl were totally totally justified to hate us and want us dead btw' preface read as a huge sign of progress to me, a version of argo made in 1986 sure as hell doesn't have that.

a carapace of liberalism beneath which the reactionary politics hide, perfect for Academy voters.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/erik-rush-kill-all-muslims-response-boston-marathon-attack

good posts!

giving thanks from the bottom of my heart to you balls

True Lies:

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc50.2008/Seige/seigeJCimages/55-TrueLiesVillainMS.jpg

i always liked that the terrorists in die hard were european, although it had to take place in a japanese-owned skyscraper

haha yeah -- it and Rising Sun were the last of the Sino-panic movies.

well sino-panic is alive again post 2010

i always liked that the terrorists in die hard were european, although it had to take place in a japanese-owned skyscraper

― 乒乓, Monday, April 15, 2013 7:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i forgot that i'm slighting our longtime resident al leong

Of course the phrase "terrorist" has always been around. When I was a kid, we had bombings at a CHOHM conference at the Sydney Hilton hotel, and at a cop station in Melbourne, that I remember clearly. The IRA was all over the news. Plenty of plane hijackings. I had no idea what "islam" was then either: to me the middle east was all about the Iran/Iraq war and the 76 Olympic killings and Sinn Fein and etc. That was what "terrorists" were from an Aus 70s/80s POV.

CHOGM, stupid acronym anyway.

Sorry I also lolworthily conflated the IRA in with the middle east in my muddled sentence there unintentionally hahaha. oops.

again: i didn't mean to say that i believe that the phrase 'terrorist' didnt exist before 9/11, i'm interested in how the meaning has shifted post-9/11, just wanted to make that clear again

like maybe that was what caused me to get crushed by balls? idk

Its cool dayo I dont think you implied that, but some other people seemed to be suggesting it maybe? idk. I agree with you on the tonal shift. Someone upthread referred to it as a propoganda tool which I thought was an interesting point.

Werent vikings terrorists? Think about it

I don't see any Sino-panic in Die Hard at all. That a Japanese company owns the building is just A Fact. The Japanese head of the corporation does one of the few selfless things in the movie by refusing to give the terrorists the vault codes and getting killed for his trouble.

Rising Sun, on the other hand...

remember when the Japanese plutocrat warns the ponytailed Sean Connery that he is "expert in karate"

rising sun novel came out during depths of bush I recession, by the time the ridiculous movie came out (philip kaufman directed it if you can believe it) the hysteria it tapped into felt dated - japan had entered its lost decade and clinton was already president. crichton of course tries to firewall the (obv accurate) racism charge by having a ott racist cop depicted negatively and having the actual bad guy turn out to be a white guy (who is then offed by the yakuza, playing the role of deus t rex machina).

I just recently saw Rising Sun and this was my expression for the entire movie: O_O

...

i was thinking rising sun might have been the first instance of 'enhance' but this clip has macgyver and kevin costner in no way out before it at a minimum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk

i take your point, balls, and i think post-9/11 there have probably been more genuine attempts to represent Muslims as people in pop culture, going along with a more widespread cultural fascination/fear, but there's also been a rise in hate crimes directed at mosques, etc. more people taking an interest in Islam and Muslims=more people taking an interest, you know what i mean?

i was thinking rising sun might have been the first instance of 'enhance'

put on your jap shoes and dance with booze

I've thought about watching RS again; I saw it in the theatre and considered it a ponderous slog.

it's a fucking terrible movie

Can view youtube ceard ata 'enhance'?

blade runner was a p early usage of 'enhance' although without actually saying the words

horseshoe otm

also there was that whole ridic park 51 thing, but i might be straying from the topic

yeah i can buy that, though maybe the rise in hate crimes compared to 86 or 79 may be tied to rise in opportunity ie there are mosques and muslims (or even just 'brown foreign types', which for the segment of the population we're talking about means the same thing) in small cities and towns where there weren't before. at the same time i don't think there's been a rise in gay bashings so increased visibility might not explain much.

