What do you have to do to be a terrorist?

[Tom Sawyer]

Indeed, it seems to me that there must be some level of personal desperation when one decides to become a suicide bomber.

Either that or you're really into World of Warcraft and the idea of getting yourself a large group of virgins is appealing to you.

 

[TV and credit cards]

A terrorist is someone who uses violence against the public in an attempt to push society or government along a path that meshes with their own ideology through the fear that's created, whether as part of a larger organization or as a singular individual. Someone who commits mass murder for purely personal reasons isn't a terrorist, but someone who does it to make some sort of political point is.

Really, the problem we skeptics may have with calling people terrorists is due to the the term having been applied unevenly by political ideologues, and so we tend to be wary when the term gets used.

As to whether this particular case represented terrorism by an individual acting alone, or simple lunacy, I'll leave that for people who know more about the case to decide.

I think the word terrorist may just be a one size fits all term for anybody the power elite of any country do not like and wish to associate with evil. If a terrorist is one who attacks civilian populations for political reasons, then Harry S. Truman was being a terrorist when he sent to bombers to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the Eisenhower administration sent people into Cuba to murder that country's leader, he was not a terrorist? Or Reagan and his wars on indigenous people in central America...the U.S. was not doing it "officially." The real problem is we have world leaders who commit horrendous acts and cover them over with'state secrecy' and National Security concerns. So when a couple of crazy kids from Chechnya set up some pressure cookers and do what appears to be a totally gratuitous act of violence, we call them terrorists. Alright, they were "terrorists." So what! Who isn't a terrorist?

That is a pretty accurate definition IMO.


The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also acts of terrorism, meant to scare the Japanese into surrender. But you will rarely see it described as such because terrorism is associated with evilness.

Because we usually associate terrorism with civilians. Armies don't do terrorism, they wage wars, and choose means according to the effect needed (even if the effect is to scare the enemy into surrender).
Of course, once pursued fully, this definition can have unfortunate implications, like the WW2 French Resistance being terrorists while the Oradour SS weren't...

And I think this is why the US Code uses the word "subnational" in their definition of terrorism. If sanctioned by a nation's government then it can be considered an act of war or aggression or state sponsored terrorism or whatever they may call it but it can then lead to sanctions/actions against that government. So army participation is not necessary, just a government's blessing to delineate between terrorism and war.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And no, the Unabomber was not a terrorist. Terrorism requires an organisation, not just an individual nutter.

I disagree. There can be lone wolf terrorists. The unibomber was one.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Timothy McVeigh, who killed over 500 people when he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma in 1995 has been labeled a terrorist pretty much since day one, and nobody really denies it. In fact, when someone makes a claim about terrorists being mostly just Muslims, Timothy McVeigh is pretty much the "go-to" guy to show otherwise. IIRC, McVeigh largely acted alone, though he did have some minor assistance from another guy. Seems to me, if you're going to consider McVeigh a terrorist, you're going to have to consider Monis a terrorist as well.

Yup, they're both terrorists.