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Ubiquity of "terrorism" and definitional game-playing Is it not the tragedy of modern civilization that no fundamental transformation of socio-political reality - including the independence of USA, Israel and many developing countries -- has been achieved in history without attacks that could be labelled by those in power as "terrorism" and "evil"? How many modern states have been headed by people who could be legitimately described as having engaged in terrorist activity? What then is the nature of the "entire western world" of which "terrorists" are the "enemies" (Tony Blair, 14 September 2001) An act of resistance is very different from an act of terrism. Would key nation-builders such as George Washington (USA), Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Oliver Cromwell (UK), and Charles de Gaulle (France) not be labelled as "terrorists" according to current criteria? Can President Charles de Gaulle, who fought for the l

Binary thinking According to Colin Powell (16th September 2001), the response required of other governments is "yes or no". It is "binary" he asserts -- reflecting the "excluded middle" pattern that characterizes the poverty of western conceptualization in comparison with others. Do the intellectual elites of the USA genuinely believe that using this highly restricted conceptual framework is adequate to address cultures notably characterized by the higher dimensionality of three- and four-fold logics? Tony Blair asserts (3 October 2001) that: "It is to be a battle with only one outcome -- our victory, not theirs". Constrained by the binary thinking of the coalition, is he willfully ignorant of the other "outcomes" of previous conflicts undertaken with such enthusiasm -- such as World War I and the Gulf War (from which the CIA estimated that a million civilians subsequently died, and without removing Saddam Hussein)? What will be the