god the 80s really were such an awful decade

terrorist pre-9/11 read much more as latin american radicals or some sort or 'homegrown' mcveigh types. for the most part arab/muslim terrorists were sort of 'the terrorists that happen to those other people, over there'. you also had in the 70s like weather underground, patty hearst, red army faction. also remember that palestinian radicals including like black september (who were a splinter from Fatah) were much more a secular thing. so there's a difference between the nationalist radical in popular imagination and the 'mooslim islamicist' whatever that is now conjured up.

xxxp yeah Blade Runner pulled this in 1982

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHepKd38pr0

or even just 'brown foreign types', which for the segment of the population we're talking about means the same thing

can't really emphasize this enough tbh

changes in immigration patterns might also be a factor although i confess to knowing absolutely nothing about the immigration patterns of people from the middle east / south asians

for the most part arab/muslim terrorists were sort of 'the terrorists that happen to those other people, over there'.

yes, that matches my sense of things, too. i mean, i was 0-9 years old during the 80s, so maybe i don't know what i'm talking about, but the way my parents discuss the change in their experience suggest 9/11 amped things up in terms of occasional hostility.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5GayD4zgEFk/UARAl4vD--I/AAAAAAAAAtY/yQmJRdfkuJo/s1600/Invasion+USA+poster.jpg

the die hard group weren't terrorists. they read about them in Time magazine.

Important and correct point

Or was it a 60 minutes?

quick question: how are arab americans 'raced' when filling out the census/on standardized forms etc.?

They didn't have political motives but they were planning to blow up an entire roof full of innocent people tbf

u need the politcal part by all defintions

the problem with the fbi definition is, like, the gaps. what if it's a state, is that terrorism? is all asymetrical warfare terrorism? are there rules of war (wearing uniforms etc.) that make it not terrorism? i once read a standard text in this field to see what it had to say on this. it's first chapter was helpfully called "what is terrorism?" but sadly it fell into circular reasoning to prop up its own assertions iirc

as regards LBI's point, i think US media hones too closely to terrorism = GWOT-related

quick question: how are arab americans 'raced' when filling out the census/on standardized forms etc.?

Usually as 'white'

interesting, thanks

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-05.pdf

DEFINITION OF WHITE USED IN THE 2010 CENSUS
According to OMB, “White” refers to a person having origins in any
of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
The White racial category includes people who marked the “White”
checkbox. It also includes respondents who reported entries such
as Caucasian or White; European entries, such as Irish, German,
and Polish; Middle Eastern entries, such as Arab, Lebanese, and
Palestinian; and North African entries, such as Algerian, Moroccan,
and Egyptian.

hey LBI if you're still here it was nothing personal and apology accepted--you (and others) got asked to can it on that thread b/c it was (is) an evolving situation that some of us are real close to and i at least was using that thread as a sort of news/reaction aggregator. we've all seen where theoretical discussions on ilx end up and it was just not appropriate at the time imo.

you carried on and got asked to can it a little less politely--again, nothing personal, you seem like a good guy, hope we can all move on etc. etc.

iirc terrorism requires civilian perps and targets w/ motivation not being the actual killing of targets but the psychological effect it has on larger population and response it draws from government (ie there's a political motivation). once military enters as part of either side of equation that's not terrorism, that's just war (though obv you have things like ardeatine massacre, where there's no logistical goal beyond psychological impact that function very much like terrorism). one reason why i always found it so annoying to hear attacks on military in iraq described as 'terrorism' (or for that matter the leftist variant of 'the army's the real terrorists man'). obv once you introduce things like state sponsored terrorism nevermind things like operation gladio the waters get murky and terms and differentiating between states and rogue organizations starts to seem meaningless.

hoffman (1998) eventually sez:

By distinguishing terrorists from other types of criminals and terrorism from other forms of crime, we come to appreciate that terrorism is

* ineluctably political in aims and motives;

* violent -- or, equally important, threatens violence;

* designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target;

* conducted by an organization with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia); and

* perpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity.

