The article misses the point, but raises a few valid ones. "Terrorism" is often said to have no general agreed upon meaning, which is true, but there is a reaso

The article misses the point, but raises a few valid ones. "Terrorism" is often said to have no general agreed upon meaning, which is true, but there is a reason for this: It is certainly a term with a core, disparaging meaning, but the term is notoriously misused in overreaching efforts to discredit political opponents in general. The situation is complicated by the fact that the term is a Weberian idealtypischer concept, but the core, disparaging meaning is this: deadly attacks on an innocent civilian population by a non-state entity, or in an undeclared war, with the intent to terrorize, which in turn may or may not have further political aims. The terrorist agenda is almost always supported by the idea that the civilians are guilty of the supposed crimes of the collective (state or otherwise) those civilians might belong to. States may be accused of terrorism if they attack civilians where no war has been declared. In a declared war the situation is not so clear cut. Chomsky raises a valid point that we tend not to label "our" terrorist actions terrorism, but he argues against the definition of terrorism which is literal (i.e. "causing terror in a civilian population") not the semantic meaning as outlined above. The uncaring murder of civilians that "we" engage in and which he catalogues in the article is not terrorism in the semantic sense. It is another, special kind of moral depravity and should be labeled as such.