Terrorism

Terrorism will persevere because it often works, and achievement breeds repetition. Terrorism is certainly not a new phenomenon: it dates back to the earliest history of humankind. The biblical Samson, who died bringing down a temple around his Philistine enemies, may have been the first recorded suicide terrorist, but terrorism in its broadest sense has been common throughout much of history. Much terrorism has been small scale—”retail” or one-on-one assassinations of individuals and ambushes or explosions directed against specific groups. The retail nature of terrorism in the past was largely a function of the available weaponry(Sprinzak, 70-71).

Over its long history, terrorism has had a checkered record of stunning successes and dismal failures—at least as judged by the achievement of the goals proclaimed by its practitioners. Recently, terrorism's successes have been more visible than its failures, and the international community—diplomatic, religious, and academic—has been selective in its condemnation of terrorists. For these reasons, aggrieved groups and individuals have increasingly found terrorism an acceptable, even attractive, option(Sprinzak, 70-71).

The anti-apartheid action in South Africa employed terrorism, with widespread support from many African Americans (and others as well). To a far lesser extent, little figures of blacks supported, or at smallest refused to accuse, such American terrorist groups as the very dark Panthers, the Revolutionary Action action, and the Black Liberation Army. Some Irish Americans have assisted Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, while others have quietly admired their actions. A small number of Jews supported the Jewish Defense League during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. A substantial number of American Muslims have contributed money to Islamic terrorist groups.

The important issue is that terrorism, as a mechanism of change, has not ever been unanimously condemned—at smallest before September 11. It is true, of course, that not all terrorism is the same. The use of terrorist tactics against the Nazis by the French, Polish, and Jewish undergrounds was different from the attacks on the World Trade Center in several different ways(Sprinzak, 70-71). First, the anti-Nazi underground targeted primarily Nazi military and police personnel. Moreover, they were literally fighting for their lives, not for some abstract political goal; their killing was in self-defense (if not in the legal sense, certainly in the moral sense).

Another factor would be whether terrorism is in self-defense against state-supported terrorism, genocide, or mass murder of innocent people. Had the Jews in Nazi Germany blown up German kindergartens and threatened to continue to do so unless the gas chambers were closed, they would be less deserving of condemnation (although perhaps still deserving of some) than those who blow up kindergartens to retrieve captured land or even to end an oppressive occupation not accompanied by mass murder. Nevertheless, if Jews blew up German kindergartens after the war ended, in revenge for what the Germans did to their children, this would be far more deserving of condemnation.

For some, it depends on self-serving considerations, while for others, there are criteria that are more objective. Moreover, attitudes may change over time and with experience. Whether the ...