fwiw

( http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-terrorism.html )

see that all seems intent-based at which point things get squirrelly for me

iirc terrorism requires civilian perps and targets w/ motivation not being the actual killing of targets but the psychological effect it has on larger population

goal of the action being to create terror above all other tactical goals is definitely what makes an action "terrorism" but as far as i can tell that doesn't exclude state action or limited effects

like to me spree shootings are p fuckkng terrifying and if the only bar is finding or not finding a manifesto in the shooters backpack or w/e idk

see that all seems intent-based at which point things get squirrelly for me

no, there's also the presence of an organized structure, a distinct group with clear political & military ends in common working and fighting together. perhaps even more crucial, the "subnational or non-state entity" bit.

this to distinguish between terrorism and the violent actions of unhinged individuals, even when the individuals have political aims. this draws a pretty clean line between most american spree shootings, and (for instance), the oklahoma city bombing and the systematic murder of doctors who provide abortions.

oh yay assumpterizer

actually, nevermind, contenderizer is otm with this:

no, there's also the presence of an organized structure,

except we create the structure.

or, actually, we participate in creating it to an extent, it's a mistake to completely externalize it.

yeah i think ppl are thinking that if an action isn't classified as terrorism it's somehow excusing it or justifying it. an act of war is different than an act of terror, which occupies this hazy middle ground between crime and war (hence the debate on how it should be approached). lumping spree shootings or serial killings in is just muddying the waters for no reason, esp since the approach to solving that problem is obv going to be different. obv there are cases where the politics can seem so evident that the bar could've conceivably been met and then a spree killing or serial murders could've qualified as terrorism - ft. hood (you still have this routinely referred to as terrorism on the sheer basis of 'perpetrator was muslim' but you have a significant number of ppl who think this was an al qaeda plot due to vague anwar al-awlaki connection), the atlanta child murders (where many ppl still believe the kkk was responsible for some of the deaths).

you make an ass out you u and mpterizer?

balltenderizer

Terrorism in its modern form is a purposeful and strategic plan by one group or nation in regard to a more powerful group or nation, where the inequality of power between the two is so great that a more direct form of warfare would be doomed to fail.

By deliberately inflicting the cost on the civilian population of the more powerful group the hope is to undermine the legitimacy of the government which cannot protect its citizens, or else to drive the cost of protecting them so high that it takes all the profit out of the current unequal power arrangement. The theory is that if you can drive the cost of maintaining the status quo high enough, then those in power will cede some meaningful amount of power just to rid themselves of the cost you are imposing.

Pretty much it is a way for a nominal loser to play a long shot, that maybe they can wield a lever strong enough to dislodge their much more massive enemy. It is a very high stakes game for the terrorist.

/lecturemode

by that definition the kkk weren't terrorists

i always liked that the terrorists in die hard were european, although it had to take place in a japanese-owned skyscraper

― 乒乓, Monday, April 15, 2013 7:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i forgot that i'm slighting our longtime resident al leong

― 乒乓, Monday, April 15, 2013 4:52 PM (3 hours ago)

http://kiaikick.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/al-leong-batman.jpg

however in die hard his character was named 'uli', which is german.

the problem with the fbi definition is, like, the gaps. what if it's a state, is that terrorism? is all asymetrical warfare terrorism? are there rules of war (wearing uniforms etc.) that make it not terrorism? i once read a standard text in this field to see what it had to say on this. it's first chapter was helpfully called "what is terrorism?" but sadly it fell into circular reasoning to prop up its own assertions iirc

This is what my roommate's 900-page dissertation is on.

