When our beloved Board Member and Representative Howard Coble took part in a (partial, by-invitation-only) community discussion on Monday April 14, he faced a myriad of questions about his staunchly pro-war stance. He was also asked to give his definition of terrorism – a fair question, I would think, for someone who chairs Congress’s Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Coble responded to that question by saying that 9/11 was his definition. At that point, I commented that while 9/11 was indeed a textbook example of terrorism, it was not a definition. So what was his definition?
Well, according to Howard Coble, an act can be classified as “terrorist” whenever assailants attack innocent civilians without provocation.
(Note: This is not a verbatim quotation because there is no transcript of this conversation, just as there is no transcript of the radio show on which he spoke about Japanese-American internment; pretty handy if you want to put a political spin on a potentially damaging comment.)
If only Coble could recognize the implications of his own definition.
So far, between 1,400 and 1,800 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed without provocation by assailants from the U.S. and British Armed Forces.

If we go by Coble’s definition, then the “pre-emptive war” in Iraq puts the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines in the same category as Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen.

This is unfortunate indeed, because if we also agree with the logic of Bush’s “War on Terror,” then we’re going to have to bomb ourselves. Not only have we harbored terrorists within our borders, we’ve all funded them by paying taxes.