robert wright, addressing the question of whether the plane-into-irs dude was a terrorist, has the following crack at a definition: "In common usage, a “terrorist” is someone who attacks in the name of a political cause and aims to spread terror — to foster fear that such attacks will be repeated until grievances are addressed."

now when a reporter, even a good one - or virtually anyone else - starts trying to define terms, i think they should actually like call a philosophy professor. it's amazing how bad most people are at this. no doubt they have many redeeming features though. now really are we working with "common usage" here? what would be the evidence for that or the possible alternatives?

so here for example, methods (suicide bombing/kamikaze missions) are irrelevant. so is the nature of the organization, if any, or the cause. so is the target: e.g. non-combatants. any of these are more promising strategies than wright's.  almost any military action, and many other acts of violence - say in the context of gang warfare - counts as terrorism on wright's account.

as i've said i don't think terrorism is a strategy. i think it is an act of expression: more like a pollock than a policy. one way to see that is that it persists even when it is obviously useless or counter-productive. it a display of complete commitment, devotion, submission etc. with a nice admixture of despair. and i say that it is politico-military violence aimed primarily at non-combatants, no matter what the justification; it's not only, or usually, about getting grievances addressed. now this ends up counting hiroshima, for example, as terrorism. i think it was.