I'll tell him abt this thread and see if he wants to contribute but the answer might be 7000 words long.

kkk weren't terrorists

Yes, I know. The KKK were unofficial agents of the white power structure and although they did use terror for political ends, the KKK terror was really no different from redneck sheriffs in rural counties beating the shit out of blacks in their custody on 'suspicion of uppitiness'. Would that make the local sheriff a "terrorist", too?

one way of looking at it is to say that "terrorism" = politically-motivated acts of violence committed by organized non-state entities, especially when such acts A) target civilians or otherwise seek to incite public chaos & terror, B) seem more "random" than militarily strategic, and C) are part of a coordinated and sustained campaign.

that dodges terrorist vs. freedom fighter (terrorism vs. revolution) questions, lumping all objectively similar actions together. it also excludes more traditionally "military" actions, such as staging armed assaults on political or military targets in an attempt to seize power or resources, or damaging state-owned infrastructure in order to weaken the enemy or facilitate further attacks.

i'm personally happy classing the KKK as terrorists, their violence as terrorist acts. hell, i'd be happy to ditch the insistence that terrorism be the exclusive property of non-state entities and/or the relatively powerless.

such sheriffs are committing acts of terrorism

holy shit aimless you need to slow your roll. you have like no idea what the kkk were or did.

When a government or other similarly powerful entity with government sponsorship terrorizes a powerless population in order to manitain power there are perfectly good words for that situation, such as despotism.

depending on the epoch and region, burning down homes and schools, targeted political assassinations, fomenting and organizing race riots, of course lynchings to 'make an example' and public displays of mutilated bodies.

sure, and "terrorism"

xp

you also can't argue the kkk weren't terrorists b/c they were 'serving the ruling order' b/c in the post-civil war/reconstruction era they were directly opposed to the then dominant power of the northern army, and in the civil rights period they stood in opposition to implementing federal law.

xps
Jeez, you guys are acting as if I were saying that the KK were sunday school teachers because their use of terror doesn't fit the confines of the word terrorism, as I think it is nmost usefully defined. You can't define away violence or injustice, but you can make reasonable distinctions about the relative political and psychological uses of violence. Just because "terrorism" includes the root word "terror" doesn't mean that everything that inspires terror should automatically be called "terrorism". Shit, some people are terrified of spiders. This does not make spiders into terrorists.

typed fast, missed a K

you have like no idea what the kkk were or did

um, wrong. I have access to the same kinds of sources you do.

Just because "terrorism" includes the root word "terror" doesn't mean that everything that inspires terror should automatically be called "terrorism". Shit, some people are terrified of spiders. This does not make spiders into terrorists.

yeah, but my point is that reserving "terrorism" as a descriptor only for the actions of non-state (or relatively powerless) entities is strongly prejudicial. the word is prejudicial in itself. it implies not only criminality but depravity to the point of outright moral evil.

people must reserve the right to define the actions of the states that supposedly rule them as similarly criminal, evil and depraved. states shouldn't be exempt from the stigma that they attempt to attach to designated "terrorists", especially not when they use precisely the same tactics.

- david frum

people must reserve the right to define the actions of the states that supposedly rule them as similarly criminal, evil and depraved.

You make a good point that the word is prejudicial. It is so because it is a word used by the powerful to define a powerless enemy into a position of moral depravity for fighting back against their benevolent rule. However, warfare in all its forms involves the use of violence and very frequently involves the cold-blooded use of violence as an instrument of terror. The powerful do this more often than the powerless do. That's how it usually works.

If the word has any use at all, in my opinion, it is not as a term of hate or moral indignance, but just as a political "term of art", defining a type of violent poiltical action that is resorted to in despair of any other type producing results. If it cannot be used in that sense, then it becomes merely a term of hatred like hun or jap or gook.

"despair" sort of a bathetic description. from weakness, sure. but "despair" -- eh, depends.

okay, that's an interesting point. i was proceeding from an acceptance of the word's condemnatory qualities (which do seem ineradicably inscribed at this point) to an insistence that its moral force be equally available to all, regardless of access to power and "legitimacy". i think it's a bit naive to think that it could be reduced in the here and now to a value-neutral term of art, but agree that this would be preferable.

xp

a bit too much thinking going on in that 2nd sentence

kinda amazed neither of you have gone for the reagan quote yet

Contendo more otm about terrorism including state actors tho.

so you agree that acts of terror should be responded to as acts of war instead of criminal acts then? i got a war in afghanistan to sell you if so

yes because clearly if someone argues a word applies to multiple situations then in all cases there is a single response because hey, same word!

lol, words.

