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WHITBECK: ‘Terrorism’: the word itself is dangerous 

the word has been so devalued that even violence is no longer an essential prerequisite for its use. In recently announcing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against 10 international tobacco companies, a Saudi Arabian lawyer told the press: “We will demand tobacco firms be included on the lists of terrorists and those financing and sponsoring terrorism because of the large number of victims smoking has claimed the world over.” If everyone recognized the word “terrorism” is fundamentally an epithet and a term of abuse, with no intrinsic meaning, there would be no more reason to worry about the word now than prior to Sept. 11. However, with the United States relying on the word to assert, apparently, an absolute right to attack any country it dislikes (for the most part, countries Israel dislikes) and with President Bush repeatedly menacing that “either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” (which effectively means, “either you make our enemies your enemies or you’ll be our enemy – and you know what we do to our enemies”), many people around the world must feel a genuine sense of terror (dictionary definition: “a state of intense fear”) as to where the United States is taking the rest of the world. [This graph only]

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