Sunday, February 21, 2010

A word without meaning

Glenn Greenwald on the definition of "terrorism":
In sum: a Muslim who attacks military targets, including in war zones or even in their own countries that have been invaded by a foreign army, are Terrorists. A non-Muslim who flies an airplane into a government building in pursuit of a political agenda is not, or at least is not a Real Terrorist with a capital T -- not the kind who should be tortured and thrown in a cage with no charges and assassinated with no due process. Nor are Christians who stand outside abortion clinics and murder doctors and clinic workers. Nor are acts undertaken by us or our favored allies designed to kill large numbers of civilians or which will recklessly cause such deaths as a means of terrorizing the population into desired behavioral change -- the Glorious Shock and Awe campaign and the pummeling of Gaza. Except as a means for demonizing Muslims, the word is used so inconsistently and manipulatively that it is impoverished of any discernible meaning.

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1 Comments:

At 10:14 PM, February 21, 2010 Anonymous Anonymous had this to say...

the word never had a meaningful definition from the beginning. There is no accepted definition of "terrorism"---The Taliban were freedom fighters when they were fighting the Soviets---but they turned into "terrorists" when they began fighting the American occupation!

 

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