By any other name....

Submitted by Matt Fyffe (New Zealand), Sep 9, 2004 at 01:09

The real point that is missed here is that these "terrorists" that we in the west are continually petrified of continue to perform acts of atrocity. We choose to label them terrorists because these acts go beyond what what we can comprehend humanity doing to one another. We can justify a child dying at the hands of a US missile because it was a "mistake". Not so with these russian children. These "terrorists" deliberately killed children because they seem to have so little respect for their enemies they no longer care. Instead of debating how we should label them, we should be debating how people can be driven to such drastic action. We can condemn their actions and call them by any name we like, but until we truly understand their motivation we will never prevent them from committing "terrorist" acts. I believe that this calls for as much self reflection on behalf of western governments as condemnation of terrorist organisations and their actions.

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