Comment by robertlagrant 2 days ago
Not really. Not all violence is terrorism. Not all bad things are terrorism either. But terrorism is always bad. Ukrainians killing Russian soldiers isn't terrorism. Hezbollah trying to kill Israeli civilians is terrorism.
> What would you call Russians killing Ukrainian soldiers
War.
But terrorism is always bad.
Suppose some country occupies another country and the occupied country has no proper army to fight back, therefore they resort to methods of unconventional warfare to fight back against the occupation. Would some call this terrorism? Would this qualify as terrorism given some proper definition of the term and objective judgment of the situation? Would it be bad? What if they not only target the military of the occupier but also their civilians as it is them who voted for the government doing the occupation? What if they did this out of some kind of necessity because targeting the occupying military is not effective given the power imbalance?
This book does an OK job of examining those philosophical arguments.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-the-right...
Suicide bombers at least really have skin in the game compared to blowing up people half way around the world by drones at the press of a button. If you want to look down on people, then do it for their reasons to fight or the targets they pick, not for their choice of weapon.
What would you call Russians killing Ukrainian soldiers and IDF killing Lebanese civilians then?