20060307
    In a strangely underreported event this past weekend, a former UNC graduate student, who is also Muslim, drove his SUV through a group of students gathered in a pedestrian area of the UNC campus. The assailant claims to have committed the act in revenge for the deaths of Muslims at the hands of Americans elsewhere in the world.
    The disturbing nature of the attack is only slightly ahead of the disturbing nature of the reporting and the almost non-response to the event. Most troubling is the fact that no one seems to realize the reality of what has just occurred. A Muslim, living in the United States and apparently not connected to any organized terrorist group has committed a self-avowed act of terrorism.
    The problem with this whole story is that most Americans still seem to be unclear on exactly what terrorism is. They want to dismiss this as a ‘random act of violence’ and a ‘hate crime’. While both of these definitions are true, this act takes on another, more sinister, definition. Anyone who commits an act of violence for the purpose of advancing a particular agenda through the establishment of fear, especially when that act of violence is committed against civilians or non-military and government targets, then the act is terrorism.
    Just because the person or persons committing the act are not part of an organized terrorist group who can claim responsibility does not make such an act not terrorism. The act, whomever it is committed by, serves to accomplish the same end. Terrorism is a mindset used by an enemy, not an organization committing an act.
    Why is this distinction so important? Because this is very likely the nature of terrorism that the US is likely to see develop over the next several years. This terrorism is likely to take on the pinprick approach that has troubled nations like Israel for decades. This terrorism will not be massive attacks claiming thousands of lives. These attacks may claim no lives at all. Instead, they will cause Americans to be constantly looking over their shoulders, scrutinizing the world around them, or not going into the world at all because of the fear that they might be next. That reality, no matter how one wants to define such a thing, is terrorism, whoever commits the act.
    Remember the Washington DC area while John Muhammad and Lee Malvo were loose, shooting random people. Remember the fear that their crime spree caused. That is the nature of terrorism. While that particular crime may or may not have had terrorist origins, the result is exemplary of the effect such acts can have, even when committed by individuals unaffiliated with a terrorist organization.
    So, while we are watching out for the big terrorist attacks, we must not let our guard down against the little ones too. We cannot afford not to be vigilant against the disgruntled individuals, sympathetic to the same ideals and causes that motivates organizations like al-Qaeda or Hamas, because they pose just as much of a threat to us, if only by the power of fear alone.
DLH
Good approach.