Professional Soldiers ® - What makes a terrorist?

Professional Soldiers ® (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/index.php)

- Terrorism (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=42)

- - What makes a terrorist? (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27331)

What makes a terrorist?

What makes a terrorist?
NPR Talk of the Nation, 21 Jan 2010

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/...71&m=122818457

John Horan, Intl Ctr for the Study of Terrorism

Randy Blazak, Hate Crimes Research Network

I sent you a PM regarding the possibility of finding written transcripts for this broadcast. I am not sure if that is possible or not. I had no luck and was wondering if you had any. I'd like to share this with a few people and think it would be easier if they had a hard copy.

Quote:

written transcripts for this broadcast...

A transcript is available here.

The transcript begins and ends with information that may be of use to the end user.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigaba (Post 311061)

A transcript is available here.

The transcript begins and ends with information that may be of use to the end user.

Much appreciated sir exactly what I needed. I appreciate your time.

Their podcasts go back to the 25th w/o subscribing.

Moderator Roberts asserts that “Extremism is a relative judgment.” Blazak and Horan agree. Horan adds that people holding radical views “is a sign of a very healthy, functioning, democratic society. We’re not really trying to prevent radicalization per se: we’re trying to prevent a particular kind of radicalization from taking root…”
As long as it’s not anti-gay, Talk Radio and Tea Parties (two places where White Supremacist rhetoric is used a lot, according to Blazak) (Glen Beck is of particular concern), people opposed to illegal immigration or in favor of gun rights, and anti-government types (especially on the internet), which are the areas where Blazak finds the greatest concern for breeding terrorists. He mentions Islamic terror only as an equivalent to Christian terror.
Roberts reminds us of Christian, veteran, and White Supremacist terrorist Timothy McVeigh.
The lady professor from Islamabad finds injustice and lack of opportunity as a major source of terror in Pakistan. She believes that “you cannot identify terrorism with any religion.” Islam is not germane to their discussion.
No mention of Fort Hood. The Christmas Day Bomber is not directly discussed in any significant way: their discussion is “in the context of” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, not about him. His name is never mentioned.
This is how the Left morphs Civil Rights activism and their political agenda into the War on Terror.
Hate Crime = Terror.

From the NPR transcript:

Quote:

ROBERTS: And you know, we've been talking about this in the context of the Christmas Day bomber and, of course, Islamic extremists, which get a lot of play, but we have to remember that for a long time, the worst attack on American soil was perpetuated by Timothy McVeigh, a white Christian U.S. citizen.

Mr.�HORGAN: Absolutely.

Mr.�BLAZAK: Right, and a veteran and white supremacist.

Was Timothy McVeigh a Christian? In his "Dear Tracy" letters, he is claiming to be agnostic:

Quote:

Now awaiting death, McVeigh says he is unafraid, that he doesn't believe in heaven and hell. 'If I'm wrong then I'll adapt, improvise and overcome,' he says. 'But if there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/apr/22/mcveigh.usa

'Dear Tracy' - by mass killer Timothy McVeigh
In a letter to Observer reporter Tracy McVeigh, Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, who faces execution in 10 days, talks about the 'triggers' that led him to kill people
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001...6/news.mcveigh

These two articles also suggest he wasn't a Christian:

http://townhall.com/columnists/Maggi...tian_terrorist

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...5/ai_n9113667/

Quote:

These two articles also suggest he wasn't a Christian:

What's key and often overlooked when folks throw religion into the mix, is that violence in the Bible is descriptive, whereas violence in the Qur'an is prescriptive - commanded by Allah and Muhammed. To say otherwise would be orienting on a "narrative" as opposed to orienting on facts. Christianity doesn't have any theological legal imperative commanding Christians to go out and do violence on Christianities behalf, whereas Islam does.

Islam is unique in having a developed doctrine, theology, and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers - terrorism.

"...I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them." (Sura 8:12)

When God Sanctions Violence, Believers Act More Aggressively

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-Rock (Post 311089)

Statement comparing nature of the Bible to the Qur'an

Islam is unique in having a developed doctrine, theology, and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers - terrorism.

"...I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them." (Sura 8:12)

T-Rock--

I think your equating all acts of violence committed in the name of Islam as "terrorism" is problematic. If, for example, a number of Muslim states in the M.E. were to declare war on Israel and send their armed forces to attack, would that constitute terrorism or a condition of general war?

In regards to your quote that uses "terror," I would remind you that in Western civilization, references to "terror" are not rare. IIRC, in The Iliad of Homer, terror, along with rumor, are often seen stalking the ranks. Trojans (and at least one god) know terror as they face Diomedes, Lord of the War Cry in book five. Dolon, a Trojan upstart also has his moment of terror in book ten under the scornful wrath of the great tactician Odysseus. And then there is Pallas Athena and the aegis.

