Is there an historical precedent for groups like al Qaeda?

Well terrorist groups span centuries. The earliest group who were well known as being terrorists would have to be the Jacobians who were at the heart of the French Revolution, they would use terror to sway people to their ideology.

Perhaps more notably are the Crusades of the the 11th and 12th century. These Europeans went right down into the Middle East slaughtering and torturing thousands of innocent Jews and Muslims because of their religious beliefs and ideologies; much like Al Qaeda.

There is of course Hitler in his Holocaust – this is again intolerance of a groups ideology; the Jews. This is like Al Qaeda in the way that they killed thousands of westerners and even their own people. Even though to us it seems like the Jews did nothing wrong, in Hitler’s eyes they were guilty much like how in the eyes of extremists we are guilty.

One of the first attacks on Europeans from the Middle East was the PFLP who were Palestinian terrorists, they hijacked planes and landed them at Dawson’s Field in Jordan. These extremists were quite soft in comparison to todays standards. They held hostages for 6 days then released them once there demands; (prisoners being released) had been met. Then they blew up the planes in a symbol of defiance.

Terrorists groups have been around for centuries and like the examples above many of their motives are unclear. You just have to remember that the motive of a terrorist is to get as much media attention as possible. This is why they challenge the ideals of other people, they more extreme they sound, the more coverage they get and the more people are effected by their message.

joey, I appreciate your answer, but I think there is a difference between terrorists of the past and current ones. Justified or not, the Crusaders had a very specific objective. They wanted to take control of Jerusalem away from the Arabs. Hitler, too, had a specific objective, a most horrific one, to eliminate all Jews. I do not know much about the PFLP, but I suspect that their terror tactics were part of a guerrilla effort to chase the Europeans out of Palestine. I do not approve of terrorism, but I see how it might be effective as part of an overall effort to wear down an enemy. When it comes to al Qaeda, I just don’t see what they expected to accomplish by blowing up the World Trade Center.

They expected almost exactly what they got. They wanted to bring the US and other Western countries to their knees economically and militarily.

From their perspective, we have been promoting terror in their region for years with military campaigns to secure land, resources and power. They wanted to scare us to the point where we reduced our own liberties and overextended ourselves chasing after them, much like the Nazis in Russia, or Russia in Afghanistan.

To many of the fundamentalists, the wars that installed and expanded Israeli power in the area are recent events. To them that was more important than the European war because it happened in their part of the world and happened to their families and people.

The Crusaders did not have a singular mission, they were people not machines, their individual goal was entry into heaven (or maybe personal power) based on some nutty interpretations of a book, just like AQ.

To many terrorists they feel as if they are fighting a war. In the case of Al Qaeda it’s a war on the west, in their eyes we are sinners, we have gone against their beliefs and are thus guilty of the highest crime. The attack on the Twin Towers was a symbol that war had started, when they attacked they weren’t killing thousands of innocents they were attacking the guilty and the soldiers of the other army. To them it’s not murder, because its an act of war. When they attacked the Twin Towers they got exactly what they wanted, media coverage. The modern terrorist thrives on the media and through the media they can get there message across. If they simply sent news stations videos do you think that they would be shown 24/7 on CNN, do you think that we would be always hearing about the latest developments in the Middle East. Of course we wouldn’t because to the media it would just be another conflict like the Gulf Wars.

All terrorists have objectives.

@Lostinparadise Hitler had plans for world domination. Eliminating the Jews was only a stepping stone.

@LostInParadise, It’s all in the interpretation.