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Don't give terrorists the same legitimacy as nation states.
Published on May 27, 2004 By Draginol In Politics

Terrorism, by definition, is the act of performing random acts of violence towards a civilian population for the express purpose of creating fear and uncertainty and is performed by persons with no definitive origin.

Al Qaeda wasn't targeting some person in the world trade center. They were simply murdering as many people as they could in the most arbitrary way to instill fear and panic amongst their enemies.

Moreover, if a military aircraft from country X wrongly bombs a building full of civilians in country Z then country Z has many options available to them.

Consider how much simpler things would be if the WTC had been attacked by say the government of Iran or some other nation state.

What's nice about nation states is that they are much easier to be held accountable.

The minute you give terrorists the same legitimacy as the governments of nation states you might as well throw up your hands and argue that criminals have their own legitimacy as well. Terrorists are just another form of violent criminal who have simply passed a threshold beyond what can be dealt with by civilian police forces effectively.


Comments (Page 1)
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on May 28, 2004
Terrorism, by definition, is the act of performing random acts of violence towards a civilian population for the express purpose of creating fear and uncertainty and is performed by persons with no definitive origin.

a more accurate (and accepted) definition is the one you'll find in dictionaries. terrorism is use of violence (threats or acts of violence) by individuals or organized groups as coercion or intimidation (against a government or population) to achieve political goals. terrorism is therefore not random in intent (although the acts may victimize randomly) nor limited to civilians. im not sure what the no definitive origin thing means but since the point is achieving a goal, its rare that terroristic acts go unclaimed.

so what?

theres no justification for political extortion or serial assualt/murder (which is what you seem to be actually describing) leaving out the political intent aspect muddles the issue making it more difficult to understand or arrive at a solution.

on May 28, 2004
Just after the 9/11, french magazines tryied and failled to give a definition of terrorism. It's like there is more than one hundred definition in the world.
Because the dictionnary seems always a reference point or start to debat for people, it's always a wrong begining.
on May 28, 2004
Just after the 9/11, french magazines tryied and failled to give a definition of terrorism. It's like there is more than one hundred definition in the world.
Because the dictionnary seems always a reference point or start to debat for people, it's always a wrong begining.
on May 28, 2004
sorry for the double comment.
on May 28, 2004
i checked four dictionaries, all of which had pretty much the same wording.
on May 28, 2004
"Terrorism, by definition, is the act of performing random acts of violence towards a civilian population for the express purpose of creating fear and uncertainty and is performed by persons with no definitive origin."

Then an occupying force would also be terrorists ?
on May 28, 2004
If they perform random acts of violence towards civilians? Then yes, those would be considered terror acts in my book. My Lai? Terror... Dresden? Terror. Hiroshima? Terror. Anything yet in Iraq? Not yet.... Though Abu Ghraib wanted to start closing the gap, fortunately we squashed that. Yes *we* squashed it, American papers broke that story, American investigators stopped, and the American system is fixing it. Get that from Osama or Arafat. 
on May 28, 2004
What about Israel, or rather Ariel Sharon and his people ?
on May 28, 2004
Then an occupying force would also be terrorists ?


Occupying forces have a definite orgin.

Governments are public entities that can be held accountable for their actions. Terrorist groups are anonymous entities that generally avoid accountability for their actions.
on May 28, 2004
So then I hope after this everyone agrees that when the administration refers to the opposition forces in iraq are "terrorists and thugs" is pretty poor.
on May 28, 2004
You've lost me on the definite origin bit. Eta has an origin in the Basque country, the IRA in Ireland, the ANC in South Africa, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the KLA in Kosovo...I could go on, but you get my point. All of these groups have definite origin and all are/were terrorist organizations.
on May 28, 2004

Origin as in a nation state responsible to a government.

Kingbee - your definition and mine are essentially the same. Let's not get into a debate over semantics. Terrorist acts do have an end goal but their application of violence is arbitrary in the sense that they're not trying to kill any particular person typically but rather cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible.

on May 28, 2004
Governments are public entities that can be held accountable for their actions. Terrorist groups are anonymous entities that generally avoid accountability for their actions.

very few terrorist 'missions' go unproclaimed by the perpetrators.
on May 28, 2004
So by your definition (Draginol) "state-sponsored terrorism" is not terrorism?
on May 28, 2004
Origin as in a nation state responsible to a government.

how should we classify a nation-state which engages in or funds violent intervention that anticipates inflicting civilian casualties in the tens or hundreds or thousands of thousands with the express purpose of destabilizing and/or overthrowing the elected government of another sovereign nation with which it is not officially at war?

more to the point, if the target nation and its people are unable to prevent such intervention because it/they are significantly smaller and lack the resources to do so, are its citizens any less terrorized--or less deserving of justice--because their deaths and losses arent the consequence of a single coordinated attack?
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