Best 534 quotes in «terrorism quotes» category

Always Sami. I was tethered to her somehow. To that scared little girl I’d found on the staircase nearly a year earlier; to the past, when teaching was simpler and I could care about everyday problems, when being relentless meant running two extra laps, not waiting for an MP to search the undercarriage of a bus for bombs before letting students approach it.

America is a place of opportunity. It’s people-friendly! Very much so, compared to the Muslim countries in the world. People looking for better lives flock to America because we as a society do not mutilate young girls' genitals, do not cut off people’s hands for stealing. We do not stone people to death for committing adultery. We do not rape women and men for speaking up against our government. We do not forbid people to go to school and to learn because of their gender. We assume people are innocent until proven guilty. We give people the freedom to criticize our government and even burn our flag as an expression of speech. This is but a partial list of why America is superior in culture and values to many other countries in the world. This type of culture also thrives in Israel, the only Western-style nation in the Middle East, one that Arabs despise, feel threatened by, and vow to destroy.

America has always prided itself on its multiculturalism and its multireligious communities, just as Lebanon prided itself on its multicultural, open-minded, and multireligious society. Today America’s lack of sufficient immigration and border control, like Lebanon’s, is allowing terrorists and other hostile individuals to come into our country at will. People who want to hurt us are mixed in with other Muslims who have no intention of becoming a part of our nation but are actually working to make America a part of their radical Islamic agenda. Muslims have become a sensitive issue in our American society, with demands and expectations, and a group to watch out for and be careful with. There are barely 6 million Muslims in America today out of a total U.S. population of 300 million, yet their presence has been seen and felt throughout every state in America. Stories of Islamic terrorist cells, Islamic charities linked to funding terrorism, Islamic mosques, and Muslims demanding more rights and acknowledgment are beginning to dominate the news. Islamic communities are harboring terrorist cells within. Their mosques are teaching hate against infidels both Christian and Jewish.

Among the many symbols used to frighten and manipulate the populace of the democratic states, few have been more important than "terror" and "terrorism." These terms have generally been confined to the use of violence by individuals and marginal groups. Official violence, which is far more extensive in both scale and destructiveness, is placed in a different category altogether. This usage has nothing to do with justice, causal sequence, or numbers abused. Whatever the actual sequence of cause and effect, official violence is described as responsive or provoked ("retaliation," "protective reaction," etc.), not as the active and initiating source of abuse. Similarly, the massive long-term violence inherent in the oppressive social structures that U.S. power has supported or imposed is typically disregarded. The numbers tormented and killed by official violence-wholesale as opposed to retail terror-during recent decades have exceeded those of unofficial terrorists by a factor running into the thousands. But this is not "terror," [...] "security forces" only retaliate and engage in "police action." These terminological devices serve important functions. They help to justify the far more extensive violence of (friendly) state authorities by interpreting them as "reactive" and they implicitly sanction the suppression of information on the methods and scale of official violence by removing it from the category of "terrorism." [...] Thus the language is well-designed for apologetics for wholesale terror.

A more fundamental questions suggests itself, however. How did the most powerful military in history come to devote its elite forces and advanced technology to the hunt for a man like Qari Munib, a midlevel Taliban figure in a remote corner of the planet, half a world away from the White House and ground zero in Manhattan, more than eleven years after the September 11 attacks?

An act of terrorism is not an ideology, nor religion. It is the lack of hope, of opportunity and of love. When there is no recourse, no other way there is only insurrection. Understanding, compassion and respect for all life is what will save us all.

An "attack on SeaWorld" might mean a bomb, or it might mean graffiti and glitter and a cream pie in the face. The government doesn't always seem to distinguish between the two.

And then, on September 11, the world fractured. It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day and the days that would follow--the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

And y'know what they decided the number one threat was? The destructive and disruptive capability of a small group. That's what they're worried about most...they're terrified of a small group with a committed goal.

Another problem with the official definitions of terror is that it follows from them that the US is a leading terrorist state.

