Terrorism...who is hot and who is not ?

Is blowing up an aircraft an act of terrorism ? It is at least an act of crime. The Montreal Convention is specially designed to deal legally with cases such as the bombing of Pan Am 103. But a crime is not always terrorism. And acts of terrorism aren't always crimes. Are you getting confused ? Then take a look at this page. This page might give you some hints.

Some of you might even disagree. Try answering the questions on this page as open as possible. This page is meant as a provocation towards how we think about terrorism. Are we liking the look in the mirror ?

The terrorist and the hero

There are no uniform definitions of what is terrorism and who is a terrorist. No uniform laws, no legal definitions, no conventions, no paragraphs. Terrorists often - when caught and found guilty - are convicted in relation to crimes against the security or peace of the victimized country. National laws deal with terrorism, not international.
A bank robberer taking hostages during the act of robbery is not a terrorist. He is a bank robberer. But when he admits to have been robbing the bank in order to drain the money reserves of his country for the country to go bankrupt (yes, even those kind of people do exist!), he becomes a terrorist. Why ? Because he then has a political motive .

Some criminals are just criminals - but when they watch how much the press is interested in their crimes, they keep up the game and claim to be political criminals, even if they aren't.

It gets even more complicated: if the actions of our political motivated bank robberer is being approved in let's say the neighbouring country, then he is not an universal terrorist. In the eyes of the neighbouring country, he is a hero.It doesn't matter, if the employees of the bank and the hostages were innocent bystanders. The point is, that AS LONG AS WE HAVE COUNTRIES REGARDING CRIMINALS AS HEROES, WE HAVE THE PROBLEM OF TERRORISM.

Let's give you another example: Killing another human beeing is considered a crime in (as far as I know) every country on this planet. But sometimes killing is not a crime. Legally approved execution is killing, but not a crime.
Why ? Because the legislators i.e. the government of a certain country has decided so by law.

When US-military planes drop bombs onto a target in Iraq, then the US-government has legally approved of the killing of possible human beeings in that target. But what happens if a bomb is put in the US military-headquarters in Saudi Arabia, killing one or more american soldiers ?
It then becomes a state-sponsored-act-of-terrorism , legally approved maybe by the Iraqi government. The US-pilot who drops the bomb onto iraqi soldiers is a hero in USA, a terrorist in Iraq. The Iraqi guy who sets off the bomb in Saudi Arabia is a hero in Iraq, but a terrorist in USA and Saudi Arabia.
ONE MANS TERRORIST IS THE OTHER MANS HERO...and the other way around.

It even gets wilder yet ! Sometimes todays terrorist is tomorrows hero...and the other way around. Many political heads in this world have started their popularity-career with throwing bombs and making commando-raids, later formed parties or movements, and ended up being presidents, Nobel-Peace-Prize winners, kings, rock-stars, lawyers, writers etc.
There is no stereotype terrorist.
There is no stereotype act of terrorism.
There are only opinions, and as the saying goes: one has an opinion until he gets another one !

What is terrorism ?

Of course, there have been some attempts to define terrorism and a terrorist, even though no uniform definition has ever been agreed upon. But many governments, organizatiosn and legal experts have tried formulating guidelines for when a crime becomes an act of terrorism. Their problem is just, that they don't agree with each other...
The American FBI has "created" some terms of definition of terrorism:

"Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. "

A leading authority on terrorism and terrorist-research is Danish dr. Ole Borre.
He defines typical forms of practiced terrorism as:
* actions to create fear among population and /or government
* actions to attract publicity and sometimes degrees of sympathy
* actions to provoke a government or power to execute violent counter measures
* actions targeting innocent civilians to attract government/power attention

According to human rights and the very own law of United Nations it is ILLEGAL to target civilians in order to combat governments or bodies in power by means of starvation, killing or other actions.
BUT HEY!
Economical sanctions against countries like Libya or Iraq or Sudan etc. are doing just that!

