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If you're going to nitpick, please be accurate. Terrorism is the strategy of taking actions to incite terror within a population to achieve some goal. It goes b
by maaku 13y ago
If you're going to nitpick, please be accurate. Terrorism is the strategy of taking actions to incite terror within a population to achieve some goal. It goes back much, much further than the current concept of a nation-state.
- 001sky 13y agoIts better surmised as just anti-civilian warfare.
- maaku 13y agoWhat? No. Terrorism is the incitement of terror within a population. Waging general, all-out war does not accomplish that goal very well - the certain risk of an invading standing army is much less terrifying than the uncertain risk of unseen agents with random but deadly agendas. The goal of war is to conquer or destroy. The goal of a terrorist is to leave a social structure intact as-is, but to spread fear and uncertainty within its ranks. These are totally different purposes.
- 001sky 13y agoNothing incites terror like killing innocent people. Maybe you didn't get the memo? Picking the weakest and most vulnerable (children, women, the edlerly) and adding a does of arbitrary intentionality (apparent randomness) also helps. The word 'war', in general terms, also predates and is different than your (apparent, statist) post-modern definition.
- makomk 13y agoNo, gnu8's definition is the correct one. For instance, recently in the UK a cell of Islamic terrorists launched a terrorist attack in which they murdered a serving British soldier. They intentionally targeted him because he was in the military and were apparently quite apologetic to the civilians who saw it. Was universally described as a terrorist attack by the media.
- rfrey 13y agoI think gnu was being facetious, maaku. As in "only the government gets to redefine 'terrorism' any way they want".