{"id":23237,"date":"2026-11-04T19:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=23237"},"modified":"2026-11-04T19:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:48:19","slug":"the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/04\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c-1024x320.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c-1024x320.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c-800x250.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c-150x47.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c-768x240.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c-1536x480.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism, Part 1&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">by James Bovard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Should shooting back be a crime if a government agent is trying to kill you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to U.S. terrorism law<strong>, people guilty of \u201cretaliating against government conduct\u201d can be charged as a terrorist. The definition in the U.S. statute book is sufficient to conde<\/strong>mn any civilian in the world who forcibly resists U.S. aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>U.S. terrorism policy is like a crooked wrestling referee who always ignores the first punch and then penalizes the person who strikes back. The government can throw the first punch \u2014 or the first thousand punches. But the trouble doesn\u2019t begin until someone hits back.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Terrorism is perhaps the most Orwellian term of our tim<\/strong>e. President George W. Bush declared in 2002: \u201cOur mission is to make the world free from terror.\u201d But the U.S. government defines terrorism in a way that permits the worst terror to continue unabated. The elastic&nbsp; meaning of terror allows politicians to stretch their power much further than people realize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Terror, traditional and modern&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Terror had been used for thousands of years by despots to crush resistance, but the French revolutionaries were the first to claim to be idealists for maximizing oppression<\/strong>. Maximilien Robespierre gushed that terror is \u201cjustice prompt, severe and inflexible\u201d and \u201ca natural consequence of the general principle of democracy.\u201d For Robespierre, terror tactics exemplified \u201cthe despotism of liberty against tyranny.\u201d Britain\u2019s Edmund Burke, the most eloquent enemy of the French Revolution, denounced \u201cthousands of those hellhounds called terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">T<strong>he term \u201cterrorism\u201d was first used to designate antigovernment individuals in Ireland in 1866 \u2014 the same year Britain suspended habeas corpus in Ireland<\/strong>. At that time \u2014 barely a decade and a half after a famine that had resulted in almost half the population either dying or migrating \u2014 Irish activists were determined to expel foreign rulers. The death toll from Irish terrorism in the 1800s never approached one tenth of one percent of the toll from a famine caused partly by restrictive British trade policy and other policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Terror was fervently embraced by revolutionaries in the latter 19th century. Karl Marx proclaimed that the \u201cRevolutionary Terror\u201d was the \u201conly means to curtail, simplify and localize the bloody agony of the old society and the bloody birth-pangs of the new<\/strong>.\u201d In early 1918, a few months after the Russian Revolution brought him to power, Vladimir Lenin declared, \u201cWe cannot expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism.\u201d The \u201cRed Terror\u201d became a badge of courage for the communist leaders. As Paul Johnson, author of <em>Modern Times<\/em>, noted, the most \u201cimportant characteristic of the Lenin terror was the not the quantity of the victims, but the principle on which they were selected. Within a few months of seizing power, Lenin had abandoned the notion of individual guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The First World War unleashed official carnage in Europe on a level not seen since the Thirty Years War. The Armenian genocide and massacres of civilians throughout Europe were hailed as triumphs of national will. At the same time that governments killed more than ever before, they redoubled the onus on private violence. In 1937, the League of Nations defined terrorism as \u201call 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the midtwentieth century, the term \u201cterrorism\u201d was routinely used to condemn those who attacked politicians, government forces, or established regimes. The Nazis denounced French Resistance saboteurs as terrorists. Terrorism has permeated Middle East conflicts since the 1940s, when Menachem Begin and his Irgun gang blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. Throughout Africa and Asia, resistance to colonial rulers was castigated as terrorism, regardless of how many natives had perished because of foreign oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The forgotten terrorist origins of the Vietnam War<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By the 1960s, terrorism was what the communists did.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the French Foreign Legion struggled to reconquer Vietnam in the wake of World War II, the U.S. government embellished the storyline. A CIA operative provided materials for a massive bomb that ripped through a main square in Saigon. A <em>LIFE<\/em> magazine photographer was waiting on the scene, and his resulting snap appeared with a caption blaming the carnage on Viet Minh Communists. The <em>New York Times<\/em> headlined its report: \u201cReds\u2019 Time Bombs Rip Saigon Center.