Help me understand "Terrorist attack".

What defines the recent bombing in Boston as a "Terrorist attack" and not the Newtown shooter?
(for example)
IMO more terror was driven into the CT community than in Boston.

Is it because bombs were used and not guns?
Does the country of origin matter?
Does religion matter?


Also, was the Fort Hood shooter (Who practiced Muslim as a religion, shot many people) ever classified as a terrorist attack or just a mass shooting?

I'm not playing "dumb" here ATSer's, this is an honest question.

reply to post by CALGARIAN

Well, IMHO, this is by design.

Its a conscious effort on the part of the establishment and media to perpetuate the idea that "terrorism" can only be associated with Moslems.

Had it been a "right wing extremist", he would have been labeled as just that or even a "lone wolf"...

I have very little doubt that had Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech been committed by a Moslem, that the same act would have been labeled as terrorism.

reply to post by CALGARIAN




I think it refers to their affiliation with known terror groups....Newtown was just a kid who was unhappy and fealt unwanted by all accounts...mentally ill. Boston bombers hung around with known terrorists.

reply to post by CALGARIAN


It all stems from point of Origin.
Because Russia did us the Dis-service of quitting the Arms Race, we needed a New Enemy to justify spending more on Defense, than the Next 20 Countries under us, most who, by the way, are our Allies.
By chasing "Ghost" , Muslim Jihadist, we can spend on Defense?? for the next 50 years, trying to catch these Ghost.
Its the One Great thing we Export, War.

The OP has asked a very interesting question that touches on an interest of mine the definition of “terrorism”. It is that definition that differentiates the between terrorist and criminal, yes both the Boston bombers and the Newtown shooters both incited terror into the public however cause “terror” is does not in itself make one a “terrorist”. I could cause you “terror” if I was to pull a gun on you and threaten to kill you and your family for example.

Most would tell you that the difference is that terrorism is an act of violence for political reasons so the Boston bombers done this because they disapprove of American foreign policy for example and the Newtown shooting was just because some guy was angry at mummy.

This thread might help

Also, was the Fort Hood shooter (Who practiced Muslim as a religion, shot many people) ever classified as a terrorist attack or just a mass shooting?

Again really good question, officially the department of defence has describe this as a “violence in the workplace” and the FBI has said there is no evidence that Hassan had any backing from a terrorist group or was part of a wider plot. However many have argued that his actions meet the definition of terrorism as set out under American law, I am personally of the opinion that it was a terrorist attack.

I can only speculate as to why they are trying to portray it as something other than a terrorist attack, but I would guess its because they don’t want the bad publicity that goes with having a “terrorist” in the ranks of the US army. I think the whole thing in itself is bad publicity and by not going down the “terrorist” route they have made themselves look bad, however others have said he may have been psychologically disturbed at the time. It is also possible that they have done this because at first it did actually look like a incident of violence in the work place.

Whatever their argument I really don’t see why they have not charged this guy under terrorism legislation and the OP raises a good point

reply to post by CALGARIAN


Those are really good questions...and I would like to know the answers too.

One thing that really gets to me about all of this is...those 2 young men who did the bombings in Boston...they are immigrants...we let them into the U.S. in good faith...and they had many advantages...yet...they ended up hating the U.S. and trying to destroy us...I just have to wonder...how many more of them are in our cities across the U.S. right now making their future plans of destruction?

reply to post by CALGARIAN


Ideology. For someone who so often posts in the MiddleEast forum, I'd hope that you'd be able to figure this out for yourself.

Craziness is responsible for Newtown, the Dark Rising shooting, and as such, they are not easily generalized with the words "terror". They murdered people for the sheer thrill of it, not for strategic reasons i.e to induce terror.

Conversely, terrorism has been a trusted method to induce panic in a enemy population. It's been used primarily by Islamic terrorists, although there are plenty other examples of anarchist terrorism, etc. This deserves the name terrorism because Islamic extremism is a very real global problem, and the terrorists do not kill for the thrill of it, but for the purpose of inducing terror.

The fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by the same Islamic extremism (his cry of Allahu Akhbar before open firing on his comrades sort of gave it away), yet, strangely enough, it wasn't considered a terror attack, even though Nidal had actually been sharing emails the with arch-terrorist Anwar Al Awaki.

Both were terror attacks. But due to the overt public nature of the Boston Marathon, perhaps the term "terrorism" is more deserving.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


What does American foreign policy have to do with two Chechnyan Islamist radicals?

If they wanted change that would have actual tangible effects in Dergestan, than they should be targeting Moscow, not Boston.

It is therefore incoherent to attribute feelings of anger to American foreign policy when the perpetrators were CHECHNYAN, and their actions would have had no impact on the situation in Chechnya (this is such an overused, now cliche term. Which foreign policy would they be targeting, pray tell?).

The only legible explanation is hatred for western culture, since Islam, as most Muslims might well believe, feels oppressed by a foreign and alien culture, which, according to traditional shari'a law, conveys ideas about life that are totally abominable.