^^ good thread summary

so you agree that acts of terror should be responded to as acts of war instead of criminal acts then? i got a war in afghanistan to sell you if so

uh, you're pulling that out of the air. how a government chooses to respond to what it perceives as aggression will vary case by case. so does how i feel this or that government ought to respond. neither has much to do with whether i personally class the actions of the KKK as crime, terrorism or despotism. why not all three?

for what it's worth, i'm inclined to consider america's drone strike program terrorism by the logic i was laying out earlier.

you know, much as i hate to side with the likes of david frum

so you see no difference between say d-day and the adreatine massacre and (to bring it back to what prompted the thread) andrew cunanan?

Wait what where did Andrew cunanan get involved here

lol irl. love the assumptive leap there. i'll have you know that i can name at least four differences between d-day, the adreatine massacre and andrew cunanan. three if you don't count their names.

i recognize a distinction between war and terrorism, though i'd argue that states can (and often do) commit acts of terrorism during wartime. i don't consider cunanan a terrorist. i suspect you are on drugs.

fwiw, i hope they're real damn good

dayo and le batreau was arguing that there was no difference between killing sprees and terrorism and the only reason ppl like jake holmes and andrew cunanan aren't called terrorists is because they're white, not because their crimes don't fit the definition of terrorism. it's the same nebulous 'i think killing is bad and terrorism is bad and i don't care who does it therefore they're all the same'.

Ardeatine guys. R before the D.

he started it

dayo and le batreau was arguing that there was no difference between killing sprees and terrorism and the only reason ppl like jake holmes and andrew cunanan aren't called terrorists is because they're white

cool, but i'm not saying anything like that. not so far back, i drew a clear line between the violent acts of disturbed individuals working alone (even when they seem to be politically motivated) and organized, sustained, collective efforts of the sort we typically call "terrorism".

the distinction gets shaky when we consider the likes of anders breivik, but there's always gonna be gray areas.

contenderizer i noted above that while the definition of terrorism (which i think necessitates non-state actors and targets among other things) is useful for thinking about causes and solutions that there are certainly situations (ardeatine massacre, operation gladio) where the distinction feels like a technicality. in these cases though i would argue that a distinction should still be made (call it despotism or a war crime) because even here there isn't a moral equivalence, it is far more evil and depraved for a state to conduct this kind of action. w/ state sponsored terrorism the boundaries become more nebulous still, for example it makes far more sense to regard the 86 berlin bombing or the bombing of pan am 103 as the action of the libyan govt than the actions of timothy mcveigh as the actions of the arizona govt and in the case of state sponsored terrorism you could argue for an approach that regards terrorism as a criminal act w/ criminal investigations and trials and as an act of war w/ diplomacy, sanctions, and war hypothetically i guess. and in cases like the weathermen where the actions are so specifically targeted directly at the state i'm not sure terrorism is a an accurate enough or good enough definition either, 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' - reagan.

someone had to do it

anyway, i get you. you wanna define the term rather narrowly. while i accept your definition (it's sensible and widely accepted), i'm not sold, and see it as troublesome in certain regards (laid out upthread). which leaves us, i hope, not hurling left field hyperbole back and forth across the fence.

fwiw in case it hasn't been made clear (and i can understand how it might not have been) do agree that the way 'terrorism' has been used post 9/11 increasingly more and more loosely to the point that you can have bush's secretary of education call the nea a terrorist organization has been despicable at best and in the wake 9/11 amoral and unamerican. by george w. bush's definitio of terrorism he is a terrorist. and so if someone wanted to argue that post9/11 the meaning has been changed or that the term is meaningless i might fear you're right but argue you're not in the hopes that tomorrow or eventually you won't be.

springs eternal, etc

Greenwald:

The reaction to the Boston attack underscored, yet again, the utter meaninglessness of the word "terrorism". News outlets were seemingly scandalized that President Obama, in his initial remarks, did not use the words "terrorist attack" to describe the bombing. In response, the White House ran to the media to assure them that they considered it "terrorism". Fox News' Ed Henry quoted a "senior administration official" as saying this: "When multiple (explosive) devices go off that's an act of terrorism."