\u201d The press coverage boosted public support for U.S. government aid to the French army fighting the Communists. The fact that a Vietnamese warlord named General Trinh Minh Th\u00e9, a CIA collaborator, claimed credit for the bomb was ignored by the U.S. media.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the wake of the French defeat, U.S. military advisors poured into Vietnam. The U.S. government regarded the South Vietnamese government headed by Ngo Dinh Diem as corrupt, oppressive, and inept. The Pentagon Papers described a <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/1778252695248\"><time datetime=\"2026-05-08T15:04:55.248Z\">May 8<\/time><\/a>, 1963, debacle in the city of Hue, South Vietnam:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Government troops fire on a Buddhist protest demonstration, killing nine and wounding fourteen. The incident triggers a nationwide Buddhist protest and a crisis of popular confidence for the Diem regime. [The Government of South Vietnam] maintains the incident was an act of [Viet Cong] terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Diem government was outraged that the Buddhists demanded legal equality with Catholics and the right to fly the Buddhist flag. In <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/-202553704744\"><time datetime=\"1963-08-01T15:04:55.256Z\">August 1963<\/time><\/a>, South Vietnamese Special Forces \u201ccarried out midnight raids against Buddhist pagodas throughout the country. More than 1400 people, mostly monks, were arrested, and many of them were beaten,\u201d according to the Pentagon Papers. The CIA was bankrolling these Special Forces, which were supposed to be used for covert operations against the Viet Cong or North Vietnam, not for religious repression. Diem\u2019s terrorizing of the Buddhists swayed the United States to back a coup that led to his assassination a few months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Johnson administration exploited terrorism to sway Americans to support greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam. LBJ told Congress on <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/1779116695254\"><time datetime=\"2026-05-18T15:04:55.254Z\">May 18<\/time><\/a>, 1964, that \u201cthe Viet Cong guerrillas, under orders from their Communist masters in the North, have intensified terrorist actions against the peaceful people of South Vietnam. This increased terrorism requires increased response.\u201d Johnson scorned a proposal by French President Charles de Gaulle for a Geneva conference on the growing Vietnam conflict because LBJ declared the conference would \u201cratify terror.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At that time, the United States was carrying out an array of \u201cnon-attributable hit-and-run\u201d raids against North Vietnam, including \u201ckidnappings of North Vietnamese citizens for intelligence information, parachuting sabotage and psychological warfare teams into the north, commando raids from the sea to blow up rail and highway bridges, and the bombardment of North Vietnamese coastal installations by PT boats.\u201d Thai pilots flying American planes bombed and strafed North Vietnamese villages in early <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/-170931304740\"><time datetime=\"1964-08-01T15:04:55.260Z\">August 1964<\/time><\/a>, just before the Gulf of Tonkin incident.+<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese government were terrorizing people at the time the U.S. involvement rapidly expanded in 1965. But the U.S. government looked only at the Viet Cong\u2019s terrorism to justify launching its own bombing campaign that killed far more civilians than the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese army did prior to the end of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The government terror exemption in modern times<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The U.S. State Department defined terrorism in 1981 as \u201cthe use or threat of the use of force for political purposes in violation of domestic or international law.\u201d Since government use of force is almost automatically lawful (based on government edicts and sovereign immunity), <strong>governments by definition cannot commit terrorist acts.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This definition guided Ronald Reagan\u2019s war on terrorism. A few months before Reagan took office, a jury convicted the former No. 2 FBI official, Mark Felt, and Edward Miller, the head of the FBI\u2019s intelligence division, for conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of Americans by ordering illegal FBI burglaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Felt was the mastermind of the FBI\u2019s COINTELPRO program. (Bob Woodward in 2006 tagged Mark Felt as the Deep Throat source for Watergate scoops). The FBI conducted thousands of COINTELPRO operations, sparking fatal violent clashes between rival black groups, setting up a Klan organization that brutally attacked Freedom Riders, and bankrolling right-wing paramilitary informants who firebombed, burglarized, and shot up homes. Yet, regardless of how much fear government agents sowed, they were antiterrorist heroes in Reagan\u2019s eyes. He pardoned and commended the two men for \u201cacting on high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reagan sought to make antiterrorism a driving force of American foreign policy. His administration initially redefined terrorist attacks to include any threat of a terrorist attack \u2014 a simple jiggering that doubled the number of international terrorist incidents over the previous dozen years<\/strong>. The White House also pressured the CIA to redefine terrorism to include \u201call acts of violence intended to impact on a wider audience than the victims of the violence.