Would the Right-wing bombings of abortion clinics be considered a terrorist attack?

[FarLeftFist]

Or the Virginia Tech/Columbine shootings? What about that guy who had 12 dead women in his house? The DC sniper? What about the RW's pathetic attempts to exploit those dead soldiers for sensationalism? Terrorist attacks? If a terrorist attack is defined by the RW as being religiously motivated then Christians are plenty guilty too. Are all terrorist attacks religiously motivated? RW media believes so.

[saracat]

1. I consider them domestic terrorism.

[jobycom]

2. Usually it is. The key is usually the intention of the attacker.

Terrorism is usually meant as an attack on innocent (uninvolved, anyway) people for the purpose of coercing or threatening or scaring a larger group into some reaction. So abortion bombers are certainly terrorists--there intention is to scare the whole industry to bring about a change.

On the others--VT and Columbine weren't meant for coercion so much as perceived payback, and were carried out by fellow students on students. If they were carried out by an outsider who was killing the students to push for a political outcome, they would be terrorist attacks, but that's not the case with those two.

The rapist/murderer was trying to keep his crimes hidden, so certainly there was no attempt to scare or coerce the public.

The DC sniper--that one is debatable. He was trying to cause terror, and even admitted that. His goals seemed more about his own hatred than about any cause, though. Hardly matters now.

The Fort Hood shooter is undetermined, I think. It seems like he was a loner who snapped and had his own personal agenda, which wouldn't be terrorism. But if it turns out he had a grander scheme, or even was encouraged by a larger group somewhere to attack the evil Americans to hurt our war efforts or whatever, he might be considered a terrorist.

Religion or any other group identity can be a cause which motivates terrorists, but they don't prove terrorism by themselves.

The media (calling them right wing is redundant) is just sensationalist. They throw around whatever words will get people the most emotional, because then people will keep watching them. They are just noise makers without any other purpose these days.

Just my random thoughts. I should sleep more and quit babbling on the Internet so late in the morning.

[Caliman73]

3. I consider the bombings to be terrorism, and possibly the DC sniper.

Terrorism is a difficult concept to define. I tend towards the definition of terrorism being a systematic use of violence to instill fear for the purpose of coercing people towards political or ideological aims. Virginia Tech and Columbine seem to be more along the line of deranged and angry people taking revenge on perceived tormentors. Though their actions were terrifying, they did not seem to have as a purpose, to force people towards anything. Those guys just wanted to kill people.

The DC sniper I am not as familiar with in terms of his aims although he had a plan to terrorize people and was not planning to get caught or to die in the line of his murdering. The abortion clinic bombings are clearly terrorist acts. They are meant to scare people away from a legal activity based on religious views.

Not all terrorism is motivated by religion. The IRA was more a political entity than a religious one, although religion was a motivator for some of their actors. Same with the PLO, whose primary focus was to get Palestinians their country back rather than just a religious war. Religion is a good motivator for people who are downtrodden, but not necessarily the primary reason for terrorism.

The RW media is never correct about anything.

[Mopar151]

4. There is no simple answer

SPLC documented over 100 domestic terror incedents, right after Chimpy Chucklenuts said there had been none! Many of these involve white supremacists, Aryan Nations, and the like. In some ways, the Manson "family" killings were terror incedents - Charlie's mantra was the same as William Pierce's (author of The Turner Diaries) - to create an incedent to kick off a "holy" race war.

PS - Which Columbine shootings? The first one was terrorisim (strikers and civilians machine gunned by private and Colo. state police), the second one was classic spree killing.

[fasttense]

5. How about the anthrax attacks? Was Cheney a terrorist when he authorized this? n/t

[cali]

7. I despise Cheney but there is no evidence that he ordered the antrhrax

attacks. This sounds as idiotic as the freepers insisting Bill and Hillary murdered Foster.

[cali]

6. Bombings of clinics that provide abortion services are widely deemed terrorist attacks

by the authorities. Always have been. And no, the right wing media loves to call attacks by ELF and other fringe environmental groups terrorist acts.

[zbdent]

8. association with terrorists ...

you could probably say the Ft. Hood shooter was a "lone wolf", too ...