1.

Terrorism
Violent actions inflicted upon secondary targets that may be conducted by an individual, group, or
government with the wider purpose of attracting attention, gaining support, or forcing concessions from
the primary target on personal or political issues. Perpetrators of terrorism normally select, either
purposefully or indiscriminately, illegitimate secondary targetsthat is, non-combatants and civilians
and target them with bombings, hijackings, and other violently coercive methods. These targets are
intermediaries used by terrorists to manipulate the primary target and subsequently to achieve an
objective. A dominant theory regarding terrorism holds that such actions are employed in expectation that
a harsher reaction by the primary target will in turn generate support for the issues espoused by the
terrorists.
Deriving from the Latin terrere, meaning to frighten, in a political sense terror was first used to
describe the methods of the French revolutionary government against its adversaries. From September
1793 to July 1794, while embroiled in civil and foreign wars, the revolutionary government in France
decided by decree to make terror the order of the day and to use harsh reprisals against the aristocracy,
priests, and other suspected enemies of the revolution. A wave of executions known as the Reign of Terror
followed. Although states continue to employ terrorism, the concept of state terrorism is generally
understood as a nation-state that supports or condones activities as described above, not one that conducts
such operations. Revolutionaries in czarist Russia first developed terrorism as a technique of waging war
in the 1870s. The term international terrorism denotes actions conducted by groups outside the country
of their origin, residence, or the location from which their activities are co-ordinated. Terrorism primarily
involves semi-clandestine groups opposed to their home government or an external one.
Terrorists have adopted numerous organisational structures, from single- or two- person
operations to durable, identifiable groups or clandestine, solvent cells. Al- Qaida, or The Base, has
developed a modern structure often described as a network, with the dispersion of affiliated but
autonomous individuals over vast expanses of territory organised as sleeper cells. Operating with
minimal communications, the well-trained members of these cells are afforded the opportunity to rehearse,
and then they disperse after completing their missions. Such factors necessitate greater time and effort in
planning, but also make possible larger operations with higher mortalities.
Some groups that employ acts of terrorism reject the stigma attached to this method of conflict
engagement that is widely considered illegitimate and egregious. This is especially true in cases where
terrorism is one of several techniques employed and the overall objectives are widely believed to be
legitimate and worthwhile. Nonetheless, the method usually overshadows the issues.
[Historically,] there were three principal objectives [of terrorism]. One was self-advertisement
what was called Propaganda of the Deedto show the world that the group existed and was ruthless in
its determination to achieve its ends. The second was to demoralise the government and its supporters.
And the third was to provoke the government into such savage acts of suppression that it forfeited public
support and awoke popular and international sympathy for the revolutionary cause. This was known as a
strategy of provocation.
From C.E.Miller A Glossary of Terms and Concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies (University of
Peace, 2005)
Questions:
1. What are some of the key characteristics of terrorism according to this description?
2. What tactics are used?
2. Some definitions of terrorism
- The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an
audience (DCI Counterrorist Center, CIA)
- Terrorism is fundamentally a form of psychological warfare. Terrorism is designed, as it has always
been, to have profound psychological repercussions on a target audience. Fear and intimidation are

precisely the terrorists timeless stock in trade It is used to create unbridled fear, dark insecurity, and
reverberating panic. Terrorists seek to elicit an irrational, emotional response. (US expert on terrorism
Bruce Hoffman, RAND Corporation, Lessons of 9/11, October 2002)
- Terrorism is non-sharply demarcated from other types/forms of individual or collective violence. The
major types of terrorism are: predatory, retaliatory, political, and political-moralistic/religious. The
terrorism may be domestic or international, from above i.e. state or state-sponsored terrorism, or
from below. (Philosopher Haig Khatchadourian, The Morality of Terrorism, 1998)
- Terrorism is meant to cause terror (extreme fear) and, when successful, does so. Terrorism is
intimidation with a purpose: the terror is meant to cause others to do things they would otherwise not do.
Terrorism is coercive intimidation. (Political theorist Igor Primoratz, What is Terrorism? 1990)
- Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons
or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the
considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that
may be invoked to justify them. (The UN General Assembly Resolution 49/60, Dec 1994.)
- criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily
injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a
group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international
organization to do or to abstain from doing any act. (The UN Security Council Resolution 1566 (2004)
- any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose
of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain
from doing any act. (UN panel, March 2005)
- Any act or threat of violence, whatever its motives or purposes, that occurs in the advancement of
an individual or collective criminal agenda and seeking to sow panic among people, causing fear by
harming them, or placing their lives, liberty or security in danger, or seeking to cause damage to the
environment or to public or private installations or property or to occupying or seizing them, or seeking to
jeopardize national resources. (Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, 1998)
- terrorist offences are certain criminal offences set out in a list comprised largely of serious offences
against persons and property which: given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or an
international organization were committed with the aim of: seriously intimidating a population; or unduly
compelling a Government or international organization to perform or abstain from performing any act; or
seriously destabilizing or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social
structures of a country or an international organization. (EU Framework Decision on Combating
Terrorism (2002)
- terrorist activities include: threatening, conspiring or attempting to hijack airplanes, boats, buses or
other vehicles. threatening, conspiring or attempting to commit acts of violence on any "protected"
persons, such as government officials any crime committed with "the use of any weapon or dangerous
device," when the intent of the crime is determined to be the endangerment of public safety or substantial
property damage rather than for "mere personal monetary gain (US Patriot Act, 2001)
- The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government,
the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. (FBI)
- The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to
coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political,
religious, or ideological. (US Department of Defense)
Questions:
1. What do these definitions have in common?
2. What do they suggest about difficulties in defining terrorism?

