Should the term Terrorism be re-defined?

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When I think of the word terrorism, what comes to mind are individuals or groups who commit bombings, vehicle rampages, or crash planes into buildings. What I find problematic is that the term terrorism can also be used to describe bombings and so on by countries during times of war or authoritarian regimes repressing political opposition. To me the 911 attacks are a terrorist attack but other people argue that the bombings of cities like Dresden in World War 2 by planes from Britain and America is a form of terrorism.

Terrorism isn't always defined consistently.

Broadly speaking, it's the intentional use of force to secure military, political or cultural objectives through inflicting terror.

But, it's common for the actions of state actors to be excluded, especially by their uniformed military forces. Use of force against militarily legitimate targets is generally not considered to be terrorism, nor is collateral damage inflicted as a result of attacking legitimate targets.

One problem is that uniformed forces can be used to engage in terror attacks, which would seem to make it debatable if those terror attacks are within the definition of terrorism.

Another problem is that states tend to rely heavily on claims of collateral damage no matter the scale of the attack relative to the necessity of striking their target.

It used to be a term aimed at the IRA by supporters of the status quo. The IRA countered it by saying they were fighting a war that the status quo conveniently refused to recognise. But although I didn't absolutely condemn the IRA, I don't define terrorism in terms of how officially-recognised a war is. I think there was a better argument for defending what the IRA used to do, which I'll try to describe in the next paragraph.

Once the Islamic terrorism thing took off, some people noticed a difference - that the IRA had always tried to minimise harm to the innocent, while the Islamic extremists tried to maximise it. That remains my touchstone for recognising terrorism, though it's hard to know how hard any group genuinely tries to minimise harm to the innocent, so the argument will probably go on forever.

Terrorism should also include all the mass shootings that have occurred over the years.

But unfortunately, many people in the US only use the term to define attacks by radical Islamists, and rarely by other groups.

As much as we talk about gun control, any prevention tactics should also include more online scrutiny of people who espouse the ideologies of previous shooters (incel, "Great Replacement", etc).

And there's also 1/6. How would that *not* be a terrorist attack?

I actually agree. I don't get how mass shootings and 1/6 were not counted as acts of terrorism?

Are you saying you don't think war causes terror? Let me assure you it does (on all-sides) Whether ones cause is deemed legal or "righteous" or not.

Since the use of, or threats to use violence for political gain is the definition of terrorism, War would BE the very same thing.

Last edited by DanielW on 13 Dec 2023, 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That works well with my touchstone. Mass shooters try to maximise harm to the innocent. So your proposition gets my vote.

It does. To my mind legality has little to do with it. Killing is killing, and if they call it righteous, maybe we should ask how they define righteousness.

I wouldn't water down the definition of terrorism by including all mass shootings regardless of motive. Terrorism is a jargon term with a specific meaning, not just a label we apply to everything bad. If it becomes the latter, we'll need a new word to mean what terrorism currently means.

A war between two states/nations isn't technically terrorism

Terrorism roughly falls into three categories
1, State sponsored terrorism - usually inflicted on an ethnic/religious minority
2.Separatist terrorism - inflicted on a majority by a minority e.g. HAMAS, IRA etc...
3. Religious terrorism - inflicted on everyone in the name of religion - ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda etc...

On reflection, do we even need the term at all? Dangerous people are dangerous people, and it's logical to neutralise the threat. Isn't that enough?

https://www.theguardian.com/global/comm ... -terrorist

There's times when we need to be able to discuss terrorism, we wouldn't have the term if it wasn't needed. We'll just invent a new term if we stop using the word terrorism.

Terrorism is redefined constantly. It is a loaded, politicized term that is applied radically differently depending on who is using it.
The most agreed-upon definition of "terrorism" seems to be the use of illegal violence or intimidation to further social or political ends. Most of us will concede that sometimes illegal violence is necessary to resist oppression. Therefore, when one agrees with that violence, it is not a "terrorist" who does it--it is a "freedom fighter", or some similar term.

Most brand the Boston Marathon bombers as "terrorists".

But most do NOT brand the Columbine killers as "terrorists".

That because the latter were not doing their mass murder in the name of any cause. But it is a fine line between similar acts.

And then there is the fact that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

The PPR brands the Dalai Lama as a "terrorist" even though he is even more passive than the famous nonviolent practitioners of "passive resistance" like Gandhi and MLK Jr.. So the rest of the world laughs at that label.

A stateless actor or group who do violent acts to terrorize a population for political ends (whether said stateless actors have the backing a foreign state or not) can be said to be "terrorists".

America's first terrorist organization was the KKK. Timothy McViegh was a terrorist. So was Ben laden.

Then you have a different definition or terrorism than most. The use of, or threats to use violence for political gain is the definition of terrorism.

There's never been a consensus on what "terrorism" means, so it's hard to get any collaborative discussion about terrorism off the ground. It's useful for some in adversarial "discussion," because it helps propaganda tricks get past the goalie, but I see that as a bad thing.

Overall, we probably already need new terms for the various classes of dangerous behaviour, precisely-defined and based on good consensus, but the political system and its politicians are probably too adversarial and competitive to allow that to happen. In the meantime I guess we can just explain who we're talking about and what we don't like about their behaviour.