Category talk:Terrorist incidents

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The problem with this category is that one person's terrorist is often another person's freedom fighters, especially when attacks are directed towards the police or the military of a state perceived as oppressive. David.Monniaux 11:23, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. Which is why this category only lists (and only should list) acts, perpetrated by non-state-aligned groups, which have resulted in (and/or intended to result in) civilians casualties. The USS Cole bombing is not listed for instance, since it was a military target, despite the fact that most would classify its perpetrators as terrorists. Neither is the Fire-bombing of Dresden, since the perpetrators were aligned with the Allied governments. Of course, when we are concerned with acts directed against military targets, and/or carried out by a state, we enter into a whole debate about legitimacy etc. but not with the current listed articles of this category. Right? —Gabbe 11:01, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that it should be limited to attacks on civilian targets. If the Marine barracks bombing was a terrorist incident then so was George Washington's attack on sleeping Hessians on Christmas Eve, 1775 (unwelcome foreign troops are present here, and we'll try to kill a lot of them by a sneak attack instead of lining up for a classical battle). I don't agree with "non-state-aligned", though. Governments may use terrorism as an instrument of policy. Certainly some people would argue that the Janjaweed are practicing terrorism and are being sponsored by the government of the Sudan.

Some categories have a definitional paragraph at the top. Here, there's only the link to the larger "Terrorism" category, where the key language is "at some point in time been referred to as terrorism, terrorists, etc. by some government." I wouldn't be surprised if some government has denounced the U.S. for "terrorism" in the Fire-bombing of Dresden. This category, like too many others, raises inherent POV problems. JamesMLane 04:32, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why 'incident'?

An 'incident' implies a close call, i.e. that there were no serious consequences. Is that really the correct term for this category? --Drdan 23:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page organization

An observation: Given that users might not know what title has been given to an article/incident, and the substantial number of entries, maybe a chronological organization for this category might be useful. For example, the article for 9/11 would have to have the category notation re-formatted to:

Category:Terrorist incidents|2001, 09-11

It would likely make things easier to find, I think. There's a lot of articles here, and I'd prefer that someone more familiar with everything here do the revisions if it's deemed appropriate. MisfitToys 06:05, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cole Should Be Listed

The USS Cole bombing should in fact be listed, since it was committed by a non-state actor with whom the United States was not in a declared state of war and the Cole was not on active combat duty at the time. By many definitions, if not the legal one under the US Code at the time, the bombing of the Cole was an act of terrorism. Moreover, if the Cole bombing was not an act of terrorism, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing should not be listed or even the 1989 Deal barracks bombing - both of these were military targets. In fact, "noncombatants" means not just civilians but also military personnel who at the time of the incident are not at combat alert.--Xinoph 03:31, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I'd think that military personnel not at combat alert at that moment are, at a minimum, in a different category from civilians. To return to an example I mentioned earlier, your definition would suggest that the Hessians whom Washington attacked after crossing the Delaware were noncombatants. They were asleep at the time of the attack. The British would also claim that Washington was a non-state actor. JamesMLane 04:18, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Certainly if one took a modern word, and applied it through the lens of 18th century British statesmen, Washington would be considered a terrorist. However, note that I also used the term declared state of war. The Colonials had certainly declared war on the British, and the British in their actions created a de facto, if not de jure, state of war with the insurrection. Consider my whole definition when responding to it, not simply parts. There is another important difference, I think: the Hessians would not have been there had they not been soon to be used as combatants, while the Cole was on normal, peacetime manuevers. Bringing the Revolutionary War into it is neither here nor there - the term did not exist at the time. We're talking about modern definitions of a modern word, so let's stick to events that have occurred since the introduction of the word. We may as well label the Visigoths as terrorists. The definition of terrorism was not originally foggy, and not originally pejorative - the Narodnaya Volya were proud to call themselves terrorists. However, now that it has become pejorative and a loaded term, we often get bogged down into debates of definitions. Perhaps with terrorism one can be more realistic rather than academic, and take Justice Stewart's approach to pornography: that one knows it when they see it. --Xinoph 06:06, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

The underlying problem is that this category is inherently POV. There's a frequent situation in which one side in a conflict has a much more powerful conventional military machine. The other side, numerically or technologically inferior, will usually find it advantageous to adopt unorthodox tactics. Those tactics can then be branded with pejoratives like "terrorist". The reason to bring in the Revolutionary War is that, back then, the U.S. (more precisely, the side in the conflict that contemporary Americans would identify with) was not the side with the stronger conventional force. That's not a situation that's occurred recently. I think it's helpful to ask how definitions offered today would apply to Washington because it's one way to identify and overcome bias.

I agree with you that there's a danger of being bogged down in definitions. The Potter Stewart approach may be necessary for a court that has to decide what's obscene but it's unsuitable for a neutral encyclopedia. You may encounter little argument from readers here when you say that the Colonials had declared war on the British, so it wasn't terrorism, but that won't work for more contentious issues. Some people will see Palestinian suicide bombers as being in exactly the same situation as Washington; others will see the suicide bombers as the epitome of terrorism. (And maybe some people would actually adopt both positions and call Washington a terrorist!) For my part, if I had to try to define terrorism, I'd be inclined to exclude attacks on military targets -- a class that I'd define broadly, not limited to people on combat alert at the time, but then I'd probably make an exception for attacks primarily intended to terrorize a civilian population, so my attempt to give more precision to "I know it when I see it" turns out not to be so easy to apply, either.

This category is just a breeding ground for trouble. If I had enough willpower and good sense, I'd take it off my watchlist and abandon it to the people who want to harangue each other about the definition. JamesMLane 06:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think that the point that the Cole was not in any kind of conflict recognized, whether officially or unofficially, by the controlling government is an important one. Once again, the Cole was on peacetime manuevers where U.S. officials had no reason to suspect there was any kind of conflict. To take up the earlier historical example, the Hessians were there to fight the insurrection. They weren't merely stationed in North America and on manuevers. I think there are many actions committed in wartime, against both civilians and military noncombatants, that would be considered terrorism in peacetime. However, in war they are considered the normal course of events. It is not the normal course of events for warship visiting a friendly port in peacetime to be bombed.--Xinoph 06:46, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)