For all we know, they were random acts of senseless violence.
Cryptic letters does not an ideology make.
You want to make a point to the goverment? Blow up a subway.
Pipe bombs in mailboxes smells like a whack job with no other agenda than wanting to hurt people.
Let me back up ...
You know... it MIGHT be terrorists. What bugs me about the word is the way people bandy it about as if a terrorist were the bogeyman hiding in your closet or underneath your bed.
Terrorism is a tool of war. Terrorist are those proficient at using this tool.
Terrorism is warfare. It can be employed by anyone. Our country has even done it. Firebombing Tokyo was an act of terrorism. The purpose was to test Japan's resolve and show them that there was a cost to having the U.S. as an enemy. The firebombing did far more damage to the civilian populace than it did to the military industrial complex. Germany used V-1 and V-2 rockets against the U.K. Tactically insignificant, the only purpose was to test the resolve of the British people.
Terrorism is typically used against the U.S. in the form of "asymetric warfare." What asymetric warfare really means is, "I'm too small, too underequipped, too powerless to take on your military toe to toe so I'm going to strike your soft underbelly and see if that get's your attention to the fact that you're hurting me (or just pissing me off)."
Face it. Certain U.S. foreign policies make some people very unhappy and they wish us ill in return. Now... before you rush off with some self righteous indignant rant, I'll say it again. Take a breath. Certain U.S. foreign policies make some people very unhappy and they wish us ill in return. Take another breath. I didn't say our policies were necessarily bad or wrong. They are simply not universally accepted.
So... How do they voice dissent? What if the leaders in this country aren't listening or just don't care? Then what?
They blow up stuff.
When that soft underbelly gets salamandered. That soft underbelly, after brushing off the dust and burying the dead, will ask, "Why?"
I understand the motivation of a small country that would strike at U.S. citizens rather than fight suicidal battles against the most powerful military in the history of this planet. Turn the situation around. Imagine that the Taliban were the most powerful goverment on the planet. Wouldn't you drive a plane into one of their buildings? I think I would. (This is entirely subjective. I don't give a toejame for fundamentalist islamic ideology and disagree with it probably as much as they disagree with our own "western" fundamentals.)
Now... IMHO, domestic "terrorists" are whack jobs. We have a system in this country that allows dissent. You don't like your government representative? Don't vote for him. Of the people, by the people, for the people. If you're not working within the system, you're not for the people. Get the hell out. IMHO, we should call domestic "terrorists" what they are, mass murderers.
What bothers me is that the government throws the word terrorist around like it were some measure of morality. That we can even have a war on terrorism. How absolutely silly. We're going to have a war against asymetric warfare.
I wonder what the exit strategy is for that.
