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I don't believe the following is true, so I removed it:
Firstly, many countries still don't have specific legislation against terrorism, although often terrorist offences can be prosecuted as ordinary criminal offences such as murder or destruction of property. Secondly, talking about "nearly every national legal code" is strange, since many states don't have codes. Talking about "nearly every international legal code" is even stranger, since what is an international legal code? A treaty? It certaintly isn't illegal under nearly every treaty, because most treaties have nothing to do with terrorism. And referencing the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions is also strange. Their provisions might have some application in cases of terrorism, but they primarily deal with international armed conflict between states (i.e. wars), not isolated acts of terrorism. But there are several whole conventions, which unlike the Hague Regulations or Geneva conventions actually deal specificially with terrorism. A list of the main ones is already in the article.
I also can't make sense of the following paragraph, so I removed it as well:
This passage seems to use a potentially overly broad definition of terrorism. Genocide, killings by death squads, and forced famines are not generally considered to be terrorism, though it depends on who you ask. -- SJK
They're just as bad, if you ask me. There is so much evil in this world that it helps us good folks to name the various categories. And don't bother to ask me to take the NPOV on this, my opposition to evil is implacable. Ed Poor
The definition says: "Terrorism refers to the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence, often against the civilian population, to instill fear in an audience for purposes of obtaining political goals."
In other words, there's a motivation behind terrorism.
The article then goes on to name some famous terrorist acts. Have all of these acts been proven to be carried out in order to instill fear? The page Terrorist incidents at least uses the phrase 'claimed to be terrorist by some people', which is unfortunately vague, but considering that the motivation of the people causing the attack cannot always be reconstrued, it seems a logical description.
Also a question: is every non-governmental attack that is mainly aimed at innocents a terrorist attack?--branko
By the way, couldn't you argue that say, the French Resistance, was a terrorist organisation by the definition at the top of the page? If so, should it be considered so? If so, are terrorists always "evil", or is terrorism a legitimate tactic in some circumstances? --Robert Merkel
Were there acts in the French Revolution against civilians or just against those who made up the government at the time? However we would probably say that it was a terrorist organisation. Of course, I myself, wouldn't defend them as "good" --rmhermen
My bad. French and terrorist seem to describe the Revolution so well. However the Resistance is of course a different question. The main purpose of the Resistance was to hinder the Nazis and the Petain government, not to terrorise the French populace. Perhaps you could say that they tried to terrorise the French government into changing policies that supported the Nazis but I don't really know enough about the Resistance actions to say. We usually call the groups guerrilla groups if they are directly fighting the government but terrorist if they attack targets, military or civilian, in order to inflict terror on the populace and thereby get the government to change policy. Say the guerilla group controls the interior of Columbia and attacks any government forces in range preventing them from governing the area, while the various Palestinian terrorist groups attack civilian and military targets to show the Israelis that no one is safe anywhere unless you make peace with us. Even the military cannot protect you. Does that explanation work? --rmhermen
Guerrilla describes tactics, while terrorist describes motives. Guerrilla is a pretty objective term, but terrorist is subjective. In listing terrorist groups, instead of debating whether or not we should consider a group terrorist, we should look to the historical record and see if the group were ever called terrorists, and by whom. --TheCunctator
Is the Earth Liberation Front really a example of a religious terrorist group, isn't the ELF more of a terrorist group relating to environmentalism? If that's true why is it on the list of religious terrorist groups together with groups like Al-Qaeda? - Peter Winnberg
The ELF just doesn't fit the official US DoD definition, although the FBI has called them that. I moved them up to the front to illustrate the subjectivity of the definition. I also made note of the BBC non-use of the word, and added the Jewish Defense League (two of whose members were arrested for planning to blow up mosques and the office of an Arab-American congressman) to the list of groups. Perhaps that's unfair as they are not yet convicted? It would be nice to have a standard for this type of thing.
