I bet it's been throughout history that there was something akin to terrorism. Think of how wars used to be waged, killing entire populations, blotting out the names of rulers, etc. You're on to something here. And I agree, it's just the latest repub enemy. Why do they always need an enemy to fear? Why prefer to "unite" via fear? The alternative is letting people think for themselves - and if they do, well the repubs seem to lose them.

It's a strategy. A cynical time honored socio-political strategy. The quickest way to get the herd to follow you is to create a spectral nefarious "them" against which you can then rally everyone. Sometimes the "them" is real (Nazis), sometimes it's not (Commies). IMHO, "Terrorists" is the new "them".

I understand what you're writing, but I believe you live in New York City as I do, and I believe you were here in 2001 as I was to watch the towers fall. Most people here, Republican, Democrat, or other would call the people who flew into the Twin Towers terrorists without hesitation. If your argument is that Republicans and others have misused the word "terrorist" for partisan advantage and to engage in a so-called "war on terror" I agree with you, with the caveat set forth above.

We have a new president now, thank heavens. He is a Democrat, and we believe that he breathes progressive, forward-looking values at the core, and that he is a man of peace. I think he will also refer to terrorism even though it's a new day. I think he would refer and probably has referred to the people who flew into the Twin Towers as terrorists--even though it's a new day indeed. Barack Obama shall be our president, and with that comes responsibilities. He may, heaven forbid, be force to confront terrorists, and if and when he does he shall not mince words and refer back to Genesis and say that we are just as bad because. . . . I have no doubt that, if required, President Obama will call on us to respond to terrorism. And I have no doubt that his new employers, We the People, shall follow him where he takes us.

Therefore, my Harry, be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels...

This concept long predates the Red Scare of the 1950's. And Republicans, by no means, hold a monopoly.

Terrorism is most certainly a real thing... When a individual or group uses violence as a means to an end, then terrorism can be invoked. To declare war against a concept, however, is ridiculous. War was not declared on fascism, for example. War was declared against nations that happened to have governments with various levels of fascist tendencies.

Terrorism should exist, but not as a simple dysphemism for attacks against us or our strategic interests. They blow up our buildings: terrorism. We fund and arm brutal dictators: national security.

What I want is the end of cognitive dissonance. Terrorism should be defined and applied equally to all acts of terror so that bloodshed is not veiled by flags and fanfare. Only then can we perceive nakedly the universality of violence.

Blood is blood. Death is death. From the twin towers to shock and awe.

Actually, humanity has lived with the concept of terror since the formation of society. English usage of the term dates at least as far back as the first publication of the King James Bible in 1611.

In the Old Testament of The King James Bible, the word "terror" is found 41 times. The vast majority of these instances refer to the terror of God, or experiencing acts of terror as a form of God's just retribution. In the New Testament, "terror" is found just three times, and each instance is different in connotation:

Romans 13:3 - For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?

1 Peter 3:14 - But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;

2 Corinthians 5:11 - Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God;

Paroles and protections were understood by the people to secure their neutrality, not their allegiance. The first were annulled, and the holders of them called to arms for the support of the royal cause. The second were construed into fealty, to all intents and purposes. Yet, the original condition of those paroles and protections simply was, that the citizens should remain quietly at their homes. The mighty fiat of Sir Henry Clinton having thus made traitors of those who were only enemies, it remained for Cornwallis to deal out the penalties which an absurd and cruel fiction had decreed. Imprisonment, confiscation, ignominious death by the gibbet, conflagration, now became matters of course. Exile was mercy. The ruthless victors rioted in blood, violence and rapine. They seemed resolved to try how far human patience can go: and eager to subvert by excess the very fabric which their masters intended to raise. The most respectable among the prisoners at Charleston were transferred to the seas of East Florida, under the alledged, but unsupported charge of dishonourable breaches of their paroles. By an immutable law of the great author of nature, action in a moral, us well as in a physical sense, is always productive of reaction, resistance always the effect of pressure, and detestation the inseparable attendant of cruelty. Instead, then, of reconquering South Carolina by terrorism, Cornwallis more irrecoverably alienated her. Why did the British leaders, with a few exceptions, uniformly adhere to this system of conquest by terror and violence? Was it ignorance of the human heart? Was it inbred haughtiness? Stiff and inflexible pride? Personal or national arrogance? Or did all those causes combine to lead America to Independence through tyranny, to a just and mild government through oppression and bloodshed?