Where I am going with this is that "terror" might hold special power in a cultural milieu in which notions of male identity revolve around notions of physical courage.

In regard to the first part of your post, I think the article below provides an interesting counterpoint. YMMV.

Source is here.

Quote:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2007) — Reading violent scriptures increases aggressive behavior, especially among believers, a new study finds. The study by University of Michigan social psychologist Brad Bushman and colleagues helps to illuminate one of the ways that violence and behavior are linked.

"To justify their actions, violent people often claim that God has sanctioned their behavior," said Bushman, faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research and lead author of the article published in the March 2007 issue of Psychological Science. "Christian extremists, Jewish reactionaries and Islamic fundamentalists all can cite scriptures that seem to encourage or at least support aggression against unbelievers."

Bushman, who is also a U-M professor of psychology and communications studies, and colleagues at Brigham Young University and at Vrije University in the Netherlands, found the same relationship in two separate experiments detailed in the article.

The first study involved Brigham Young University students, 99 percent of whom believed in God and in the Bible. The second study involved Amsterdam students, 50 percent of whom believed in God and 27 percent of whom believed in the Bible.

After reporting their religious affiliations and beliefs, participants read a passage adapted from the King James Bible that described a woman's brutal murder and her husband's revenge on her attackers. Half the participants were told that the passage came from the Old Testament, half that it came from an ancient scroll found by archeologists. Half the participants from each of these groups read a version of the passage that included a sentence in which God commanded his followers to take arms against others.

After reading the passages, participants were paired with confederates of the experimenters for a simple reaction task. They were told that the winner would be able to "blast" the losing partner with noise as loud as 105 decibels, about the level of a fire alarm—a common experimental measure of aggression.

The researchers found that both the religious and secular students were more aggressive, delivering louder blasts of noise to their ostensible partners, when told that the passage they read came from the Bible. Aggressive responses also increased when participants read that God directly sanctioned violence. The increased level of aggression was greater among believers than among secularists, however.

"Our results further confirm previous research showing that exposure to violent media causes people to behave more aggressively if they identify with the violent characters than if they do not," Bushman said.

The work also supports the view that exposure to violent scriptures may induce extremists to engage in aggressive actions. "It's important to note that we obtained evidence supporting this hypothesis in samples of university students who were, in our estimation, not typical of the terrorists who blow up civilians," Bushman wrote. "Even among our participants who were not religiously devout, exposure to God-sanctioned violence increased subsequent aggression. That the effect was found in such a sample may attest to the insidious power of exposure to literary scriptural violence."

According to Bushman and colleagues, this does not mean that reading the scriptures leads to aggression. "Violent stories that teach moral lessons or that are balanced with descriptions of victims' suffering or the aggressor's remorse can teach important lessons and have legitimate artistic merit. But taking a single violent episode out of its overall context, as we did in these studies, can produce a significant increase in aggression."

Dr. Bushman's article is available here.

Quote:

When God Sanctions Violence, Believers Act More Aggressively...

Quote:

I think your equating all acts of violence committed in the name of Islam as "terrorism" is problematic. If, for example, a number of Muslim states in the M.E. were to declare war on Israel and send their armed forces to attack, would that constitute terrorism or a condition of general war?

Neither Jewish nor Christian scriptures nor any other religions employ such perpetual, open-ended commandments for "War." Although we in the west don't think their way, Islam has already declared war on us - secularists, atheists, buddhists, Jews, and christians alike, a never ending eternal war, and the perpetual acts of terrorism only reinforce what is sanctioned by their legal doctrine. To them it is a religious war, sanctioned by Islam.

Quote:

...The crucial difference in Islam, however, is that war against the infidel is a perpetual affair—until, in the words of the Qur'an, "all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God."[25] In his entry on jihad from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Emile Tyan states: "The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily."[26]...

...Obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam's dichotomized worldview that pits the realm of Islam against the realm of war. The first, dar al-Islam, is the "realm of submission," the world where Shari'a governs; the second, dar al-Harb (the realm of war), is the non-Islamic world. A struggle continues until the realm of Islam subsumes the non-Islamic world—a perpetual affair that continues to the present day. The renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) clearly articulates this division:

In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.[29]...

http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war
http://www.meforum.org/2159/are-juda...olent-as-islam

Does the indiscriminate killing of innocent life constitute terrorism?

Edited to add:

According to S.K. Malik, terrorism is a form of warfare, the Quranic concept of war explains the role of 'terror' in the implementation of war:
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL4086137M/...concept_of_war

I think some of you should reread the entire transcript - the radical vs extremist point, the similarity of radicalized language used by many terrorist and non-terroristic groups, and the myriad issues involved in 'profiling' and leading up to a detemination by an individual to a crossing of the line between radical thinking and extremist action are of interest.

