Terrorists evil - but okay to torture them?

With reference to Ami's recent post on the Jordanian terrorist attacks, I commend this reiforcement of the lack of justification there is for terrorism. But it raises a question in my mind which worries if we're becoming jaded by the term "terrorism". I worry about Ami's discussion of "root causes", as if terrorism has a specific source that can be traced to illness within the perpetrators.

When Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (of New York) spoke at the Adelaide festival of ideas he was challenged by a direct question. "Does the Quran contain any verses that are twisted to seem like incitement to terrorism, no matter how obscure these might be?" I really liked his answer, which addressed the real question rather than getting upset at the slight to the holy book of his faith. He inarguably demonstrated the sad fact that X% of people are prepared to end their life at any given time for varying reasons, and if offered some kind of reward for their family or a promise that they'd be remembered in a positive light would be doubly willing to do so. This might seem obvious, but what we can gain from it is that it's illogical to pretend terrorism starts as an illness which doesn't exist in other societies or is attached to some religion, ethnicity or nationality. I'd suggest that terrorists are born out of a certain unhappy/negative environment and lack of education/understanding rather than something inherently "evil" inside them or their society.

And there is a second aspect to consider, following on from my post about the recent Bali bombings... At the back of my mind I'm questioning if the term "terrorism" is unhelpful if it excludes other instances of indiscriminate violence or killings, or other targeted atrocities perpetrated not by terrorists but by national defence forces with the seal of approval from their leaders? It seems that because these often cannot be named under a single umbrella term like "terrorism" that it can become difficult for people to condemn them, especially as news of these actions is sometimes filtered through a supportive media (unlike the case with the majority of terrorist attacks - though Al Jazeera and other media outlets may be an exception).

Notably, many people have taken the opposite tack and used the word terrorist to name these other instances of violence and killing I mentioned. But the term ends up sounding inappropriate and seems to backfire on the groups, making them appear too radical and too fringe to be worth listening to.

Your thoughts?

Image (top) derived for Desert Pea from The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893, and images of the Abu Ghraib tortures from 2003-2005. Image (bottom) courtesy of Manila Indymedia
Technorati Tags: language, political expediency, terrorism, Imam Abdul Feisal Rauf, suicide bomber