What is the scientific definition of terrorist? What distinguishes a terrorist from a freedom fighter or a soldier?
This is a scientific question. It falls under the Political and Social sciences. Science is all about definitions. Science advances only as the precision of description of physical phenomenon advances. This advance is intimately tied to the advance of devices for examining the physical world and the creation of more precise and accurate definitions.
The social and political sciences cannot morally or ethically perform laboratory experiments. Like astronomy, geology, and many other sciences they are forced to simply examine existing physical evidence and work from that.
What is a terrorist? How do you define terrorism scientifically? How is it different from or the same as a freedom fighter or a soldier?
In another forum, a retired member of the state department defined a terrorist as a fighter not authorized or representing a recognized government. This is not a scientific definition of terrorist but a political one. Any fighter representing a government, no matter how his actions are intended to terrorize a population is not a terrorist. On the other hand, a fighter not representing a recognized government, no matter how ethical and restrained his tactics would be a terrorist.
Historically, the term terrorist probably has its roots in the French Revolution and the infamous 'Terror' during which people were guillotined for any excuse suggesting they might resist the new revolutionary government. Terror was used as a weapon purposefully and intentionally. The people using it were the government. This does not jibe well with the definition provided by that retired state department official.
Terrorism is a tactic which uses fear and terror to coerce others. What is the difference between this and legitimate military action which uses military force to coerce others?
Terrorist target women and children and noncombatants. Soldiers do not. Is this the difference?
There is a real, scientific issue here. What is the difference between terrorism and other forms of warfare?
There is a profound psychological difference between two potential alpha males battling it out for dominance and a male beating and killing a female or a child.
Orthodox military strategy is about a contest between alpha males to see who is dominant. Mano a mano, man against man, soldier against soldier. Women and children and non-combatants are left out of the mix.
Terrorism targets the non-combatants. The terrorist realizes that he is too weak to challenge the alpha and instead the attacks the weak.
This has a paralel in nature. Gorillas indulge in terrorism to acquire mates. A male gorilla indulges in infanticide to get a mate. He will follow a dominant male and that males harem around and wait. He will steal a newborn infant and rip its throat out with his teeth to prove to the mother that the dominant male cannot protect her young. She will then mate with him.
A male can only protect so many females at a time.
Terrorism is like this. The terrorist does not have the strength to challenge a dominant military force. Instead it proves by attacking and killing the helpless and defenseless that that dominant military force cannot protect them.
The goal is to force them to then seek the terrorist as a better protector. This is the terrorist strategy in Iraq.
Terrorism outside the Middle East is based on the idea that terror can coerce behavior and force the people of Europe and the US to do what the terrorists want.
This is a much different issue. The cultures involved are very different. The results are much more complex. Terrorist actions are quite simple minded and entirely ignorant of the reality of what they are dealing with.
Still, the definition of terrorist should be someone who attacks the defenseless in order to produce terror in order to coerce behavior when they are not strong enough to challenge the dominant power in real combat. Or more simply the use of terror as a weapon to coerce behavior.
Define Terrorist.
Recently someone said that the US is a terrorist nation. It is a silly statement. The US has generally relied on military force not terror to accomplish its goals. Some actions during the Revolutionary War might be called terrorist, however a few actions do not a policy make.
The Ku Klux Klan, was without doubt a terrorist organization for a few decades. Still, its activities were not officially sanctioned by the US government. While it did enjoy some tolerance and even endorsement at some times, it cannot be considered an offical organ of the US government.
Nor did it indulge in international terrorism, lynching black people in Europe or the Middle East to achieve its agenda. It was clearly limited in its scope to pure domestic terrorism. It did not use terrorism to invade and coerce behavior in foreign nations.
Define terrorist. I am interested in what you think.