3. Is One Man's Terrorist Another Man's Freedom Fighter? (Conor Friedersdorf, May 2012, The
Atlantic)
The ongoing saga of Mujahedin-e-Khalq is a good example of how the unfortunately imprecise cliche
ought to be understood.
In his new book, The Tyranny of Cliches, Jonah Goldberg goes on a rant against the phrase, "One
man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," writing, "It is simply absurd to contend that because
people may argue over who is or is not a terrorist that it is therefore impossible to make meaningful
distinctions between terrorists and freedom fighters." Is that what those who invoke the phrase are saying?
Like a lot of cliches, it doesn't really make literal sense and is probably best avoided, but I suspect what
many people mean when they use it is something like, "As a descriptor, terrorist is almost never applied
rigorously and consistently to describe the tactics a group is using -- rather, it is invoked as a pejorative to
vilify the actions only of groups one wishes to discredit. People who agree with the ends of the very same
groups often don't think of them as terrorists, the negative connotation of which causes them to focus on
what they regard as the noble ends of allies they're more likely to dub freedom fighters."
Put more simply, it's possible to rigorously determine who is a terrorist if you go by the actual
meaning of the word, but in practice the term is almost never applied in accordance with a strict definition.
And today I can alert you to an especially Orwellian example. Back when the Bush Administration wanted
to go to war in Iraq, despite the fact that it had nothing to do with 9/11, they did their best to persuade
terrorist-hating Americans that Saddam Hussein was a sponsor of terrorism. For example, the Bush White
House published a document called "Saddam Hussein's Support for International Terrorism." Check out
this bullet point especially: Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization
(MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several
U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.
Nowadays, Iran is Public Enemy Number One. Mujahedin-e-Khalq, also known as MEK, is still a
terrorist organization. That is to say, it both uses violence to terrorize civilian employees of the Iranian
regime and appears on America's official list of foreign terror-sponsoring organizations. But various
prominent Americans are being paid big bucks to help get MEK off the official list of terror groups.
And they're reportedly poised to succeed. As my colleague Bob Wright puts it: If MEK had, as it claims,
left its terrorist ways behind, this "delisting" of it, though geopolitically unfortunate, might be legally or
morally defensible. However, within only the last few months, according to NBC News, MEK agents have
murdered people by placing bombs on their cars. The murdered people were Iranian scientists, and the
assassinations were apparently orchestrated by Israel -- facts that may raise MEK in the esteem of some
Americans.
But that doesn't make the killings any more legal or less terroristic. As Glenn Greenwald writes: The
application of the term "Terrorist" by the U.S. Government has nothing to do with how that term is
commonly understood, but is instead exploited solely as a means to punish those who defy U.S. dictates
and reward those who advance American interests and those of its allies (especially Israel). Thus, this
Terror group is complying with U.S. demands, has been previously trained by the U.S. itself, and is
perpetrating its violence on behalf of a key American client state and against a key American enemy, and - presto -- it is no longer a "foreign Terrorist organization."
If you want to know the intended rather than literally expressed meaning of, "One man's terrorist is
another man's freedom fighter," you need look no further than the story of MEK.
Questions:
1. What does the article suggest about problems with attributing the label of the term terrorist?
2. What does it depend on?