Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-vision.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!mokhtar
From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Terrorism, Inc. (A definition?)
Message-ID: <1060@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 16:26:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.1060
Posted: Wed Oct  9 16:26:30 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Oct-85 20:46:59 EDT
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 27

Subject: Re: Terrorism Inc.

>> Is there such a big difference between actions by a government that
>> lead to civilian casualties, and actions by terrorists (who, being
>> fewer in number and probably low on resources, certainly lower than
>> a government) choose to pick on smaller numbers of people (eg. a car
>> bomb versus overthrowing a government)? 

> It has to do with whether civilian causualties were the purpose of
> the attack, or whether they were merely an unfortunate by-product.
>	Frank Silbermann

Even in real, full-scale wars waged by legitimate governments for whatever
reason, casualties inflicted on the civilian population is definitely *not*
a "mere unfortunate by-product". The concept of total war, formally adopted
and used in WWII as well as Vietnam, is that civilian populations directly
support  the armed forces, run the economy and the weapon-producing factories
and provide new recruits and should therefore come under direct attack, i.e.
a lot of them should die. Without a functioning civilian population an army
wouldn't last very long.
So perhaps you should dig deeper to find a definition for terrorism.
    Farzin Mokhtarian
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
"Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does
 not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred."