Has there ever been a decade WITHOUT a terrorist attack

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OMG! 9/11 OMG! Yes a serious attack etc but let me refresh your memory

WTC bombed in the 90's

Oklahoma bombing

Atlanta Olympics bombing

(Those 3 things just in the 90's not to mention I'm sure there have other plane bombing attacks in the 90's etc. just as there've been in the 00's)

And while I don't remember the date Pearl Harbor anyone?

Because of the media focus, it's easy to think of terrorism as being exclusive to the 21st century, but when you think about it, it's really not new. As you said, Pearl Habor, and what about the Gunpowder Plot?

The media puts people in a state of fear by acting as though the modern world is trying to kill us with all the scares du jour (terrorism, pedophiles, etc), but the thing is, none of this stuff is new. It's all about risk vs perceived risk.

Groups are always at ends with each other. It's just more recently the media is calling it terrorism.

If you wanna know what really happened on 9/11 watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yx9NRX37SM

American sponsored terrorism in the UK, Afghanistan and Cuba? That's half the 20th Century covered.

But generally speaking, no, there hasn't been. Ever. In the history of humanity. I'll give you good odds that someone, somewhere in the world, has always been engaged in causing casualties among the mostly-innocent to create terror for the whole of history.



Pearl Harbor, of course, was not a terrorist attack. Treacherous, yes, but a military attack on a very big, very obvious military target with the intention of delaying the inevitable defeat of Japan by one year.

Uh, sorry, I mean, with the intention of destroying the bulk of the Pacific Fleet and enabling Japan to defeat America in the Pacific. Honest. Totally plausible.

I don't think that there has been, to tell you the truth.

I think there has been. 20010 - 20000 B.C. would be a relatively safe guess I think.

depends how you interpret "terrorism". there were always guerillas and partisans, the terrorists of the days past. whether someone is regarded as a "terrorist" or as a "fighter for freedom" only depends on the point of view.

At what point does the action of a State qualify as terrorism? The attack on Pearl Harbour was an Act of War (although the Japanese Government did screw up on the delivery of the declaration). Does that legitimate it? If not, then what of other State actions--the invasions of Grenada or Iraq? The annexation of Panama? The bombing of Cambodia?

I don't mean to suggest that all state actions are immune from characterization as terrorism, but at the same time we have developed a body of international law that suggests that the projection of armed force by a nation state exists in a privileged sphere.

All of that being said, I doubt there is any decade in human history (whether recorded or otherwise) in which some group of people has not chosen to use violence as a means of achieving a political objective.

There were anarchist bombings in New York City during the 1920s. Saccho and Venzetti were victims of the fear and loathing of foreign anarchists in the American public.

During the Civil War, Cantrell's raiders did in Lawrence Kansas, the equivalent of the wreck of the World Trade Center in the year 2001. All sorts of wild things happened during the 19th century, from attacks by Indians, to raids by criminal thugs and even border raids from Mexico. In 1859, John Brown and his raiders attacked Harper's Ferry VA with the hope of starting a slave revolt. Brown's raid was one of the sparks that lit up the Civil War.

Back in 1914 Poncho Villa raided towns in Texas to raise hell and steal money. General Pershing cut his teeth as a warrior in punitive raids into Mexico to answer the doings of Poncho Villa.

ruveyn

And farther back than that, Anarchism was a real force, with bomb throwers killing a Russian Czar, nearly killing Edward, Prince of Wales, an American President, and loads of other folks.
In Australia in the mid-19th Century, there was a bandit gang/heroic misunderstood/call it what you will who fought the British in bulletproff armor. Greek partisains in the early 19th Century fought the Turks in Greece, and the original Guerilla war was fought in Spain against Napoleon.

And that's just the 19th. Anyone want to tackle the Jacobeans of the 18th?...

The difference with terrorism today is that 90% of it is done by Islamic fanatics which is relatively new.