Clearly car bombing a crowded thoroughfare at noon is terrorism, but what about at 2 a.m. with no one

paulh
around

and a warning phoned in ahead of time? Is that terrorism?

Yes

Russ
Why?

If instead of a car bomb, a plane drops a bomb on the very same target at noon when it is

paulh
crowded;

is that terrorism?

Yes...unless its a plane owned by a recognised goverment and there is a official state of war of some kind.

Russ
OK, so if a military plane drops a bomb on a target at noon crowded with civilians, it is not terrorism (although it may be something else)

What about a car bomb of an army barracks? Is that ok?

paulh
no

Russ
Why?

paulh
Keep the questions coming....

Russ
Maybe using the Socratic method we can come up with a workable definition of terrorism for you. <g>

What defines terrorism? The target? The means? Both? Neither?

paulh
According to you its mathematics.

Russ
Actually, I've never said that. What I have argued is that military vs. civilians deaths is *evidence* as to whether a group can be termed a terrorist group or not.

Rather I have defined terrorist (broadly) as targeting civilians. See below.

paulh
Wheres YOUR proof (since you've failed to answer it a number of times) that if only X percent of people blown up with carbombs are civilians then you're a freedom fighter but if its X+1% then you're a terrorist.

Russ
What you're asking for is absurd. It's not something I can *prove*. I submitted a definition of terrorism (a common one BTW) and then argued that civilian vs military deaths is relevant to determining whether a group is a terrorist group under that definition.

You're certainly free to dispute that, but you're going to have to come us with some sort of basis to support your disagreement. You can dispute my definition and come up with another. (You've tried this but your definition constantly changes)

Or you can argue that civilians vs military deaths is not relevent and back that argument up with something.

From your various posts, I have gleaned this much. Uniformed soldiers of legitimate states cannot be terrorists no matter what they do (they can be something else - war criminals perhaps?)

but cannot be termed terrorist. That's fair enough, and I'd actually be inclined to add it to my definition.

That leaves the broad category of irregular or guerilla groups which can be called terrorist. However, not all such irregular groups are terrorist groups. We actually seem to agree on this as well. However, differentiating between which irregular groups can be termed terrorist and which cannot is where we apparently part ways.

I would define it this way (combining my original definition with the revision mentioned above): 'an irregular or guerrilla group that as its usual means of fighting purposefully directs deadly violence against civilians intending to kill civilians.

You seem to have come up with an ad hoc analysis taking into account whether the irregular group represents a majority or minority; is fighting on their own land or others' lands; uses certain means (i.e. a car bomb is always terrorist even if used against a military unit). I think basically you need to come up with a more coherent defintion and not one that changes day to day and group to group.