What Terrorists Want
Chapter One
One
What is Terrorism?
Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, secure and inflexible.1
—Robespierre, 1794
Today our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature.
—George W. Bush, September 11, 2001
The best that one can say of these people is that they are morally depraved. They champion falsehood, support the butcher against the victim, the oppressor against the innocent child.
—Osama bin Laden, October 7, 2001
Like pornography, we know terrorism when we see it. Or do we? We know we don’t like it. In fact, the only universally accepted attribute of the term “terrorism” is that it is pejorative. Terrorism is something the bad guys do. The term itself has been bandied about so much that it has practically lost all meaning. A casual glance at newspapers reveals currency speculation being labeled “economic terrorism,” domestic violence as “domestic terrorism”; crank telephone calls have even been labeled “telephone terrorism.” If you can pin the label “terrorist” on your opponent, you have gone a long w ... read full excerpt from What Terrorists Want ebook