Is that what "terrorism" is? "When multiple (explosive) devices go off"? If so, that encompasses a great many things, including what the US does in the world on a very regular basis. Of course, the quest to know whether this was "terrorism" is really code for: "was this done by Muslims"? That's because, in US political discourse, "terrorism" has no real meaning other than: violence perpetrated by Muslims against the west. The reason there was such confusion and uncertainty about whether this was "terrorism" is because there is no clear and consistently applied definition of the term. At this point, it's little more than a term of emotionally manipulative propaganda. That's been proven over and over, and it was against yesterday.

The interesting part of that Greenwald article: this FAIR report from 1995:

"In the wake of the explosion that destroyed the Murrah Federal Office Building, the media rushed — almost en masse — to the assumption that the bombing was the work of Muslim extremists. 'The betting here is on Middle East terrorists,' declared CBS News' Jim Stewart just hours after the blast (4/19/95). 'The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East,' ABC's John McWethy proclaimed the same day.

"'It has every single earmark of the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East,' wrote syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (Chicago Tribune, 4/21/95). 'Whatever we are doing to destroy Mideast terrorism, the chief terrorist threat against Americans, has not been working,' declared the New York Times' A.M. Rosenthal (4/21/95). The Geyer and Rosenthal columns were filed after the FBI released sketches of two suspects who looked more like Midwestern frat boys than mujahideen."

A link to the full Greenwald article here

These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid.

exactly

though i wil rep for greenwald some of the time, that is just sententious pleb-bait

Josh Marshall otm:

The media was listening for that word yesterday because they identified it as a potential source of a future, contrived political controversy; reporters were acting as opposition researchers for the people they cover, and identified a sin of omission. Like the inverse of when Obama said the private sector was “doing fine” and the press corps zeroed out everything else he said in the same press conference....

...But I do have a strong sense that most major media outlets typically distinguish terrifying violence from violent terrorism by examining motive. No political or ideological motive? Not terrorism. You might disagree with that distinction, but it’s been pretty consistent. It’s why everyone feels comfortable calling the Unabomber a terrorist, but not the perpetrators of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Sorry I also lolworthily conflated the IRA in with the middle east in my muddled sentence there unintentionally hahaha. oops.

There were connections there

A shady post-colonial web - which we look forward to welcoming Scotland to!

Am I wrong for wondering how many bars will be serving Irish Car Bombs in Boston, next St. Patrick's Day?

there was a debate over calling Breivik a terrorist, which was interesting because precisely it had to do with tying what he did to broader far-right/fascist types or just insisting he was a single deranged individual.

re: Josh Marshall - I'm a little skeptical that someone finding The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Adam Lanza's room would change the terminology to terrorist, I suspect it's closer to what DJP was saying about guns vs bombs.

Munich Olympics massacre was unquestionably terrorism and was all guns and kidnapping.

Indeed, and once upon a time hijacking planes was all the rage

yeah, was just thinking about both those examples. america's popular conception of terrorism in the late 20th was at least as concerned with masked assailants toting automatics and (especially) hijacking planes as it was with anonymous bombings. oddly, post-9/11 it's all about IEDs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWJRCGKvOHA

terrorism is such a value-laden & propagandistic term that it should probably be abandoned by ppl of integrity. u can think about causes & operational responses and such based on a sort of checklist of factors without bringing terrorism into it.

