Word: terrorists
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...definition, terrorists are people who use indiscriminate violence as a means of achieving a political goal. To the victims of the violence-most recently the Israelis, who have suffered through years of wanton attacks by Palestinian bombers and gunmen-terrorists are callous, cowardly murderers preying on innocent women and children. For their part, terrorists usually present themselves as revolutionaries, guerrillas and freedom fighters. They defend the use of violence as the necessary tactic of downtrodden peoples seeking to combat oppressive or colonial governments. In the eyes of their followers, the terrorists' successful use of violence often adds to, rather...
...bloodiest campaigns of terror in a bloody century, the Algerians forced the French to withdraw from North Africa in 1962. "My brothers, do not kill only, but mutilate your adversaries on the public highway," said one terrorist paper in 1956. "Pierce their eyes. Cut off their arms and hang them." F.L.N. militants took the words to heart, striking at the French, both in Algeria and in France itself, and at Algerian Moslems who refused to cooperate. In 1957 the F.L.N. murdered 300 residents of the Kabylia region whom they suspected of cooperating with a rival group. The French vowed never...
...leader of the Mau Mau terrorist campaign against the British in Kenya now sits in the Cabinet of President Jomo Kenyatta, and the Mau Mau is officially regarded as a heroic freedom movement...
...enemies called us terrorists, our friends patriots," wrote Menachem Begin, head of the Irgun, in words that could be used by any terrorist at any time. Begin has found his past associations no handicap in Israel; he now sits in the Knesset as leader of the opposition Likud bloc. Another Irgun member, Arie Ben-Eliezer, served as deputy speaker of the Knesset, and Nathan Yellin-Mor, a leader of the Stern Gang, won a seat in the Israeli parliament only a few months after the murder of Count Bernadotte...
...truly successful, terrorist groups, which usually start as a small number of dedicated zealots, must, in any case, eventually choose between keeping to their strategy of violence or modifying it to expand their base of political support. "A [revolutionary] group cannot achieve legitimacy until it gives up terrorism," argues Harvard Government Professor Michael Walzer. "Conversion is always possible, but it requires a formal or informal renunciation of the tactics of terrorism...