Defining the term “terrorism”

The Monday morning rush hour was in full force, the subway trains rolling. For thousands of citizens, the relaxing weekend trips to the beach and the zoo were still in their minds. One individual had other thoughts on his mind. The weekend was spent making last preparations for a plan that will forever change the lives of him and the thousands of people standing right next to him. He was sweating bullets and clearing his throat constantly, yet, nobody was giving him suspicious looks. At last, a train came to a stop at the station he was residing at. He entered the train calmly, allowing others to enter ahead of him. When the train left the station, it was down to business. He reached into his pocket, where he kept the detonation device. Terrorism has been taking place in the world for centuries. Ever since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the word terrorism has become a feared word. There isn’t a day that goes by that goes by where the word terrorism isn’t used by the main stream media. But, how is the word terrorism defined? The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) defines terrorism as “A policy intended to strike terror against whom it is adopted”. This paper will introduce to you three different types of terrorism: state, domestic and international by defining them and giving examples of each and with the information I will define terrorism in my own words.

Government Involvement

When a person usually thinks about terrorism, they think about a small group whose views are so rare and outrageous, that they use force and fear to become known or to become more powerful. But many times governments, including the United States, use violence against innocent people. P. Simpson (2002) defines state terrorism in his article “The war on terrorism: Its moral justification and limits” as “acts of violence used by governments and government forces against parts of their own people or against other peoples” (p. 11). Many governments do not believe that what they are doing is a form of terrorism. They use their power to invite or end wars by killing innocent civilians. If you were to look at World War II, you could see many forms of state terrorism.

World War II officially began after Nazi Germany invaded neighboring Poland on September 1, 1939. Two days later, on September 3, Britain declared war on Germany. “The London Blitz, 1940” (2001) describes that Adolf Hitler planned on a bombing campaign on the city of London to demoralize the British citizens and call for a surrender. The bombing on London began on September 7, 1940 and for 57 days they were constantly being bombarded. Over 177,000 citizens were placed in bomb shelters during the night to protect them from the bombardment. On May 11, 1941, all bombing on the British capital was ceased due to Germany’s new campaign on the eastern front against the Russians (para. 1-2). This act would be defined as an act of state terrorism because of the motives behind the bombing of London. Hitler wanted to demoralize the citizens of Britain. The campaign was not intended to take out military bases, equipment, etc. Though history defines the Axis powers of World War II as the “bad” side, a nation on the Allied powers also used state terrorism to end the war for good.

With the War in Europe already over, the United States could finally focus entirely on the Pacific, where the Japanese were putting up a good fight. President Harry Truman had to make a decision that would eventually end the war in the Pacific. He decided to drop an atomic bomb in Japan. According to “The atomic bombing of Hiroshima”, (n.d.) on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Hiroshima had a population of 300,000 civilians and there were about 43,000 soldiers stationed in or around Hiroshima. 70,000 people were initially killed by the blast and within five years over 200,000 people died resulting from the explosion (para. 1-2, 6). This event right here is quite arguable on whether or not it is a form of state terrorism. We were engaged in a war with Japan at the time, so you could argue that it was an act of war. The thing is that there were 300,000 innocent citizens residing in Hiroshima. They did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be killed. When at war, you are fighting the opposite military, not the citizens living in the country you are at war with.