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TERRORISM

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TERRORISM

see: "ISLAM"
see: "FANATICS"
see: "9/11"
see "EVIL" for other related links


-

. . . Al Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith has stated
Al Qaeda's objective: "to kill four million Americans — two
million of them children — and to exile twice as many and
wound and cripple hundreds of thousands."

Nearly 3,000 died in the September 11 attacks. It would
take about 1,334 similar assaults to reach four million. Or
it could take one nuclear weapon.

Al Qaeda has made its intentions clear. America's challenge
is to prevent the terrorists from succeeding.

--Graham Allison
_Los Angeles Times_ [19 September 2004]
"Al Qaeda Wants To Nuke A U.S. City. There
Are Simple Ways To Stop It."

-

There's some pride in my heart. For
the white people, it serves them right.
--Bali blast defendent Amrozi, in an
Indonesian court. [June 2003]

We — with Allah's help — call on every Muslim who believes
in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's
order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever
and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema,
leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's
U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them,
and to displace those who are behind them so that they
may learn a lesson.
--Osama bin Laden (b. 1957)
Terrorist founder of Al-Qaeda.
"Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders World
Islamic Front Statement" [23 February 1998]

The weak are strong because they are
reckless. The strong are weak because
they have scruples.
--Otto von Bismarck (1815—1898)
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 1862—1890.
He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and
became the first Chancellor 1871—1890 of the German Empire.
Quoted by Henry Kissinger to James Callaghan in
1975. In James Callaghan _Time and Chance_ [1987].

I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the
people who knocked these buildings down will hear all
of us soon.
--George W. Bush (b. 1946)
The 43rd President of the United States
and a former Governor of Texas.
(To rescue workers at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.)

We live in an age of Wrath. It is to be found in the
terrorist, the kidnapper, the hijacker, the looter, and
in the clenched fist of the demonstrator. [...] When
we ask what is their justification, they hardly have to
give an answer, because our age finds it for them.
*They are angry.* That is apparently enough. We
justify their Wrath, so we justify their violence. If
someone thinks that he has cause to be angry, he
may act from his Anger as destructively as he sees
fit. In fact, we have come close to the point of giving
to Wrath an incontestable license to terrorize our
society, just as an angry man may terrorize his family,
but whereas we do not excuse the husband or the
father, we extend our sympathy and understanding
to the terrorist.
--Henry Fairlie (1924—1990)
British author.
_The Seven Deadly Sins Today_ [1978]

...we are seeing — from Bali to Istanbul — the birth of a virulent, nihilistic
form of terrorism that seeks to kill any advocates of modernism and pluralism,
be they Muslims, Christians or Jews. This terrorism started even before 9/11,
and is growing in the darkest corners of the Muslim world. It is the most serious
threat to open societies, because one more 9/11 and we'll really see an erosion
of our civil liberties. Ultimately, only Arabs and Muslims can root out this threat,
but they will do that only when they have ownership over their own lives and
societies. Nurturing that is our real goal in Iraq.
--Thomas Friedman (b. 1953— )
American journalist.
"The Chant Not Heard" [30 November 2003]

Terrorism and deception are weapons not
of the strong but of the weak.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.
_Young India_ [22 September 1920]

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.
--Marcus Gee
Canadian journalist.
_Globe and Mail_ (Canada) [15 September 2001]

-

Let those who say we must understand the reasons for terrorism
come with me to the thousands of funerals we are having in New
York City and explain those insane, maniacal reasons to the children
who will grow up without fathers and mothers, to the parents
who have had their children ripped from them for no reason at all.
--Rudy Giuliani (b. 1944)
Mayor of New York City [1994—2001].


The evidence of terrorism's brutality and inhumanity, of
its contempt for life and its contempt for peace, is lying
beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center less than
two miles from where we meet today. Look at that
destruction, that massive, senseless, cruel loss of human
life, and then I ask you to look in your own hearts and
recognize that there is no room for neutrality on the
issue of terrorism.
--Rudy Giuliani (b. 1944
Mayor of New York City [1994—2001].
Address to the United Nations [1 October 2001].

-

If an enemy power is bent on conquering you, and proposes
to turn all of his resources to that end, he is at war with
you; and you — unless you contemplate surrender — are at
war with him. Moreover — unless you contemplate treason
— your objective, like his, will be victory. Not peace, but
victory.
--Barry Goldwater (1909—1998)
American conservative politician.
"The Conscience of a Conservative"

The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.
Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But,
we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.
--Heinrich Himmler (1900—1945)
German Nazi politician, police administrator, and military commander.

Terror is the most effective political instrument. I shall not permit
myself to be robbed of it simply because a lot of stupid, bourgeois
molleycoddles choose to be offended by it.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
In Hermann Rauschning _The Voice of Destruction_ [1940], ch. 6.

-

One of the points laid down by Ali [Muhammad's
son-in-law] is that if a man is killed while obeying
his lord's orders his soul goes into a more pleasing
body than before. That is why the Assassins are not
in any way averse to being killed as and when their
lord [known as the Old Man of the Mountain]
orders, because they believe they will be happier
after death than when they were alive.
--Jean de Joinville (c. 1225—1317)
French chronicler.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 234.

& see:

In one respect the Assassins are without precedent — in
the planned, systematic and long-term use of terror as a
political weapon they may well be the first terrorists.
--Bernard Lewis (1916— )
British-born American professor and Middle-Eastern scholar.
_The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam_ [1967] p.129

-

Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used
by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example.
But inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to
die for a life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves
came to realize that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and
that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light
of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend
or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons
to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the
martyr dies and his rule begins.
--Sφren Kierkegaard (1813—1855)
Danish philosopher.
In Alexander Dru (ed.) _The Journals of Kierkegaard_ [1958].

