Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Biggest problem with analyzing terrorism is in the definition.

Classifying both Hezbollah and al-Qaeda as terrorist groups means that you have spread the definition for any group that may have bombed civilians at some time or another. I would claim that Hezbollah is much more than terrorist group. Their success or failure does not depend on terrorism.

Second bias might be exclusion of successful terrorism that is later legitimized. For example, are IZL and Stern Gang included? I would say that they were highly successful. How about Stalin and early communists in Russia? If terrorists have enough support and are successful early, terrorism turns into ethnic cleansing and/or revolution and it is taken out from the list.

Third problem is that terrorism seems by definition be the underdog because official or state terrorism is excluded. Many dictators use terrors successfully as tactics (kidnapping, torturing and killing civilians or relatives of their opponents) but this does not fit under terrorism. Taiwans White Terror or Augusto Pinochet used terror as tactics but it's not classified as that.

> terrorism seems by definition be the underdog because official or state terrorism is excluded

While the definition may be nebulous, clearly the U.S. supported terrorism in Cuba and Nicaragua on massive scales that matches concretely what is called terrorism generally. E.g. death squads murdering and raping civilians, bombing airplanes hospitals and embassies, mining commercial harbors. Hard to believe if you're a patriot but you owe it to yourself to read up on the history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso...

Also, the U.S. Phoenix Program in Vietnam explicitly was terrorism in the eyes of its own perpetrators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program

Arguably the drone assassination program going on right now in the Middle East is also a form of terrorism. Just imagine how you'd feel if China was flying drones over the U.S., killing people at their pleasure, without trial, sometimes wiping out hospitals and weddings and bystanders in the process. Even if you believed that China was trying to eliminate violent elements of a neo-Nazi insurrection which for some reason a collapsed U.S. government was powerless to stop.. how would you feel when you hear those Chinese death planes buzzing overhead? Might you be a bystander? Might you be targeted? Living with that generates resentment and resentment drives people to extremism (in this scenario, you'd probably be more likely to join an anti-China militant group, such as the hypothetical dominant hard-right one). Which ultimately supports the conclusion of the paper: that terrorism is counter-productive.

That is, unless the goal is actually not to stop terrorism, but to drive people to extremism.... something to think about.

(If you think that's far-fetched, would it be so difficult to believe that in this scenario China's motive was not really to stop neo-Nazism, but rather to justify increased intervention in the U.S. to prevent a strong competitive government from emerging? Just look at Israel for an example of this playbook on a smaller scale: provoking and driving Palestinians to extremism to further justify their oppression and taking more land. Just one example among many, but it's one the U.S. directly supports.)

Right. There are certainly definitions we could come up with that would be internally consistent but then they would also apply to someone we didn't want to apply the label to.

Like us.

Just wait til you see what is classified as "counter-terrorism"

The original definition of terrorism is "government by intimidation"[1]. i.e. If a government uses terror to control it's populace, it's terrorism, e.g., U.S. government intimidating it's workers not to whistle-blow is one example. Somewhere along history it flipped to "intimidation of governments". Whichever way you read the word, however, the U.S. is a state sponsor of terrorism[2], having provided support to Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden when they were fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, amongst many others[3][4], not withstanding the acts causing terror such as the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital[5], and in 2013 giving weapons to Syrian Rebels[6], which we know ISIS & Al-Qaeda[7] are the biggest factions.

To answer your question, Pinochet, Taiwan government in 70's, Stalin, would all be terrorists, according to the original definition of terrorism, as in "intimidation by governments". Somewhere along the way propaganda completely reversed the meaning of the word to "intimidation of governments by non-government actors". Either way, the word "terrorism" used in propaganda everywhere, it is a loaded word used carefully with craft to manipulate the people's perception of nefarious activities performed by governments from all around the world, the biggest of which is the U.S. government.

Terrorism, the word itself, is the weapon.

Terrorism are certain activities performed by one's enemies, when one wishes to use the word terrorism to intimidate the populace to allow the government to implement draconian policies.

1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/07/terrorism

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso...

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Allen_Davis_incident

5. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/05/us-bombs-doctors-without...

6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-b...

7. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/1...

U.S. claims to only supply weapons to "moderate" rebels, and U.S. describes Al-Qaeda as "moderate".

> Somewhere along the way propaganda completely reversed the meaning of the word to "intimidation of governments by non-government actors".

It's a bit more nuanced than that. For the first 100 or so years "terrorism" was self proclaimed policy by revolutionaries of all sorts, for example the first French Republic or a number of Russian 19th century anarchist factions. The term did not originate as propaganda or a political slur, it was proud banner of the activists at the time. Perhaps only by 1920s the extreme political left felt compelled to distance from the term, and the term was subsequently extended to any government or non-government intimidation activity.

Just to point to this brilliant detail from the first link:

"The state department regards attacks against "noncombatant* targets" as terrorism. But follow the asterisk to the small print and you find that "noncombatants" includes both civilians and military personnel who are unarmed or off duty at the time. Several examples are given, such as the 1986 disco bombing in Berlin, which killed two servicemen.

The most lethal bombing in the Middle East last year was the suicide attack on USS Cole in Aden harbour which killed 17 American sailors and injured 39 more.

As the ship was armed and its crew on duty at the time, why is this classified as terrorism? Look again at the small print, which adds: "We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site, such as bombings against US bases." "

Perfect. Thanks.

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