The object of terrorism is terrorism

How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?

Howard Zinn

Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism, is a research brief published by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).  START is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence.

Specifically, counties with higher ordinary crime rates and higher levels of language diversity have a higher probability of experiencing a terrorist attack, while counties with more concentrated disadvantage and more residential stability have a lower probability of
experiencing a terrorist attack.  We found no significant relationship between the likelihood of terrorist attacks and the percentage of the population that is recently foreign-born or the racial composition of the population of the county.

The following characteristics are used to identify terrorists.

Extreme left-wing groups want to bring about change through violent revolution rather than through established political processes. In addition, this category includes secular left-wing groups that rely heavily on terrorism to overthrow the capitalist system and either establish “a dictatorship of the proletariat” (Marxist-Leninists) or, much more rarely, a decentralized, non-hierarchical sociopolitical system (anarchists).

The extreme far-right is composed of groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

Americans who believe their “way of life” is under attack?  Americans who are “fiercely nationalistic? People who consider themselves “anti-global”? Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”? Americans who are “reverent of individual liberty”? People who “believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.”?  You mean like George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc.

In the research and the START database, no mention of the 1993 WTC attack that was a precursor to 9/11.  Also, no religious terrorism in Manhattan during the 1990s. Or the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge Jewish student van shooting that killed a 16-year-old. Or the 1997 Empire State Building observation deck shooting that killed one and injured six others.  No mention of the 2002 shooting at the Los Angeles Airport El Al counter that killed two and wounded four others.

START Research Brief

Background  - And more here

The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?

George Orwell