What is the source of "terrorism"?

[What_the]

Why do you think, that, for all intents and purposes, that the middle east is carrying on?

Is it Islam? Christianity? Is it subjugation? Is it legitimate grievance on their behalf?
Is it just pure evil?
Is it religion as the primary source or desperate people?

I'm curious as to what my neighbours think.

[What_the]

So I'm extrapolating that everyone is just fine with the "war in terror" because we are right and they're wrong.

[KenL]

Terrorism is really the situation where a spiteful and disrespectful group tries to forcibly and murderously enforce its beliefs over a benevolent society.

The first real mass event of terrorism resulted when the Pope, in order to unite the Catholic church, decreed that Jerusalem belonged to Christians. The Crusades began with the goal of wiping out Islam.

Due to narrow-minded extremism and the amazing arsenal of weaponry and explosives available today, terrorism has become that much easier and effective.

If you would like some excellent insight into why this is happening, and how this situation could be effectively managed, I suggest you download the novella series Time Protectors available on Amazon. I think the latest of the series, Book Four - Counter Strike, especially Chapter Two, really lays out the current problems and offers alternatives for workable solutions.

[Jflem1983]

Liberal governments are the source of terrorism in Canada. Ndp too . Also the RCMP have been implicated along with csis . Read about the weibo Ludwig case . Or the John nuttal case or air India. Yes it is undeniable . Government is evil .

[Jlabute]

Islam is the source of 99% of the worlds terrorism.
There is no legitimate grievance, only a desire to subjugate the world by the sword.
Islam has been violent since its inception. Previously, Persians were enjoying a golden age, or period of enlightenment where number systems, and math, and astronomy made advances. This all came to an end and Islam is the cause of 1400 years of backward darkness. As Islam spread through Europe the crusades slowed their progress, but the cause of the crusades originally started as a rescue from Islams sword and slavery. War continued until the renaissance afterwhich Muslim lands appeared backwards as Europe started its golden age.
Muslims are still in their period of subjugation, slavery, and conquering.


Abbreviated History of Crusades
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/200 ... ml?start=1

[Glacier]

Most of the terrorism today is the result of Islam. Marxists (those who divide the world into the oppressors and the oppressed) say it's imperialism and meddling in the Middle East, but that's proveably false. If oppression causes terrorism, we would see waves of Christians, Jews, Hindus, and secularists in the Middle East committing mass murder because they are doubly oppressed. "Oppressed" by the West plus oppressed by their Muslim overlords. But we don't see that happening.

There are many different sects of Islam, so obviously, not all Muslims support terrorism, but almost all terrorists are Muslim in large part because Islam in unique in the world among religious with a terrorist founder.

So we have a large group of Jihadists who believe in terrorism and will stop at nothing to keep doing it. We in the west can either have an open and honest debate about it (thank you, OP, for posing the question), or we can ban discussion as hate speech until the far right grows to the point of a boiling-over bloodbath. We probably only have a few years left to get serious about addressing the source until Europe is lost as we know it.

[techrtr]

Have you got a few weeks? The roots of the problems in the Middle East and ultimately to modern Islamic extremism go right back to the origins of Islam and the Sunni and Shia sects. Throw in the Crusades and well over a hundred years of European and American colonialism and meddling in the region and you have a powder keg.

It is a super complicated situation and I don't think there's one simple explanation for why there is so much terrorism in the world today.

[fvkasm2x]

A combination of religion and poor social development.

I believe Islam is in the same barbaric, old world line of thinking that Christianity was hundreds of years ago.

When they "killed in the name of God" for various reasons, before people evolved more and realized that murdering thousands of people just because of a belief system was wrong.

Let's face it, most cultures that believe in Islam aren't on the cutting edge of technology, science or progressive thinking. They're a throwback to society before it was "smarter."

[What_the]

Can't help but feel there's a lot of right answers here.
Thanks for contributing.

[Thinktank]

the source of terrorism is $6 trillion for war related industries. more terrorism = more spending.

Justin Trudeau just spent an extra $14 billion of hard working Canadian taxpayers money.

[What_the]

Marxists (those who divide the world into the oppressors and the oppressed) say it's imperialism and meddling in the Middle East, but that's proveably false

This part sticks out to me.
There had been many campaigns through out the region over millennia, where they ended, New lines were made on maps.
To my knowledge none were made that the region had to live with by powers from the other side of the world- creation of the state of Israel.

Provable false. Can you expand on that?

And yes, I am looking for an open dialogue on this subject without the header of "25 dead by suicide bomber".

War by suicide is nothing new, soldiers die for their cause everyday.

[FreeRights]

The first real mass event of terrorism resulted when the Pope, in order to unite the Catholic church, decreed that Jerusalem belonged to Christians. The Crusades began with the goal of wiping out Islam.

I disagree on this. The decree to conquer Jerusalem (and defend it) wasn't so much to wipe Islam off the map (if it were, it wouldn't be terrorism as much as religious genocide), as it was to distract the western population from the controversies involving the churches at that period of time.