Even though we aren't contrained in what we can report about criminal activity as the British press and others are, I'm still inclined to think that some formal designation or conviction would be good to have. After all, if someone simply removes "JDL" from the list (as I strongly suspect someone will), we can argue about it ad nauseam and get nowhere, because saying "X is a terrorist" is inherently subjective. But if the text of the article says "Goverment X has designated organization Y as a terrorist group" or "Group X has been convicted of action Y", then they have far less standing to remove such statements, as they can't be reasonably argued--they are clearly true or false. --Lee Daniel Crocker
Of course there can't be a standard definition, sorry for my dumb suggestion, and that's why the BBC doesn't use the word... but no I don't think that it's inherently subjective if avowed members of a group who have never been distanced by other members are convicted (not necessarily just "arrested") of planning to bomb mosques and Congressmans' offices with them in it... I would question the definition if it was clear that the group wsa only blowing up the *place* with no one in it... but as I understand it that was not their intent...
I absolutely agree that we should stick to BBC standard if we can, and use the objective language you describe: "Goverment X has designated organization Y as a terrorist group" or "Group X has been convicted of action Y", and nothing but. I don't know about you, but I get creeped out by things on TV like "convicted pedophile" (no such thing, the crime is "sexual assault" or "child molesting") or "known Communist" - which sounds much like labelling someone as a way to make attacking or hating them socially "okay"...
But maybe we are thinking of this wrong - maybe it's a way to get publicity and lots of well-funded help? Maybe we should officially invite all governments and terrorist groups to hack at this definition, each adding their own propaganda refinements and each other's agencies to the list, until they are all defined as the moral equivalents they sometimes are...
As each group is wiped out or government is defeated, over time, they will no longer be adding their particular slant, and we'll be left with an amazing historical record of the "War on Terror" and how its propaganda ebbed and flowed and waxed and waned... plus whatever other articles the whole CIA or all of Al Qaeda could contribute... just think of the stuff those guys know...
Bryce asked "how do we approach describing the CIA's involvement with terrorism?" - I gave it a shot in assassin where I think it belongs.
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The short list:
Examples of State-sponsored Terrorist Groups:
Makes a strong point that Iraq and Iran are the only one.
And others should be added.
harrystein
Now how is it possible that "States widely classed as 'terrorist'" list includes Cuba (when was the last time they were doing executions of random people for no reason and stuff like that) and doesn't include Israel ? Taw 13:48 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I really disagree with including Nagasaki and Hiroshima here, and especially with including the amounts of deaths and calling them the most terrorist deaths in history. By the decree of the Japanese government itself, all civilians were expected to take part in fighting to keep the United States from invading the island, and millions of civilians and US forces would have died if the US had been forced to do a landing on the islands. The Japanese government even continued to refuse to surrender after the dropping of the first bomb, and continued to call for civilian resistance. So tell me, which would have resulted in the most deaths -- the dropping of the two bombs, or the invasion and island-to-island, house-to-house, hand-to-hand combat which would have ground on for months? RickK
Marcus - may I suggest that you describe the military and ethical justifications at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, respectively. Alternatively, you could spin off new articles at bombing of Nagasaki and bombing of Hiroshima. There's a fair bit of work involved, but it sounds like you have a handle on the relevant facts and figures that would really help clear up the issue. Personally, I'd be very interesting in reading such an article. :) Martin 10:20 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)
This is my comment from the VFD page. USER 62.212... make an identity please -- theres no good reason not to, and there are dozens of reason for it, like having a talk page where people can respond to you. I take issue with both parties here -- both are making a polarist issue out of something, and both are representing their pov as npov. Neither one of the two is NPOV. I do not oppose including these figures as a *comparison within a terrorism article -- it would be POV to state that only certain events fall under the category of terrorism, while others do not.-豎眩sv
I should also comment, having read some few recent discussion entries. Using a more recent example, George Bush first called those who died on 911 "innocent victims," and later refered to them as "the first soldiers to die in the war on terror." (or similar). The ridiculous assertion, by some that those civilians killed by Nagasaki or Hiroshima, is based on a terrible ignorance of the facts, namely that the reasons for bombing each were strategically different, and that the reports urging an attack on civilian targets was ramrodded through to Trumans office --without a complete or human description of the terrible harm they would inflict. Truman in fact went to his grave with some terrible guilt at the fact that he had had inflicted such destruction, and attempted sometimes vehemently to deny it.
