Compare And Contrast Syrian Civil War

In todays world the terms freedom fighter, rebel, and terrorist are misunderstood and are haphazardly thrown around. Freedom fighters and rebels are individuals that are fighting the government for basic freedoms, and the difference between a freedom fighter and a rebel depends on the perspective of the individual. This difference in perspective is exposed in the Syrian Civil War. Terrorist on the other hand, violently target the general public instilling fear in the public, while inserting their power and dominance. The terrorist group Al-Queda is a prime example of how terrorists operate. Therefore, freedom fighters’s and rebels’s motives and morals differ greatly from terrorists’s motives and morals. Freedom fighters engage in fights against oppressive governments to achieve freedom. Political philosopher John Locke

Terrorist use inhumane acts of torture and death to instill fear in the general public in order to insert power and dominance. For example, Al-Qaeda is an extremist Sunni Muslim terrorist group that was created by Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden believed that the Western Jews and Christians were conspiring to eradicate the religion of Islam (“Background: Al Qaeda”). This made the U.S a target for terrorist attacks. According to the March 11, 2005 Al-Quds Al-Arabi news paper Saif al-Adel created a five step plan named “Al Qaeda's Strategy to the Year 2020.” The first step was to provoke the U.S by targeting and killing as many U.S citizens as possible on U.S soil. Al-Qaeda successfully achieved this goal in the attacks of September 11th, 2001 (“Al-Qaeda’s Strategy Until 2020”). Both of these acts were directed at citizens of the U.S instilling fear into the U.S. people, and solidifying that Al-Qaeda is a terrorist group. The motive to strike fear into citizens and the absence of morals highlighted by the killing of civilians exposes how terrorist and freedom fights and rebels