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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (34362)	3/14/2004 5:45:45 PM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 793843

Zakaria is sharp: Both groups had political agendas, but as their political causes have lost steam, they are increasingly defined almost exclusively by a macabre culture of violence. "The purpose of terrorism," Vladimir Lenin once said, "is to terrorize." Like much of what he said, this is wrong. Terrorism has traditionally been used to advance political goals. That's why a rule of terrorists used to be: "We want a few people dead and a lot of people watching." Terrorists sought attention but didn't want people to lose sympathy for their cause. Yet with many terrorist groups -- like ETA, like al Qaeda -- violence has become an end in itself. They want a lot of people dead, period. B Raman, who is surely an expert on terrorism, points out there are a number of aims of terrorism and they are not taken up at all times by all terrorists: Recruitment to the cause. Overthrow of a local power structure. Publicity for the cause. Punishment of those who are against the cause or who are indifferent to it. ETA and al Qaida practice the latter kind. Thus it's in the end not really of great import to them who the victims are: Christians, Muslims, Basques, Spaniards, Iraqis, Americans, adults, children. In old fashioned terms, they have entirely lost their moral compass. Zakaria's Engels' quote is not entirely accurate: "Terror is for the most part useless cruelties committed by frightened people to reassure themselves." Terror is sometimes also useless cruelties committed by angry, enraged people to punish others for the purpose of exalting themselves. They are beyond the need for reassurance.