"That's him, the terrorist!"

[sinkingfeeling]

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/wpswi/

[onehandle]

1. I wonder what the perception would be if we had real time video of the other four? nt

[freshwest]

2. Good point, but for sure someone will come along and argue.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. That they were mass murder, but not terrorism, so far as I know.

Terrorism does *not* just mean mass murder, it means "violence with the goal of inspiring terror for political purposes".

Many of the worst mass murderers are/were not terrorists.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

4. Did they categories the OK Bombing as terrorism or not?

For the life of me I can't remember right off the top of my head.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

5. The man in the cartoon is quite right - only one of those mass killings was a terrorist act.

Terrorism does *not* just mean "killing lots of people", it means "violence with the goal of inspiring terror for political purposes".

No matter how big an atrocity you commit, if your motive is not political (or quasipolitical) then you're not a terrorist.

It is unfortunate that America has fixated on "terrorism" rather than "murder" as the ultimate evil.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. I disagree. Terrorism is violence with the goal of inspiring terror. The 'for

political purposes' is an impetus we like to put onto the definition. Some dictionary examples:

the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

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.


"There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the definition of the term "terrorism".[1][2] Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of "terrorism". Moreover, the international community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed upon, legally binding definition of this crime. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged.[3]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. The reason we need a word for terrorism is that it's a thing.

That's obviously not a very clear way of putting it...

We use words to categorise the universe.

Some categories arise naturally, and seem to demand words.

We have word for "deliberately killing someone" - murder, but we don't have separate words for "killing someone on a monday" and "killing someone on a Tuesday", because those aren't naturally arising categories. We have words for colours - certain subsets of the electromagnetic spectrum - but not for other subsets, because the subsets we name are the ones that correspond to different receptors in our eyes (I think - I may be wrong about that, but the metaphor would stand even if so).

There is a particular category of behaviour which seems to occur a lot. There are a lot of properties that acts of violence with the goal of inspiring terror for political purposes often have in common - for example, terrorists seem to go in for bombing crowded places much more often that breaking into people's homes at night and murdering them - so I think it's useful to have a word that specifically corresponds to that category.

And including other things which don't seem to fit that category makes it much useful.

The thinking of a lot of terrorists seems to have a lot in common. The thinking behind a lot of spree killing also seems to have a lot in common, but it's different (spree killers tend to use guns or knives, I guess because they want to kill a person and then another person and so on rather than to kill a lot of people at once and then it be over, but I am thankfully not an expert). So I think that using the same word to refer to them as to terrorists is unhelpful.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. I still disagree with you. I see a very common thread in all those mass murders

and the two Boston suspects. Their lack of self-esteem drives them to commit acts of violence, to show the 'world' how tough they are, how superior they are. They do it by causing fear and panic, making others objects of their revenge for whatever slight they feel was dealt to themselves. They seek to both create terror in the population and to become infamous.

You've already decided the Boston bombings were political or religious. I think those two brothers had more in common with the Columbine killers than with the 9/11 suicide plane hijackers.

[marions ghost]

8. excellent cartoon

-------the lineup