Armed with nuclear weapons, Pakistan does not need to live in fear or insecurity. The state of insecurity fostered in Pakistan is psychological and should now be replaced with a logical self-confidence. Once pluralism and secularism are no longer dirty words, and all national discussions need not be framed within the confines of an Islamist ideology, it will become easier for Pakistan to tackle the jihadi menace. The state would have to end support for any militant jihadi group based on false strategic premises. Jihadi terrorism is now a threat to Pakistan and must be eliminated for Pakistan’s sake.

Are you okay, man?" "Yeah, I'm good." It's a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again.

As a citizen of the world, it’s my instinct to keep the fallen and the suffering in my thoughts... You see, in my mind there is logic to it: do no harm, prevent harm, help, support, care for the harmed, face the harmer. My stupid idealist conscience considers sympathy, not pity, at its worst, the most basic and the least negotiable civil duty. Of course as a citizen of the world, I should strive to do more. That said, I am only a man and so I often do the least.

As a citizen of the world, it’s my instinct to keep the fallen and the suffering in my thoughts. The human brain fascinates me; its limitless bounds of empathy. You see, in my mind there is logic to it: do no harm, prevent harm, help, support, care for the harmed, face the harmer. My stupid idealist conscience considers sympathy, not pity, at its worst, the most basic and the least negotiable civil duty. Of course as a citizen of the world, I should strive to do more. That said, I am only a man and so I often do the least.

As Americans, we must protect our humanity while fighting terrorism. It we lose that…they have surely won.

A society becomes a breeding ground of violence and terrorism when it closes its door to new ideas and forces the citizens to live in the prison of conforming thoughts.

As he stretched out his legs, Siraj let out a deep sigh and smiled. I wonder what Prince Bahir’s blonde surprise will be wearing. I'm guessing it won't be a habiya.

A son for a flag is a lot of sacrifice.

As a nation we should look more carefully at how our fear of future acts of terrorism is undermining our quality of life.

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage.

Ask them, then. ...Ask them when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them, when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something? They won't want us to ask them. They'll just want us to get it.

Behind every effect there is a cause. You can never eliminate an effect without first understand its cause.

As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.

Based on his experience, he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata. "People get hung up that there's a targeted list of people," he said. "It's really like we're targeting a cell phone. We're not going after people – we're going after their phones, in the hopes that the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy.

Civil wars, just like the reign of terror, are but the accelerated domestication of a people by the covert powers. - On Domestication

But she was so happy in her gilded cage, wasn’t she? She ate well, slept well, enjoyed herself She lacked nothing. And then, look, a bunch of mental cases turn her away from her happiness and send her to -- how did you put it? -- to ‘blow herself away’?. The good doctor lives next door to a war but he doesn’t want to hear a word about it. And he thinks his wife shouldn’t worry about it, either. … We’re at war. Some people take up arms; others twiddle their thumbs. And still others make a killing in the name of the Cause. That’s life. … Your wife chose her side. The happiness you offered her smelled of decay. It repulsed her, you get it? She didn’t want your happiness. She couldn’t work on her suntan while her people were bent under the Zionist yoke. Do I have to draw you a picture to make you understand, or do you refuse to look reality in the face?

Cette [menace terroriste] ultime, qui traduit un attisement généralisé de la peur érigée en virtù, est désormais sous contrôle via la production de politiques qui insécurisent en permanence la société civile, et partant les individus, plutôt qu'elles ne les protègent ou les défendent. Ces politiques sont très économiques à plus d'un titre, notamment parce-qu'elles transfèrent à ces mêmes individus la responsabilité de se défendre et donc d'incorporer les usages de la violence, de devenir des corps défensifs permettant utilement de les transformer en unités martiales et létales atomisées, assignées à la surveillance et au contrôle d'un ennemi sans visage, et acceptant d'être gouvernés par la peur au nom de leur sécurité.

But since the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, terrorists have killed many times that number of people in Pakistan. Tens of thousands have died here in terror and counterterror violence, slain by bombs, bullets, cannons, and drones. America's 9/11 has given way to Pakistan's 24/7/365. The battlefield has been displaced. And in Pakistan it is much more bloody.

Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest. "Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims 'ancient' was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil. "Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.

Children do not tolerate injustice and obey their parents. That will remain so as they get bigger. Only then they sometimes obey a voice on the internet. (From: Kinderpraat)

Colonialism is the mother of terrorism.

Counterinsurgency rests on the assumption that the enemy has significant support in the communities from which it recruits. The aim of counterinsurgency strategy is to deny the enemy any propaganda victories that can further fuel its recruitment. Insurgents must be isolated from their targeted host communities. This requires a combination of psychological, physical and economic warfare, all with the aim of undermining the insurgents’ ideological, operational and financial capabilities. From: Maajid Nawaz's article titled, 'How to Beat Islamic State', December 11th, 2015

Corporate terrorism is psychological warfare. Corporate terrorists try to manipulate us and change our behavior by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society.

Critical to the fight against global terrorism is an ability to move beyond presuppositions and stereotypes in our attitudes and policies and to form partnerships that transcend an "us" and "them" view of the world. (p. 135)

Day after day, the globalization of terrorism becomes more evident. This is the one of the biggest challenges we are facing. We must stand with the innocent people around the world who are suffering or have lost their loved ones as a result of terrorism.

DB: There's a lot of talk about terrorism. In fact, it's become almost an obsession for the media in the United States. But it's a very narrow definition of terrorism. AR: Yes. It completely ignores the economic terrorism unleashed by neoliberalism, which devastates the lives of millions of people, depriving them of water, food, electricity. Denying them medicine. Denying them education. Terrorism is the logical extension of this business of the free market. Terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketeers of war - people who believe that it isn't only the state that can wage war, but private parties as well. If you look at the logic underlying an act of terrorism and the logic underlying a retaliatory war against terrorism, they are the same. Both terrorists and governments make ordinary people pay for the actions of their governments. Osama bin Laden is making people pay for the actions of the US state, whether it's in Saudi Arabia, Palestine, or Afghanistan. The US government is making the people of Iraq pay for the actions of Saddam Hussein. The people of Afghanistan pay for the crimes of the Taliban. The logic is the same. Osama bin Laden and George Bush are both terrorists. They are both building international networks that perpetrate terror and devastate people's lives. Bush, with the Pentagon, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Bin Laden with Al Qaeda.

Der Guerillero besetzt das Land, der Terrorist besetzt das Denken.

Democracy, religion, education and terrorism have all become practicable norms all over the world – thanks to globalization

Democracy doesn't mean spreading terror.

Der rechtsstaatliche Katalog ist schön und gut, aber nur, solange er die Bekämpfung des Terrorismus nicht behindert.

Domestic terrorism is alive and well in the USA and it is masquerading as “Progress”.

DPRK translates to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—and if the words Democratic and Republic sound like a good thing, well, it’s oxymoronic because the Korea we’re talking about here is the communist one in the North, and when I said the pastor’s father was their guest, what I really meant is he was shot down, captured, tortured, and held prisoner by a depraved enemy in what today can only be described as a failed state.

Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word." [1,000 Days 'Trapped Inside a Metaphor' (Columbia University / The New York Times, December 12, 1991)]

Drama!" said Mr. Hitchens. Robin Shrugged. "That's what terrorism is, basically--pure theater. Nothing in particular is ever accomplished by it, other than to focus attention on a small group of people who seize absolute power by threatening everything that holds civilization together." "Absolute power," mused Mrs. Pollifax. "Like monstrous children thumbing their noses at adults who live by codes and laws and scruples." Robin said in a hard voice, "In my line of work I've tangled with narcotic dealers and suppliers--that's Interpol's job--and I can say of them that at least they give value for their money. If what they sell destroys human lives their victims cooperate by choice in their own destruction, and if drug dealers bend and break every law in the book they at least know the laws. "But terrorists--" He shook his head. "They're the parasites of the century. They want to make a statement, they simply toss a bomb or round up innocent people to hold hostage, or kill without compunction, remorse or compassion. If they need money, they simply rob a bank. I have to admit not only my contempt for them," he added, "but my fear, too, because their only passion is to mock and to destroy, and that really is frightening.

