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IS TERRORISM, IS NOT TERRORISM
Following up on a previous post about the Final Flight Of Joe Stack, in which I noted that there was some disagreement over whether Stack ought to be classified as a terrorist:
Here’s an interesting piece from Newsweek that started as an internal memo debating what counts as terrorism that they later decided to publish openly because they had actually hit upon an interesting issue: the fact that the term “terrorism” has become incredibly and perhaps irreversibly warped in American discourse.
What it basically boils down to is this: it’s not terrorism unless it’s carried out by someone who is (1) a foreigner and/or (2) Muslim. Also, you need a decent body count, apparently.
Which isn’t what the Dictionary says, of course:
But as you’ve heard, 9/11 changed everything.
Glenn Greenwald has a better rant than me about how inconsistent and weird this neo-9/11 American definition of terrorism is, so I’ll pass you over to him.
All I can add is that this isn’t new. We went through the same thing with Major Malik Nadal Hasan, who was described by a number of people as a terrorist well before word got out that he’d had some sort of contact with Anwar al Awlaki. Why? Because he was Muslim and had a Muslim name. Case closed.
Which matters because a lot of the same people who consider Islam a basic requirement for terrorism also tend to be much more concerned about human rights when it’s Christians being prosecuted without due process (like those Baptist missionaries in Haiti) rather than the Muslims sitting in Gitmo who are obviously guilty of SOMETHING or they wouldn’t be there.
It also matters because we’ve already reached a stage where learning the Arabic language is grounds for suspicion and detention at airports because that’s the language Osama bin Laden speaks. (I'm not kidding – that was the rationale in this case.)
And they wonder why the US govt don’t have enough Arabic-language translators.
Fear will do that.
Let my people go,
This is dF
Here’s an interesting piece from Newsweek that started as an internal memo debating what counts as terrorism that they later decided to publish openly because they had actually hit upon an interesting issue: the fact that the term “terrorism” has become incredibly and perhaps irreversibly warped in American discourse.
What it basically boils down to is this: it’s not terrorism unless it’s carried out by someone who is (1) a foreigner and/or (2) Muslim. Also, you need a decent body count, apparently.
Which isn’t what the Dictionary says, of course:
ter·ror·ism
n. 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.
n. 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.
But as you’ve heard, 9/11 changed everything.
Glenn Greenwald has a better rant than me about how inconsistent and weird this neo-9/11 American definition of terrorism is, so I’ll pass you over to him.
All I can add is that this isn’t new. We went through the same thing with Major Malik Nadal Hasan, who was described by a number of people as a terrorist well before word got out that he’d had some sort of contact with Anwar al Awlaki. Why? Because he was Muslim and had a Muslim name. Case closed.
Which matters because a lot of the same people who consider Islam a basic requirement for terrorism also tend to be much more concerned about human rights when it’s Christians being prosecuted without due process (like those Baptist missionaries in Haiti) rather than the Muslims sitting in Gitmo who are obviously guilty of SOMETHING or they wouldn’t be there.
It also matters because we’ve already reached a stage where learning the Arabic language is grounds for suspicion and detention at airports because that’s the language Osama bin Laden speaks. (I'm not kidding – that was the rationale in this case.)
And they wonder why the US govt don’t have enough Arabic-language translators.
Fear will do that.
Let my people go,
This is dF