To me, terrorism is performing a variety of crimes, including threats, blackmail, and murder, unto those who don't follow your strict ideological beliefs, ranging from "stop supporting Israel you heathens", "man, it'd be sweet if we got $1,000,000 out of this bomb threat", and performed in such a fashion that, as much as anyone
would want to, they can't punish you for your crimes.
I suppose that might be a bit broad, depending on your take on certain crimes (defamation, for instance; if that was a crime (it shouldn't be, except in extreme cases), half the Internet would qualify as terrorists), but it's got a fair amount of the criteria right, at least.
As for whether or not the US are terrorists or not... I'd prefer to think of the ones that make news stories like this as
incredibly inept policemen, albeit given that it's an occupation against the will of the people, it'd probably qualify, yeah.
Opa-Opa wrote:What really makes me angry is how any single little tragedy that happens in US soil is turned into a big event. Had this happened there, there would have a new "We Are the World", a movie and a documentary on CNN.
It wasn't a single little tragedy, it was a single
huge tragedy. More on that in the next quote. However, you're correct in that it's not atypical for us to completely ignore similar tragedies in foreign countries. Rather chilling, honestly, that we don't pay enough attention to foreign affairs. Of course, paying
too much attention can also be a bit of a pain; sometimes, the "news" section on Wikipedia's front page, for instance, is all but completely useless for me, covering a variety of subjects that have absolutely no bearing on me whatsoever (ignoring the tragedies, of course), while ignoring subjects that
would have more bearing on me (US news, for instance). (Annoyingly, it's actually pretty consistent with local news stations' reporting, as of me writing this post, so I can't cite an actual example. Still, it is often deluged with headlines like "Belgium wins the medal for Biggest Structure Made of French Fries, with 70,000-fry-structure (pictured)", which are
nice but pale to, say, "Huge earthquake occurs in Mexico".)
Opa-Opa wrote:I can't say that 9/11 is bullshit compared to what happens every day in those parts of the world.
You're right, you can't - an event like that is tragic no matter
where it happens. I can help you explain the feelings, though. See,
we, as Americans, had one huge tragedy on a single day that took thousands of lives. They in the Middle East, conversely, get frequent lesser tragedies - suicide bombers at
least once a week, for instance. Given the choice between one single large tragedy that ultimately doesn't derail life as we know it, and multiple smaller tragedies that occur frequently and randomly enough to make life incredibly anxious and worrisome, it's pretty obvious that we got off easy compared to them, regardless of what anyone else might say. That we fail to acknowledge that on a regular basis is, well, disheartening.