the problem you're identifying has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, and the answer doesn't seem all that complicated.  the nomenclature deployed to either demonize or whitewash criminals of different kinds follows a rather predictable pattern. 

the first thing to recognize is that the geneva conventions make no mentions of terrorism.  i think there's something like one refererence.  so from the point of view of the most significant and well-known treaty governing the interactions between states at war, terrorists are, for all intents and purposes, a non-entity.  so whenever the term terrorist gets deployed, particularly when the argument can be made that the conflict is inter-state, it's a useful tool to deligitimize the other side and essentially avoid any obligation to them under international law.

to that extent, you're absoutely right.  none of the people involved are terrorists.  and a great deal hinges on this point, insofar as the label appended to different combatants serves important legal and propaganda purposes.  i mean, look at what happened to afghanistan.  we just simply said that the government was no longer a valid one, but a terrorist one, and voila, internment camps and torture ungoverned by international law.

clarity on this point would be important, but i don't think it's forthcoming.  the ultimate problem is that the US commits plenty of acts that could be termed terrorism, but for the same reason that it took 40 years to sign the genocide convention (and, one should add, on terms so watered-down as to render the treaty almost useless), and for the same reason that the world court will never be given legitimacy, you're not likely going to get clarity on issues for which there are obvious benefits to US foreign policy.

there's a lot more to be said on this, but again, i don't think the answer to your question is ultimately that complicated.  it's the solution to the problem that is. 

Is bombing empty buildings, that you do not own, with no warning, chosen at random terrorism?

Is bombing a Multi-national team of peacekeepers in Lebanon that are trying to stop a civil war, that you have not officially declared war with terrorism?

Is bombing an invited army in that you have not officially declared war with terrorism?

Do you have any Allman brothers Matt? 

But it's a strange definition of terrorism by which attacks on uniformed American military personnel are terrorism. Obviously, qua American one doesn't approve of people who kill American soldiers, but that doesn't make the killers "terrorists" anymore than American soldiers who kill enemy soldiers are terrorists. I'm not sure exactly what hinges on this, but it's probably best not to lapse into total confusion on this point.

Too late for you! 

I'll take a shot at this, replying to Beyondo98 and what little sense I could make of Jerry:

Chances are that the Convention didn't address terrorism because terrorists are not state actors.  Thus, Jerry, they are incapable of declaring war. 

It's an answer full of holes, but so are the definitions. Terrorists attempt to declare war and nations (the US, for example) declare war on them, but then they declare that the terrorists, when captured, are not enemy combatants and therefore not covered by the rules of war.

On the other hand, the US never got around to declaring War in Korea or in Vietnam, and has done most of its killing in Iraq after declaring the end of the war, which would make the US a terrorist actor were we not in a state of perpetual war, first against Communism and now against Terrorism (to say nothing of drugs...watch out, Jerry!:) ). 

(Perhaps part of the problem with the War on Terrorism is that it's hard to defeat something you can't recognize?)

Is bombing empty buildings with no warning not terrorism?  OK, what's your word for what happened in Tal Afar?

The right term is "guerrilla warfare". It's now being routinely replaced by "terrorism" - a more pejorative term. As a result the term "terrorism" will probably gain acceptance and respectability around the word, because people who sympathize with and admire those guerrilla fighters will not change their minds no matter what they are called. If a national liberation movement is now labeled "terrorism", then so be it and terrorism is a good thing. It's just a word.

Well, the old consensus was that "terrorism" referred to violence against civilian populations.  So I guess the proper determination isn't  government/non-government; it's civilian/military.

My understanding of the word is that it refers to those who engage in violence for the sake of violence to terrorize a civilian population. There is a bit of a grey area when you look at political targets like embassies and economic targets like the World Trade Center, but most I think would consider attacks on those sorts of targets to be terrorist attacks as well.

But there's a 'state actor' caveat - If states attack targets of this sort we will use terms like 'rogue state' or 'fascist regime' to describe them, often we won't use the term 'terrorist' which connotes non-state actors. States sponsor terrorists, but their personnel aren't usually called terrorists unless they are doing things like pillaging, blowing up civilian targets and the like.

This is how I understand mainstream usage of this term today. Of course you have people misusing the term, stretching it in various ways to advance agendas.  

You know, what's really worth noting about V For Vendetta-- which is far more interesting as a phenomenon than as the talkiest, most pretentious dystopian fantasy since, oh, Zardoz or something-- is that the original comic book was one of about 12 billion pieces of art created during the Thatcher years by artists convinced that fascism was HERE, man, in the person of the future Baroness of Kesteven.

Instead, the results of Thatcher's years in office seem to be 1) the end of actual totalitarianism in countries where people actually were oppressed, unlike England where they were pampered and supported with grants, something which she was at least a significant contributor to; 2) the end of some unions who had basically strangled every last bit of vitality in British society; 3) the end of her own party as well as its opponent, which transformed into a Thatcherite labor party and has dominated things ever since; 4) and a really hot art and restaurant scene, created in part by the entrepreneurial energies which she had unleashed.  But do all the people who predicted 1984 or worse at her hands hang their heads in shame at what bloody hysterical fools they had been? 

No, now they say Bush is Hitler and 1984 instead.  Wankers.

"Entrepreneurs are responsible for art and good food?  Uh, right."

My mistake, it's Trotskyite mine officials and council flat dwellers who eat in places like St. John and buy art by Damien Hirst.  Just go watch any Ken Loach movie.

Uh, right. 

Just a few  quick comments to spur discussion. (And really, I'm not trying to make light of the seriousness of any attacks).

1) To the extent that terrorism is defined as the use of violence against civilian, rather than military, targets, can it be argued that the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11 was not a terrorist attack?

