The CNN-BBC-LA Times-Washington Post Handbook for How to be an Activist

1. Murdering people makes you a killer or a terrorist. But if those murdered are Jews then you are an activist. You might also be a militant.

2. Crashing jet planes into buildings makes you a terrorist. But attempting to shoot down civilian planes landing in Israel makes you an activist.

3. Placing large bombs on trains in Madrid makes you a terrorist, but placing bombs on Israeli buses full of children makes you an activist.

4. Blowing up a nightclub in Indonesia full of Australians makes you a terrorist. But mass murdering Israeli children makes you an activist.

5. Snipers shooting innocent people in Virginia are terrorists. Snipers shooting Jews in the West Bank are activists.

6. People trying to ram soldiers with trucks and cars are generally terrorists unless the soldiers in question are Jews. 7. Throwing rocks at civilians makes you a criminal and maybe even a terrorist, and if you do so off a California overpass you will get jailed. But throwing the same rocks at Jews in Israel makes you an activist and maybe even a professor at Columbia University.

8. Denying the Holocaust makes you a racist and a fascist bigot, unless you are an Arab, in which case it makes you a moderate, at least if you deny the Holocaust in grammatically correct English.

9. Hiding behind children when you shoot weapons at soldiers makes you a coward and a villain, unless you are a Palestinian or an Iraqi Baathist.

10. Murdering children makes you a fiend and maybe a nazi unless the children are Jews, in which case you are an activist with legitimate grievances.

11. 9-11 and 3-11 terrorism has no underlying causes or root grievances, but Middle East activism in which Israelis get mass murdered does - because of Israeli insensitivity and because Palestinians feel occupied.

12. When Bosnians or Albanians in Kosova get mass murdered, that is a war crime. When Jews get mass murdered, this is their comeuppance for their insensitivity, and of course it is reactive activism.

13. When Americans assassinate al-Qaida or Taliban leaders anywhere they find them, this is part of the war against global terrorism. When Israel shoots terrorist leaders, it is an obstacle to peace and is unjustifiably deactivating activism.

14. When the US jails hundreds of terrorists in Guantanamo Bay without trial, this is because the jailed are terrorists. When Israel jails people who have mass murdered Jews, this is undermining the peace process and antagonizing activists.

15. Firing mortars and rockets into civilian areas in the Balkans makes you a war criminal. Firing them from Gaza into Jewish homes makes you a militant. Protesting wearing of fur also makes you a militant, or maybe an activist.

This touches on the one greatest mistake, weakness and failure of the Bush presidency – Not clearly defining terrorism.

For God’s sake, we’re 3 years into a war on terrorism, and 90% of the country probably can’t define it.

The FBI defines terrorism as “The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives.”

I bet half the Freepers here can’t even get close to that definition. Heck, I bet 25% who read it now won’t remember it next week.

This is serious. This needs to be repeated over and over again until it’s as familiar as the Pledge of Allegiance (or the chorus from “Oops I Did it Again”). This has to be a well defined part of our lexicon domestically, and we have to project it internationally. We can’t let this word in the language be redefined any more than we can tolerate the redefinition of “life", “prosperity” or “freedom”.

There are people for this. The administration has PR people, Judiciary people, State Department people and FCC people with leverage over Hollywood people. Bush himself should remind us every day what terrorism is and why it is evil.

Terrorism is evil because it’s a decay into the most extreme form of brutality and cruelty. It’s the pinnacle of horror in politics, and no long term good can ever come from that as its foundation. It’s anti-life (or anti-God). And that makes it objectively evil.

There is no good terrorism. If you think you can imagine it, compare it to the definition of terrorism and you’ll see that it’s not terrorism. Every form for any purpose is an abomination of the evolution of civilization.

On 9-11 terrorism reached us in a big way, and that’s why we wage war on it now. We have to make all this clear everywhere.

Pressing the definition and consequences of terrorism into every brain around the world is every bit as critical to its defeat as military action. Otherwise, our military action becomes unfocused, unsupported, and we lose the hearts and minds of the people to the terrorist.

Terrorism is an idea, not a geographical capital. It is more difficult to fight that kind of a war and, although casualties will be low per incident, the number of incidents will, over the long run, result in panic fatigue and give the M.A.S.H. (Muslim-American Suicidal-Homicidists) time to persuade the country that suicide is painless. The dull roar of the other guy being blasted to bits over time leads to thinking he must have done something wrong. If you think that isn't likely, let me point out that it has already happened. In this country. In this day. In this administration. The Bush State Department explains why blowing up Israelis is different from blowing up Americans.

Eventually, the war on terror will settle down to an international version of Israel's struggle with the Palestinians, Russia's with Chechnya, and the British with the Irish. Until the consequences of terrorist acts become immediate, inevitable, ruthless, and lethal to the perps and their families, the war cannot be won. It has to be stopped in the minds of the wannabes before they ever lay hand to a weapon.

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