11 November 2009

Terrorism: Act or Label?

Several weeks ago, you may may remember hearing about the Boston man who was arrested for plotting an attack on a shopping mall as an act of jihad. What struck me about the coverage of this story was the constant use of this word terrorism and its other forms.

I immediately recalled the horrific events that transpired in an Amish school house several years ago.

I remembered when news broke of a brazen shooting in the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. and how I wondered what can cause a man to hate like that.

I also flashed back to my sophomore year of college, sitting in the lounge at school, watching as the surreal Virginia Tech shooting unfolded. The Virginia Tech attack particularly affected us as students, hearing about the massacre of 33 people just like us.

Then, news of the execution of John Allen Muhummad today brought back memories of the D.C. sniper shootings and the way a whole portion of the nation was stricken with absolute fear.

The list goes on, and I couldn't help but notice that I never remember hearing "terrorist" or "terrorism" in connection with these events or those who perpetrated them. I wonder, is there some sort of rule of thumb that determines whether vicious attacks like these are either terrorism or just your typical, plain, old, run-of-the-mill mass-murder?

Certainly we can't say that it is the number of victims which crosses the line into terrorism territory; the Virginia Tech shooter killed 33 people in a matter of hours, but wasn't deemed a terrorist.

Nor are we led to believe that targeting a specific group of people for being who they are, because of some sort of agenda, grievance, or twisted logic makes one a terrorist; the anti-Semite in D.C. had every intention of killing Jews, and the man in PA specifically targeted Amish girls.

So, I couldn't help but wonder whether the term "terrorist" only applies to Muslims. I have to say that this largely seems to be the case in post-9/11 United States.

However, I recall that the D.C. sniper professed to being a Muslim, and even talked about jihad in his writings. Being a militant Muslim did not make him a terrorist. And for that matter, neither did brainwashing his teenage accomplice. Perhaps most astonishingly, even INCITING TERROR on a massive scale did not qualify John Allen Muhammad.

Where is the disconnect?

This question was suddenly thrust into the spotlight after the tragic news of the shooting at Fort Hood came out last week. Fox News even put up this poll asking whether the massacre was an "act of terror or a horrific crime".

There is so much wrong with this picture! Not only do we not have a clear picture of what even constitutes terrorism--which, by the way, we are apparently fighting a War against--but what benefit does this distinction even offer us?

I therefore have three questions:
  1. If (and this is a majorly huge, theoretical if) one concedes that it is possible to defeat terrorism through the use of War, how can said War be won if its target has no clear definiton? Would not the extent of such a War become as indefinite as its target?
  2. If the moniker of "terrorist" does not coincide with a specific act, type of act, or motivation, is not the label then a purely political one?
  3. Are not all "acts of terror" and "horrific crimes" one in the same?
A victim of an act of terror in Jerusalem. A victim of a horrific crime at Virginia Tech.