Dax you are right there are some sort of terrorists that you can not stop, they are either born to resent others or with bloodlust to hurt others.

However the majority of terrorists are made by the actions of the enemy forces. You only have to go to the musuems of Vietnam or Isreal to see why ordinary people became terrorists.

It is also true that propangada by the leaders of one side like the pupett shows in Gaza. The cowboys and Indian shows in the early 50s in the USA,and the portrayal of aboriginals at the same time in Australia can lead to misunderstanding and a sterotype of the enemy that leads to terrorism .Only education and respect for others can stop the majority of terrorists.

Your comments are not especially valid, Aus. They need to be refined. This is twice now that you mentioned Vietnam in connection with terrorism. Yet...just how much international terrorism has come from Vietnam? Even after the Vietnam War (or the American War as they call it there) how many Vietnamese terrorists have attacked America or American interests? You can count them on the fingers of both feet...Similarly, just how much Aboriginal terrorism is there in Australia, Aus? I suspecct it is about as common as Vietnamese terrorism...that is to say nonexistent. So, where does that leave us? It certainly suggests your linkage is flawed.

On the other hand, we do see considerable terrorism in Israel and the broader Middle East. We have seen terrorism in Europe and in the United States. Domestic terrorists in the US are rather uncommon. Native European terrorism has almost vanished and been replaced by islamic terrorism. There seems to be a commonality in terrorism those. While the individual decision to engage in acts of terrorism is likely multifaceted and cannot be pinned down to a single common cause there seems to be a requirement for some sort of strong idealogical component.

In the Middle East that component seems to frequently have its underpinning in Islam. In European terrorism during the 1970s and early 1980s the idealogical component was political. The Troubles in Ireland seemed to involve both religious and political components and one must maintain awareness that the involved groups typically possessed one or the other idealogical foundations.

Lawmage, All I said about Veitnam is that they have war musuems similar to the Jewish Halacaust musuems.This dwelling on the injustise of the past can lead to Terrorism. At the moment Vietnam is not engage in terrorism but the Anti American nature of these musuems has led to hatred and resentment. As with the aboriginals and Indians.

I am not saying that there should not be displays of past injustice but we must be careful that we do not put all the blame on one group.

Is terrorism inspired by quintessential, archetypal fear or is it inspired by being shot in the toe with a rubber bullet? If it's being shot in the toe with a rubber bullet, which can certainly result in fear, that's easy--JUST DON'T DO IT NO MORE.

If it's the result of archetypan fear, shouldn't we (I sing the body female) not try to understand and assuage those fears through our actions?

Aus, certainly blaming another group provides a target for terrorism. However, does it provide the essential motivation necessary to spawn the act? You seem to suggest it does. I would argue it does not. Again, using your own examples...We do not see any Vietnamese terrorism directed against the US as a result of the museums you mentioned. Nor do we see Israeli terrorism directed against Germany as a result of the Holocaust museums you mentioned. Nor do we see Native American terrorism inside the United States as a result of the museums you mentioned.

You did however touch on something that seems relevant...injustice. It seems to me terrorism requires a number of conditions and one such condition is the possession of a profound sense of injustice among the actors. This ties in with what Liz asked about some sort of Jungian archetypal fear or being shot in the toe. I personally do not think fear alone is the motivating factor. However, a sense of powerlessness that leaves the individual with a sense that nothing else can be done may serve as a motivation toward terrorism. The sense that no other remedey toward justice is available. In short, a sense of injustice.

Consider...the Palestinians arguably believe that Israel is essentially unjust. They beleive it was foisted upon them, it supplanted their ancestral homeland, and exists only with the assitance of powerful outside forces. The Palestinian terrorist groups argue they sought a peaceful solution to their grievances through the UN and the world community and were rebuffed. In short, they claim to suffer from a profound sense of injustice and that sense of injustice seems to create a powerful rage. That rage, rather than fear, seems to be expressed through terroristic activity. SImilarly, if we consider the Oklahoma City bombing we see something similar. McVeigh, and too a lesser extent Nichols, seemed to envince a profound alientation from the federal government. McVeigh seemed to think it had treated him and others like him unjustly and refused to repent its treatment. He seemed to think he had no other recourse toward justice and so he lashed out with violence.

So...the suggestion of "just don't do it anymore" is not of immediate utility but it does hint at something. Perhaps it is important to consider justice and the perception of justice in our activities so as not to leave an already at risk demographic with the sense of injustice that seems to correlate with terrorist activities. We must of course bear in mind that the issue is not truly injustice but the perception of injustice. In some cases in may be sufficient to present a farcical version of justice and satisfy the potential terorrist. In other cases, even the availability of true justice may not dissuade the individual who has, for whatever reason, already decided injustice reigns.

As long as we have people in the world who are poor and live in atrocious conditions, who feel trampled on, who feel they have no voice in the world, we will alway's make terrorist.

Since a lot of these people don't know any better, they only know one way people will pay attention to them and that's with a gun or a bomb in someone's face.

Until we provide all people with good education, healthcare to take of their sick families, and decent homes ( instead of shacks ) to live in, there will alway's be terrorist and unrest in our world, it's just a fact of life.

And even if by some miracle we were able to feed, house and clothe every human being on earth, terrorists would still exist. There would still be religious terrorism, and tribal terrorism, and terrorism for its own sake by people who like killing people and blowing things up.

That's very true, it's a shame that some people have nothing better to do with their lives than to find reasons to kill others.

May we take this into the abstract, since the Palestinian terrorists, the Israeli reprisals and Timothy McVeigh are all different? Before doing so, however, may I give my understanding of Palestine, Israel and McVeigh?

Palestine was never a country. It was an area of the Land of Israel originally populated by Europeans called Philistines. Palestine is a latinization of Philistine. Following WWI, England partitioned Israel and allowed the Jewish people to, once again, live there. Those Jews were the remnants of the Diaspora Hebrews who left Israel as the result of Roman conquests and the destruction of the first temple. Following the Holocaust and WWII, Britain moved survivors into the Land of Israel.

What is Semitic and who are the Semites? Firstly, Semitic is a languange group linked by related languages including Arabic. So, Arabs are Semites--supposedly the descendants of Shem, one of Noah's sons. So are Israeli's, since Hebrew is a Semitic language.

As I recall, Timothy McVeigh was protesting two things: the Waco Massacre and gun laws. Bringing him into The Making of a Terrorist thread brings in another possible characteristic of a terrorist.

So now we have fear based on the loss of something, perceived injustice, rage and obsession--all of which can lead to terrorism, particularly given that progression. Given this, Law, is it possible to teach either an American soldier or an Iraqi policeman that,



What is the 'proper treatment of the community,' in this situation?

How should a War Against Terrorism be fought? How do we right perceived injustice when that 'injustice' may only exist in a possibly obsessed mind? And who are we to say what or what is not an injustice?

There's one more thing. How can we prepare for terrorism if we don't recognize terrorism?

That is not exactly the case, SPM. Consider the European terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s. Groups like the Italian Red Brigades and the German Bader-Meinhoff Gang all had access to quality education, quality government provided healthcare, and decent rent controlled homes. Their membership was solidly upper middle classs. Contrast those examples with the teeming poverty stricken masses in India or Bangladesh. We see almost no terrorism spawned from those demographics. Similarly, though to a much lesser scale, we can consider the rural poor of America...I am speaking of those who truly do live in shacks, have no access to health care, and seldom progress into much less through high school. Places like the back hollows of Hazard County, Kentucky. those places similarly fail to spawn terrorists. Why is that?

This is why we have laws that clearly define terrorism.