Why terrorism won't get you on a T-shirt

[rawstory]

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By Larry Womack
RAW STORY COLUMNIST

More and more each morning, as I read the news, I find myself overcome with disillusionment.

Like many of you, I can't help but think, "Whatever happened to the good old days of plain, simple guerilla warfare?"

This morning, as I slid the end through my Che Guevara Boyscout-style belt buckle, I found myself wondering if Afghans one day will wear Osama bin Laden's face on T-Shirts.

After a moment's deliberation, I decided that they would not. After all, Guevara was a guerilla, not a terrorist. Besides, who's going to sell those T-shirts if their anti-capitalist element becomes a focus and success? It's ironic enough that communist Guevara has become such a trademark.

So the question is this: How will bin Laden be viewed by future generations? Guevara won in Cuba, but it is teens in the states that sport his image above torn jeans and bondage pants.

The key, then, is perception. We perceive Guevara to be a hero (in many respects), but bin Laden to be a murderer. Bin Laden's followers, on the other hand, think of themselves as guerilla fighters.

The difference, of course, is that a guerilla attacks military or tactical targets, whilea terrorist targets civilians, usually in an attempt to create fear or confusion among the masses.

This, clearly, is unacceptable. From a public relations standpoint, it's an out-and-out nightmare. Even I find it impossible to find humor in the subject — and an "off limits" sign as big as the one on terrorism should be proving impossible for me to resist. Let me think. No. Nothing funny about that. Unless it happens to the Saudis. And even then, it's no longer funny when we look at the reality. When it did happen, civilians were killed. There's nothing noble about that.

Yet, I have no problem with guerillas, as long as they are fighting against an oppressive military presence. As Americans, we owe a debt to guerillas. American revolutionaries were groundbreakers in the field (or rather, off the fields) of unsystematic violent confrontation. Things got even nastier during the American Civil War — sure, they were Confederates, but a true patriot loves even those Americans who died for the cause of dissolving the Union and continuing their enslavement of fellow Americans. Guerilla warfare, though not as popular as Gandhi's crowd-pleasing pacifism, helped bring an end to British Imperialism. And, although there are certainly humanitarian problems with Castro's Cuba, it is impossible to deny that the average Cuban is better off under Castro than Batista.

Terrorists really need to make their message more T-shirt friendly.