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Defining Terrorism
It's essential. It's also impossible.
By Michael Kinsley|Posted Friday, Oct. 5, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET Slate magazine
Now may seem like an odd moment to be worrying that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. If
ever there was a man of violence who didn't pose this issue, it is Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is triply easy to classify.
First, the attack of Sept. 11, assuming he was responsible for it, was on a murderous scale that makes quibbling over
definitions seem absurd. Second, his political vision is the opposite of freedom: a repressive clerical state. Third, his
method is "terrorism" in the narrowest definitional sense. It is designed to spread terror, almost apart from any larger
goal.

Nevertheless, the definition of the word terrorism is a problem in what we'd better start calling the war effort. It's a
problem for journalists: Reuters has banned the word in reference to Sept. 11, making an admirable concern for the
safety of their reporters look like an idiotic moral relativism.

The definition of terrorism is a problem for law enforcement and civil liberties. If we're going to compromise our
liberties over it without turning our country into a police state, we want the definition to be as narrow as possible and
still do the job. The Justice Department's draft anti-terrorism bill defines terrorism to include "injury to government
property" and "computer trespass," which seems way too broad. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times quotes the
chairman of the House intelligence committee, Porter Goss, R.-Fla., complaining that the bill could define terrorism to
include bombing an abortion clinica definition that will not strike many other people as unreasonable.

Above all, the definition of terrorism is a problem because President Bush has chosen to define our mission as a war
against "terrorism," not just against the perpetrators of the particular crime of Sept. 11. And he has promised victory.
True, he has limited his goal to victory over terrorism of "global reach," but that is presumably a practical limitation, not
a moral one.

The advantages of defining the war as one against terrorism, not just Osama Bin Laden, are obvious: It helps in rallying
both the American citizenry and other nations to the cause, and if things go well it creates an opportunity to take care of
other items on the agenda, such as Saddam Hussein. But the disadvantages are also obvious. First, unlike a war against
Osama Bin Laden specifically, a war against "terrorism" is one we cannot win. Terrorism is like a chronic disease that can
be controlled and suppressed, but not cured. By promising a total cure, Bush is setting America and himself up to turn
victory into the appearance of defeat.

Second, using "terrorism" to win the support of other nations can backfire unless you have a definition you are willing to
apply consistently. And there is no such definition. Defining terrorism was a major industry in Washington during the
1980s, when a definition was badly needed to explain why we were supporting a guerrilla movement against the
government of Nicaragua and doing the opposite in El Salvador. No definition ever succeeded.

The difficulty is coming up with a definition of terrorism that does not depend on whose ox is gored. Otherwise you are
conceding that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. The concept of terrorism is supposed to be a shortcut
to the moral high ground. That is what makes it so useful. It says: The end doesn't justify the means. We don't need to
argue about whose cause is right and whose is wrong because certain behavior makes you the bad guy however noble
your cause.

So what distinguishes terrorism? Is it the scope of the harm? Most terrorist actions are fairly small-scale compared with
the death and destruction committed by nation-states acting in their official capacities. Even Sept. 11 killed fewer people
than, say, the bomb on Hiroshimaan act that many Americans find easy to defend.

So can "terrorism" mean acts of violence in support of political goals except when committed by a government? This
sounds deeply cynical but actually makes a lot of sense. Giving governments a monopoly on violence is how we bring
order out of chaos in the world. No matter how successful we are in developing international courts to prosecute official
behavior (such as the atrocities of Slobodan Milosevic) as crimes against humanity, governments will be held to a lower
standard than free-lance evildoers for the foreseeable future.
The difficulty is that looking for practical ways to get at furtive and elusive terrorists (or looking for sticks to beat other
governments with) inevitably leads to the concept of "state-sponsored terrorism." This gives you someone to attack
and is often factually accuratebut is a hopeless conceptual muddle if non-government is the key to defining terrorism.
"State-sponsored" also fails to distinguish the anti-Taliban rebel groups we're flooding with help from other groups
we're trying to destroy.

So can terrorism be defined as certain gruesome practices that are unacceptable no matter what the cause? As tactics
aimed at civilian non-combatants rather than professional soldiers? As strategies literally designed to create terror
fear, panic, despairas their primary purpose? All these notions are carted out regularly, but none does the trick. All, in
fact, are doubly inadequate: They leave out people you wish to include, and they include people you don't think deserve
the label "terrorist" (possibly because you are supporting them financially or supplying them with weapons).

The most accurate definition of terrorism may be the famous Potter Stewart standard of obscenity: "I know it when I see
it." Unfortunately, that kind of frankness would rob the term of its moral powerand, more important of course, most
of its propaganda power as well.

Questions for discussion.

1. Why has it been important to try to define the term terrorism?
2. Why has it been so difficult to define the term?
3. What does the author propose as being, possibly, the most accurate definition of terrorism? Do you agree
with him? Explain.