Why The Innocent?
What makes terrorism hard to classify is due to the fact most countries have their own definition and classification of the word. Terrorism is defined by the FBI as “Perpetrated by individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with primarily U.S.-based movements that espouse extremist ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” (FBI) Compared to the United Nations definition. Which is, “Any action, in addition to actions already specified by the existing conventions on aspects of terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act”(United Nations) But the end goal of the act of terrorism is to inflict terror on the public to achieve the rise of a certain movement. The terrorist organizations want to make people afraid of them so that way they can get what they want. They believe that if they make people afraid of them, the people they will do as they say in fear of more happening to them. But the question is, Why carry out the violent acts on the innocent and not on the high public officials or leaders of the country?
What is identified as an innocent person? The article Terrorism, supreme emergency and killing the innocent labels it as, “people who cannot be held responsible for the problem the terrorists are fighting and are thus immune from attack.” “ Innocents are all those who do not expect to be targets of attack, and with good reason. This may be because they do not participate in the business of vio- lence, as soldiers or policemen do, or simply because they do not intend a threat to any other person’s life. In war conditions these persons would be immune to aggression and protected, as they are not contributing to the act of war.” (Terrorism, supreme emergency and killing the innocent) These are people that carry on day by day at business jobs, restaurants, college students, doctors, nurses, etc. People that feel a sense of security that there day goes on without and militant training.
When we see a terrorist act on the united states that killed people who were going on with their everyday life, we see it as the death of an innocent person. But coming from the eyes of the terrorist organization, are those people truly innocent? They are agreeing with the beliefs of the government in which they are going against. So they see it as those innocent people are just as guilty as the combatants that as a country they support. As said in the article Terrorism, war, and the killing of innocents “In war, however, the notion of “innocence” has nothing to do with lack of blameworthiness.... From the point of view of moral-wrongdoing and just punishment, many of the aggressor’s milit...
