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Terrorism is any use of violence or intimidation for the purpose of furthering a political goal. The political motive is a necessary element of terrorism. While

Terrorism is any use of violence or intimidation for the purpose of furthering a political goal. The political motive is a necessary element of terrorism. While you could presume terrorism as being the most likely explanation, it’s not the only one, as state sponsored acts tend not to be classified as terrorism (depending on the perceived legitimacy of the state in question). Of course is a politically loaded word, so people will redefine it to suit whatever their political agenda is. But that’s it’s original definition at least.

BoorishBears 6y ago
This is such a unnecessary nitpick since yourself seem to understand by calling it terrorism, people are explicitly declaring their belief that it was to political ends. It's like people calling a bush fire arson, then you giving the definition of arson and saying "arson refers to the deliberate act of setting a fire"... That's kind of the whole point of implicating it was arson, to further narrow the cause/motivation of an incident. Also the nitpick isn't internally consistent, if you want to be literal and say terrorism any use of violence for the purpose of furthering a political goal, how is a state sponsored attack not a terrorist attack? Are geopolitics excluded from your definition then? >State sponsered acts tend to not be classified as terrorism Says who??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_ter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_te... https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/ https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/
- Lammy 6y ago
  I think it's a very appropriate nitpick in this case since it seems like the perpetrators wanted to use violence to call attention to the electrical grid's vulnerability more than actually damage/disrupt it. It seems most likely to me that the goal of the attack was to spur the very conversation we're having.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    You mean, you think someone used violence to spur a conversation on a system our government runs and how it's being mishandled? Maybe seeking some sort of action be taken through some sort of political channels to shore up these systems? Like a kind of political action? Definitely sounds like terrorism to me...
    - Beldin 6y ago
      I'm missing "terror" in your outline. Not the word itself per se, but the effect on the general population. I'm still struggling to see how something is terrorism if it isn't intended to instill widespread fear. Not widespread worries, like the managers had. Actual fear.
      - BoorishBears 6y ago
        How are you struggling to see terrorism doesn't have to cause widespread fear in the general population to be terrorism? > the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. The nitpick was pretty much saying "you need to have a political aim to do terrorism!" My rebuttal is, by calling things terrorism, the implication is there was some political tilt even if said tilt is unknown. That's the whole point of calling it terrorism. Whether that was geopolitical, or anti-government, or a protest against the lack of action the national security risk that is our power grid, these reasons are all some form of political motivation. With the level of sophistication shown, this rises above of trying to create fear for the sake of fear or mischief. In fact, part of why the fear caused by this was somewhat limited was an initial effort to keep it secret which was later abandoned. Do you really think a team of coordinated gunmen using advanced scouting techniques, cutting communications lines in an anticipation, showing intimate knowledge of a substation wouldn't have caused widespread fear in a community? Most people wouldn't even care about the substations, just the idea of coordinated professional gunmen attacking targets would be scary enough... it certainly was for the government
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  It’s not an unnecessary nitpick at all. The way the word is used today, it actually doesn’t have a meaning that you could write down. State sponsored acts of violence against another state has traditionally been described as war. The thing that blurs that particular line today is the blurriness between between agents of the state and private agents resourced by the state (as well as controversy around which states are legitimate states, and which governments are legitimate governments). The reality of the situation today is that ‘terrorism’ doesn’t actually describe a definable act. Whether something is terrorism or not depends entirely on the political perspective of the person describing it. Destroying property, committing arson and tearing down statues as part of a political protest would be quintessential terrorism according to the actual definition of the word. But to describe it that way in our current political climate would be remarkably controversial. Whenever somebody calls something terrorism, all they’re doing is offering a political opinion. Which seems like a particularly relevant point to acknowledge in a discussion about what terrorism actually is.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    One person's freedom fighter is another person's rebel; One person's soldier is another person's foreign invader... that's not a new concept? Didn't stop us from calling things wars, groups rebels or soldiers, and a whole host of other words for hostilities that all depend on your point of view. - If you put something like a firecracker in a random mailbox and watch it blow up, it will scare people, but a limited number of people would consider that terrorism If you go and put firecrackers in random mailboxes all around a city for a week, it will be called terrorism because there's an expectation there's some political or ideological objective someone is trying to meet with that fear. No one knows for sure why you're doing it, maybe it's not terrorism, but it will be called terrorism because that's a logical conclusion. At some point in level of violence, or complexity, or damaged caused, people start to seek meaning past fear for fear's sake. This is why you see them use the word terrorism If anything your hangup seems to be exactly that, people seeking meaning by calling it terrorism without some concrete objective being known to them, but it's common sense. This was a sophisticated attack, a team of gunmen with scouted positions, communications lines cut, only very specific components being hit. What non-political motive can you come up with that out ranks some kind of geopolitical motive, or anti-government tilt? Even reasoning like "to wake up the government to the possibility" is political
alasdair_ 6y ago
A key point is that terrorism needs to intentionally cause terror in the furtherance of the political goal.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  This is certainly not a relevant point at all. All mainstream definitions of terrorism center around the type of acts that are included in the definition (eg violence against people vs violence against property), and the types of motive (political, ideological, religious, revolutionary for example, though all of those could reasonably be described as ‘political’). Whether or not the perpetrator intended to strike terror into people’s hearts is irrelevant to the definition, because it is presumed that the types of acts covered by the definition are terrorizing. A revolutionary destroying infrastructure with the sole intention of disabling the capabilities of the state would would fit into almost all definitions of terrorism, even though terrorizing people may have played no role in the perpetrator‘s motive.
  - alasdair_ 6y ago
    I completely disagree and, while I don’t consider myself an expert in “all mainstream definitions of terrorism”, I’d suspect Merriam Webster would be “mainstream” enough for many readers: “ Definition of terrorism : the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism

