Free Essay About Holy War/ War On Terrorism

Are terrorism, terrorist, terrorist action mutually synonymous or mutually exclusive terms? Why is it so difficult to define terrorism? Or is it?
The term terrorism, terrorist, and terrorist actions are mutually synonymous terms. U.S. Department of State (1998) definition of terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." Terrorist and terrorism are difficult to define because the vast nature of the action. Prior to the horrific events that took place on United States soil on September 11, 2001, terrorism didn’t need to be defined. Terrorists or terrorism comes in many different shapes and sized and is composed of many different motivations. These reasons include religion, political, cultural, race, and even the most general category of hate. Understanding the definition and terminology behind terrorist and terrorism is difficult because of the nature of the action. Ideally it is easy to understand that a terrorist is the individual to who performing the act, and terrorism is the act itself. So understanding purposes, they are mutually synonymous. For the general public, the three various terms, terrorism, terrorist, and terrorist actions, all mean the same thing, despite the difficulty in defining them.
Is the U.S. Government’s definition of terrorism as outlined by the Patriot Act fall within an inductive or deductive or other category? Is it lacking, why or why not?
The U.S government’s definition of terrorism, as outlined by the Patriot Act, falls into the deductive category. The U.S. Government defines terrorism under the Patriot Act as “A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act ""dangerous to human life"" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping” (Section 802). What is lacking is the fact that terrorism is far more detailed than the generalization that is provided in the definition of the Patriot Act. There are crimes that danger human lives on a daily basis, and they are not acts of terrorism. The violation of U.S. laws take place daily, we have jails that are full of individuals who chose not to comply with the laws of the U.S. The definition within the Patriot Act covers crimes that are not considered to be acts of terrorism.

Which US government agency’s definition of terrorism do you most accept, Why?

The US government agency that definition best suits terrorism is the one laid out by the U.S. Department of State 1998. It provides generalization of the act of violence against individuals based on a specific purpose. Whereas the motivation behind terrorism is vast, it is important to consider that it is normally an act of persuasion or hate. The ability to create a realistic definition of the terrorism or terrorist as a summarization is difficult. The act of or the actual participants of terrorism have a wide array of reasons and motivators, so each definition that is available through the US government agency holds part of the real meaning. However, having to pick just one, the US Department of State 1998 has the best generalization for understanding the definition of terrorism.

Work Cited

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52). Print.
United States. Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1998. Washington, D.C.: 1999. Print.