Quite frankly, IMO a force for which overall 70% of it's 'victims' were

paulh
other

combatants cannot be termed a terrorist force.

What utter rubbish. Can you show me anywhere credible, other than in your opinion, where terrorist forces are defined as those which only kill X% or more of 'civilians' vs combatants..

Russ
A common definition of terrorism I've seen around here is deadly violence purposefully directed against and intended to kill civilians.

Since neither you nor I can read people's minds, a perfectly valid method for looking at the question is to look at the *results* of their actions.

The *fact* that 70% of those killed by the IRA were other combatants and 30% were civilians is pretty stong evidence that the IRA were not targeting and killing civilians as a modus operandi.

And I will state again (lest you make a false accusation), this is a different issue than the question whether an organization has committed individual terrorist acts. The IRA did. So did the British Army.

And it's also a different issue from the question over whether violence is justifed at all (related to a 'just war' inquiry).

paulh
SO what ratio needs to be aspired to for THIS then? Perhaps if the Loyalist Paramilitaries kill more 'combatants' then you'll be happy to take them off the list of 'Terrorists'..

Russ
Were the loyalists to change their methods and target combatants then it could be argued they were *no longer* terrorists, but it would not change the fact that they were terrorists during the time their methods targeted civilians.

paulh
What a pathetic excuse to justify terrorism..

Russ
That's rich coming from someone who justifies homocide bombers.

paulh
Amazing turn around from a few days ago (when the Palestinians were Terrorists and the Israelis were Angels of Mercy)

Russ
I'm sorry if the facts are getting in the way of your opinion, but facts are facts and the numbers are the numbers. If you want to argue that the numbers should be interpreted in a different way, then be my guest.