Semantic Exercise
 

There has been disagreement here in the past over a term used for the individuals involved in the events listed below. The term "terrorist" has been described by some as unfair, misleading, and plain inaccurate. I am wondering how others here would identify these folks - how they would describe them in a sentence, for example.

In 3 words or less, what term would you use to describe the individuals responsible for the following events:

1) Madrid Train Bombings 2004 (192 killed, 2,050 injured)
2) Bali Nightclub Bombings 2002 (202 killed, 209 injured)
3) London Subway Bombings 2005 (56 killed, 700 injured)
4) Egyptian Hotel Bombings 2005 (88 dead, 150+ injured)
5) Beslan, Russia School Hostage Situation 2004 (344 killed, hundreds wounded)
6) Istnabul Bank/Consulate Bombings 2004 (27 killed, 450+ injured)
7) Turkey Synagogue Bombings 2003 (23 killed, 300 injured)
8) Casablanca Suicide Bombings 2003 (45 killed, 100+ injured)
9) Saudi Arabia Housing Complex Bombings 2004 (34 killed, 200+ injured)
10) Amman Jordan Hotel Bombings 2005 (60 killed, 115 injured)

Please, no long arguments. Keep it under 3 words for the sake of the experiment please. Thanks.

I reject the entire experiment as reductionist and silly.

The PROBLEM with those who want to use "terrorist" as a label to mean "those who oppose our hegemony" is that they seem to want to describe the whole fricking world in three words or less.

Things aren't that cut and dried. Ever. EVER. Life doesn't HAVE blacks and whites. EVERYTHING is grey.

Wow. Just wow. Give me a freakin break.

Thank you for articulating what I could not at this moment.

Can't call a terrorist a terrorist?

The Chinese oppose our hegemony and we don't call them terrorists now do we.
The Russians, hell even the French wish their part of the world power pie, and again we don't call them terrorists.

NO shade of grey here, THOSE ACTS, EVERY LAST ONE WAS DONE BY A TERRORIST OR TERRORISTS.

To use your words I find this 'telling' and quite honnestly frightening.

You know what? Yes. Those actions were terrorist attacks.

Again, the problem some are having here is that the meaning of the word terrorist has been so bruised and beaten that to label these as terrorist actions suggests that those doing the labelling must fall into the same old tired "good vs. evil", "with us or against us" binary oppositions that control the terrorist discourse at present.

I refuse to look at it as black and white. There is always more to it than that.

The OP verges on (but stays just shy of) being a troll.

If they're terrorists, then so is the every POTUS for the last 26 years. Terrorist is a blanket term that's lost all meaning. I could call trick or treaters terrorists (they scare people in order to control their candy supplies). I could call Fear Factor a terrorist show, because it scares people for ratings.

Fair enough - you have expressed the notion that you would not call them terrorists.

Yet, what WOULD you call them?
Firemen? Minutemen? Bakers? Florists? Lawyers? Thugs?

Is there a corresponding word in the English language to accurately describe these folks?

that's not what roachboy means when he tries to explain that "terror" or "terrorism" is a category that we fill in our heads and then try to talk to one another about.

what it might mean objectively and what we might mean by the categories subjectively won't always line up. there's something about "slippage" that might be applied, but I'm typing this fast and can't call up all my limited trainging in this area. you can look that up while waiting for him to come clarify, as I'm guessing he will. or maybe this thread has nothing to do with roachboy's comments on this subject, but he's the primary person I see objecting to the meaningfulness of these types of terms as accurate.

I agree that all of the listed attacks are terrorists, but that's what you get when you use extreme examples. This is still a "silly exercise" since we're using a list that's obviously skewed towards one viewpoint. That's why I didn't bother to post anything before.

If you want to start a real dialogue on what constitutes terrorism versus freedom fighting, revolution, etc. you need to find better examples besides gross examples of Islamist attacks.

If you want to discuss the Boston Tea Party, the IRA attacks on London, bombings of abortion clinics and gay bars, the World Church of the Creator attacks or the destruction of Indian mosques by Hindi extremists, I'll be more than happy to do so, but the way that the question is posed is an exercise in futility.

I'd call most of them bombers, and 5) I'd call hostage takers.

I know your perspective won't allow you to see this which is why you think its troll like, but the OP's post has really opened my eyes as to why politics is so much pissing in the wind as of late.

If you can't call a terrorist a terrorist without hand wringing about the term, how the hell can we talk about the best policy to deal with terrorists when apparently we don't have any terrorists.

Shades of grey my lilly white, you bomb a school, you blow up a disco, you destroy a hotel, you are a terrorist. No 'abuse' of the word changes that.

