SU graduate challenges former Islamic Society president’s definition of terrorism in recent article

Dear Editor:

As a Remembrance Week speaker years ago, I read with interest Sydney Bergan’s October 24 article about “terrorism coverage.”

I was pleased it cited local Islamic leader Mohamed Khater’s definition of “terrorism.” That word, so widely and incessantly invoked in United States media since the 1988 Lockerbie attack and 9/11, is seldom defined anywhere.

Here, I’ll not speculate as to why. But I do want to expand on Khater’s definition: “a person or a group that causes harm to a civilian population in the hopes of political gain.”

First, often it’s not only political gain — it’s economic gain, when one nation covets another people’s gold or oil or other resource. This raises a second key point: much terrorism is perpetrated, not merely by “persons or groups,” but by the armed forces, mercenaries and proxies of imperial nations.

In fact, most terrorism, contrary to stereotype, is perpetrated by men who often wear uniforms. Think of, in the 19th century, the U.S. cavalry’s decimating the vastly outgunned First Nations defending their lands.

Then consider the U.S. military’s invasion of Vietnam and its genocidal bombing of Laos. And in the current century, the Pentagon’s shattering of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other nations of the Islamic oil lands.

Truly understood, most terrorism on this bloody planet is being perpetrated by aircraft — including the weaponized drones piloted from our own Hancock Air Force Base.

Ed Kinane,

Class of 1967

Syracuse, NY