EDMG340 Week 1 – Definition and Scope of Consequence Management

The following post was originally submitted in response to a class forum:

Post your response to the week 1 forum question here. Just because it is a terrible act, is it an act of terrorism? State your position. Remember to respond to the posts of at least two of your classmates for full credit.

Terrorism is associated with violence, politics, toppling governments and religion. Terrorism is difficult to define because it is a value term. It implies that the violence used to achieve the goals of the group is not justified. However, the use of terrorism is common to many “good” causes in history, including the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, and the French Revolution.

Terrorists do not try to achieve military victory but count on creating public opinion that will result in the changes they seek. Terrorists do not call themselves “terrorists”. Terrorism is a label used by the dominant power to create an image of the terrorists as “evil”. Terrorists see the world in Black and White. There is no middle ground. They believe they have the higher moral ground and often believe they have divine knowledge. Terrorists do not recognize the concepts of innocent bystanders, neutral parties, civilians, or noncombatants.

Early terms associated with terrorism, such as zealot, assassin, thug, terror, and class warfare, come from many countries around the world. The use of terrorism can be found in early American history in the American Revolutionary War, the treatment of Native Americans, the American Civil War, and the interracial violence that occurred following the American Civil War.

One of the most horrific terror campaigns in the United States was the lynching of African Americans. Lynching’s were common from 1870 to 1915 and continue up to the present day. Lynching were much more than extra-legal justice. The victims were brutalized, tortured, and put on public display as a warning to others. This display was intended to change and alter behavior of a portion of society this making it terror. What do you think?

The Ku Klux Klan was one of the most notorious domestic American terrorism groups. In the twentieth century, Americans feared the terror posed by Communist revolutionaries and other Communist-Marxist-inspired governments and groups. The reaction of the U.S. public and government to Red Scare in many ways resembles the reaction to reaction to the September 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent war on terrorism.

 

As stated in the prompt of this forum and in other course materials, terrorism can be a difficult term to define. It seems to be agreed upon that the basic concept of terrorism is an act in which fear is either employed from the start or becomes an end result of actions taken in resistance to or against some law, practice or ideology; the element of fear may also be the trigger of a terroristic—possibly revolutionary—act.
In more modern times, terrorism has been defined by the United States government as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”

Terrorism has also been defined as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

With these definitions—the loosely accepted common concept, as well as the two defined by our government—it is fairly easy to question what actions are terroristic with an evil or immoral undertone, and which are a more natural and acceptable movement of civil unrest. One good example of such questioning raised in the course material as well as this forum prompt is the American Revolutionary War.

The Revolutionary War and acts leading up to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence could easily be defined as an act of terrorism, with both sides—Britain and the Colonies—being equal participants in feeding the fears and creating violence. An oppressive government body led to unrest among the people, who then began to organize and protest—one of the most noted protests being what became known as the Boston Tea Party. Though the Tea Party itself may not have necessarily been a violent act—with physical harm coming to a person—it still bore elements of terroristic acts. Additionally, varying American Patriots did perform terroristic acts causing physical harm, such as the tarring and feathering of customs agents, ships captains and Royal sympathizers; Patriot actions such as this aided in raising levels of fear amongst British serviceman, eventually leading to events such as the Boston Massacre.

Were any of the measures and actions taken prior to the Declaration justified? Were they terroristic? Time has shown that the later results of the acts led to “good” with the creation of a “great” nation, spawning the movement toward democratic republics across the globe. Over two and a quarter centuries later, we can easily justify the actions of the Patriot movement; but if we attempt to place ourselves in that time, we might find the question difficult to answer, as the actions were terroristic.