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Originally Posted by hiredgun
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- Deliberate targeting of civilians.
- Extra-normal violence. (Easier said than defined.)
- Violence as a 'message' or an indirect means to ultimate ends. By this I mean that, for example, the real targets of a bomb that kills a tiny fraction of a civilian population are the survivors who live to see it.
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Definitely, the civilian angle is important. Guerilla fighters who attack military targets are commiting acts of war or insurrection, but not terrorism. They may have previsouly committed terrorist acts, but the kidnap of soldiers or any attack on the military is not terrorism itself.
I don't think "extra-normal" violence is right. I don't think you can hang a particular body count or dollar amount of damage on an act and say it is or is not terrorism based on that.
Violence as a message basically fits. I think also it must be part of an ongoing campaign. I don't consider Timothy McVeigh a terrorist - I think he was a nutjob, for instance. He committed one great violent act, but I'm not sure it was terrorism, you know? Organizations or people that follow certain dogma and have an ongoing plan of committing attacks and converting people to their cause fit the definition to me.