Terrorism · 5:38pm Jan 22nd, 2015
Terrorism is probably the number one news topic of today – and has been for about fifteen years now. That might be as long as some of you have been alive. While I think we can all agree that terrorism is a bad thing, have you ever stopped to think about what it is? World governments try to blur the lines a little in rhetoric, so I’d like to takes this opportunity to discuss several topics of terror.
Due to the subject matter, the pictures in this blog will consist entirely of jokes.
“Terrorism” is difficult to define. You probably have an idea of what it constitutes, but maybe not the specifics. The United Nations uses this definition:
Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.
Yeah, difficult. I personally define terrorism thusly: “Inciting fear in a population in order to further a political or ideological goal.”
The way I see it, terrorism is a method to influence groups of people by making them scared. Generally, the people doing the terrorism are a minority and therefore not able to influence others by actually taking them over. They use fear to make themselves seem more powerful than they actually are.
Do not confuse this with asymmetric warfare tactics where a less powerful fighting force seeks to counter a more powerful one. Using an improvised explosive device to blow up a military convoy is an asymmetric tactic that a weak force can use against a stronger force. Using an improvised explosive device to blow up a market full of unarmed civilians is terrorism.
Some terrorists might have good training, but they aren’t a real military. Your average terrorist probably doesn’t wear a uniform, and definitely causes undue suffering to civilians. This means they are an illegal combatant under the laws of war. Laws of war is a topic for another blog, but the long story short is that if you want to be guaranteed protection and basic rights as a prisoner of war, you have to be an official combatant and follow the rules. Basically, this means we could execute terrorists if we wanted to, but we’re trying to be the better people by not doing to them what many of them would do to us.
This is complicated by the fact that many terrorists are trying to become the ruling party of their area, and by recognizing them as official, it would lend to their legitimacy. For example, this is why we’re starting to use the term “Daish” instead of “Islamic State” because we don’t want to make them sound official by calling them Islamic or a state.
I think we can agree that most terrorists are Middle Easterners who claim to be Islamic. Certainly not all of them, though. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people blowing up a building in Oklahoma city, was both American and had no religious motivation. In the later 1900’s, the terrorist group calling themselves the Irish Republican Army tried to get the UK-controlled territory of Northern Ireland integrated as part of Ireland proper. This being Ireland, they were Catholic terrorists.
I read an interesting article recently on Cracked.com about terrorism. The author posed the theory that if we ignore terrorists, then they don’t get what they want. Terrorists do what they do to make people fear them. If nobody cares they exist, then they fail.
Perhaps the biggest example of us reacting to terrorists is 9/11. The United States spent unknown trillions of dollars on invasion, creating new agencies, modifying old ones, and upping surveillance. It’s estimated that the 9/11 terrorists spent less than half a million to cause the US to spend everything they did. So…was it worth it to kill Osama bin Laden? It sure felt good, but was it a good trade for spending trillions on a decade and a half of war?
The previous paragraph strikes me as being way more pacifist than I usually am. However, I believe it raises an alarming point: terrorism works. They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t. It works, despite the fact that statistically, terrorists aren’t all that dangerous.
Let’s do the math. In 2001, there were about 15,000 murders in the US in a population of 285 million. That’s 1 murder in 19,000 people. 15,000 murders, and 3,000 killed in 9/11, so about one in five murders were by terrorists. Your chances of being killed by a terrorist in 2001 were 1 in 95,000. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack before or since even approaching the numbers killed on 9/11, so your chances of being killed by a terrorist are even lower than in 2001. Yet despite the minuscule threat of terrorism, they expect us to fear them?
Searched “pony fear.” This was the result.
So the good old FDR quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” applies. Terrorists can kill some people, but not nearly as many as car crashes can. They can try to strike fear into our hearts, but heart attacks are what’s really going to kill you. (1 in 500, BTW. Remember rule 1 of Zombieland: cardio)
While the tone of this blog comes off as ignore the problem and maybe it'll go away, I would like to make it clear that the part about ignoring terrorists was directed at their ideology, not their actions. If they want to attack people, they should expect a response in kind. If you're looking for a t-shirt slogan, it could be "fear not, take the shot."
Terrorists do what they do because they aren't capable of anything more effective. They can scream for attention all they want, but if you don’t like their message, then don’t listen.
Updated with outside input.
And people think I'm crazy for saying that I fear the broad surveillance more than I do terrorists. And don't get me started on the TSA.
I'm more likely to see the broad surveillance being abused than I am to get killed by an IED.
In my words to someone who accused me of not caring about people's lives: "More people die from heart problems because they're straining to take a shit than from terrorists. A voluntary course on how to safely take a dump will probably save as many if not more lives than the PATRIOT Act and other broad surveillance and the TSA combined."
Very well said!
Well said!
While the odds of dying to the hands of a terrorist are low, ignoring them does little if nothing to stop them, not when you have nutters like ISIS who were operating well before they gained global acknowledgement in the media, granted, they now thrive on it today.
There's also the fact that those numbers may be so low since everything changed to better combat terrorism. New agencies sprung up, Security firms started working with Inter Pol, when I was working security, the two firms I worked at had me take Anti Terrorism classes, the demand for Armed Security went through the roof, people started buying more firearms and stocking ammunition, the Military mobilized for occupation and war, anti terrorism laws were drafted, passed and ratified within the week after 9/11, while the FBI and CIA's funding damn near doubled in order to expand to better combat this new threat.