To say that "this is black" and "this is white" is simply the height of moral and intellectual dishonesty. True, the Japanese killed millions in China, -- these were military atrocities. That the US could say 'Mrs. Akiko and her four small children' should pay for the warcrimes of 'young ashigaru, Mr. Morimoto', or whomever -- was and still is a moral outrage. The fight against terrorism is a moral argument -- not a practicalist one. The moral standards must be kept, or honor is lost. The fact remains, in war only a quarter of all deaths are actually combatants. Does this mean that acts of killing innocents cannot be compared? -豎眩sv
P.S. And then someone explain Hirohito's US-sanctioned survival?
The real point with terrorism is the motivation and intent of the act. The US bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not aimed at killing civilians, although this was an outcome of the act. The US was seeking to destroy the naval facilities at Nagasaki and the large army bases at Hiroshima, and thus encourage the Japanese to surrender. That's why these cities were selected as targets. If the US had simply wanted to kill civilians in order to achieve a political end, it could have nuked Tokyo. That would have caused a maximum amount of civilian loss of life - and it very probably would have fitted the criteria for an act of terrorism.
To address the comparison made above by Evercat: "Washington contains significant military targets. So, if al-Qaeda detonates a nuke in Washington, it won't be an act of terrorism?" If al-Qaeda sought to destroy military targets in Washington, and not merely to kill civilians, then this would be an act of war. In that case, al-Qaeda would be a bonafide revolutionary force fighting against its perceived enemy, the United States. Its non-terrorist status would be even stronger if al-Qaeda took some steps to minimize civilian harm by issuing warnings, etc., of its impending attack and by centering its attacks on military targets only. But this is not, to date, the style of al-Qaeda: the attacks on the World Trade Center, for example, were classics acts of terrorism, not warfare. MarcusVox
Steve, I think you are getting a little mixed up here; we are arguing about the distinction between terrorism and conventional warfare. You seem to be arguing the case that all violence is equally immoral, no matter what its motivation or intent. You may well be right about that, but that's not the issue here. There is a valid distinction between terrorism and war. I am not aware of any proof that the U.S. has ever set out to deliberately kill civilians. I know of many instances when civilians have been killed as a result of military action that was intended to achieve a military objective. That sadly is an inevitable consequence of warfare, because in war there is no perfect knowledge about the exact location of each and every civilian. As a result, civilians are killed accidentally, just like soldiers are killed accidentially by "friendly fire." It happens. But that is a world away from saying that the U.S. dropped bombs on targets with the sole and deliberate intention of killing civilians. If you could prove to me that the U.S. did this, I would be crushed. My whole world view would need to change. But I think you will find such proofs hard to find, because I know the culture of the U.S. and the deliberate killing of civilians is not part of the way Americans think. MarcusVox
I suppose Mr. Marcus proposes to speak for all Americans -- no doubt to validate the belief that Americans are inherently distinct from all other human beings -- and being far more closely related to angels, cannot be questioned in their motives. Respectfully, this is nonsense. Mr. Marcus here likes to play the "name game" -- its terrorism, if you intent to kill civilians, while its "warfare" if you dont consider the lives of civilians at all!
Its natural to want to assume that "since this is an article on TerrorismTM", its perfectly fine to define such a thing by its standard, rhetorical, Pentagon-dicated definition. How dare people challenge the validity of such an important rhetorical distinction? Especially by bringing up irrelevant issues like "morality," consequence, hypocrisy, and not the least of which... semantic obfuscation and bufoonery! Or perhaps the fact that the CIA's very own definition is practically identical to most clandestine, "low-intensity warfare" operations.
豎眩sv P.S. Respectfully. "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." -H.L. Mencken
Hmmmmm ... I am not an American ... And Steve (is that your name?), alas, I think you have slipped into terminal rant-mode, at which I also excel, but from which I will attempt to refrain. Your argument reflects a classic and predictable left-wing anti-American position, espoused by people like Noam Chomsky. We've heard it all before, in a multitude of forms. I believe it is the common thesis of moral idiots - sorry about that crude expression. By moral idiots, I mean people who cannot (apparently) tell the difference between right and wrong. For example, people who equate the actions of the U.S. with those of terrorists like al-Qaeda. Such people appear to lack the capacity for normal moral perception. I am not being facetious in saying this - I am genuinely baffled by their thinking. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
I also note that you did not meet the challenge I put: to find one piece of evidence that it is the policy of the U.S. to deliberately attack and kill civilians. If you can find this evidence, I will become a socialist also and curse the Great U.S. Satan to death. And I will shave off all my butthairs and de-grease the ridge. MarcusVox
From the list of famous terrorists I removed David Ben Gurion (very rarely described as a terrorist) and added Yitzhak Shamir and Abraham Stern (both leaders of Lehi; the latter became prime minister if Israel many years later) and Abu Nidal.
