Comment by SenorKimchi

Comment by SenorKimchi 2 days ago

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> Where is the line between war and terrorism ?

Easy. When it is you or your allies committing an act, it is war and collateral damage. When it is someone else, it is terrorism.

It is often a difficult topic to discuss because both sides tend to be in the wrong. It ends up being asymmetrical warfare. The stronger side accuses the weaker of hiding behind civilians while the weaker side accuses the stronger of human rights violations.

As sad as this case is, I find it pretty interesting since it is clearly an extrajudicial act of violence carried out in a foreign land. The west will likely celebrate this, but I personally find this much worse than the Indian assassination that took place in Canada "recently" and didn't have significant collateral damage, yet the west was up in arms about.

funnybeam 2 days ago

Terrorism is attacking civilian targets in order to create political pressure from fear.

War is attacking military targets to reduce the enemy’s capability to wage war against you.

Civilian target = terrorism

Military target = war

There absolutely are grey areas and overlap between the two but not nearly as much as people like to make out.

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  • SenorKimchi 2 days ago

    Is the target the relevant piece or is it actual impact? If you have a single military target who is known to use X brand phone, is it war to kill 5,000 people to get this one target? Is it not instilling terror on the people who use those devices?

    It is this rationalization that enables powers to bomb civilians and ethnic groups under the guise of targeting military targets who stand no chance if they segregate themselves from the populace due to the power dynamics. And then the cycle only continues as each side adds fuel to the fire.

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    • belorn 2 days ago

      The actually impact of every war since (a very long time) are that more civilians are killed and harmed than military personal. Looking at the statistics produced by the US military on the iraq war, civilian deaths was 3x of enemy combatants. UN has estimated that globally, modern wars has an 10:1 ration of civilian deaths to military combatants.

      Looking at it from that perspective there is no line between war and terrorism. All wars are terrorism.

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    • ilbeeper 2 days ago

      > targeting military targets who stand no chance if they segregate themselves from the populace due to the power dynamics

      This is flawed rational. If you can't find any parking lot you keep driving, it doesn't allow you to double park and block someone else's car. If you are too weak to maintain your posture at war you shouldn't fight it on the backs of civilians. Your inability to execute your wishes legitimately doesn't provide you with any right to act illegitimately and inflict the cost and pain on others.

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      • beedeebeedee 2 days ago

        > If you can't find any parking lot you keep driving, it doesn't allow you to double park and block someone else's car. If you are too weak to maintain your posture at war you should't fight it on the backs of civilians.

        That cuts both ways. Just like hamas should not hide amongst civilians, if Israel is too weak to go into Gaza to arrest hamas, it has no excuse to act illegitimately and bomb civilians.

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  • troyvit 2 days ago

    I mostly agree with you, but I also agree with a parent comment that part of that gray area depends on who's side you're on. For instance:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings

    That was a Marine barracks that was part of a "military peacekeeping operation". Granted, 128 non-military Americans were injured, but all of the dead people were military. The U.S. politicians labelled it terrorism.

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    • echoangle 2 days ago

      Doesn’t matter for the point but the article says 6 civilians were killed, it doesn’t seem like all of the dead people were military.

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      • troyvit 19 hours ago

        Oh thanks -- I only caught that there were injuries, not deaths. Thanks for catching that.

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  • harimau777 2 days ago

    Overall I agree. However, the difficulty that I see is when someone attacks a, sometimes nominally, military target in a situation or method where it will unreasonably injure or kill civilians. Or even when the military target is mostly an excuse to target civilians.

    I think it can also get less clear when the target is an enemy's infrastructure, industry, or political infrastructure.

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    • ilbeeper 2 days ago

      If an army unreasonably kills or injure civilians it will most probably be considered a war crime. Committing war crime is not necessarily better than being a terrorist, but it's different.

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  • lazide 2 days ago

    Who decides what is a civilian vs military target?

    Fire bombing Dresden or Tokyo - terrorism, or war?

    Nighttime Bombing a factory that produces ball bearings - terrorism, or war?

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  • underlipton 2 days ago

    Fort Hood?

    >On November 5, 2009, a mass shooting took place at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos), near Killeen, Texas.[1] Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others.[2][3] It was the deadliest mass shooting on an American military base and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks until it was surpassed by the San Bernardino attack in 2015.[4]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting

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ada1981 2 days ago

Exactly this >Easy. When it is you or your allies committing an act, it is war and collateral damage. When it is someone else, it is terrorism. <

Terrorism is a statecraft term of art used as part of a propaganda campaign. Outside of that is a meaningless term.

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