The terrorist lives for terror, not for the
change he tells himself he wants. He
masks his desire to kill and destroy
behind the curtain of a cause.
--Louis L'Amour [Louis Dearborn LaMoore] (1908—1988)
American author of Western fiction.
_A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L'Amour_ [1988]

-

It should by now be clear that we are facing a
mood and a movement far transcending the level of
issues and policies and the governments that pursue
them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations — the
perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an
ancient rival against our Judaeo-Christian heritage,
our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of
both. It is crucially important that we on our side
should not be pushed into an equally historic but
also equally irrational reaction against that rival.
--Bernard Lewis (b. 1916)
British-born American professor and Middle-Eastern scholar.
"The Roots of Muslim Rage" in _Atlantic Monthly_ [September 1990]


There was another, perhaps more important, factor
driving bin Ladin. In the past, Muslims fighting
the West could always turn to the enemies of the
West for comfort, encouragement, and material and
military help. Now, for the first time in centuries,
there is no such useful enemy. Bin Ladin and his
cohorts soon realized that, if they wished to fight
America they would have to do it themselves. In 1991,
the same year that the Soviet Union ceased to exist,
bin Ladin and his cohorts created Al-Qa'ida, which
included many veterans of Afghanistan. Their task
may have seemed daunting to anyone else, but they
did not see it that way. In their view, they had
already driven the Russians out of Afghanistan, in
a defeat that was so overwhelming that it led directly
to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having overcome
the superpower that they had always regarded as
more formidable, they felt ready to take on the other;
in this they were encouraged by the opinion, often
expressed by bin Ladin among others, that America
was a paper tiger. Muslim terrorists had been driven
by such beliefs before. One of the most surprising
revelations in the memoirs of those who held the
American Embassy in Tehran from 1979 to 1981 was
that there original intention had been to hold the building
and hostages for only a few days. They changed their
minds when statements from Washington made it clear
that there was no danger of serious action against
them. They finally released the hostages, they
explained, only because they feared that the president-
elect, Ronald Reagan, might approach the problem "like
a cowboy."
--Bernard Lewis (b. 1916)
British-born American professor and Middle-Eastern scholar.
_The Crisis of Islam_ [2003]

-

-

Finally, I wish to speak, through you, directly to those who came to London today to take life.

I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange for taking others — that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you do fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society, and I can show you why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations, and even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our cities where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

--Ken Livingstone (b. 1945)
English politician.
Response to London bombings [7 July 2005].

-

-

It's great to be color blind, and ethnic blind, and religious blind — but blind
is blind. It means you can't see. I'd rather see and then judge, as opposed
to cutting off the cognitive process quite so early. Why suppress what
separates us from the lower forms of life that can't think and replace it
with modes of non-reason, like political correctness, term limits or "zero
tolerance?"

Look at the World War II posters: we used to be able to trust our citizens
to be our eyes and ears. But then again, we used to have common sense,
and hold it in some esteem. Political correctness is almost always the
opposite of common sense.

It's what has us pretending at the airport that Ray Charles is just as likely
to blow up the plane as the guy with the bin Laden lunchbox. I'm not saying
turn in everyone with an accent and a bad attitude — we'd have no cab
drivers. And I'm not suggesting that the government monitor our every
move and habit. That's already being done by the credit card industry.

I'm just saying that it takes neighbors looking out for neighbors, and a
postman passing along the fact that at 180 Maplewood, the seven
addressees all named Mohammed are building "something" in their
living room.

If it turns out to be just a pole for strippers they get back to the house
(the 72 virgins is more likely), then at least we know they're just perverts,
and not terrorists. Like the lady said: it takes a village.

--Bill Maher (b. 1956)
American comedian and author.
_When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden_ [2002],
"Neighbors Looking Out For Neighbors"

-

What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in
Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?
--State Department's Michael Sheehan to counter-terrorism
chief Richard Clarke, after the attack on the USS Cole was
deemed "not sufficiently provocative" to warrant an armed
response, in Richard Miniter, _Losing Bin Laden: How Bill
Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror_ [2003].

We don't make a distinction between civilians
and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents.
Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the
life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no
sanctity.
--Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless
we are all his accomplices.
--Edward R. Murrow [Egbert Roscoe Murrow]
(1908—1965)
American broadcaster and journalist.

But as frightening as terrorism is, it's the weapon of losers.
When someone detonates a suicide bomb, that person does
not have career prospects. And no matter how horrific the
terrorist attack, it's conducted by losers. Winners don't
need to hijack airplanes. Winners have an air force.
--P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.
_Peace Kills_ [2005]

[T]he American people are not — I repeat — not going to tolerate
intimidation, terror, and outright acts of war against this nation and
its people. And we're especially not going to tolerate these attacks
from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, loony
tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
Speech following the hijacking of a U.S. plane [8 July 1985].

If we like them, they're freedom fighters . . . If we don't
like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't
make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas.
--Carl Sagan (1934—1996)
American astronomer and author.
_Contact_ [1985], Part I : The Message, Ch. 2, "Coherent Light"

Martyrdom. . . the only way in which a man
can become famous without ability.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_The Devil's Disciple_ [1901]

The flea bites, hops, and bites, again, nimbly
avoiding the foot that would crush him. He
does not seek to kill his enemy at a blow,
but to bleed him and feed on him, to plague
and bedevil him, to keep him from resting
and to destroy his nerve and morale.
--Robert Taber
_War of the Flea: A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice_ [1965]

We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the
hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
--Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)
British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990].
Speech [15 July 1985].

Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.


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