Terrorism Defining and Justifying Terrorism

Terrorism

Defining and Justifying Terrorism

Terrorism has been around since Biblical times. In about 167 B.C. A disenfranchised group of Jews, called the Maccabees, went up into the mountains around Jerusalem to hide, coming down as frequent intervals to terrorize the Syrians who had invaded and were occupying their land. They worked to resist the oppression of Antiocus Epiphanes, who introduced worship of idols in their temple, erecting a statue in it of the goddess Diana. Of course, the Bible does not call the Maccabees terrorists. They are seen as patriotic and heroic, since eventually they did succeed in driving out the Syrians and taking back their temple for the worship of God.

The word terrorism is a powerful word often used by politicians to unite people emotionally against a common enemy. Brock (2006) points out that before 1980 the term was not found in Reader's Guide, which instead listed acts of violence (and articles written about them) under the location where the violence took place or under the people who committed the act. Ronald Reagan first used the term in 1981 to describe the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Likewise, the United Nations Security Council did not use the term terrorism until 1985. From 1985 until 2004 the UN did not attempt to define terrorism either, but limited its use to specific situations. The UN labeled as "terrorist" various activities, such as hostage-taking, abduction, "use of unlawful plastic explosives, assassinations of heads of state or political leaders, attacks on civilian aircraft, bombings of embassies and civilians,...and attacks on religious sites in armed conflicts" (Saul, 2005). After the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, however, things changed. Between 2001 and 2004 anti-terrorism measures "suffered from lack of definition, but, in late 2004 the council prospectively defined terrorism as serious (sectoral) criminal violence intended to provoke a state of terror, intimidate a population, or compel a government or organization" to take a certain action (Saul, 2005).

The media and politicians almost never discuss whether terrorist acts can be justified; generally, they discuss terrorist actions as "the worst actions humans perform, forgetting, for example, the comparable destruction and death brought on by conventional warfare" (Halwani, 2006, p. 289). Coady (cited in Halwani, 2006) points out that lack of a good definition makes it difficult, if not impossible, to address the moral implications of terrorism. Coady defines terrorism as "the organized use of violence to attack noncombatants ('innocents' in a special sense) or their property for political purposes" (p. 290). This definition focuses on the targets, innocent "noncombatants" and does not consider the goals the terrorists aim to achieve. It does specify for "political purposes" rather than criminal, and does not mention causing fear. There exists some disagreement on whether threats, for example, as opposed to real acts, constitute terrorism. If the goal of inducing fear is part of the definition, then threats would be included, but if terrorist goals are limited to "political purposes," then threats would not qualify as terrorist acts.