RE: McVeigh as 'Christian' - "I was raised Catholic. I was confirmed Catholic (received the sacrament of confirmation). Through my military years, I sort of lost touch with the religion. I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs." http://www.time.com/time/nation/prin...109478,00.html

McVeigh also requested a Catholic priest be present at his execution.

SPREAD BY THE SWORD?

http://www.answering-islam.org/Terro...the_sword.html

Religion does three things quite effectively: divides people, controls people, deludes people.
- Carlespie McKinney

I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or other. The church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.
- Robert G. Ingersoll

Theological and societal turf wars in an increasingly crowded modern world - no less dangerous, but increasingly complicated. :(

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-Rock (Post 311095)

Especially when it is a legal imperative to do so...

"O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." (5:51), therefore, "...Fight those who do not believe in Allah...nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. (9:29) also,..."The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews" (al-Bukhari)

Neither Jewish nor Christian scriptures nor any other religions employ such perpetual, open-ended commandments for "War." Although we in the west don't think their way, Islam has already declared war on us - secularists, atheists, buddhists, Jews, and christians alike, a never ending eternal war, and the perpetual acts of terrorism only reinforce what is sanctioned by their legal doctrine. To them it is a religious war, sanctioned by Islam.

T-Rock

I would be weary when adding a "therefore" between the 2 writings in this passage of the Qur'an. By adding it, you are creating a sense that violence toward Christians and Jews is justified by the Quran, when in reality these two writings are not just seperated by many other lines, and the historical context hasn't even been taken into account.

Manipulation of writings and verses can be misinterpreted and therefore convince people that these lines do in fact justify the killing of Jews and Christians... this same ideology is present in the extremists mind set when they carry out attacks. They have been brain washed, and have been cited verses out of context in order to create a sense of martydom, therefore I would be cautious when extracting 2 lines and combining them out of context and out of order.

Quote:

I would be weary when adding a "therefore" between the 2 writings in this passage of the Qur'an. By adding it, you are creating a sense that violence toward Christians and Jews is justified by the Quran, when in reality these two writings are not just seperated by many other lines, and the historical context hasn't even been taken into account.

Manipulation of writings and verses can be misinterpreted and therefore convince people that these lines do in fact justify the killing of Jews and Christians... this same ideology is present in the extremists mind set when they carry out attacks. They have been brain washed, and have been cited verses out of context in order to create a sense of martydom, therefore I would be cautious when extracting 2 lines and combining them out of context and out of order.

Therein lies the rub, the Qur’an does justify violence towards Jews and Christians providing certain criteria are met. Offensive Jihad or violence towards Unbelievers, Jews, and Christians, happen to be grounded in history, as well as being codified by Sharia.

The Objectives of Jihad

o9.0
(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.

o9.1 Jihad is a communal obligation (def: c3.2). When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others.

o9.6 It is offensive to conduct a military expedition against hostile non-Muslims without the Caliph’s permission (A: though if there is no Caliph (def: o25), no permission is required.
(The Reliance of the Traveler. Pgs 599-609)

o22.1 ( I )
(9) those (nasikh) which supersede previously revealed Koranic verses;
(10) and those (mansukh) which are superseded by later verses.
(The Reliance of the Traveler. Pgs 625, 626)

Which verses in the Qur’an that call for peace, love and patience towards Unbelievers, Jews, and Christians are not affected by al-Nasikh wal-Mansoukh ? :confused:

“None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?" (Surah 2: 106)

“When We substitute one revelation for another, and Allah knows best what He reveals (in stages), they say, "Thou art but a forger": but most of them understand not."
(Surah 16:101)

Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside of the mainstream… :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by cszakolczai (Post 311132)

cszakolczal,

I see in your profile you didn't answer the question, What services you were in?....may I ask what and when? :confused:

Big Teddy :munchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-Rock (Post 311169)

Excellent response.........;)

Big Teddy :munchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-Rock (Post 311169)

Jihad means struggle and in response to the verses you cited, here are some other verses...

[2:190] You may fight in the cause of GOD against those who attack you, but do not aggress. GOD does not love the aggressors.

[2:193] You may also fight them to eliminate oppression, and to worship GOD freely. If they refrain, you shall not aggress; aggression is permitted only against the aggressors.

Not much time right now.

To add while I have some more time, Yes, the Qur'an does offer and have violent verses, but is it just that easy to declare it a violent text and one which targets Christians and Jews? I think it is a little more complicated then that. And in order to understand Islamic extremism, we have to see how the texts are manipulated and altered to fit the teachings which are found by terrorist organizations.