but nearly all experts―even the most scholarly or incisive who talk frankly about the difficulty, almost the absurdity, of defining "terrorism"―find a way to retain the term in the end because, i conjecture, your work suddenly loses status if it repudiates the term. it is less useful and important to the state, the academy is less funded, u are less influential. will anyone even read your book if it's not called "inside terrorism" or "nuclear terrorism" or "terrorism: how to respond" or "essays on human rights and terrorism" or "explaining terrorism" or something about counterterrorism (tho u can maybe guess which is least enthusiastic about the term)

there are probably well-known causes & operational responses to spree shootings too. issues around happy, carefree parents, valued, well-trained teachers, v good accessible shrinks, guns & ammo that're hard to get and stored certain ways and so on. but when your discretionary spending in a given year is 57% military, 5% health, 5% education etc., well

but nearly all experts―even the most scholarly or incisive who talk frankly about the difficulty, almost the absurdity, of defining "terrorism"―find a way to retain the term in the end because, i conjecture, your work suddenly loses status if it repudiates the term. it is less useful and important to the state, the academy is less funded, u are less influential. will anyone even read your book if it's not called "inside terrorism" or "nuclear terrorism" or "terrorism: how to respond" or "essays on human rights and terrorism"

that's an interesting point. i agree, but think the word also has a moral and emotional accuracy that we find hard to relinquish. we use it not to blandly describe the facts, but to express feelings about them. both those feelings and the language we use to describe the acts that trigger them directly correspond - accurately, even precisely - to terrorism's intentional violation of the social fabric. terrorism attempts to terrify, to destabilize, to rob "ordinary citizens" of their sense of safety and separation from the crisis (whatever it may be). it's hard to imagine that people in general would choose to describe such a thing in dispassionate terms. terrorism earns its name. it explicitly attempts to.

Greenwald:

That the Boston Marathon bombing was "an act of terrorism" is now unchallengeable conventional wisdom. Without my adopting it all: Ali Abunimah has an excellent analysis examining whether the evidence exists to make this claim and what is revealed by the embrace of this conclusion.

Similarly, Alan Dershowitz was on BBC radio yesterday and, citing the lack of clarity about motive, said (at the 3:15 mark): "It's not even clear under the federal terrorist statutes that it qualifies as an act of terrorism."

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/obamas-rush-judgment-was-boston-bombing-really-terrorist-act

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0173gzn#programme-broadcasts

imo, the only real difference between convicting this kid as a criminal and convicting him a a terrorist would be that if he were convicted as a terrorist then the FBI and Homeland Security could claim "a win" against terrorism and partly justify their massive anti-terrorism budgets. In practical terms he's either getting a whole series of consecutive life sentences or else the death penalty, and those outcomes are indistinguishable to the public at large.

http://aslanmedia.podbean.com/2014/03/14/intersection-ep29-march-14-2014/

Remi Brulin on Operation Condor, American and international discourse on "terrorism," all the good stuff.

I don't want to clog up the other thread with this so this thread seems like a better place for it. Initially I was reticent to consider the Charleston shooting a terrorist attack - though I have since changed my mind. The initial reason I wasn't sure though was because of how I understand the meaning of terrorism. Which is to say that I fundamentally understand it as a political tactic of non-State actors against a State. It targets civilians in an attempt to frighten them into changing the policies of their State because it can't fight the State on traditional grounds. This is super clear in the case of Timothy McVeigh (who literally targeted civilian employees in a government building), or attacks on civilians in Israel (which are intended to fight the State of Israel itself). It's less clear to me in the cases of the recent Charlie Hebdo attack (which didn't seem designed to send a message to the State itself, but rather to private actors) or the Charleston shooting. Especially the latter which, if you read it as a piece (as some would like to) w/ the recent anti-black police violence, or w/ the confederate flag, is not just not anti-State but may even represent a sort of extension of the State itself. Though Counterpunch folks like to use the term State terrorism, ultimately the term in my eyes has to refer to non-State violence targeting civilians. As I said - I've since changed my mind and primarily bc it seems like the legal definitions for terrorism are not quite as interested in who the violence is ultimately meant to persuade.

Actions targeted at civilians with a view to changing state policy would be an excessively restrictive definition which would, for example, exclude groups instigating intercommunal violence in India or sectarian violence in the Middle East.

last week's NYT Mag excerpt of forthcoming book on Awlaki was a good one. Guy seemed ready to stay in US and be a mass-media imam until he got wind that FBI had all his hooker assignations in their file.