Burk, J., Jones, S., & Girardin, L. H. (1804). The history of Virginia: From its first settlement to the present day. Petersburg, Va: Printed for the author by Dickson & Pescud., Volume IV, Chapter XVI pp 406, 407

You remember the machinery which the federalists played off, about that time, to beat down the friends to the real principles of our Constitution, to silence by terror every expression in their favor, to bring us into war with France and alliance with England, and finally to homologize our Constitution with that of England. Mr. Adams, you know, was overwhelmed with feverish addresses, dictated by the fear, and often by the pen, of the bloody buoy, and was seduced by them into some open indications of his new principles of government, and in fact, was so elated as to mix with his kindness a little superciliousness towards me. Even Mrs. Adams, with all her good sense and prudence, was sensibly flushed. And you recollect the short suspension of our intercourse, and the circumstance which gave rise to it, which you were so good as to bring to an early explanation, and have set to rights, to the cordial satisfaction of us all. The nation at length passed condemnation on the political principles of the federalists, by refusing to continue Mr. Adams in the Presidency.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Benjamin Rush, January 16, 1811

The first letter is political. It recalls to our recollection the gloomy transactions of the times, the doctrines they witnessed, and the sensibilities they excited. It was a confidential communication of reflections on these from one friend to another, deposited in his bosom, and never meant to trouble the public mind. Whether the character of the times is justly portrayed or not, posterity will decide. But on one feature of them they can never decide, the sensations excited in free yet firm minds by the terrorism of the day. None can conceive who did not witness them, and they were felt by one party only.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, June 15, 1813

You never felt the terrorism of Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts. I believe you never felt the terrorism of Gallatin's insurrection in Pennsylvania. You certainly never realized the terrorism of Tries's most outrageous riot and rescue, as I call it. Treason rebellion-as the world, and great judges, and two juries pronounce it.

You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genet in 1793, when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution in the government, or compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revolution, and against England. The coolest and the firmest minds, even among the Quakers in Philadelphia, have given their opinions to me, that nothing but the yellow fever, which removed Dr. Hutchinson and Jonathan Dickenson Sargent from this world, could have saved the United States from a total revolution of government. I have no doubt you were fast asleep in philosophical tranquillity when ten thousand people, and perhaps many more, were parading the streets of Philadelphia, on the evening of my Fast Day. When even Governor Mifflin himself, thought it his duty to order a patrol of horse and foot, to preserve the peace; when Market Street was as full as men could stand by one another, and even before my door; when some of my domestics, in frenzy, determined to sacrifice their lives in my defence; when all were ready to make a desperate sally among the multitude, and others were with difficulty and danger dragged back by the others; when I myself judged it prudent and necessary to order chests of arms from the War Office, to be brought through by lanes and back doors; determined to defend my house at the expense of my life, and the lives of the few, very few, domestics and friends within it. What think you of terrorism, Mr. Jefferson? Shall I investigate the causes, the motives, the incentives to these terrorisms? Shall I remind you of Philip Freneau, of Lloyd, of Ned Church? Of Peter Markoe, of Andrew Brown, of Duane? Of Callender, of Tom Paine, of Greenleaf, of Cheatham, of Tennison at New York, of Benjamin Austin at Boston?

But above all, shall I request you to collect circular letters from members of Congress in the Middle and Southern States to their constituents? I would give all I am worth for a complete collection of all those circular letters. Please to recollect Edward Livingston's motions and speeches, and those of his associates, in the case of Jonathan Robbins. The real, terrors of both parties have always been, and now are, the fear that they shall lose the elections, and consequently the loaves and fishes; and that their antagonists will obtain them. Both parties have excited artificial terrors, and if I were summoned as a witness to say, upon oath, which party had excited, Machiavellialy, the most terror, and which had really felt the most, I could not give a more sincere answer than in the vulgar style, put them in a bag and shake them, and then see which comes out first.

Where is the terrorism now, my friend? There is now more real terrorism in New England than there ever was in Virginia. The terror of a civil war, a La Vendee, a division of the States, etc., etc., etc. How shall we conjure down this damnable rivalry between Virginia and Massachusetts? Virginia had recourse to Pennsylvania and New York. Massachusetts has now recourse to New York. They have almost got New Jersey and Maryland, and they are aiming at Pennsylvania. And all this in the midst of a war with England, when all Europe is in flames.

