If you're going to use outdated racial classifications you should at least know that Arabs are Caucasians.

Point well taken -thanks for the correction. But indeed my argument was against racial classifications to start with.

is terrorism. Or more specifically terror. Terror is practised by various entities regardless of religion: Separatist, fundamentalist, state, fascist, xenophobic, anti-capitalist...The US and Israel are not muslim let alone islamist, yet they practice terror. The same goes for
the Rote Armee Faktion or the republican and unionist paramilitaries and the british army in Northern Ireland.

Shimson and Jez -

Shimson -I agree with you and, no, I'm not suggesting that the problem is Islam. I'm only arguing 1) that any kind of religion serving as an excuse for violence is a bad idea: so I'm not saying that religion is either necessary or sufficient to engender terrorism (you can have religion without violence or violence without religion), but since I believe that religions are fundamentally erroneous, I think it'd be good to do away in particular with any religious justification of violence. 2) that "racism" -as in: he's not white, he must be a terrorist- is not a useful interpretation of the terrorist phenomenon, including as a prevention measure (Islamic terrorism uses converts was the topic of the FP post), and it can lead to huge "blunders" that should not be tolerated in a democracy (e.g.: de Menezes's assassination by the British police, which I mentioned in another post). I doubt that a shift away from ethnicity towards religion would help prevent this "racism" (or xenophobia, or whatever), but why not hope?

Jez - The definition of terrorism is an interesting point (although the introductory chapter on this point in Hoffman's "Inside Terrorism" is borderline tedious, it is useful in this case). Of course, we're in disagreement as to the US practicing terror: I just watched the Bourne Supremacy, and it didn't seem to me that it was a documentary, sorry.

Euh,François, how is your take on the Bourne Supremacy a logical rebuttal of my pointing out that the US practises terror? I am not stating an opinion. I am merely point out what can be observed in the media (unless the media show nothing but lies): innocent populations all over the world being massacred, terrorised, tortured by the US army and other armies armed by the US. All this has been well documented by one of the, if not the, most experienced western journalists in the middle east: Robert Fisk, particularly in his lates book. Par pitié, don't just dismiss Fisk out of hand.

I think the word terrorism defines it's self very well: Terror.  

Ah, all irony is lost.

I like this tune:

"This is not us"