Russ's claim that the IRA were not terrorists before 1975 may well be valid according to his definition of terrorism but invalid according to yours. In effect, you are both using the same word to describe different phenomena so it is only to be expected that the application of that word will differ.

paulh
Quite so... in fact you could possibly even put forward the case that each organisation should be reviewed individually for their status

and that Organisations can change in nature. There is no reason that the IRA could be one thing one year and something else the next.. altho Russ' belief that they can change on a weekly basis is going too far.

There seems to be this belief that because we have a word, Terrorist, that therefore we should also have a one sentence easy definition of what it means that, when applied, easily seperates all the Terrorist organisations from all the Revolutionary ones. I doubt that there is such a definition. And therefore you have to make a decision yourself,

or on a communal basis as to what a Terrrorist organisation is. AFAIK Australia defines the IRA as a Terrorist organisation and so do I.

I can't help it if someone else doesn't based on their definition of the word. Thats why this is often a futile argument.But to use a statistic on deaths to prove it seems abhorrent to me.. as if there is a specific ratio of dead people that once met excuses a groups actions.