The Future of Freedom Foundation posted my essay today on “The Farcical Definition at the Heart of the War on Terrorism.” Here is how the piece wraps up:
The United States has long insisted that government agents cannot be terrorists. The FBI defines terrorism as “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.
Look, it’s harder to find a person more critical of Bush than me… but I don’t even have the chutzpah to say that he is a terrorist. You are not serious are you?
Why are you disagreeing with the definition of terrorism offered by Gen. Dayan?
Tovya wriote:
> I don’t even have the chutzpah
> to say that he is a terrorist.
> You are not serious are you?
Well, does the definition fit or not? Once we leave aside the exemption for states, how can we avoid
Back in 2002 I wrote:
“[A correspondent] dismisses, as ‘left-wing cant,’ my claim that ‘by most definitions of terrorism,’ the United States is a terrorist regime. Well, let’s see. Some definitions do require that the perpetrator be a nonstate entity, or that the targets be civilians. The U.S. State Department, for example, defines terrorism as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.’ (emphasis added) But by this definition, Iraq cannot be a terrorist regime (not being ‘subnational’), nor can the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon (a military target) be a terrorist act. Hence most official definitions include neither requirement. The U.N., for example, defines terrorism as ‘criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public’ (a definition inherited from a 1937 League of Nations document). The FBI defines it as ‘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.’ Other official definitions are similar. By these definitions, the U.S. is surely a terrorist entity.”