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define "terrorist."

Why Aren't We Calling Loughner a Terrorist?
huffingtonpost.com
I can't help but wonder why folks are so afraid to call the mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona an act of terrorism. The fear of the "T" word seems almost palpable in describing the gruesome events that took place this past Saturday...

my responses to the article:
  • - yes, there is a race component within how this word is used. but the politics are more powerful: some of the same Mujahideen who reagan called "freedom fighters" in 1983 became "terrorists" in 2001.
  • - if shown to be politically motivated, i think a lot of americans will accept that Loughner is a terrorist. especially since it involves assassination.
  • - Sirhan Sirhan is regularly described as a terrorist - is it because he is palestinian, or because he assassinated a political figure? i think both.
  • - the man who flew a plane into the austin IRS building was described (in media) as deranged AND as a terrorist. same for Ted Kaczynski. so, maybe if you're white, you are called a crazy terrorist instead of a sane terrorist.
  • - this might reveal something about the way america sees itself: for a palestinian or iraqi to attack U.S. interests, well, that is sort of rational because they have a grievance (americans recognize that there is a motivation of some sort, even if they would label that motivation "evil"). on the other hand, we think of [white] americans as being the beneficiaries of U.S. policy, so if [white] americans are angry about it, they must be acting against their own interests. which would be "crazy."
  • - one of the effects popularly defining "terrorism" is a general sense of terror, a fear of continuing daily life. the southern white lynch mobs of the 1950s definitely fit the definition, but the word was not popular in U.S. media until the 1960s - and domestically, it began as a derogatory label only for leftist groups (weathermen, black panthers, etc.).
  • there was initially a lot of resistance by U.S. conservatives to the idea that right-wing political actors could also be terrorists. this was played out in the controversy over the My Lai massacre. like Abu Ghraib, My Lai was so horrific it should not have been controversial at all. it was probably not until Timothy McVeigh that the republican party fully acknowledged the possibility of white, right-wing, U.S. born terrorism (i think of the perpetrators of all these events as terrorists; obviously, rumsfeld disagrees).
  • - tucson is different because there is no critical mass of terror. the article gives a list of events, but the events have been separated by years and many miles.
  • - a sequence of events attacking a group of people, we would think that looks more like terrorism (even if the attacks were uncoordinated or the attackers were apparently "crazy")
  • - many "terrorists" who kill civilians in afghanistan are motivated by offers of money. without a political message, i'm not sure how it's useful to define them as "terrorists." maybe they were hired by "terrorists"?

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