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independence. In predominantly agrarian societies, number of ways. Frustrated with the slow pace of
this terrorism took the form of guerrilla warfare, social change (and, in the eyes of some, simply bored
with China and Indochina as the classic examples. with their middle-class privilege), some radical
In urban areas such as Palestine and Cyprus, acts of activists broke off from Students for a Democratic
terror were committed within city limits. Society to found the violent group Weatherman.
A number of these national political movements, Similarly frustrated with the mainstream civil rights
which owed much of their success to violence, adopted movement, black militants formed the Black Panther
a strategy that would have lasting significance in the Party. Puerto Rican nationalists, Jewish extremists,
war of semantics surrounding the use of violence. and single-issue terrorist organizations such as animal
These newly created Third World countries, as well rights groups also became active in this era.
as their brethren from the communist bloc states, While the so-called new left terrorism of groups
advanced the argument that their fight against colonial like Weatherman had exhausted itself by the late
oppression was not terrorism but rather the hard work 1970s, the next decade saw a variety of terrorist groups
of dedicated freedom fighters. Frantz Fanon’s The espousing a virulent philosophy of white supremacy
Wretched of the Earth (1962) was particularly influen- and related incendiary rhetoric activate themselves
tial in this regard; Fanon urged colonized peoples throughout the United States. During this period,
to throw off their rulers in a “collective catharsis” of minorities of all stripes found themselves targeted by
violence. The text helped solidify the association of such hate-mongering and terrorist organizations as
violence with liberation struggles that was first raised the Order and the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of
by the anarchists of the late 19th century. the Lord, among others. As the 1980s came to end,
The 1960s saw terrorism spring up throughout however, a combination of aggressive law enforcement
the world. In Latin America, the Tupamaros’s form of combined with little support by the general public for
terrorism, which included kidnappings and bank rob- white supremacist rhetoric sounded the death knell for
beries, ultimately toppled Uruguay’s imperfect demo- extremist right-wing terror organizations. There were
cratic government and inadvertently replaced it with a still some leftover true believers but their ranks were
military dictatorship. In Argentina, left-wing terror rapidly slimming.
organizations such as the Montoneros and the EPA Things changed in the 1990s. The ranks of the
waged a broad terror campaign against foreign eco- extremist right were quickly replenished, inspired by
nomic interests as well as the Argentinean authorities. the impacts of three events. The first event involved a
The writings of Brazilian Carlos Marighella had even bungled federal government attempt to arrest Randy
more of an impact on terrorist events throughout the Weaver, a white separatist who sold an illegal firearm
world than it did on events in Latin America or his to an undercover government agent, atop Ruby Ridge
native Brazil. Marighella’s Minimanual of the Urban in the mountains of Idaho. The 1992 siege ended with
Guerrilla (1969), a practical guide for terrorism, was the deaths of a federal marshal, Weaver’s son, and his
read throughout the worldwide terrorist community. pregnant wife; it quickly came to symbolize the heavy
A wave of extreme left-wing terrorism also hand of a threatening federal bureaucracy. The tragic
emerged in Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1960s end to the FBI’s 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian
and 1970s. The Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany, compound in Waco, Texas, reinforced this view, even
the Red Brigades in Italy, and the Japanese Red Army though David Koresh and his followers had little to
in Japan, all inspired at some level by Marighella, not do with the right-wing movement. The 1994 enactment
only embarked on terrorist campaigns at home but of the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting
ventured abroad to attack international interests. The period for gun purchases and was named for U.S.
most infamous of these organizations’ attacks was the president Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was
1972 massacre at Ben-Gurion Airport (Lod Airport) in severely disabled during a botched assassination
Israel by members of the Japanese Red Army. attempt, became the third issue to rejuvenate the
extreme right, as it caused many to fear federal gun
control legislation.
MODERN TERRORISM: THE UNITED STATES
On April 19, 1995 this tension came to a head
The upsurge in terrorism of the 1960s was not limited when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah
to Europe and Asia. It affected the United States in a Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and