Terrorists are nonstate actors who pursue random unconventional violence targeted at noncombatants to achieve political objectives. The labeling of who is a terrorist depends heavily on who is making the distinction. President Ronald Reagan’s observation that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter implies the difficulty in objectively labeling certain people as terrorists. It is only nonstate actors who are defined as terrorists because according to current standards of international law, governments cannot engage in terrorism. Though some states support and even sponsor terrorism, acts of violence committed by states against noncombatants are considered by international law to be crimes against humanity or war crimes, not terrorism.
The term terrorist is pejorative, and implies that persons so-labeled are immoral, evil, and criminal. Whereas criminals are considered innocent until proven guilty in the judicial systems of many democratic countries, there is no defined legal threshold to prove someone is a terrorist. Rather, individuals or groups are identified as terrorists precisely because they are labeled as such, regardless of whether these individuals or groups have actually engaged in random violent actions against noncombatants. Therefore, the burden of proving guilt is not on the government as with nonpolitical criminals. Rather, the burden of proving innocence is on the individuals who are accused of pursuing terrorism. Because it is nearly impossible to prove innocence, governments tend to eagerly label anyone who could be linked to acts of violence as terrorists.
In fact, individuals who engage in violent actions deemed as terrorism often perceive and label themselves as freedom fighters, resistance fighters, soldiers of God, or liberators. They also perceive their actions as the best means available to achieve the political objectives of the group to which they belong. Terrorists do not perceive their actions to be illegitimate or immoral. Rather, terrorists often argue that they must pursue violent actions in order to provoke a response, primarily from the government of a state, because the status quo has prevented them from achieving their political objectives.
Besides the actual individuals who engage in or attempt violent acts, terrorists can also be members of a group that provides tactical support—planning, funding, training, and ordering violent acts. In order to be considered a terrorist, an individual must be a member of a group with some type of political agenda. Individuals acting without any political agenda are not considered terrorists, but rather murderers, kidnappers, or other types of criminals. Though terrorists can simultaneously be guerrillas, the two designations are distinct in that guerrillas are defined as those who deliberately target military targets rather than noncombatants.
Terrorists engage in violence that is criminal in nature and illegal in most countries. Typical violent acts pursued by terrorists include the use of explosives, suicide bombing, the hijacking of an airplane, kidnapping, and murder. Terrorist groups are inherently clandestine due to their need to stay below the radar of government officials seeking to eradicate such organizations. Because it is difficult to remain clandestine, terrorists often seek support and assistance from governments that support their political agenda or objectives. Therefore, many terrorist groups maintain training camps in countries such as Syria, Libya,Sudan, and Iran, all of which have been known to provide support to terrorists. To prevent discovery, terrorists often use e-mail and temporary cell phones when communicating and false identification papers when traveling. Though all strategic and tactical planning is pursued clandestinely, the actual terrorist activities are by necessity pursued publicly in order to draw mass attention and terrorize society.
The immediate objective of terrorists is to terrorize society by pursuing random violence, while the long-term objective is to persuade a government to change policies or take certain actions. Typical political objectives of terrorist groups include the release of political prisoners, improved political and civil rights, greater political autonomy, and territorial sovereignty.
Many terrorist groups are based in countries with governments that tend to be oppressive, repressive, intolerant of cultural diversity, and sometimes racist, denying political and civil rights to certain groups. As a result, terrorists and their supporters often argue that they have a legitimate right to resist such governments and to throw off the yoke of governmental persecution, just as many revolutions succeeded in doing in Western countries like the United States and France. Many non-Western governments are unwilling to label individuals seeking political freedom, sovereignty, rights, and so on as terrorists, and perceive their embrace of violence as exercising a right of resistance. This has led to a division between Western and non-Western governments and has prevented the United Nations from arriving at an agreed-upon definition of terrorism.
Governments seeking to eradicate or prevent future terrorism and to prosecute terrorists have created extensive counterterrorism policies. Such policies include the sanctioning of states suspected of supporting and hosting terrorist groups; arresting and trying individuals suspected of direct or indirect involvement in activities deemed terrorist; the collection of intelligence internationally and domestically, through monitoring communication, spying, using informants, and so on; increasing security at transportation hubs and government buildings; and sometimes even assassinating suspected terrorists. Though governments spend significant sums of money on coun-terterrorism efforts, terrorism continues to increase as the political objectives of terrorists expand. As a result, some governments are willing to address such political objectives in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.
