You've hit it right on the money. Too many people around here have been using the word "terrorism" without really knowing what it means, until now, hopefully.

So all claims of terrorism sanctioned by the governments of Palestine, Israel, the U.S and U.K and all the rest are nonsense in terms of semantics. As, of course, must be all those claims of Saddam being a terrorist. Thanks for clearing that up.


Tell me then, what do we call it? Politically sanctioned violent coercion?



[edit on 26-7-2004 by kegs]

Well, gee FreeMason, if you define terrorism as an act of terror by a non-governmental organization, then, of course, governments cannot commit terrorism. But they can still commit acts of terror. You define terrorism as an act of terror by a non-governmental organization. That just means we need a different word for acts of terror by governments.

You try to win an argument by introducing your own definition, and you even fail at that attempt. In reality, you don't get to define words to mean what you want them to mean. You are not a semantic authority. You have to accept the commonly accepted definitions of words.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "terrorism" as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

I don't see anything in that definition about non-government organizations. On the other hand, a government is certainly an "organized group."

You can define any word to mean anything you want it to mean. But you cannot expect anyone to accept your definition. And you cannot expect anyone to accept your arguments based on your own personal definitions.

Why don't you go crawl back under a rock? You contribute nothing to this forum. ATS was doing just fine without you.

FreeMason - Although I agree with your definition of terrorism being the act of a non-governmental group determined to achieve a specific goal by tactics known as "terror" (that's the objective definition) I would offer two words of caution:

1) I would use a term other than NGO. In political science, NGO's have a totally different connotation: they are not-for-profit (either public- or community-funded) associations lobbying for social or cultural issues. For example, the World Women's March in 2000 was organized by women's NGOs. Where I'm going with this is that I wouldn't want people to believe that Amnesty International, Greenpeace or the Commission for Rights and Democracy are "terrorists". Can we settle on "non-governmental groups"?

2) True, terrorism is often the act of extreme radicals who believe that other means of achieving their goal against a government they consider oppressive have failed. BUT... in some instances, terrorists were truly fighting against an oppressive government with which negociation was impossible. Consider the Irish radicals between 1870 and 1920 (especially the IRA and Michael Collins); consider also the Nihilists who began throwing bombs at tsarist officials in the late 1870s, because they felt that reform would never come from the top in that very repressive, traditional empire.

So what I'm saying is... when dealing with terrorists, as in anything else, one must remember that things are never really simple or black and white.

Hm, I believe I was a part in a thread just like this not too long ago... But the people were calling Bush a terrorist which is stupid..but I won't get into that.

I looked the word up and really couldn't find anything that said a non-government organization, but what did catch my eye is the part that says, "The unlawful use". When a country declares war on another country, it's not considered unlawful to attack them or their cities, meaning one country's acts against another country in times of war can't be called terrorism. The reason Sadam is a terrorist is because he has used chemical weapons on his OWN citizens and citizens of other countries unexpectedly.