Now one could argue that the choice of weapons to carry out the attack on the Pentagon makes it inherently terroristic - given that it was a civilian passenger plane - but I would think the target (the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense) was certainly a 'military' target by any traditional definition.

So let's say the attackers had hijacked a military transport plane (or provided their own) and only attacked the Pentagon, would the term terrorism no longer apply?

2) If another qualifier of terrorism is that it is carried out by a non-state actor, then what becomes of Hamas now that it is a state actor? Much has been made of the idea that Hamas must renounce violence if it is to take up the reins of government. But, in terms of definitions, you could also argue the reverse: that their new status finally gives them the right to declare and pursue war, no? (Note that I recognize that this thought-experiment is itself flawed, since the Palestinian Authority is not a recognized state per se, but you get the idea).

It would matter, I presume, if attacks were carried out in the name of the Palestinian government (led by Hamas), or if they continued to be carried out in the name of Hamas the independent political party. Which is a big difference afterall - it would certainly be more than a little problematic if it were the Republican Party militia fighting the Iraq war rather than the U.S. Government.

3) Can state actors be guilty of terrorism? If the Palestinian Authority trained and equipped official suicide bombers, would they be guilty of terrorism or would they be guilty of war crimes? Does the distinction matter?

Crimes committed by the U.S. government (such as prisoner abuse/torture, or the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas) are rarely called terrorism (at least in the U.S.), are they war crimes? Does the distinction matter?

Voteless In DC

The problem, of course, is that, first of all, there is no war on terrorism, and second, terrorism is not a meaningful word.  During WWII the allies and the Germans both attempted to terrorize each others civilian population.  During our own Civil war, attempts were made to terrorize the opposition's civilian population.  The Viet Nam war involved little more than attempts to terrorize civilians by both sides.  Terrorism is an old and useful technique in warfare.

What happened on 9/11 was not terrorism.  It was criminal acts - mass murder and airplane hijacking.  War was not an appropriate response to 9/11.

What we are doing in Iraq is attempting to terrorize the population to stop them from joining in the insurgency.  But, what the insurgency is doing is attempting to drive us out of their country and take over the country for their sect of Iraq.  It is not terrorism.

We have no chance at all to change the course our country is traveling on now, unless we reclaim the language used to describe it.  Unfortunately, rather than even attempt that reclamation, we are trying to adapt to the bastardized language being used.  I wish we would stop doing that. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Wasn't aware of Thatcher period origins but that certainly sheds light on what struck me when I saw it.

Although not "terrorist" the hero certainly wasn't engaged in "guerilla warfare" either.

The film shows an individualist hero almost single-handedly overthrowing a caricature fascist government through "propaganda of the deed" which mobilizes entirely passive masses to take part in crowd scenes as pawns (symbolized by dominoes).  The choice of Guy Fawkes (a papist reactionary opponent of the English revolution who blew up Parliament in support of Monarchy)  as his symbol fairly clearly highlights that this isn't coming from the left, even in its most peurile Guevarist forms.

The classical "bomb throwing Anarchist" stereotype was well caricatured, but caricature fascists are not what we have to deal with.

The comic book violence of this sort of politics is purely rhetorical. It serves the same social function as Michael Moore's stuff in providing a harmless oulet for pseudo-left fantasists to keep wrapped up in their own world unable to affect what happens in ours.

BTW I quite liked Zardoz ;-)

it would certainly be more than a little problematic if it were the Republican party militia rather than the U.S. government fighting the war...

Stumbled across the point somewhere, have you?

While I was on vacation, Andrew Sabl objected to the view that V in V for Vendetta is a terrorist, pointing out that he destroys empty buildings and kills government leaders and members of the security services

Excuse me, Mr Ygelsias, but could I get a definite statement from you as to wether you consider this a good thing or not? 

Because if you disapprove of it (with this comment thread, I am not sure) then it really doesn't matter if terrorism is the proper word or not. The only thing real is dead people and someones destroyed property. 

If you approve of it in some circumstances and not in others, then  list under what circumstances you approve of killing government officials and destroying buildings (albeit empty ones)

Whille you area at it, could you also explain if it matters who is doing the killing and destroying, and why this should matter?

That was the first and most eggregious mistake by this administration - redefining terrorism as an act of war as opposed to a criminal act.  All that did was legitimize their cause and delegitimize our effect.  They're no longer criminal acts against a civilian population, but acts of war in which both entities are allowed to act with impunity.

To be terrorism they would have had to be directed towards causing a positive reaction by those the crimes were committed against, not just random acts of violence.

Among the objectives of the 9/11 attacks were to get the US to withdraw its troops from "the Holy Land" (Saudi Arabia) and to cause the US to reconsider its support for Israel. The planners of the attacks understood that this might not happen immediately, but that the US could be drawn into a long war against Muslims, with a protracted campaign of attacks on US forces and civilians, which would eventually cause Americans to tire of deploying US armed forces in Saudi Arabia and to withdraw support from Israel.

The first objective, US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, has been accomplished. The second objective, reducing US support for Israel, is underway. Things are being said about a pullback in US support for Israel lately that would have been unthinkable 5 or 10 years ago, and the reason is the perception of the cost to the US of unending involvement in Mideast wars, and the perception that support for Israel gets the US caught up in these wars.

The 9/11 hijackers also had other objectives which have not been accomplished, and they certainly didn't envision the exact contours of the wider conflict with the US which their actions provoked. But their actions were very successful examples of the terrorist tactic known as "heightening the contradictions", and looking back on what they accomplished over the past 5 years, I'm sure they would be quite satisfied that by their own lights they did not die in vain.