{"id":1389,"date":"2006-08-11T11:30:14","date_gmt":"2006-08-11T15:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2006\/08\/11\/terrorists-are-bad\/"},"modified":"2012-06-14T20:59:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-15T00:59:12","slug":"terrorists-are-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2006\/08\/11\/terrorists-are-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrorists are Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Let's try another angle: Nobody likes terrorists, right?<\/p>\n

I mean, those of us who aren't terrorists can all agree that, you know, terrorism is Bad<\/i> and terrorists are Bad People,<\/i> right?<\/p>\n

I see most of you nodding but a few of you \u2014 that bunch there in the back \u2014 look worried. You're probably wondering if this is some kind of trick question.<\/p>\n

It's not. Or at least not in the wingnut sense of pretending-everybody-I-disagree-with-is-a-terrorist-and\/or-lover-of-terrorists (such as<\/a>). <\/p>\n

But the answer does depend, of course, on how we define \"terrorist\" \u2014 and that can be trickier than it seems at first, which may be why, four years into our country's \"Global War on Terrorism,\" we still seem to be using the term with little more in mind than some vaguely Potter-Stewart-ish \"I know it when I see it\" definition.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason a more specific, more useful definition is difficult to suss out is that different actors have an interest in keeping this term as vague as possible. Terrorists want to keep the definition unclear because they like to pretend they're not terrorists. And governments like to keep the definition unclear because they like to pretend that all of their enemies are terrorists.<\/p>\n

This blurring of definitions has crossed over to muddle the meaning of the word \"guerrilla\" as well. Simple terrorists, again, like to pretend they're actually guerrilla fighters. And regimes battling actual guerrilla fighters like to pretend they're fighting simple terrorists. (This latter is unhelpful \u2014 and militarily disastrous \u2014 in that it seems to have contributed to those regimes surprised befuddlement whenever they encounter what they've taken to calling \"asymmetric warfare,\" which ought to be entirely predictable.)<\/p>\n

\"Mc\"<\/a>Sidenote: I have a familial stake in maintaining the distinction between guerrilla warfare and terrorism. My great, great, great, great grandfather was a captain in the New Jersey Militia while that state\/colony was under British occupation. The asymmetric warfare conducted by this militia was directed, ultimately, by Gen. George Washington, who later became the namesake for a city filled with people who seem to think that this is a novel, 21st-century strategy.<\/p>\n

Despite all this disingenuous mislabeling, the hallmark of terrorism remains clear: Terrorists kill civilians. And you're not allowed to do that.<\/p>\n

See, for example, the precise and helpful definition of terrorism in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The term \"terrorism\" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Navy Library helps clarify that term \"noncombatants\":<\/p>\n

For purposes of this definition, the term \"noncombatant\" is interpreted to include, in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and\/or not on duty. \u2026 We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More on this later.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s try another angle: Nobody likes terrorists, right? I mean, those of us who aren’t terrorists can all agree that, you know, terrorism is Bad and terrorists are Bad People, right? I see most of you nodding but a few of you \u2014 that bunch there in the back \u2014 look worried. You’re probably wondering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ynatkc"],"yoast_head":"\nTerrorists are Bad<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Let's try another angle: Nobody likes terrorists, right? 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}