Terrorism​—A War Within

SINCE World War I mighty colonial empires have been shattered. New nations, formed out of the fragments, struggle for sovereignty. They are seething and churning within themselves, changing in political and social character from one extreme to another. Latin America is a caldron of internal strife. Compare a map of Africa of 1914 with a map of Africa today. Gone are the vast colonial empires. In their stead are more than 30 nations, many of them suffering from turmoil within.

As wars within nations grow more sinister, fear grows that nations may disintegrate into nihilism. At his trial in Israel, a Japanese Red Army terrorist told his prosecutors: “We know [that wars within nations] will become more severe than battles between nations.”

Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’ Left-wing terrorists point to George Washington. Did he not lead revolutionary armies to throw off British rule? “George Washington was a terrorist,” declared a Red Army Faction defendant on trial for his life in a West German court. “To describe a man as a terrorist is a term of honor.”

To Americans, describing George Washington as a terrorist might sound revolting. Yet Americans once acclaimed Fidel Castro as a heroic freedom fighter. That was when, with a band of guerrillas, he brought down the army of dictator Batista. Later, due to the form of government he set up, Castro came to be viewed by the United States in the same light as the revolutionaries who bombed Czar Alexander II to death and set in motion the Russian Revolution.

Some see in terrorism a fury that society brings down upon itself. Others see it as a cancer in civilization​—gangs or movements, large or small, violently bent on restructuring this or that system of politics, economics, even religion.

Tactics of Terrorists

The modern terrorist robs, steals, burns, bombs, kidnaps and kills. To him his deeds are not crimes in the general sense. He sees himself doing what nations do to one another in war. His acts are acts of war. He wars against a social order.

As a rule, he joins himself to blood comrades. They operate in tiny cells. They hit and run. They are guerrilla fighters, skirmishers. Sometimes their forces grow into armies. Fear of them jars nations into wars, invasions, counteratrocities. How would the United Nations, for example, write a neutral history of modern Lebanon​—battleground of Palestinians, Syrians and Israelis? And, granting that all outside forces are moved outside of its borders, how does Lebanon unite its internal factions intermixed with Maronite Christians, Sunni, Shiite and Druze Muslims? Would violence by one faction against another be terrorism? The answer depends on the one you ask.

To recount what terrorism has done to shape the course of nations would call for a review of much of world history for the past 50 years. Storm signals of expanding terrorism, agitated and manipulated by opposing forces within and without, burn a fearful question into the minds of world leaders: How will the “wars within” figure in the fate of nations?

[Blurb on page 3]

‘We know that wars within nations will become more severe than battles between nations’