Thoughts on Terrorism

What does "Terrorism" Mean?

How can we fight a war on terrorism when we do not have an official definition of "terrorism." What is "terrorism?" Is there a statute of limitations on countries or organizations that are defined as terroristic? If the definition is "the purposeful killing of civilians for political ends," then we were certainly terrorists during the conquest of North America. And we were certainly terrorists when we firebombed Japan and dropped a nuclear bomb on two cities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. I do not mean to badmouth the United States. The United States is a great country and an amazing experiment in equality. But we need to get some concrete definitions so we can discuss our actions.

Not to mention the repeated expression, "War on Terror." Are we really fighting an emotion?

Are We Winning the War on Terrorism?

Are we winning the war on terrorism? Have incidents of civilians killed for political ends become fewer? Has the war in Iraq decreased the number of people in terrorist organizations? The answer, of course, is "No." There have been far more terrorist strikes on US interests in the past year than in the past 50 years, in the past 250 years. We have lost hundreds of citizens to car bombs and roadside bombs. Every day we are attacked by terrorists. Spain was attacked by terrorists. Saudi Arabia was attacked by terrorists. The war on terrorism is not working. What can we do instead? This needs to be our primary mode of thought. I have offered alternatives. We need a huge dialogue on this.

The War in Iraq is Illegal

It is obvious to anyone who looks at the U.N. charter, that the war in Iraq is illegal. We are signatories to the U.N. charter and thus we are bound by its laws. It clearly states that a country may attack another country when it has been attacked, or when the U.N. gives sanction for an attack. The U.N. had not given sanction for our invasion: The U.N. had passed 1441 which stated that Iraq should disarm or face consequences, but it never voted on whether 1441 had been violated. We would have lost this vote. In retrospect, Iraq clearly had not violated 1441. Not to mention that Kofi Annan said that the war was illegal recently.

NewsLinks!!

America spends more money on war than abroad on creating peace. We spend $450 billion annually on the military and $15 billion on development help for poor countries, a 30-to-1 ratio. We have become, according to Jeffrey Sachs, the economist directing the UN's Millennium Project, "all war and no peace in our foreign policy." The Millennium Project is a project, to which the US is a signatory, which plans to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and disease among the poorest one billion people in the world by 2015. Developed countries would spend 0.7% of their domestic incomes to this end. A third of the way towards this date, the US is at 0.14%.

OpTruth.org, a site dedicated to telling the soldiers' side of the Iraq War, from their own mouths.

The Hookie Awards chosen by New York Times columnist David Brooks. "Named after the great public intellectual Sidney Hook, they go to the authors of some of the most important essays written in 2004."

Bill Moyers' speech on today's political theocracy: fundamentalist religion in the USA. Environmentalism is facing "apocalyptists" in the government.

How 'bout meditation in school? A non-denominational, brain workout. Meditation causes changes in brainwaves reports the Washington Post, in regards to a study on Tibetan monks.