Yay! We don't bite. Well, Sunny is a lion, obviously...but....errr....
I know. We´ve disagreed rather vehemently on some things in the past.
How useful is it to define "terrorism" in such a way that an unprovoked attack on another country's civilians is an act of terrorism? Here's why I ask, Riverwolf: Part of our means of combating terrorism is become informed about what it constitutes. That would include, I think, becoming informed that it is not just random violence, or violence done for the sake of violence, but rather has a political goal. It's only when we realize that terrorists have a political goal that we can sit down, figure out what that goal is, and then act to make sure the terrorists don't achieve it. So, I would think that any greatly useful definition of terrorism must acknowledge that fact about terrorism -- that it has a political goal. Furthermore, I think a useful definition must acknowledge that terrorists seek to bring about that goal via creating terror in a populace to pressure a government to do (or not do) something that achieves the terrorist's goal. So, if any of that makes sense, then it might be too simple to just say that an unprovoked attack on another country's civilians is an act of terrorism. Just my two cents.
I wouldn't, but perhaps not for the reasons you might assume.
Terrorism (to me) isn't a measure of 'right' or 'wrong'. Somehow we seem to have reached a point where most people view terrorism as a value judgement on an action. But you can have military actions which are indefensible, but which are not terrorism (imho).
To keep it simple (probably too simple, but let's start with this) I wouldn't see Hitler's invasion of Poland as 'terrorism'. It was an invasion, pure and simple. Germany declared war, and in they went. That doesn't make it right, but it speaks to the legal declaration, etc.
You both make excellent points, I think. My reasoning for labelling it "terrorism" does largely stem from hearing the voices of the surviving victims of the attacs, who call it terrorism. Of course, that could easily be mistranslation on the part of the media, since these voices are probably not speaking English.
I remember a Bond film repeating what´s probably an older saying, that one man´s terrorist is another man´s freedom fighter. It does make sense: the game Final Fantasy VII, released in the late 90s, starts out with the player taking on the role of a group of eco-terrorists called AVALANCHE blowing up a "not-oil" reactor (and everyone in it) because the evil "not-oil" corporation is sucking the planet dry of this "not-oil", which will inevitably cause the planet to die. It´s even been joked since before the internet that the Rebels in Star Wars could be labelled as terrorists, since, as ... was movie was it?... pointed out, the second Death Star was still under construction and probably had innocents on it when it blew up.
Of course, I´m a stickler for words needing to be self-descriptive, so I´d be pretty against labelling something as "terrorism" that isn´t at least primarily about scaring people. AVALANCHE wasn´t trying to scare anybody; they were trying to save the planet with brute force means. The Rebels were trying to take down the Empire completely, not scare it into submission.
But, then, what of our own Founding Fathers? Obviously the narrative of the American Revolution doesn´t depict them as anything but golden exemplars of humanity, but if the term "terrorism" existed back then, would the British government call them that? I mean, consider the Christmas massacre...
You two have both expressed concern that the word could quickly become meaningless if we label horendous acts as terrorism willy-nilly, but come to think of it, I wonder if "terrorism", at least as it´s most often used, has ever had any real meaning beyond "insurgents who are politically against the US, or some other major Western power, and since 9/11, have some degree of brown skin". If so... I wonder if it should be used at all.