This is why UN-sanctions are terrorist-actions, just like any other terrorist actions practiced by terrorist organisations. This is called governmental terrorism, but of course, it is usually hidden behind laws of the terrorizing country.
Economical sanctions become thus weapons of MASS DESTRUCTION, hurting thousands, millions of innocent people, wich don't have any lawyers to protect them from unjust pain and grief. At least Hitler killed people openly  - today the UN, under the leadership of the UN Security Council is killing millions of innocent people - and they won't even admit the killing is taking place and is WRONG!!!


Was the bombing of Pan Am 103 an act of terrorism?

There is no doubt about the bombing of Pan Am 103 being an act of crime, a very vicious crime. Whatever reasons anyone had to blow out Pan Am 103, legally it was pure genocide and should be treated as such in court. The question is, if it was an act of terrorism as well...

The governments of the USA and UK agree on that topic. The bombing of Pan Am 103 is to be regarded as an act of terrorism. But does that definition automatically consider all deliberate blowing-up's of civil airplanes to be acts of terrorism ?

When Israel in 1971 shot down a civil Libyan airliner killing hundreds of passengers, because it had derouted over the Sinai peninsula during a sandstorm - it wasn't an act of terrorism, according to Israel and its allies. It was self-protection....imaging all these Libyan elderly, women and kids surely planning to parachute with bombs in their hands and bags down over Palestine!!!

Was the deliberate shooting-down of an Iranian Civil Jumbo Jet in July 1988 by the USS Vincent an act of terrorism ? According to the USA and its allies, it was an accident!
If the bomb aboard Pan Am 103 was put aboard by mistake, and maybe should have been aboard another airplane, should we then consider the bombing of Pan Am 103 an accident, and not an act of terrorism ?

 Humans do sometimes make mistakes, and after all, terrorists are humans, too, aren't they ? Or should we say it the other way around...maybe humans are terrorists, too ?

It is not the first time that innocent people are being killed by bombs on airplanes. The human race is profound of killing each other. The Lockerbie-tragedy is just another milestone of inhumane behaviour, both the bombing of the aircraft as well as the aftermath of criminal allegations and UN-sanctions.

The US Dept. of State is willing to pay 4 million USD for the capture of Fhima and Megrahi - but at the same time there are other people (and governments!) who are willing to pay the same amount or more for the capture of American officials, participating in war crimes and undercover operations. It is a strange world, we live in...

Some people, specially Americans, cry out for retaliation against Libya, even before someone has been found guilty in a court of law. Such individuals, among them members of relatives from Pan Am 103, call out for bombing Tripoli as act of retaliation.Is it okay for the US to bomb Libya, killing innocent citizens in the act, because someone wants retaliation ? How many people have yet to die, because "we" ourselves become terrorist while attempting to combat terrorism ?

Does hardline politics stop terrorism ?

In 1986 Ronald Reagan played with the terrorist image himself, when he ordered the bombing of Libya as an act of retaliation for the La Belle bombing in Berlin. Libya has never been found guilty of the La Belle bombing, although attempts to blame Libya have been used by the mass media to blow up the issue. And Reagan was a media man...

"Today we did what we had to do. If nescessary, we'll do it again." (Ronald Reagan, 15/04/1986)

Reagan and his advisers and a lot of hillbillies in the American administration were sure of themselves that playing with muscles towards Libya has been a success. "We put a stop to terrorism, " they kept on telling us. Did they indeed ?

In the months following the American bombing of Libya, the death tolls of terrorism grew around the world as never before. Numerous new acts of terrorism came in as bad news from all over the world. One could argue, that the American attack on Libya, which Libya and many other people convey as an act of State Terrorism, didn't put a stop to terrorism, but was a kick to more and further terrorism.

Some parents of those who died on Pan Am 103 call out for retaliation. Some parents of those who died on the Iranian jetplane called out for retaliation, too. Some parents of those who died in the American bombing of Libya in 1986 called out for retaliation as well. Their dead children is the only thing they seemingly have in common...