Terrorist attacks also have to be legitamately feared not because of the odds, but because when there is an attack done by competent groups and terrorists, lots of people are guaranteed to die. And terrorists have only gotten smarter and more well funded as the middle east blew up along with Africa, leading to more drug trade to fund their operations. A single attack has also been shown to destabilize entire states. Hell, if they were smart, they'd go after railways, highways and oil refineries. A coordinated strike on a quarter of the major import mains into New York could easily starve out the entire city in a matter of days. Bridges are also a way that America could be legitimately harmed economically and industrially.
Ignoring them does nothing to solve the problem.
In related news, the Japanese internet denizens have responded to the taking of two Japanese men as hostages by the militants by photoshopping stills from the video and making a mockery of the whole thing.
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You assume that terrorism must be limited to occasional small attacks, and that terrorists cannot capture and rule States and then use State assets to attack other Powers. Both assumptions are demonstrably proven false by history, the obvious counterexamples being 9/11, and most of the first generation of Third World Terrorist States including Cuba, the old regimes of Syria, Libya and Iraq, and the current regime of Iran.
Eyup.
A terrorist attacks the general public, to incite them to cause their own government trouble. A small action is force-multiplied by those victims against the true target--in effect something like a distributed denial-of-service attack, with the public playing the roles of zombies or 'bots.
The solution is to teach the public better ways to respond to terrorism. Whether they choose to ignore terrorism, to arm themselves against the possibility, or to hide behind strong walls, their response should be based on themselves in self-reliance, instead of crying to their government for the sort of 24/7 protection that no government can provide.
Read somewhere once it was more likely to be killed by a toddler than an Islamic terrorist. Get an Islamic terrorist bombing oh it's all over the news! Israeli extremist kills man for not following his beliefs eh, that happens every Wednesday.
So what you're saying is that Terrorism would be completely ineffective if the press didn't tell everyone about it. Thats... an interesting thought to say the least. Something I like to remember when everybody's freaking out, America was built with the saying "Give me liberty, or give me death" if death is the price of liberty, I'm willing to pay it. A life oppressed isn't a life at all. (no, I don't mean I'm willing for others to pay it for me, I'm willing to pay it.)
Another interesting--and very scary--thought, one dedicated hacker could completely destroy almost any countries entire infrastructure. The security on things like traffic lights, gas line control valves, and power plants is virtually non-existent. Its a really good thing these terrorists aren't educated, and that malicious hackers are usually in it to make a statement or for money. As it is now, the money is in identity theft rather than cyber terrorism. Thank whatever higher powers there are that we haven't had a problem yet.
as a muslim here I must say great written article (er, blog).
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Your far more likely to be shot to death by your next door white American neighbor who had a mental disorder than that terrorist that everyone is yapping about. A man slaughters 30 people? Americans have looked at events like that and said that he was just insane. A Muslim kills a few people? We condemn all of them. Also, do want to know something about the number of terrorists today compared to before we started gunning down civilians, peace talkers, some armed guards, an occasional terrorist, and medical officials? There are far more today. Why? Well, we just shot their brother, or sister, or son, or father. They want revenge, and take a gun against us (guns we left behind when we originally withdrew because we're jackasses) when they normally wouldn't have. I'd like to mention that we've used drones to do what essentially amounts to state funded terrorism in the Middle East. Here's a link to a video detailing what happened about 3-4 weeks ago.
Terrorists and Fundamentalist Islamists are bad. We're bad too, but look at ourselves through gold-plated goggles. We won't stop them from being terrorists if we commit terrorism.
3928419 I disagree. Drone strikes certainly don't intend to kill noncombatants, unlike terrorists.
3928456 Okay, so... did you listen to the linked video all the way through? Some drone strikes are done on the terrorists. Then, there's what a number of former drone operators said. To give an example, they called children "TiTs", which means "terrorists in training", and "fun-sized terrorists." In what that video was talking about, they purposefully targeted an elder going to settle a dispute, his guards to protect him, people who came to collect their bodies, and innocent civilians that wanted to see what was going on. You say they don't target noncombatants? Then why target peaceful children because they might grow up to be a terrorist? Why target elders settling disputes and the innocents who go to the location of their deaths?
Also, let me put up another video:
That is someone talking about a U.S. veteran calling himself a terrorist for fighting in the army.
I'm not trying to say that soldiers are horrible. I certainly don't believe that. A long time ago, my dad was in the army. One of my favorite youtubers is an ex-marine. I don't say that the people are horrible, just the actions.
Hmm... regarding that oh so charming comic of comparing ISIS to the Klan.
ISIS operates and acts in strict accordance to Islamic traditions, customs, law, and strategy of deceit in other countries. The Klan called themselves Christians, but acted, in many ways, in direct opposition to the teachings and ways of Jesus. The Klan also acted on racial and, at the time, scientifically supported ideas (ie eugenics, racial purity, hello Planned Parenthood!) where ISIS acts on ideological grounds, demanding either conversion, death, or a dane geld
4200959 Are you...defending ISIL?
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Oh, God no!