Terrorism is a term being used a lot lately. It’s being used inappropriately in many cases.
Terrorism is “the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.” The primary thing though is violence used to achieve political ends. It differs from war, I suspect, because most people consider the right of one country to wage war against another country as lawful, although I personally don’t.
Osama bin Laden is a terrorist. Little doubt about that. Saddam Hussein? The issue is a bit murkier. He did use violence against his own people to kill and oppress Kurds, other minorities and those who don’t like him. He has apparently used unlawful biological or chemical weapons, but I don’t know if Iraq ever signed that particular treaty. Mass murderer: most likely. Terrorist: dunno about that rap. Doubtless though we will hear Bush call him a terrorist in his State of the Union speech tomorrow. He may fill his own people with terror, but that is not the definition of a terrorist. He has been involved in no act of terrorism against the United States that we know about.
Yassir Arafat, terrorist or not? The difference between terrorist and freedom fighter gets very murky. His aims are certainly political, but his aim is a Palestinian state. Is everyone who takes arm to create a state for their own people a terrorist? If Israel is to lay this rap on him, why weren’t the founding fathers of Israel also terrorists for having done pretty much the same thing to the Palestinian inhabitants of what was then Palestine?
Drug dealers are often called terrorists when they kill people. Murderers yes. Mass murderers: sometimes. Terrorists, no, unless you count the thugs in Columbia who basically want an anarchy to run the country as one big narcotics manufacturing facility. By in large though drug dealers and narcotics distributors just want the large sums of money. Running a country doesn’t interest them.
This discussion hopefully raises another issue: what is so special about terrorism anyhow, as opposed to say, mass murder? For example what makes what happened in Oklahoma City worse than say, what Jim Jones did to his followers in French Guinea in 1978? The key difference is the act is political, but does that really warrant a more severe form of punishment and admonition? The big nasty sin seems to be to want to change a system of government through means of force of arms outside of a declared war.
But there are plenty of inflexible governments out there, such as, well Saddam Hussein’s where if a group if insurgents tried to use terrorism as a means to bring down his government we’d be calling them “freedom fighters”. So it seems the issue is the kind of government. If it is something like the United States then this sort of activity is terrorism. Otherwise maybe it’s okay and it’s freedom fighting.
I hope I’m not the only one disturbed by the sloppy and inappropriate use of the term “terrorist”.
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January 27th, 2003 at 12:41pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2003 |
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Tags: Terrorism
Does life have you down? Do you feel overwhelmed by circumstance and wish you could start over? I often feel that way, not because I really don’t like my life that much nor not love my family. But sometimes even when I think my own personal problems are overwhelming, I can take some comfort in knowing that for other people things can, and indeed often are, much worse. This is a perverse sort of comfort, but it does help me realize that in the grand scheme of things my problems don’t amount to a hill of beans.
Latest case in point has to do with a 14-year-old friend of my daughter who must, of course, remain nameless. Our daughter (thankfully) has been confiding in us that this girl, who I shall call “B”, has been cutting herself. These are not the sort of cuts from someone trying to take her life. She’s not bleeding from an open wound in the bathtub. But she is doing this and Rosie caught her at it at school, where B was using tissues to catch the blood. Thankfully Rosie is not stupid and immediately brought it to the teacher’s attention. The teacher immediately sent B to see a student counselor. Things escalated from there. B is now in the children’s psychiatric wing of a local hospital and will likely be in there for some time.
Because, you see, B’s family is dysfunctional. Her mother C is trying to hold the family together but it seems to be a lost cause. Because C is married to D who lost his job some months back and who also a world-class alcoholic in complete denial. C and D spent lots of time having arguments. D doesn’t think he has a problem even though he is staggeringly drunk most of the time. C is embarrassed to be seen with him. Naturally all the yelling, not to mention having a drunk father 24/7 is freaking B out. Fortunately her younger brother E seems to be largely immune from all this.
C has been trying to keep the family together on the belief that it is best for the children. But it is becoming apparent that some marriages can be so toxic that it is not best for the kids. B’s latest cutting tendency is no doubt a response to the rage and pain that she feels in her life but can’t control. B is in many ways an exceptionally bright and pleasant girl.
C needs to escape from all this once in a while … who can blame her? So she took off for a retreat with some friends. B immediately stopped taking her medications and D was too drunk to notice or to care. C gets called home prematurely from her retreat when the school calls. B is still in the hospital. C comes to visit, but B spurns C. B probably blames C for her whole family situation, not realizing that it is C who is doing her best in impossible situations.
All this, of course, while the family income is cut in half. Painful financial decisions will have to be made, like downsizing their life and perhaps selling their house. But the most painful of all, but perhaps most necessary of all, if for C to separate and divorce D. D may well end up on the street, homeless. He doesn’t seem to have a true friend in the world. Maybe D will hit rock bottom and go into recovery. It doesn’t look likely though.
Man, I want to pour a stiff one from just hearing about this! I can’t imagine living this scenario 24/7! My heart really though goes out to all of them. C is doing her best under impossible conditions. B is a 14-year-old kid who shouldn’t have had all this nasty stuff thrown at her at such a young age. And as much as I don’t like D being a drunk and wish he’d sober up, alcoholism is a disease, so I have sympathy for the guy and an addiction that is clouding his brain so much that rational thought is pretty much impossible.
We’ll see how this soap opera plays out. The good part is that C has now fully confided in my wife and my wife, bless her, wants to help out where she can. We might even host B in our house for a while. B might get better being in a normal family setting for a while.
As awful as this family’s situation is, there are other stories I know of personally that would make this one look like nothing. This is just the one I know about at the moment.
My life: I think I’ll keep it!
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January 27th, 2003 at 07:56am
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2003 |
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Tags: Adolescence, Families, Mental Illness, Neighbors