The favorite terrorist image

Bad Boy Timothy (Mc Veigh) is (by the majority of people in the USA) regarded as a terrorist and a criminal. He blew up the FBI-building in Oklahoma City. But, friends and neighbours, what if he had blown up the house of Saddam Hussein? Would he still be Bad Boy Timothy, or would he be Our Big Boy Timothy?

Right after the disaster in Oklahoma City the mob of people (=all US normal guys) had some pretty good idea of who'd done it. Why, naturally, it was an Arab, a dark and sinister muslim fundamentalist with a big black beard. That was in the 90ies.
In the 50ies and 60ies, we would have gone looking for closet-commies with commie-party books hidden in their Cuban coats. In the 40ies, it would of course have been a small yellow japanese fundamentalist or a glumsy German with sympaties for ol' uncle Adolf Hitler.

It came as a shock for the mob, when the black-bearded muslim fundamentalist prooved to be the blond, all-american boy next door. A former war hero and dedicated patriot. And he didn't even do it for money!

We - us loosers in the West -  don't like to see our own good guys beeing the bad boys. We like to believe all evil comes from the other side. That's why we rather like to see colonel Gadhafi as the master mind behind the fall of Pan Am 103. We don't like to see our new friends and alleys (Syria, Russia or former East Germany) as the ones behind such an evil deed.

Justice is fine. But only if it hurts the other ones.
Truth is fine, too. But sometimes truth brings dirt right into our own living rooms.
And we don't like that.
We like it to be clean...in our houses, in our governments, in our politics, in our minds....so we wash our hands!

We use arguments for washing our hands:

The need for terrorism

If you ask people, today, if they can name a terrorist, you'll maybe hear names like Yassir Arafat, colonel Gadhafi, Abu Nidal, The UNA-bomber, the Oklahoma-bomber, the IRA etc. But dependent of who you ask, you might as well get names like Margeret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the CIA, the KGB, STASI, Red Army Fraction, Ku Klux Klan, Union of White Decency, Neo-nazis etc.

Have you ever wondered, that if the issue of who is a terrorist and what is terrorism, allegedly is so crystal clear to YOUR government, then why can't people agree upon it?

To make scapegoats, to have a picture of your enemy, it is a perfectly normal social behaviour for mankind. Some good ol' bad boys make people get closer to each other. It makes nations cling together. So maybe there is something positive about terrorism after all.....
We mean, the USA has been looking for something to blame Libya for since it was discovered, that the so-called La Belle-bombing was a hoax. Libya wasn't behind it, it was Syria. But Syria became an alley to the US in the Gulf War. Okay, then lets take Libya.

This might sound naive and simple. But politics work that way. Believe me, I know!

  • Why does America hate Qadhafi?

    • Famous terrorists and famous acts of terrorism

  • FBI's 10-Most-Wanted-Terrorists-List....as some people would like to see it !

    • Just a little list of mine, to make you think twice about terrorism:

    Are those people above to be regarded as terrorists, vicious criminals or ......? Perhaps terrorism is just a stage in the life of a devoted politician ???

    Of course, I have my own favorite terrorists.....everybody has their own definition of who is supposed to be public enemy no.1.

    My favorite terrorist is Madeleine Albright and she is actually the one, who, with very few words explained to the rest of us, what terrorism is all about: "It is worth it! " These words was her answer to the pictures and numbers of Iraqi children being killed by economical sanctions. 

    Want to find out more about terrorism, counter-terrorism, terrorism-profiles etc ? Then there is a special and very informative internet-homepage on the subject:
  • http://www.terrorism.com

    • Or visit this page with many terrorism links:
    http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sem/IR/cstpvlinks.html#General

    Want to know more about why the USA is such a big target for Arab terrorism ? Then visit this website , which explains it all.

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