In other words, "two wrongs don't make a right".

You cannot defeat evil by imitating it. (But you may score a temporary "victory", and to many, if not most people...that is all that matters.) Movies and TV dramas are generally sustained and inspired by such primitive emotional scenarios, and this encourages such an attitude in people generally.

The terrorist is invariably someone who believes he is responding to an unjustified attack or persecution upon his people (or some people somewhere) (or even animals or plants somewhere). Reacting emotionally in the most visceral way possible he lashes out in violence at the "evildoers", as he sees it...and usually kills or harms a whole bunch of innocent bystanders. The people he lashed out at then declare him a terrorist and practice counter-terrorism in return, using their own weapons of mass destruction...and kill or harm a whole bunch of innocent bystanders. If they're lucky, they may even get a few of the original terrorists, of course, but the game seldom ends there...

In the 60's the Weather Underground did this, protesting the Vietnam War, racism, and capitalist exploitation of America. Their ideals were of the highest, their conscious intentions were laudable, their methods were violent and terrorist in nature.

Bin Laden did it numerous times, culminating in the attack on the WTC.

The American government has done it numerous times in a great many places, most recently in Iraq.

The Israelis and the Palestinians do it to each other on a regular basis.

It's all terrorism, and it's all a great shame.

- LH