Going back to some discussion earlier on this page: some truly mind-boggling ignorance is displayed above concerning the bombing of Japan in WWII. Of course civilians were deliberately targeted as a matter of policy; go and read any book on the subject more recent than about 1990. There are truck loads of documents in the public domain about this. As for idiotic statements like "That's why these cities were selected as targets. If the US had simply wanted to kill civilians in order to achieve a political end, it could have nuked Tokyo", the writer should learn about the fire bombing of Tokyo that killed more civilians than died in Hiroshima. And I won't even start on the "citizens of Hiroshima were warned to leave", it must be someone's idea of a joke as nobody can be that stupid in reality. --- zero
There's a glaring factual inaccuracy in the first two sentences of this article, where it says that the UK Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as acts/threats of violence against civilians. In fact, the Act's definition includes violence against military personnel and installations, and non-violent acts (such as shutting down a website if one dislikes its politics). I would change the article myself, however I have serious doubts as to whether "terrorism" can ever be an NPOV term so I am holding off for now. -- Cabalamat 22:50, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
User:MarcusVox, I assert that your recent changes saying "Although the exact meaning of the term is disputed, it is commonly held that the distinctive nature of terrorism lies in its deliberate and specific selection of civilians as targets" are factually inaccurate, at least as far as UK English is concerned. In the UK, the IRA were commonly refered to as a "terrorist" organisation, and are by far the most important terrorist organisation to operate in the UK in recent years, and they most certainly did not have a policy of targetting civilians only; they often targetted military or economic targets (in the latter case, warnings were often given to prevent casualties). So IMO your changes are both wrong and a possibly also violation of NPOV, because they emphasize one possible meaning of "terrorism" at the expense of other, equally popular meanings of this word. -- Cabalamat 00:14, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I think that the Arab killing of Israelis civilian and Israelis killing of Arabs civilians, or the house destruction, need to be keep, all are examples of targeting civilians to obtain a political goal. Milton 13:26, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Using this page to justify my edits of today that I suppose could spawn controversy, and to archive portions I cut in case it's needed.
I removed these two paragraphs because (a) they are not very relevant to "Problems with the definition", especially the second paragraph; and (b) the first paragraph has POV elements. It would be easy to state this as a position and remove the POV, but I think the article is improved by simply removing them.
The whole discussion of the Greek gods as terrorists seems very far fetched for an encyclopedia article on the general subject of terrorism, but for the moment let's only remove the least relevant sentence.
Please cite a source for this. Firstly, has there really been a reduction in assassination attempts? Secondly, if there is a reduction, is it really because countries have bureaucracies? What about small countries? Also, it does seem like common sense to claim that states are increasingly bureaucratic, but is there proof? Ancient Rome was pretty bureaucratic.
I didn't remove this, but I think it screams for a supporting source. I believe there are plenty of cases in which prisoners have been released due to a hostage threat, but is there really a case where an enemy has been demoralized and paralyzed with fear in a way that led to the fulfillment of the terrorists' demands?
Although I believe all of this to be true, I don't believe it's germane to the subject; it's just more information about Latin American dictatorships, continued from the previous sentences.
A cheering thought, but it requires examples.
Is al-Qaeda a religious terrorist group?
This sentence was out of place in the paragraph.
I removed these three because they are mass murderers and not terrorists. Also, Muhammad has not been convicted of the sniper killings as of this writing.
I think that the expresion:
needs to be part of the article, it is not info about latinamerica dictatorships, but information about how USA government use, and teach, terrorirsm to gain political goals in L.A.
As far as the Beltway sniper use terror but we don't know if terror is associated to some political goal we can't clsified it as a terrorism. But I disagree with the reason to remove because "Muhammad has not been convicted of the sniper killings as of this writing" This is an enciclopedia, not a court ! Note that Pinochet, SENATOR JOSEPH MCCARTHY or Hitler are not convinced by a court at this time !
I think also that anarquist acts of the first part of the past century, including Sarajevo, was NOT terrosim act, the civilian population was usually not the target Milton 09:36, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)