reply to post by StevenDye
I for one have never bought the "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", BS. This kind of thinking draws a moral equivalence
between people who fight a legitimate war against a military opponent and simple thugs who deliberately target unarmed civilians.
Although the UN can't seem to agree on a definition of terror, terrorism, or terrorists. I can.
Here are my definitions.
Terror is the intentionally inflicting pain, fear, or horror on an unarmed civilian populace. A good example is a bus bombing by a suicide bomber.
Terrorism, is involving civilians in a military conflict, or using them as human shields because you know that the media will show their deaths and
blame the enemy.
Terrorism, is the act of waging war on an unarmed populace because their military is too strong to defeat.
Terrorism, is the deliberate targeting of civilians or civilian housing. Like tossing a hand grenade into a shopping area.
Dropping a bomb on a military target and missing, is not an act of terrorism.
Engaging an enemy who is holding innocent people hostage is not terrorism.
Engaging a military target which is placed on or in a hospital, school, airport, etc. is not terrorism.
If you are without uniform, not a member of a regular military unit, and your targets are unarmed civilians, then you are a terrorist.
If you are an individual or group that chooses to act without the backing of an official government or military then you are a terrorist.
If you are a uniformed member of a regular military organization, then you are a soldier, not a terrorist.
If you choose your targets to inflict pain, fear, and panic, in a civilian populace, then you are a terrorist.
If you choose your targets because you know that they will be unarmed and unable to fight you, then you are a terrorist.
If you choose targets who are unarmed civilians because the military of your enemy is too strong to confront, then you are a terrorist.
If you choose targets who are the civilians of a nation that you have not declared hostilities against, then you are a terrorist.
Please not that I said, "declared hostilities" and not "declared war". There really is no difference but many here in the US seem to think that a
declaration of war needs to have the word war somewhere in the declaration, it does not.
For me the distinction is clear.