Murderers to all, and 5 I would call sociopathic cowards, killing school children as a shade of grey eh. Wow.

Powerclown,

From your requirements, it really looks as if you're just trying to paint people into a corner where they have to type the word "terrorist". It is hard to see that you posted this with any other possible outcome in mind.

If this is in fact what you were intending, I'm curious as to what you thought it would accomplish - just getting people to admit that the word terrorist can be used appropriately? I'm not sure this will acomplish much. The word terrorist is a category or type of person, as coin is a type of object. A terrorist could be trying to accomplish all sorts of objectives (which have varying degrees of legitimacy), and that is the point that people who reject that label have been trying to make. Frankly, the word only conveys a couple of things - first, that the individual or group in question is separate from whoever the name-caller is (as I've never seen anyone label themself as a terrorist), and that in most cases the people in question do not act on the behalf of a recognized government. Even the second part is coming into question with the current focus on "terrorist regimes" - which is a bit of an oxymoron. I see it as an attempt to paint nations who don't do what we like with the bad associations that come with the word "terrorist".

So, Powerclown, I'd like to ask you if your point was to make people use the word terrorist as a descriptor. If so, what does this accomplish? If not, what exactly were you getting at, because I think most of us missed the point.

I appreciate that. I put the question in stark terms because it's whats been going on in the world...it isn't talk, or speculation or 2nd hand heresay...these are real-world events that all occurred in a relatively short time span.

Furthermore, I realize there are those here who feel strongly against using the term terrorist, so maybe these same people would choose to use this "exercise" as a means of clarifying their viewpoint. I would call the above folks terrorists because I wouldn't know what else to call them. Maybe there is a better, more accurate word that society might choose to call these folks.

Also, I wonder what ordinary people around the world refer to these folks as, whether they are irish, french, japanese, arab, finnish, icelandic, venezuelan, austrian, laotian, south african etc.

Can someone on the left call these people who did this terrorists and make me feel the world isn't insane?

What corner are you so afraid of entering?

Calling a terrorist a terrorist doesn't mean you have to agree on how to deal with the problem but it is the first step in figuring out what the problem is.

Well, yes actually it does. 'Terrorist' was not always a blanket term, just as 'conservative' wasn't always interchangable with 'republican'. Words change because of their use, whether how it's used (it's meaning), or how often it's used (let's use the word terrorist from now on to describe people we don't like).

I think that I qualify as more of a centerist than a leftist, and I've already made my opinion clear. However the Russian historian in me needs to point out that Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were all "terrorists" under the Russian Empire definition prior to their excerise in "regime change" in 1917. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Hence my problem with the OP.

I'm curious, Powerclown, what would you call the jayhawkers? They killed many people, some who had no fight in the slavery issue, to try to intimidate the state of Kansas into becoming a free state. They stole, they murdered indisciminately, all in the name of abolishing slavery in the U.S.

And now, a major university uses their name as a mascot.

Were they terrorists?

I think what Powerclown is trying to prove is that there are two sides to every story. One persons terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. It's only because we were/are on the recieving end of it that we term it terrorist.

In other words, if you can't fight an army directly because of overwhelming superior technology, then you fight a guerrilla war. If your enemy has big tanks and you have a pickup truck... then you don't stand there and fight.

Now... I'm not justifying the killing of school children, but the desparate do desparate things. It's easy to sit here and say that they are evil and deserve to be killed while we sit behind our compters in our air conditioned offices, grow fat off of fast food and the depressed economies of the world.

Has it ever occured to you that we might be considered terrorists in some of the nations that we have conqured? How many covert operations has the US run that has toppled governments? What gives us the right to meddle in the workings of other nations, and then when they fight back... we call them terrorists?

Does that hit the mark, Powderclown?

Because they do things like TARGET a school or a Mosque, thats why we call them terrorists.

This isn't a mistake, this isn't a side effect of war, it is a DELIBERATE TARGETING OF CIVILIANS. It has no comparison to a navy seal covert ops.

Why is this so hard to say?

Oops! You mean that the terrorists in Iraq right now AREN'T TERRORISTS?!

sure, I'll play.

I'll take "violent" for a 1000, Alex.

i think one of the problems with this distinction, particularly with respect to currrent discussion, is that a decision to deliberatly target citizens can be, and often is, virtually the same as the indiscriminant, yet accidental, murder of civilians, in terms of practical outcomes.