\u201d This expansive definition would have placed George Washington and Robert E. Lee onto the list of terrorists. Edward Peck, the deputy director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, commented, \u201cWe produced about six [definitions of terrorism], and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities.\u201d After the Task Force finished its report, Congress amended the definition of international terrorism to include \u201cactivities that appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.\u201d However, as Peck noted, the U.S. government would still be categorized as a terrorist under that definition.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A license to kill innocent bystanders&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reagan authorized the CIA to covertly train and equip antiterrorist groups in the Middle East. The <em>Washington Post<\/em> later reported that Reagan signed an order on <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/1794585895254\"><time datetime=\"2026-11-13T16:04:55.254Z\">November 13<\/time><\/a>, 1984, that was widely perceived by intelligence officials as a \u201clicense to kill\u201d \u2014 providing U.S. agents with \u201cgo-anywhere, do-anything\u201d authority, according to one former White House official. The <em>Post<\/em> reported that \u201cany actions under the orders would be \u2018deemed lawful\u2019 if conducted in \u2018good faith\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/1772982295255\"><time datetime=\"2026-03-08T15:04:55.255Z\">March 8<\/time><\/a>, 1985, a massive car bomb detonated near the Beirut suburban home of a radical Muslim leader, killing 80 people \u2014 mostly women and children \u2014 and injuring 200. The bomb failed to kill the Muslim cleric who was being targeted. Supporters of the cleric strung a giant \u201cMADE IN USA\u201d banner across the blast site. A few weeks after the bombing, one U.S. government official bragged to the <em>Washington Post<\/em> that CIA and U.S. military training of antiterrorist units in Lebanon had \u201cbeen very successful.\u201d National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, in a speech entitled \u201cTerrorism and the Future of Free Society,\u201d announced: \u201cWe cannot and will not abstain from forcible action to prevent, preempt or respond to terrorist acts where conditions merit the use of force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/483807895261\"><time datetime=\"1985-05-01T15:04:55.261Z\">May 1985<\/time><\/a>, Americans learned that the car bomb attack had been carried out by people hired by a CIA-trained group. The news set off a firestorm of CIA denials and foreign denunciations. <em>Washington Post<\/em> reporter Bob Woodward later wrote that CIA director William Casey told him that he had arranged the bombing via the Saudi government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reagan himself at least momentarily clearly grasped the meaning of terrorism. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/webmail.his.com\/calendar\/day\/486486295262\"><time datetime=\"1985-06-01T15:04:55.262Z\">June 1985<\/time><\/a> press conference, Reagan declared if a U.S. attack against terrorists merely involved \u201cstriking a blow in a general direction&nbsp; &#8230; the result would be a terrorist act in itself and the killing and victimizing of innocent peo<\/strong>ple.\u201d Reagan did not let any concerns about moral equivalence deter him the following year from ordering the U.S. Air Force to bomb civilian neighborhoods in Tripoli, Libya, in response to alleged Libyan involvement in a bombing of a Berlin nightclub that killed an American soldier. The U.S. bombing killed dozens of Libyan civilians, but they were moral ciphers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>James Bovard is a policy advisor to The Future of Freedom Foundation and is the author of the ebook<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Freedom-Frauds-Lessons-American-Liberty-ebook\/dp\/B0765D3GJR\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty<\/a><em>, published by FFF, his new book,<\/em> Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty, <em>and nine other books.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NEXT MONTH:<br><em>\u201cThe Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism, Part 2\u201d<\/em><em><br><\/em>by James Bovard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should shooting back be a crime if a government agent is trying to kill you? Yes, according to the U.S. govt. definition of terrorism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[347,47,1760,26],"class_list":["post-23237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cia","tag-fbi","tag-lebanon","tag-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/04\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Should shooting back be a crime if a government agent is trying to kill you? Yes, according to the U.S. govt. definition of terrorism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/04\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-11-05T00:48:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-11-05T00:48:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"The Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-11-05T00:48:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-11-05T00:48:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2045,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/2019-04-15-Osama-bin-Laden-War-on-Terrorism-Obama-1920x600_c.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"CIA\",\"FBI\",\"Lebanon\",\"Terrorism\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2026\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-absurd-u-s-definition-of-terrorism\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Absurd U.S. Definition of Terrorism - 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