Each community lives by its own rules in a disconnected, parallel universe. Integration is like a ghost people speak of but no one ever sees.

During an hour-long conversation mid-flight, he laid out his theory of the war. First, Jones said, the United States could not lose the war or be seen as losing the war. 'If we're not successful here,' Jones said, 'you'll have a staging base for global terrorism all over the world. People will say the terrorists won. And you'll see expressions of these kinds of things in Africa, South America, you name it. Any developing country is going to say, this is the way we beat [the United States], and we're going to have a bigger problem.' A setback or loss for the United States would be 'a tremendous boost for jihadist extremists, fundamentalists all over the world' and provide 'a global infusion of morale and energy, and these people don't need much.' Jones went on, using the kind of rhetoric that Obama had shied away from, 'It's certainly a clash of civilizations. It's a clash of religions. It's a clash of almost concepts of how to live.' The conflict is that deep, he said. 'So I think if you don't succeed in Afghanistan, you will be fighting in more places. 'Second, if we don't succeed here, organizations like NATO, by association the European Union, and the United Nations might be relegated to the dustbin of history.' Third, 'I say, be careful you don't over-Americanize the war. I know that we're going to do a large part of it,' but it was essential to get active, increased participation by the other 41 nations, get their buy-in and make them feel they have ownership in the outcome. Fourth, he said that there had been way too much emphasis on the military, almost an overmilitarization of the war. The key to leaving a somewhat stable Afghanistan in a reasonable time frame was improving governance and the rule of law, in order to reduce corruption. There also needed to be economic development and more participation by the Afghan security forces. It sounded like a good case, but I wondered if everyone on the American side had the same understanding of our goals. What was meant by victory? For that matter, what constituted not losing? And when might that happen? Could there be a deadline?

El terrorismo surge del fundamentalismo no de la religión.

Each time we bear witness to such senseless acts the world divides into a side which views this type of attack as terrorism and another which dismisses it as a random act by a person whose actions need some sort of justification.

Either it falls on your head like a roof tile or it attaches itself to your insides like a tapeworm. Afterward, you no longer see the world in the same way. You’ve got only one thing on your mind: the thing that has taken you over, body and soul. You want to lift it so you can see what’s under it. And from that point on, you can never turn back. Besides, you’re no longer giving the orders. You think you’re in control, doing what you want to do, but it’s not true. You’re nothing but the instrument of your own frustrations. For you, life and death come down to the same thing, Somewhere, you must have renounced everything that could have given you a chance of returning to earth, to the real world. You’re an extraterrestrial. You live in a kind of limbo, stalking houris and unicorns. As for this world, you don’t even want to hear about it anymore. You’re just waiting for the right moment to cross the threshold. The only way to get back what you’ve lost or to fix what you’ve screwed up -- in other words, the only way to make something of your life -- is to end it with a flourish. … The way you see it, the day of your funeral procession will be the day when you’re exalted in other people’s eyes.

Evan stares at me. I try to hug him. He takes a step back. I pause, my heart in my throat. I’ve got to reach out to him, let myself be vulnerable. I find the courage, but he backs up again. “You can’t go to Iraq anymore.” “I know.” He looks up at Deanna, then back to me. “Did you fight bad guys? You told me you weren’t.” His voice is suspicious, full of accusation. He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t blame him for that. “No, Evan. I didn’t fight bad guys.” I can’t bring myself to tell him the complete truth. I want so desperately to go back into this fight. I miss it every day. I always felt I could change the world with a rifle in my hands and our flag on my shoulder. “Did you get shot?” he looks me over, apparently searching for bullet wounds. I grin a little. “No, Bud, I didn’t get shot.” “People get shot in Iraq.” “Yes, they do.” It strikes me then that Evan for the first time has a grasp on the dangers that are faced over there. He’s six now, and the world is coming into focus for him. “People get shot, Daddy. They die. Bad guys kill them.” I think of Edward Iwan and Sean Sims. “Yeah, I know they do, Evan.