This just illustrates the fuzziness I was talking about. Perhaps it was a 95% terror attack / 5% anti-government strike. Or 99/1 (I don't care). Near the extreme end (99.999999+% terror) we can understand that if you plant a bomb in a pizza parlor and happen to kill someone who works for the FBI in the process, that doesn't make it "not a terror attack" because a "legitimate target" happened to die in it (unplanned by you). McVeigh isn't quite to that extreme (because he really did target federal workers) but (a) most of those federal workers, AFAIK, were *civilians*, (b) he took no care to concentrate or focus his attack on "legitimate targets" in any way, and (c) the primary purpose of the attack was obviously to cause a huge PR/fear splash rather than serving any coherent military purpose (the OKC federal building not having been exactly crucial to the ongoing functioning of the federal government I reckon). So that's why even though I understand people like Stotch who try to argue otherwise, in my book it stays "95% terror" or whatever. This just illustrates that there is really not a binary either/or but a spectrum or continuum.

But that doesn't mean it's utterly meaningless to distinguish groups who focus primarily (not always!) near one end of the spectrum (al Qaeda) and groups who focus primarily (not always!) near the other (American revolutionaries).

This is absurd.

Whereas Washington ordered British and Hessian prisoners treated with much greater kindness than was the custom of the day -- so that one out of every four Hessian prisoners chose to remain in America -- Al Quaeda offers no quarter to its civilian victims. Whereas the Declaration of Independence held out the promise of future goodwill towards Britain -- "We ... hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends" -- Al Quaeda has declared a total jihad that brooks no compromise until we or they are all dead.

These are not superficial differences. They reflect fundamental differences in philosophy and objective.

Really, I think you've had a little too much New Year's cheer.

"They attacked innocent civilians for the purpose of frightening other civilians from engaging in seafaring commerce and to put pressure on British society."

Ok swell, I'll defer to your expertise and stipulate that such attacks took place: that (1) innocent civilians were intentionally targeted (were merchant marines "civilians"?), and (2) the sole purpose of the attacks was to pressure British society (i.e. interrupting the shipping lines in question served no military interdiction purpose - essentially, these boats weren't carrying guns or coins for the redcoats). If so, I'll agree that such acts were terrorist acts.

If the American Revolutionaries engaged in such type of attacks as their *primary* tactic, I'd even call them "terrorists". You tell me.

"You may quibble about this if it makes you feel morally superior, "

????? What are you talking about.

Your definition of terrorism has serious holes in it, just as any definition does.

Granted.

Under your criteria, McVeigh may not have been a terrorist (if one considers FBI employees police)

Perhaps, if you wish to argue as much.

the attack on the Pentagon lies outside of your definition, the attack on the USS Cole is not terrorism

Right. Never said otherwise.

Hamas was not a terrorist group prior to 1994 (prior to then they did not target civilians)

I'll take your word for it.

The list goes on and on.

What "list"? List of things that are not terrorism? But so what? Here's the definition of even numbers: can be divided by 2 with no remainder. Here's some which lie outside that definition: 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. The list goes on and on.

Maybe I'm missing your point here. You've established that you can name various and sundry violent acts which are not terrorism. I can too. Whoop de doo. So what?

The reason that terrorism is an effective weapon against us is not because of useful idiots (I assume you’re referring to me),

I wasn't. I was referring to people who would be swayed by the constructions like the one in my previous post. Sorry for the confusion.

because we refuse to acknowledge it as political violence.

Now I'm really confused. Who's refusing to acknowledge it as such? On the contrary: "political violence", with some elaboration, is more or less the *definition* of terrorism. But you're the one arguing that this definition is useless, not I.

You may quibble about this if it makes you feel morally superior, but you would still be wrong.

The larger point I was trying to make is that the hysteria over Alam's article shows that we are unwilling to deal with the political component of bin Laden's war on the West. We can dismiss him as an evil coward, or we can attempt to know our enemy so as to defeat him.

The reason that terrorism is an effective weapon against us is not because of useful idiots (I assume you're referring to me), but because we refuse to acknowledge it as political violence.

You can call this irredentist, counter-revolutionary, restorationist, theocratic, or a number of other labels but it lacks even the tiniest smidgen of the key element of revolutions progressiveness.

The acts you describe, whatever else one might think of them, were not "terrorism" as it is *actually defined*, which is violence intentionally targeted towards civilians the purpose of which is scare others and to put political pressure on their society. We can agree perhaps that such acts were Bad, but that doesn't make them "terrorism". "Terrorism" is not a synonym for "bad acts that make people mad". It has a definition. The blurring of this definition you've engaged in leads to precisely the harmful moral equivalence present in the above post.

We end up with this construction: "How can we expect Islamists not to place bombs in marketplaces and consider that an invalid method of warfare, after all John Paul Jones interdicted British merchant vessels." The problem is that there are terrorists who will be only too happy to spew such tripe, and Western useful idiots who will be only too happy to gobble it up, and thus we get the partial-paralysis of Western society which is precisely what makes terrorism an effective weapon against it. It pisses me off.

The American revolutionaries did indeed engage in terrorism. Under letters of marquee John Paul Jones and other merchant seamen attacked non-combatant British vessels killing numerous innocent sailors and siezing their cargoes as bounty. This was the terrorism of it's day and enraged the British merchant class against the American revolutionaries.

The Islamic fascist is no different than the Christian fascist,

what we choose to call them is irrelevant, They believe that they
are in a great struggle against those who would deny them their
relgious dominance over their particular region. Look for Christians to exhibit the exact same violent behavior when their
religious dominance in America is threatened.
What shall we call them?

It's bad enough that Mr. Stotch apparently cannot conceive of revolutions which don't involve the particular tactic of terrorism. This is a vile insult to, for example, the American revolutioners. He has tossed out the window all Western notions of Lawful War - once it's a "revolution", he expects nobody to abstain from terrorism, holds no one to any kind of standard. It's *natural* to commit terror in the service of a revolution, says Stotch. Sick.

Mr. Stotch, "terror" refers to a particular collection of tactics. Now, the definition may have fuzzy edges but that need not prevent anyone with a brain (i.e. you) and/or who doesn't (like Alam) seek to excuse certain terror acts due to an ideological motive, from being able to distinguish between terror in the service of a fanatical totalitarian ideology on the one hand, and warfare in the service of political independence (=revolution), and in particular revolution seeking consensual government (which al Qaeda *does not*), on the other.

Such muddled thinking creates the blind spot which al Qaeda walked right through on 9/11/2001. They are terrorists. Simlutaneously, they are revolutionaries (not against us but against primarily the Saudi regime).

But although they *are* revolutionaries, they are not "freedom fighters". They are not fighting for "freedom"! Engaging in "revolution", let alone committing terror, does not automatically prove that one is fighting for somebody's "freedom"! Get that straight because it's embarrassing and harmful to make that confusion at this point in time. It is the worst sort of moral equivalence, and by raising it you have helped to prove Alam's critics correct.