BoorishBears 6y ago

This is such a unnecessary nitpick since yourself seem to understand by calling it terrorism, people are explicitly declaring their belief that it was to political ends. It's like people calling a bush fire arson, then you giving the definition of arson and saying "arson refers to the deliberate act of setting a fire"... That's kind of the whole point of implicating it was arson, to further narrow the cause/motivation of an incident. Also the nitpick isn't internally consistent, if you want to be literal and say terrorism any use of violence for the purpose of furthering a political goal, how is a state sponsored attack not a terrorist attack? Are geopolitics excluded from your definition then? >State sponsered acts tend to not be classified as terrorism Says who??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_ter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_te... https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/ https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/

Lammy 6y ago
I think it's a very appropriate nitpick in this case since it seems like the perpetrators wanted to use violence to call attention to the electrical grid's vulnerability more than actually damage/disrupt it. It seems most likely to me that the goal of the attack was to spur the very conversation we're having.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  You mean, you think someone used violence to spur a conversation on a system our government runs and how it's being mishandled? Maybe seeking some sort of action be taken through some sort of political channels to shore up these systems? Like a kind of political action? Definitely sounds like terrorism to me...
  - Beldin 6y ago
    I'm missing "terror" in your outline. Not the word itself per se, but the effect on the general population. I'm still struggling to see how something is terrorism if it isn't intended to instill widespread fear. Not widespread worries, like the managers had. Actual fear.
    - BoorishBears 6y ago
      How are you struggling to see terrorism doesn't have to cause widespread fear in the general population to be terrorism? > the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. The nitpick was pretty much saying "you need to have a political aim to do terrorism!" My rebuttal is, by calling things terrorism, the implication is there was some political tilt even if said tilt is unknown. That's the whole point of calling it terrorism. Whether that was geopolitical, or anti-government, or a protest against the lack of action the national security risk that is our power grid, these reasons are all some form of political motivation. With the level of sophistication shown, this rises above of trying to create fear for the sake of fear or mischief. In fact, part of why the fear caused by this was somewhat limited was an initial effort to keep it secret which was later abandoned. Do you really think a team of coordinated gunmen using advanced scouting techniques, cutting communications lines in an anticipation, showing intimate knowledge of a substation wouldn't have caused widespread fear in a community? Most people wouldn't even care about the substations, just the idea of coordinated professional gunmen attacking targets would be scary enough... it certainly was for the government
AmericanChopper 6y ago
It’s not an unnecessary nitpick at all. The way the word is used today, it actually doesn’t have a meaning that you could write down. State sponsored acts of violence against another state has traditionally been described as war. The thing that blurs that particular line today is the blurriness between between agents of the state and private agents resourced by the state (as well as controversy around which states are legitimate states, and which governments are legitimate governments). The reality of the situation today is that ‘terrorism’ doesn’t actually describe a definable act. Whether something is terrorism or not depends entirely on the political perspective of the person describing it. Destroying property, committing arson and tearing down statues as part of a political protest would be quintessential terrorism according to the actual definition of the word. But to describe it that way in our current political climate would be remarkably controversial. Whenever somebody calls something terrorism, all they’re doing is offering a political opinion. Which seems like a particularly relevant point to acknowledge in a discussion about what terrorism actually is.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  One person's freedom fighter is another person's rebel; One person's soldier is another person's foreign invader... that's not a new concept? Didn't stop us from calling things wars, groups rebels or soldiers, and a whole host of other words for hostilities that all depend on your point of view. - If you put something like a firecracker in a random mailbox and watch it blow up, it will scare people, but a limited number of people would consider that terrorism If you go and put firecrackers in random mailboxes all around a city for a week, it will be called terrorism because there's an expectation there's some political or ideological objective someone is trying to meet with that fear. No one knows for sure why you're doing it, maybe it's not terrorism, but it will be called terrorism because that's a logical conclusion. At some point in level of violence, or complexity, or damaged caused, people start to seek meaning past fear for fear's sake. This is why you see them use the word terrorism If anything your hangup seems to be exactly that, people seeking meaning by calling it terrorism without some concrete objective being known to them, but it's common sense. This was a sophisticated attack, a team of gunmen with scouted positions, communications lines cut, only very specific components being hit. What non-political motive can you come up with that out ranks some kind of geopolitical motive, or anti-government tilt? Even reasoning like "to wake up the government to the possibility" is political

alasdair_ 6y ago

A key point is that terrorism needs to intentionally cause terror in the furtherance of the political goal.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
This is certainly not a relevant point at all. All mainstream definitions of terrorism center around the type of acts that are included in the definition (eg violence against people vs violence against property), and the types of motive (political, ideological, religious, revolutionary for example, though all of those could reasonably be described as ‘political’). Whether or not the perpetrator intended to strike terror into people’s hearts is irrelevant to the definition, because it is presumed that the types of acts covered by the definition are terrorizing. A revolutionary destroying infrastructure with the sole intention of disabling the capabilities of the state would would fit into almost all definitions of terrorism, even though terrorizing people may have played no role in the perpetrator‘s motive.
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  I completely disagree and, while I don’t consider myself an expert in “all mainstream definitions of terrorism”, I’d suspect Merriam Webster would be “mainstream” enough for many readers: “ Definition of terrorism : the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism