Gee: Stop making excuses for terrorism

Before we can fight terrorism with any success, we have to change the way we think about it.

People in the West often assume that terrorists must be driven to it by some burning grievance. If the men of the Irish Republican Army bomb a pub in Belfast, it must spring from their anger over the British occupation. If a Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up outside an Israeli disco, it must spring from his frustration over the harsh Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Call it the "root causes" theory. What terrorists do may be despicable, goes the argument, but they did it because their grievances had been ignored by a brutal occupier, an oppressive government or an indifferent world. It follows that the only way to end terrorism is to address the "root causes."

Serious students of terrorism rejected the "root causes" theory long ago. Terrorism does not spring spontaneously from social deprivation or political oppression. If it did, then every poor and undemocratic country would be a hive of terrorists. Soviet dissidents never resorted to murdering innocent civilians, nor did the opponents of Nazism -- though they were fighting some of the worst forms of oppression ever seen.

Terrorism is a deliberate form of political or ideological warfare waged by fanatics with a disposition for unlimited violence. In the case of extreme religious terrorists, whether Islamic or Christian or Sikh, they are engaged in a holy war, a struggle for the fate of the world that justifies any amount of bloodshed.

Addressing "root causes" will not stop people like that. Even if Israel pulled out of the West Bank tomorrow, Islamic terrorist groups would keep trying to kill Israelis. To them, it is not the Israeli occupation that rankles. It is the very existence of Israel. It is pure hatred, more than grievance, that drives them.

Yet the "root causes" notion lives on. We have seen it twice this week on these very pages. The day after Tuesday's attack, University of Toronto scholar Thomas Homer-Dixon argued that the root cause of terrorism was the growing gap between rich countries and poor ones. "These differences breed envy and frustration and, ultimately, anger," he wrote. "The problem will never go away if we don't address the underlying disparities that help motivate such violence."

Then, in yesterday's paper, columnist Rick Salutin said that the key to defusing support for terrorism was "eliminating the worst cases of wretchedness that sustain it." His suggestion: End Western sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq and get Israel to pull out of the West Bank.

No doubt both writers abhor what happened this week as much as everyone else. But by making excuses for terrorism, even qualified excuses, they give the perpetrators what they crave most: legitimacy. Worse, they acquit them of responsibility for their own actions.

If terrorism springs from their frustration over unanswered grievances, then it is not really their fault. It is merely a disease and they are simply the carriers, "rather in the way that innocent animals might be the carriers of rabies" (as the conservative U.S. author Midge Decter once put it).

That not only gives comfort to the terrorists, it hurts the effort to fight them. If terrorists are not morally responsible for their own actions, then it frees the rest of us from the burden of taking them on.

Well, that freedom just ended. We now know we must confront terrorism face to face. Before we do that, we must learn to see it as it is -- not as the product of "root causes" but as the result of a deliberate decision to kill in the name of hate.

I have believed this for a long time. Terrorists like to kill for killing's sake and only use religion or ideology as an excuse for their abominations. We are dealing with natural born killers not religious fanatics. If the world gave them everything they wanted the Bin Ladens of this world would soon find another excuse to kill innocent people. This is exactly why this virulent strain of human existence must be eliminated forever.

"...The clueless and the unconscious can enjoy anything..."

Now I know how Alice felt through the looking glass. Truth is Evil. Questions are symbols of the need for psychiatric help. Expressions of friendship and solidarity are causes for excoriation.

Still, we're on the same side and I'll fight for you when the time comes...

You'll have to wait a bit then until our values have taken root everywhere on Earth.

Spoken like a true son of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I bet you have a poster of Mikoyan and Suslov hanging in your room.

The gap between the haves and the have-nots must be addressed by the have-nots. No one "gave" the US anything. The US has no obligation to succumb to blackmail on an international level. Nor does any other advanced civilized country.

It doesn't help when our own politicians promote class envy as a plank in their platform.

...the "root causes" theory... the only way to end terrorism is to address the "root causes."

In a sense this theory is correct. Where it breaks down is identifying the "root causes" as such things as poverty, injustice, racism, ect.

What "root causes" did we have to address when confronting Japanese Imperialism (and Emperor worship), Nazism (and Hitler Worship), and the Soviet Union (and State Worship)? It seems all of these movements stemmed from an ideological/religious base, not the usually trumpeted Liberal Suspects of "poverty, injustice, racism, etc.".

The only answer in those cases was the total destruction of their evil system. In two of the cases, it required the elimination of their leadership and warriors - many of whom were as suicidal and fanatical as any modern day Middle Eastern terrorist. In the third case, we never eradicated it, and the aftermath still haunts us.

This war will require the same. Just as we didn't need to "understand" Hitler, Tojo or Stalin (or what they stood for), so do we not need to bow in Politically Correct obsequience to their modern fanatical equivalent. The only answer for America is their complete and total eradication. To do less will put our Nation and freedoms at terrible risk for the sake of appeasing those among us who are always calling the wrong shots in the wrong game.

Spoken like a true son of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

This is so silly it barely merits comment. Simply put, it's going to be impossible for half of the world to be in the 21st century and the other half in the 12th. One side or the other will have to determine the future of humanity. You can side with the forces of primitivism or the forces of modernity. There is no middle ground.

Simply put, it's going to be impossible for half of the world to be in the 21st century and the other half in the 12th. One side or the other will have to determine the future of humanity. You can side with the forces of primitivism or the forces of modernity. There is no middle ground.

This was the rationale of the communist leaders from Ceaucescu to Rakosi to Stalin for bulldozing historic villages and historic communities and building factories, high-rises, and gulags in their place. Against the will of the governed, I do not need to add. The dislocated have yet to recover socially, spiritually, financially from this "whether they like it or not we will do what is best for them" tyranny.

Your support for the Stalin approach affirms the inappropriateness of your presence here on this website, as I understand its purpose. This is a site for conservatives who believe in freedom, not those who advocate tyranny and murder. You might want to read a little about 20th century history before you embarass yourself any further.

Hatred, usually stemming from a sense of victimization, distorts judgment and leads to unjust demonization and violence against others which creates new victims who may also turn to hatred and demonization. Thus, the cycle of violence is extended.

In violent conflicts, the moral relativists on each side condemn crimes and atrocities committed by the other side while minimizing, excusing, and even supporting crimes and atrocities committed by their side. Some try to minimize or deny moral responsibility with euphemistic phrases like "collateral damage" and "in retaliation for".

As a moral absolutist, I believe in applying the same moral standard to all. Don't excuse crimes and atrocities supposedly committed "in retaliation for" earlier incidents. Don't minimize the killings of innocents as "collateral damage". Don't excuse crimes and atrocities motivated by supposed "root causes".

Yawn. Is electricity bad because Stalin built power plants? The issue at stake here is a matter of survival - it is and always be impossible to prevent technology flow from civilized societies to uncivilized ones - we simply can't allow them to destroy us over some pretty mystical gripe. The only way (and I didn't suggest invasion as the primary means) of stopping that is to simply pull as many backwards societies into the 21st century as we can. It's the only way humanity will survive.

Your petty mystical gripes about modernity aside, I know you aren't going to choose primitivism over modernity so quit pretending that allowing societies to remain in ignorance, poverty, and despair is some sort of favor to them.

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