What can I possibly offer to the public forum that others have not already said or at least thought about? The short answer is, probably nothing. I don't follow politics very much but rather have it thrust in my eyes and ears everyday in spite of my efforts to avoid the endless stream of inane and circular babble that is touted and past off as magnanimous debate for a healthy and progressive society; whatever. Instead, I offer an observation. Ever since the events of September 11, 2001, I have heard the word terrorist used with virtual impunity. The entire time I've heard that word used and batted around in all sorts of discussions, I have never once heard a clear and concise description of what a terrorist actually is. Aside from the obvious definition of, one who employs the tactics of terror, one is left with a puzzling name. I am disappointed to find that the word terrorist has now joined the group of amorphous descriptors that have no real concrete definition but initially appear to do so.
What group of words does the word terror join? One only has to look at history to find them and their deleterious effects on the societies in which they were sported as commonly understood terms.
A) How many died in the inquisitions for witches? What is a witch? What does one look like? How do they work their spells and magic? The answer, it seemed, was frequently those who looked different, acted funny, or were traditional scapegoats. There was no shortage of personal vendettas, jealousy, or other motivations to denounce someone as being a witch (whatever that must have meant). To be sure, the assistance of documents such as the infamous Maleous Maleficarum, seasoned experts and church fathers to offer guidance and clean conscience to purging the society of the witches. Look at http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/ or wikipedia for additional references
B) During the black years of Nazi Germany, one needed only to be denounced as a Jew, among other labels, to be cast under the veil of suspicion and quite possibly carted off to a death camp. Even Hitler was so terrified of his own labels that once in his early political years it was rumored he had Jewish ancestry. To foil this he went to extraordinary lengths to construct a genealogy giving him a purged lineage. Despite a rambling diatribe of text called Mein Kampf, a team of quack theoreticians composed of MD's, Phrenologists and other disciplines to "prove" the substance of what a Jew was or was not - the only real effects in the end were to have people disappear in the night and murder to make their point. In this case, the objective was to translate a Cultural and religious label into a distinctive biology and purge that biology from the Earth, but as to be expected, proving a separate biology was not possible. It should be pointed out, however, that the groundwork was laid out early through the passage of the Enabling Act of 1933 http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/enabling.htm
this site and Wikipedia have good summaries.
Not to be outdone, one of the great authors of our day Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, points out his real experiences from a paranoid state. Most pointedly, the Act Passed and rigorously enforced in Soviet Russia, Article 58 of the Penal Code that was literally taken to mean anything and even a US ally in the Near East Turkey with its Article 301 of the Penal Code making it a crime to insult Turkishness.
C) With the advent of Senator Joseph McCarthy, labels once again took the forefront except as a Communist. Communists were alleged to be under every bed, around every corner and in any place you could imagine. Communism has the distinctive virtue of at least having a articulated ideology but beyond raising one's hand and saying, "Yes, I am a Communist," there was no way to be certain; even the Soviet and Chinese nations eventually grew apart because of differences on ideological grounds. Suspicion and inquisition *of a sort cost many individuals their dignity and sanity in having to deal with such arbitrary labels in the United States.
D) One of the more insidious and lingering labels to remain now is being racially labeled. I have met many individuals who remain apart from others based on racial grounds. Yet, if one examines what is being discussed, it becomes murky. What does it mean to be black? What does it mean to be white? Many individuals will finally resort to saying, I know it when I see it; but that belies a fallacy of many factors. At what point does one cease to be African, Aboriginal Australian, or from Paupa New Guinea and merge to something else such as Chinese or Mesoamerican? In the US the old 1/32nds rule and one drop rule creates an impossible and absurd burden of proof that could only be defined through genealogy and genetics. Since the rules were designed specifically to exclude a category of individuals in the United States rather than any meaningful or even remotely meaningful tenant of science - it falls to the realm of mean spirited and bogus.
There are plenty of other examples that could be dragged up from all regions of the world...in this it appears that Homosapiens have no match. But now enter the world of the terrorist. If one is to believe that a war on terror and terrorists is being waged, then we are truly lost as a nation for the effect of the phrase is to say we are at war with witches. We can be paranoid, mean spirited and devise as many laws, security measures and methods to root out terror as we like but we are chasing a ghost. One can no more walk down the street and pick out a real witch now than could be done in the earlier periods of history. As a country we can continue to spend billions and billions on fighting people and places where we feel witches or terrorists abide and with determined effect, we can torture a confession out of them and feel satisfied that we are totally justified in our methods and efforts.
I would advance the argument, however, that instead of falling into the same language traps of the past that do nothing but inspire people to be hysterical and believe in justifying whatever measures are necessary to eradicate an invisible threat we take a more simplified approach.
It may come as a shock to many but there are methods that can work quite well.
Giving a proper clearly defined label of what a terrorist is and is not is a reasonable start. If the understanding of a terrorist is, one who employs terror tactics, then this honestly applies to everyone who falls into that category - Ku Klux Klan, Israeli counter terrorist activities, Palestinian militants, Green Peace - on occasion, Peta, Act Up, Right to Life, Chechnian militants, and so on. This is hardly a constructive use of language considering what is being asked of the people of the United States to support and the rest of the world to swallow.
Once you've defined who is going to be the target, understand who they are, what they want, how they work - in other words, know your enemy.
Once you understand them - isolate them and render them ineffective by the most effective and non-damaging means possible. This means taking appropriate action in the context of that society. Generally speaking we have failed miserably on that point. Dropping bunker buster bombs, kicking down doors, and treating every person on the street are the surest way to cultivate new and more determined opponents.
Be willing to trust others outside the immediate sphere of control to get the job done. Never give up on your objectives but do it smartly and intelligently with a maximum degree of focus and flexibility that can be justified publicly and in accordance to human treatment of human beings.
The military participants should not be faulted for much that transpires outside of barbarism, rape and murder. If you put a man or woman in a position where someone else is trying to kill them and it appears that those numbers of potential killers continue to rise rather than fall...what can you expect? Rather, demand clarity, effectiveness of leadership, and change when necessary from those who are defining and prosecuting the problem.
The monsters of the past are the same in their effect but grow at different speeds and change their clothing so that the present generations do not recognize them until it is too late. I should hope that we would not slowly over time be drawn into a situation where we ask the question too late that writer Leonid Sitko poses and that can be interpreted in mental as well as corporeal
I was a soldier, now I'm a convict My soul is frozen, my tongue is silent. What poet, what artist Will depict my terrible captivity?
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