I agree with you on this. Extremism is not an intelligence or wealth problem, it is a character problem. It could happen anywhere, in any culture of the planet, and has in many over history. Check the history of genocide. We are not immune either, which is why it is equally important for us to reign in our own extremism and reach across to decent people from other groups and cultures.
Terrorism is not a word we should allow to be politicized by petty partisan extremists.
A terrorist is a person who intends to harm innocents in order to bring a negative effect on his enemy. A terrorist group encourages some or all of its members to use this strategy. The strategy works.
Terrorist events disorient societies by spreading fear among friends, families, or similar others who could be targeted. The fear is exacerbated by the fact that we have no way of knowing who will be hit, by whom, how it will occur, when or where to expect the attack. When the terrorist is ghost like it adds to the scary effect. The cumulative effect of not knowing the source or where or when it will surface, but that the event could be devastating, is a paranoid psychosis that is contagious.
The worst thing we could do is to act our our paranoid psychosis by attacking innocents who look like the ghosts. The smartest thing we could do would be to bring the innocents into our circle by declaring the terrorists to be a common enemy. So only the ghost like terrorists remain on the outside, then they have no place to hide and their camouflage becomes transparent.
Terrorist is the perfect word for what they do. Who they are affiliated with by history, culture, ethnicity, or demographic is irrelevant except as a means to gather intel. |