I will give you a hint or two more on the subject of terrorism. When John Randolph in the House, and Stephens Thompson Mason in the Senate, were treating me with the utmost contempt; when Ned Livingston was threatening me with impeachment for the murder of Jonathan Robbins, the native of Danvers in Connecticut; when I had certain information, that the daily language in an Insurance Office in Boston was, even from the mouth of Charles Jarvis, "We must go to Philadelphia and drag that John Adams from his chair;" I thank God that terror never yet seized on my mind. But I have had more excitements to it, from 1761 to this day, than any other man. Name the other if you can. I have been disgraced and degraded, and I have a right to complain. But as I always expected it, I have always submitted to it; perhaps often with too much tameness. The amount of all the speeches of John Randolph in the House, for two or three years is, that himself and myself are the only two honest and consistent men in the United States. Himself eternally in opposition to government, and myself as constantly in favor of it. He is now in correspondence with his friend Quincy. What will come of it, let Virginia and Massachusetts judge. In my next you may find something upon correspondences; Whig and Tory; Federal and Democratic; Virginian and Novanglain; English and French; Jacobinic and Despotic, etc.

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1813

Upon a mere vague report, or bare suspicion, persons travelling through the south have been arrested, imprisoned, and, in some cases, flogged or otherwise tortured, on pretence that such persons desired to cause insurrection among the slaves. More than one innocent person has been hanged; and the device of terrorism has been so practised as to deprive the total number of persons who avowedly hold a certain set of opinions, of their constitutional liberty of traversing the whole country. It was declared by some liberal-minded gentlemen of South Carolina, after the publication of Dr. Channing's work on Slavery, that if Dr. Channing were to enter South Carolina with a body-guard of 20,000 men, he could not come out alive. I have seen the lithographic prints, transmitted in letters to abolitionists, representing the individual to whom the letter was sent hanging on a gallows. I have seen the hand-bills, purporting to be issued by Committees of Vigilance, offering enormous rewards for the heads, or for the ears, of prominent abolitionists.

"Society in America", 1837, pg 349

Some few years hence it will be difficult to believe what the state of the times was in some parts of the United States, and even in the maritime cities, in 1835. The system of terrorism seems now to be over. It did not answer its purpose, and is dropped. (pg 148)

The enormous figure to which the appropriations of this year have attained, were under the constant urging of the departments. The committees of both houses were harassed by the bureau in a manner seldom witnessed, and they reported what was demanded of them by the executive. While the constant state of terrorism in which the country and Congress was kept by the abolitionists, represented by Mr. Seward, who was the ally of the Galphin cabinet, was a part of the tactics for procuring large appropriations, and the result has been an immense extension of executive patronage, and an unparalleled squandering of money in new directions, with the whole system of internal improvements in an exaggerated form, embracing the Pacific railroad as a government measure, looming up in the background as a lure to future support. The palpable corruption which everywhere pervades federalist rule, particularly in New York city and state as well as at Washington, affords melancholy evidence of the desperate and reckless manner in which the next campaign is to be conducted.

"State of Parties", pg 393

In a Report on Strikes and Lock-outs in the United Kingdom: Presented to Both Houses of Parliament in 1892, a bakery manager described his treatment by the strikers as terrorism.

This strike would never have been heard of but for terrorism practised by the Bakers' Society, and the lax administration of justice. I have myself been assaulted and had to show my pistol, and the case against my assailant was dismissed (in spite of the fact that his solicitor had admitted the assault) because I failed to identify him, as he had shaved off a long beard in the interval. The police have warned me that I must never stir out without my revolver, and for the last twelve mouths two or three policemen have been stationed at the bakery.

The concept of Terrorism has a much longer history than one century, and its definition always seems to have been imbued with capriciousness, aptly described with the adage: "One Man's Terrorist, Is Another Man's Freedom Fighter". There need be restraint in the usage of "Terrorism" and it stems, because it is too easily exploited for Machiavellian political motivations. Whean a state engages in acts of terrorism; if it be only domestically, then it is a despotic tyranny, if it be directed across any international border, then clearly, it is an act of unjustified offensive war. When non-state players engage in acts of terror, they are criminals, whose unlawful actions' reach activated multi-national jurisdictions, properly making them international law-enforcement targets. Entities that commit crimes against humanity should not have their status elevated up into a fantastic monstrosity. This only feeds into a self-amplifying feedback loop, provisioning propellant for proselytism's profligacy. Instead these entities should be indicted, detained, proven guilty in a public tribunal that afforded due process of law, then without mercy or remorse, hung privately in the absence of human company.