On August 06, 2012, I was listening to NPR’s “All Things Considered”, concerning the shooting spree the morning before at the Sikh Temple near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where seven people, including the suspected murderer, were shot and killed.

During this segment of the show, the commentator mentioned that the authorities had not yet called this an act of “domestic terrorism”, since it wasn’t clear what the motive of the shooter was. The speaker stated that the accepted description of domestic terrorism is violence with a political motive. Apparently, it hadn’t been determined that the shooter had any political agenda he was pursuing.

This started me thinking. If domestic terrorism is violence with a political motive, then domestic terrorism which crosses national boundaries must logically become international terrorism. If this is the case, then anyone who acts violently in the pursuit of a political agenda must be either a domestic or an international terrorist. (See here for a further discussion of the meaning of terrorism.)

What does the above description say about men (or women) who wear business suits, work in offices in Washington, D.C., and order drone strikes, covert operations, and overt military action (all of which are violent acts for political gain) against other people? Should they be exempt from the label “terrorist, domestic or international”? Why?

There is no doubt that the American State uses violent means for political ends, both domestic and international. So does the British, French, Russian, Chinese, Indonesian, Cuban, Venezuelan, Colombian, Brazilian, Indian, and South African, among other states too numerous to mention. Are all these terrorist organizations or are they something different? Why?

Draw your own conclusion. I want you to think about this. I have presented here a logical argument. If terrorism is defined as violence which is used to advance a political agenda, then logically everyone who uses violence to advance his or her own political agenda is a terrorist. Does it really matter that a terrorist might act as an individual, a large part of a very small group, or a small part of a very large group?  By definition, any violent act perpetrated against anyone for a specific political reason is a terrorist act, regardless as to whether it is State sanctioned or not.

Obviously, this creates a problem for people who want to believe that “our” system of violence for political reasons does not constitute terrorism. In America today, we want to believe that terrorism is brown-skinned, speaks Arabic, and is Middle-Eastern and Muslim in origin. Self-congratulations are in order as we loudly proclaim that “we” are not like “them”, thank God. Sometimes we admit that a Timothy McVeigh might emerge from our own ranks, but in the next breath condemn him and his ilk as aberrant, un-American, extreme, demented, etc.

At the same time, we applaud someone who kicks in a door to a home in Afghanistan in the middle of the night, opens fire, and kills or wounds many, many persons, some of which are children and/or old men and women. In fact, we call them “heroes” and “freedom fighters”, as if the occupants of a mud hut in the middle of Afghanistan actually presented a viable threat to our health and well-being. For the soldier who follows orders, there are accolades, pomp and circumstance, ticker-tape parades, honors, medals, etc. We thank them for their service. Of course, the occasional lone wolf might go bonkers and do the same thing without official orders, but he is then thrown into the same class as McVeigh, and we pat ourselves on the back with the consolation that, generally speaking, the rest of the soldiers are not like that.

The label doesn’t stop there, though. What about the chain of command? What about the generals who are overseeing the entire operation? The colonels who give the orders on the ground? The captains who lead the attack? The sergeant who directs his men to shoot anything that moves? The private or corporal who actually pulls the trigger? What are their political motives? Why do they wish to inflict violence on someone else they don’t know and may have never seen before? What should these men/women rightly be called?

If the military personnel are culpable, then consider the Congresspersons or President who initiated the operation in the first place? What should we call them? They are the ones who gave approval to use violent means to advance their political agendas, whatever those might be. Should they be deemed “terrorist” as well as the person doing the actual bombing, shooting, and killing? Let’s go further, however.

Consider the average American citizen who voted for any specific Congressperson who then voted to authorize, say, the Afghan war. What about the average person who advocates that war be visited on some miscellaneous foreign country, like Iraq, Syria, Libya, or Iran? By extension, logically, that person might very well be called a terrorist. After all, someone will die violently so that his own political agenda can be advanced.

Wow! This hits pretty close to home, doesn’t it? Most people would automatically disavow this argument, since they would never personally commit the action of terrorism. This is really an irresponsible position and a refusal to be consistent with one’s own philosophy, because there are multiple millions of people who would not physically pull the trigger, but desire and encourage others to do the job for them. Generally, people do not call themselves “terrorist”, yet they are more than willing to let someone else perform the acts of violence. So long as they themselves do not suffer adversely in the process, they are OK with it.  

Jesus Christ said that anyone who lusted after a woman in his heart had committed adultery with her, even though no physical intercourse took place. He also said that hatred for one’s fellow man was equivalent to murder. We can extrapolate that he would condemn even the wishful thinking of violence done for the reason of political gain, otherwise known as terrorism. It is entirely plausible that many, many Christians in America today are actively working against the will of the Prince of Peace, Who beats swords into plowshares, thereby ensuring their own destruction as the world-system we know is taken apart and rearranged.