Since some have actually taken this trolling thread seriously, yes they are terrorists. BFD.

the issue isn't whether or not those actions were perpetrated by terrorists. in all reality, no one's going to argue that those weren't acts of terrorism (which there for makes those who commited them terrorists). the problem is that the list of events given are nicely cherry picked.

why not just start a conversation about the failings of the public school system by looking at a list of inner city publics (detroit for example) and ignoring any that are doing well?

if you want the actual argument that i laid out, look at the other thread:
"what are we to do about terrorism"....

Indeed... that is true. All I am saying is that there are two sides to every story, and it's extreamly hard to imagine what it must be like to be on the other side.

Sometimes it takes some pretty extreme acts in order to get the attention you think you deserve. Often times, the attention you do get is a bunch of special ops coming in to kill you... but oh well, right?

We blow up plenty of shit, fully knowing that there will be innocent people there.

Exactly... we are no better then they are... we just have better PR :hmm:

No, even that isn't that simple. We'll toss missiles at a supposedly legit target, even if we know that civilians are close enough to be killed as collateral damage, or as a result of an errant missile. It's an acceptable risk for us because we think it's more important to get the target, innocents be damned. Innocent people will be THE target of the terrorist attacks.

What the terrorist does is definitely worse but it's still shades of grey. I don't think our President and generals are losing too much sleep over it.

To your first point: I don't think I am painting anyone into a corner. The events are real events that actually took place. I understand that some people don't see these folks as terrorists...fine, so if they are not terrorists what are they? (I see that some have called them bombers, sociopaths, violent, so far...)

Your coin analogy is interesting...which brings up a question: if people truly believe that these folks have legitimate interests, why all the fuss over what they're called? Go ahead and call them heroes if thats what you think they are.

I'm not so sure it's a bad thing to separate oneself from folk motivated to commit violence and single them out as the "other", because then doesn't morality become moot, concepts of right and wrong vanish? I think some people worry that, taken to the extreme, the singling out of certain people automatically leads to Bad Things. I don't think it necessarily so. I see this as an issue that needs to be considered not only by those who would judge these events, but by the perpetrators as well as their communities.

Last point: I find it curious that you think, in your final paragraph, the events I mentioned necessitate one to choose the term "terrorist" by default. Of course, I'm not making people say anything. I'd like people to think of this as a cultural inkblot experiment. I made it clear in my opening thread that one is free to label these men whatever they want to, and I expected answers other than 'terrorist'. So I'm not sure why you would say I am forcing people to use the word if they truly don't believe it fits the situation.

I can't speak to the issue as I know next to nothing about that particular situation.
I simply couldn't give you a honest answer at this point.

As regards those instances I mentioned in the opening post, I understand that people in certain areas of the world (near and far) celebrate anytime a western nation (or western ally) gets hit, but I'm not one of those who applaud or empathize along with them.

Well what about the UN sanctions over Iraq? You know sanctions won't actually hurt Saddam, but they did manage to claim the lives of a half a million Iraqi children, all of whome are obviously innocent civilians. Not only did we not lose sleep over it, but we caluously bombed them and managed to kill even more civilians by mistake. While I do agree that there is a difference between killing civilians deliberatly and killing them because of neglagence....then end result is the same: innocent people are dead, and everyone else is scared of us because of what we did. That is terrorism.

Right.

Let's not forget who put Saddam into power.

Who trained the Taliban and Osama to get the Russians out of Afganistan?

Perhaps, if we did not meddle in the affiars of other countries so much then they would not hate us like they do. I don't know. I am not them, so I can't really say.

What I do know is that people with power will do anything to keep that power. And the lives of a few innocents is little consequence when it comes to world domination.

I've gotten off topic, so I appologize.

Do I think they are terrorists? Yes, I would have to say they are. Do I empathize with them? No... they kill innocents people that have nothing to do with what ever grievence they wish to illuminate. Do I think they have a good reason for what they are doing? Yeah... I would think they do.

Not sure the point anymore... so I'm gonna just shut up now ;)

I believe I did that in post #6.

Terrorism is a STRATEGY, not a political stance. Frankly, a lot of the fearmongering the right has been engaged in over the last several years has bordered on terrorism. The Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism.

"War on Terror". Jesus Christ. Terror is an emotion. You might as well declare war on envy.

I call TROLL on this entire thread.

BINGO! ratbastid wins the "best post of the thread". How true, how very true. You can't fight a war on terrorism anymore than you can fight a war on a quarterback sneak. It's absurd.

Never mind.

I disqualify your remark on the grounds that the Boston Tea Party was prior to the Bush administration, and therefore, irrelevant to political discourse. We don't need to see this "tired old strategy" anymore.