Historically, "terrorism" was a means of unconventional warfare - it still is, today, used as that. These means have historically been used as an effective way for a smaller, less equipped group of people to combat a larger, better equipped group of people. Use of these unconventional means were to damage the enemy, but primarily to spread fear and "terror" among the survivors. Same as it is now, the target of terrorism wasn't those who died in the attack, but rather everybody who survived it.

These unconventional means of war, most agree, started with the Jewish Sicarii Zealots who would use small daggers to kill Romans and Roman sympathizers during public gatherings, primarily in Jerusalem. This was significantly pre-Crusades and was prior to the series of conflicts between Christian and Muslim forces; instead, this was between an opposing Roman/Catholic army against Jewish defenders. Obviously overmatched, the Sicarii Zealots used these unconventional means to spread terror, fear and chaos among the Roman oppressors in an effort to drive them out of Jerusalem.

Although it's true that most terrorism globally is now committed by Islamic groups, this was only true around the time Western forces began military action in the Middle East.

Before that, during and at the end of the Cold War, there were Marxist terror groups in Europe and North America - namely, the Baader-Meinhof Group/Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, and even the FLQ in Canada.

During World War 2, there were dozens of cells in the occupied European countries that, though they could not fight the German army on the battlefield, they resorted to unconventional acts of terrorism in order to fight back.

Before that, the IRA in the UK.

So quite clearly a large combination of different groups using "terrorism" against others for religious or political means. I'll get into the "source" of it a little later on.

[hobbyguy]

The source of terrorism is a complicated thing.

Generally there are two driving factors that merge into one. Foundational is an ideology, and then a coupling of that with the desire to gain the power over others to force them to accept that ideology. That is complicated by tyrannical governments/rulers - but those in themselves rely on an element of ideology as part of the power mix.

The ideology may be religious, it may be political, it may be territorial, it may be race based - but always there is an ideology at the root, and then a person/group that USE said ideology to gain and cement power.

The Irish situation was a mix of territorial, race, historical grievance, and religion that combined into a powerful ideology.
The Mau Mau situation was a reaction to an ideology based empire (race, religion based) with elements of territorial.
The Jewish terrorism against the Romans was similarly based.

An easy example of this potent mix is found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins

In terms of the current "jihadist" terrorism, they have a new weapon, the internet, reaching out to those who perceive themselves as disenfranchised victims (rightly or wrongly).

But where did the potent mix find its ideology base of attraction? In Saudi Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

"The alliance between followers of ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad bin Saud's successors (the House of Saud) proved to be a durable one. The House of Saud continued to maintain its politico-religious alliance with the Wahhabi sect through the waxing and waning of its own political fortunes over the next 150 years, through to its eventual proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and then afterwards, on into modern times."

"The majority of mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims worldwide strongly disagree with the interpretation of Wahhabism, and many Muslims would denounce them as a faction or a "vile sect".[8] Islamic scholars, including those from the Al-Azhar University, regularly denounce Wahhabism with terms such as "Satanic faith".[8] Wahhabism has been accused of being "a source of global terrorism",[34][35] inspiring the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),[36] and for causing disunity in Muslim communities by labelling Muslims who disagreed with the Wahhabi definition of monotheism as apostates[37] (takfir) and justifying their killing.[38][39][40] It has also been criticized for the destruction of historic shrines of saints, mausoleums, and other Muslim and non-Muslim buildings and artifacts.[41][42][43]"

[Glacier]

This part sticks out to me.
There had been many campaigns through out the region over millennia, where they ended, New lines were made on maps.
To my knowledge none were made that the region had to live with by powers from the other side of the world- creation of the state of Israel.

Provable false. Can you expand on that?

Well, if it were true, we would see waves of Christian, Jewish, and Yazidi terrorists coming out of the Middle East because they are under the same imperialist overlords that their Muslim brothers are plus they are under attack by the extremists within Islam. We can take a country like Lebanon which was majority Christian until recently. There are no Arab Christians driving over to Israel to blow themselves up (even though they aren't fond of the Jews). There are no Arab Christians or Jews blowing up subways in London (yes, there are Arab Jews). There are no Arab Christians flying planes into buildings in New York even though they make up a significant percentage of the Arab population (20% 100 years ago, 5% today).

But let's not forget that the Arabs are not the only ones effected by imperialism. Almost every country on earth has at one time or another been occupied by a European nation. We don't see waves of Indians (east and west) bombing subways in Canada. Why is this? Well, because not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but almost all suicide bombers do so for the purpose of spreading Islam.

Muhammad was a terrorist and claimed to be victorious through terror. That, my friend, is the major source of terrorism today.

[What_the]

Ok. I See your premise. Underlying though, where does religion come from?. I See it at first as a means of solace, later as a means of control.

To put it this way, and I hate that saying, -
Do those that have had their families killed without legal recourse act rationally, or by any means necessary? And is hatred of those that have killed one's family killed easily molded by those that have an agenda.

First nations, if they didn't have governmental and legal discourse in this country, what tactics would an inferior military force have against a $1.7 trillion GDP economy and military?
For example. Vlad the impaler vs the ottomans with 3 times the soldiers. The ottomans viewed his tactics as terrorist, he used the means at his disposal. Brutal as they were.