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Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

> violence performed in the commision of promoting an ideology is terrorism.

Was the invasion of Iraq terrorism? What about the Boston tea party?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. There are certainly people who believe both or either of those were terrorism.

Bertrand Russell's conjugations. I am a freedom fighter, you are an insurgent, he is a terrorist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation

A misguided and antisocial attempt at freedom, if that was the intention...

Terrorism is the use of violence to promote an ideology. Full stop. Nothing precludes a terrorist act from helping people. Even Pablo Escobar set up schools and other institutions in his neighborhood.

Sure, but "terrorism" explicitly implies a value judgement. Why else would you take issue with the term "political violence", which is equally technically correct? It is violence for political aims.

You were clearly trying to make a point beyond the prescriptive definition of the word, so this comment reads like backtracking to me.

You are missing a key component of terrorism which is that the political violence is illegal/not lawful.

Political violence which is in line with societal norms is not terrorism. The value judgement isn't implied, it's the main the feature of the word.

When I first learned about it terrorism - as opposed to general political violence - included creating fear in the opposing side, which is the reason for the name.

I think with your definition everything would be terrorism which usually isn't what one wants.

I agree that's the coherent prescribed definition of terrorism. In practice, whether somebody admits something was terrorism depends largely on which side they agree with. When they agree with the terrorist, euphemisms like 'freedom fighter' are often used instead.

There are probably some Columbians who were on the receiving side of Escobar's gifting and called him a humanitarian for it.

True. I visited Medellin a couple of times between 97 and 2006 when I was doing business in LATAM, and I recall clearly that many locals had tremendous admiration for Escobar, constantly praising all he did for the city and the community, while de-emphasizing, and sometimes justifying, the true nature and methods of his business.

It's interesting you mention Pablo Escobar, because I don't know if you could say his bombing campaign was ideology-based; however it most certainly was intended to cause terror, e.g. (narco)terrorism.

No, by definition the invasion of Iraq was a state on state attack, pursuant to geneva accords and conventional warfare roe's.

There are reasonable arguments that it was an illegal war (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War )

Even so, i dont think any invasion by a recognized state by uniformed armed forces can really reasonably be called terrorism. Usually terrorism is a term reserved for non state actors or state actors which use non uniformed people .

> Was the invasion of Iraq terrorism? What about the Boston tea party?

Yes, pretty clearly. Just because you might agree doesn't diminish it. After all, a terrorist is just a freedom fighter depending on the observer.

edit: Instead of downvotes because you disagree, why not point out the error in my thinking?

So remind me again why it is wrong or unacceptable to call it "political violence"? I agree that a terrorist is a freedom fighter depending on the observer, your comment seemed to be suggesting taking a specific rhetorical stand however.

I didn't downvote you.

Sorry just to clarify, why would the Boston tea party be terrorists in some eyes? Did they attack civilians for political reasons?

Destroying property for political reasons is still terrorism (like blowing up a parking lot of SUVs).

Destroying property for political reasons is not terrorism. You have to incite terror, if civilians are not scared then it isn't terrorism it is vandalism.

Your syllogism is resting on an unstated argument about what frightens civilians that you haven't justified.

Imagine having to drink coffee. Its pretty terrifying, especially for a Brit.

More seriously - the people who own that property were civilians and probably scared. In usa terrorism is defined currently as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents". (Title 22 Chapter 38 U.S. Code § 2656f)

The boston tea party was premeditated, politically motivated, the tea was not military (so non combatant) and it was done by a subnational group. Seems to fit to me.

Non-combatant targets isn’t physical goods.

Based on what? IANAL, but just reading that, it sounds like non-combatant would mean someone non military, and violence against their "stuff" would be considered violence against that person.

The law pretty explicitly disagrees with your interpretation [0] if we've decided we're going to take the US govt definition as gospel.

[0]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...

They were deliberately destroying a cargo of tea that they didn't own...

Sure but that’s not ‘terrorism’ under most definitions

Why not?

> the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Violence:

> behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

So, as the use of physical force intended to damage something for political aims, it seems definitionally "terrorism"

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