In most, if not all cases of terror attacks against the west, the aim of the Islamist radical is cultural, that is, they believe the west to be a purveyor of an evil, satanic culture. Because the west also seeks to export their culture to Islamic countries (in order to counter fundamentalist ideas) this gives them even more reason to oppose them.

Unless your criticism of American foreign policy referred to the Harlem shake being enjoyed by young Muslim youth in Cairo, Beirut, or Dubai, I can't fathom what else America can do to forestall Islamist hatred for them.

It's a conflict of world views.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
What defines the recent bombing in Boston as a "Terrorist attack" and not the Newtown shooter?
(for example)
IMO more terror was driven into the CT community than in Boston.

Is it because bombs were used and not guns?
Does the country of origin matter?
Does religion matter?


Also, was the Fort Hood shooter (Who practiced Muslim as a religion, shot many people) ever classified as a terrorist attack or just a mass shooting?

I'm not playing "dumb" here ATSer's, this is an honest question.

edit on 26-4-2013 by CALGARIAN because: (no reason given)

What defines the boston attack as an act of terror has to do with association with terrorist groups. Why? because over time people have figured out that these terrorists groups have an agenda, to influence policy through fear and manipulation and the best way to do that in democratic societies is to instill fear amongst the people. One of those brothers, they say, had that association. If thats not enough, look at the thousands of people who fled in fear trying to escape harm. They were in a state of terror, panic, fear. The result of that act, even after the fact alone makes it an act of terror.

Guns can be used to cause terror.
Words can be used to cause terror.
Yes the country of origin can matter
Yes religion can matter.
Motive can matter yes, but It can all be random too, and still be considered terrorism.

Change Terrorist atack to Fear Attack, and you can then see all forms of terrorism where they are being perputated.

double post

reply to post by dontreally


I am only working on what American Law defines as a terrorist I don’t know what specific political gripe they had with America, it might be that it is not specific foreign policy it may been what they see as a American influence in Islam that is detrimental to their faith. Again this can be construed as being a political gripe, it could be anything, they might not like the American support of Israel, might feel America should be doing more to support the Chechnya’s or any number of things. I would guess that the details will come out eventually during the trial about what exactly their motivations were.

The fact that they are Chechens really doesn’t matter, they could have been Saudi, French or even American and they would still be called “terrorists”.

Originally posted by dontreally

Craziness is responsible for Newtown, the Dark Rising shooting, and as such, they are not easily generalized with the words "terror". They murdered people for the sheer thrill of it, not for strategic reasons i.e to induce terror.

You dont know that at all..

Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder.

It is a concept used to distance oneself from the ones commiting the act against another. If the same tactics are used against someone or some institution that is perceived as wrong or an enemy it is called opposition or rebels. Somehow it is never used to describe the acts of the government, even if that government is totally the opposite of institution from where it is perceived.

Terrorism is a wordplay like so much political motivations.

reply to post by CALGARIAN

You dont know that at all..

Follow my line of reasoning: Islamism is a fundamentalist Islamic political ideology. Islamic terror attacks occur worldwide. The purpose of such attacks, as has been studiously analyzed over and over again, is to induce terror in the non-Islamic or Infidel population. This isn't always the case, as Sunni-Shia internecine terror shows, sometimes it's simply to punish the "unbelievers" on the other side. But in conflicts between cultures, as typified in Muslim-Hindu, Muslim-Western, the purpose of those attacks is to intimidate the non-Muslims.

So, I think it is fairly irrefutable that Islamic terrorism is designed to induce terror. Hence, it deserves to be called terrorism.

On the other side, we find kids with mental problems who are unconnected with any particular political ideology. For example, the Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was simply infatuated with guns, and had developed a fantasy to kill more people than the Norway killer Anders Brezik. Is this for the purpose of inducing terror, or to satisfy some personal feeling of the perpetrator? It is the latter. In the Dark Knight shooting, again, the killer was a psychopath neuroscience student who had become so disillusioned with reality that he thought it would a "blast" to dress up as the joker and kill people. It's impossible to surmise beyond the basic evidence what else he may have been thinking, but obviously he simply wanted to kill a whole lot of people.

To reemphasize the crux of my argument: the existence of a political ideology gives individual attacks a transcendent importance. The killer killed not for the sake of killing, but for the purpose of intimidating. This might go unnoticed unless you fully understand the ideology which they operate from. If America, and the west, is culturally "evil", and represents in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists the physical incarnation of Satan, then attacks against America and the west are not done merely for the pleasure of killing infidels, but of sending a message: we oppose you, we want your public to understand that not following the ways of Allah makes you deserving of terror.

Similarly, Tamil terrorism, or anarchist terrorism, have politically charged reasons for attacking their enemies. It may not be as religiously significant as an act of terror may be to a Jihadist, but it too is strategic in purpose: to scare the enemy population.

Terrorism is a different species of mass-killing than the massacres perpetrated by people without a post-attack interest. To put it pithily, terrorism is political by nature. Unless there was no political motive behind it, it doesn't deserve the label terrorism. Just as the intention to kill someone deserves the subtle difference of '1st degree murder".

Don't ignore the difference because of it's subtly.