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But terrorism is always bad. Suppose some country occupies another country and the occupied country has no proper army to fight back, therefore they resort to

But terrorism is always bad. Suppose some country occupies another country and the occupied country has no proper army to fight back, therefore they resort to methods of unconventional warfare to fight back against the occupation. Would some call this terrorism? Would this qualify as terrorism given some proper definition of the term and objective judgment of the situation? Would it be bad? What if they not only target the military of the occupier but also their civilians as it is them who voted for the government doing the occupation? What if they did this out of some kind of necessity because targeting the occupying military is not effective given the power imbalance?

anigbrowl 2y ago
This book does an OK job of examining those philosophical arguments. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-the-right-to-resist/D6BEAA33772DDA4BD4D04205790A9E84 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-the-right...
gryzzly 2y ago
absolutely. there are plenty of examples of what you described and not all are blowing cafes and buses with civilians
gryzzly 2y ago
some kind of necessity in this case is the death cult of islamism - it should be clear that glorifying martyrdom and calling a suicide bomber a martyr is that type of necessity
- danbruc 2y ago
  Suicide bombers at least really have skin in the game compared to blowing up people half way around the world by drones at the press of a button. If you want to look down on people, then do it for their reasons to fight or the targets they pick, not for their choice of weapon.
  - gryzzly 2y ago
    It’s the choice of target, rather than the weapon that makes me look down on them. Aiming to blow up bystanders is disgusting, not sure how you made this be about "choice of weapon".
    - danbruc 2y ago
      Because you were only talking about martyrdom and suicide bombing which is a choice of weapon, there is not a single word relating to choice of target in your comment. One could maybe see some implicit hint at the choice of target as suicide bombings are most effective and mostly used for a specific kind of targets and they are often pretty indiscriminate attacks. But as you can target more or less the same targets with non-suicide bombings as with suicide bombings and you were specifically talking about suicide bombings and not bombings in general, this is not something that you should expect people to take away from your comment. By the way, I am not sure you understood necessity in the way I wanted it understood. I wanted to say what if they target civilians because they do not have the means to effectively target the military, i.e. if it is necessary to target civilians in order to have any impact at all. And you can target civilians in various ways, so martyrdom and suicide bombings are not necessary. It is, I would assume, however true that martyrdom and certain religious views about an afterlife make suicide bombings a much more viable weapon than otherwise.
      - gryzzly 2y ago
        viable is defined as capable of doing something successfully - is there success on the side of suicide bombers? destroying lives and taking the region into the dark ages - is that success?
        danbruc 2y ago
        I intentionally did not say Palestin and Israel, I really meant it in general, could actions that would easily be labeled as terrorism be justified? What if you are too weak to fight the military of an occupying power, should you just give up and accept? Or might targeting civilians be a justifiable option, hoping that this will change the politics and lead to the end of the occupation? Note that I am not saying that you should never give up, when you are fighting a loosing battle, that might just be your best option, even if that option sucks. I am also not saying that targeting civilians is the way to go, they might just double down and make you suffer more. And none of this is meant to be to specifically about the Arab–Israeli conflict, even though it fits the scenario I described.

anigbrowl 2y ago

This book does an OK job of examining those philosophical arguments. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-the-right-to-resist/D6BEAA33772DDA4BD4D04205790A9E84 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-the-right...

gryzzly 2y ago

absolutely. there are plenty of examples of what you described and not all are blowing cafes and buses with civilians

gryzzly 2y ago

some kind of necessity in this case is the death cult of islamism - it should be clear that glorifying martyrdom and calling a suicide bomber a martyr is that type of necessity

danbruc 2y ago
Suicide bombers at least really have skin in the game compared to blowing up people half way around the world by drones at the press of a button. If you want to look down on people, then do it for their reasons to fight or the targets they pick, not for their choice of weapon.
- gryzzly 2y ago
  It’s the choice of target, rather than the weapon that makes me look down on them. Aiming to blow up bystanders is disgusting, not sure how you made this be about "choice of weapon".
  - danbruc 2y ago
    Because you were only talking about martyrdom and suicide bombing which is a choice of weapon, there is not a single word relating to choice of target in your comment. One could maybe see some implicit hint at the choice of target as suicide bombings are most effective and mostly used for a specific kind of targets and they are often pretty indiscriminate attacks. But as you can target more or less the same targets with non-suicide bombings as with suicide bombings and you were specifically talking about suicide bombings and not bombings in general, this is not something that you should expect people to take away from your comment. By the way, I am not sure you understood necessity in the way I wanted it understood. I wanted to say what if they target civilians because they do not have the means to effectively target the military, i.e. if it is necessary to target civilians in order to have any impact at all. And you can target civilians in various ways, so martyrdom and suicide bombings are not necessary. It is, I would assume, however true that martyrdom and certain religious views about an afterlife make suicide bombings a much more viable weapon than otherwise.
    - gryzzly 2y ago
      viable is defined as capable of doing something successfully - is there success on the side of suicide bombers? destroying lives and taking the region into the dark ages - is that success?
      - danbruc 2y ago
        I intentionally did not say Palestin and Israel, I really meant it in general, could actions that would easily be labeled as terrorism be justified? What if you are too weak to fight the military of an occupying power, should you just give up and accept? Or might targeting civilians be a justifiable option, hoping that this will change the politics and lead to the end of the occupation? Note that I am not saying that you should never give up, when you are fighting a loosing battle, that might just be your best option, even if that option sucks. I am also not saying that targeting civilians is the way to go, they might just double down and make you suffer more. And none of this is meant to be to specifically about the Arab–Israeli conflict, even though it fits the scenario I described.