Criminal Justice Studies,

Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2004, pp. 259–279

Defining Terrorism: Philosophy of the

Bomb, Propaganda by Deed and
Change Through Fear and Violence
Arthur H. Garrison
Criminal
10.1080/1478601042000281105
GJUP041018.sgm
1478-601X
Original
Taylor
302004
17
Arthur.Garrison@state.de.us
ArthurH.Garrison
000002004
and
&Article
Justice
Francis
Francis
(print)/1478-6028
Studies
Ltd
Ltd (online)

The idea that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ has led to the errone-
ous conclusion that defining terrorism is, in the final analysis, a subjective activity about
assigning negative connotations to one’s opponents and positive connotations to one’s
proponents. Terrorism, both as practiced and justified by terrorist themselves, is a tool
used to achieve a specific outcome by using force or violence on one segment of society with
the primary goal of causing fear in the larger society to make change in that society. This
article will review the historical development of the use of terror and demonstrate that
regardless of the actor, all terrorists share the common belief that terror is a tool of change.
The desired change, the chosen target, and the justification of the use of terror can be
specific to the society and the perpetrators. The goal of this paper will be to show the
common strands of uniformity of the understanding of terror as a tool of change through
history. Though there are differences between terrorists and waves of terror, the utility of
terror is not different.

Keywords: Utility of terror; Terrorist; Terrorism; Propaganda by deed; Philosophy of the

bomb; Nature of terrorism

Introduction
After the attacks of September 11, 2001 society asked how 19 men could hijack four
planes with the intent to crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and
into either the White House or the Capitol Building in Washington DC. The attacks

Arthur H. Garrison is the Director of Criminal Justice Planning and Senior Researcher at the Delaware Criminal
Justice Council and is a graduate of the US Department of Justice, Institute for Intergovernmental Research State
and Local Anti-Terrorism Program (SLATT). Correspondence to: Delaware Criminal Justice Council, 820 N.
French Street, Wilmington, Delaware 19801, USA; e-mail: Arthur.Garrison@state.de.us

ISSN 1478-601X (print)/ISSN 1478-6028 (online) © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1478601042000281105
260 A. H. Garrison
resulted in the death of 3062 people (US State Department, 2002). The question was
asked, were such men insane or simply evil? The literature on terrorism is one of the
most written about and controversial subjects in the study of political science, criminal
justice and international affairs. One of the most debated issues in regard to terrorism
is how to define terrorism. It will be asserted in this article that terrorism can be under-
stood and defined through the writings of terrorists themselves.
In this article terrorist writings from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries will be used
interchangeably to show the continuity of thought among terrorists in regard to the use
of terrorism as a tool to achieve their desired goals. There is a consistent ideology that
connects terrorists regardless of their desired goals or social context. Although there are
clear differences in political ideology, philosophy, desired goals and the social context
between terrorists through history, an examination of their writings reveals that terror-
ists share a common understanding of the utility of terror. To be sure there are vast differ-
ences between Maximilien Robespierre, Johann Most, bin Laden, the Army of God, the
Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, but their adoption of terror
as a tool to achieve their respective goals and their view on the utility and necessity of
violence to achieve those goals are not dissimilar. It is this uniformity in the use of
terrorism as a tool to achieve a desired political, social and/or religious goal that allows
for a neutral and systematic definition of terrorism.

A Terrorist is a Terrorist: The Cause Matters Not

Terrorism: The Unity of Understanding
Terrorists, regardless of issue or cause, hold at least one of ‘three basic concepts [about
society]:
(1.) Society is sick and cannot be cured by half measures of reform.
(2.) The state is itself violence and can be countered and overcome only by violence.
(3.) The truth of the terrorist cause justifies any action that supports it. While some
terrorists recognize no moral law [they] have their own ‘higher’ morality’. (Parry,
1976, p. 12)
The father of modern terrorism thought, Maximilien Robespierre, in his February 1794
address (five months before his own head met the guillotine) entitled Report upon the
Principles of Political Morality Which Are to Form the Basis of the Administration of the
Interior Concerns of the Republic (1794), which was delivered to the National Convention,
made the following clear:
Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny’s friends conspire; they will
conspire until hope is wrestled from crime. We must smother the internal and external
enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your
policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people’s enemies by terror.
If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular
government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal;
terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt,
severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle
 Criminal Justice Studies 261
as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most
urgent needs.

Three quarters of a century later, Russian anarchists echoed the ideas of Robespierre.
Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin wrote in 1869 that the ‘nature of Russian
banditry [terrorism] is cruel and ruthless; yet no less cruel and ruthless is that govern-
mental might which has brought this kind of bandit [terrorist] into being by its wanton
acts’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 65). Bakunin continued:
Governmental cruelty has engendered the cruelty of the people and made it into some-
thing necessary and natural. But between these two cruelties, there still remains a vast
difference; the first strives for the complete annihilation of the people, the other endeavors
to set them free. (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 65)
Ninety years later, Mao Tse-Tung’s Public Security Chief wrote in similar fashion in the
People’s Daily on September 28, 1959. Note the similar self-serving distinction between
the use of terror on behalf of the people and terror by his adversary:
In suppressing the resistance of the counterrevolutionaries, the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat cannot, of course, avoid the shedding of blood. But the nature of such bloodshed is
entirely different from the bloodshed under the dictatorship of the exploiting classes; here
the blood that is shed is not the people’s but that of counterrevolutionaries. (Parry, 1976,
p. 225)
More than a century and half before, Robespierre (February 1794) equally reflected on
the necessity of terror as a tool against ‘tyrants’ or other ‘enemies’ of the Republic. Note
the utility of demonizing the target of terror:
The protection of government is only due to peaceable citizens; and all citizens in the
republic are republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather,
enemies. Is not this dreadful contest, which liberty maintains against tyranny, indivisible?
Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our
country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people’s mandate; the
traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonor the people’s cause,
to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrev-
olution by moral counterrevolution – are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than
the tyrants whom they serve?
Osama bin Laden reminds us, two centuries after Robespierre, that the terrorist always
has a justification for terror (oppression and injustice) and is always the defender of the
people against tyrants:
It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression,
iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collab-
orators; to the extent that the Muslim’s blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot
in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. (bin Laden, 1996)
In the mind of the terrorist, it is the injustice of the oppressor that justifies the use of
terror and the use of such terror is not only justified, but can be required by the hand
of God.
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual
duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it. (bin
Laden, 1998)
262 A. H. Garrison
The terrorist, regardless of the cause, believes that violence is the only avenue to
achieve a desired goal in society. Robespierre justified the use of violence as a tool to
secure his government and as a tool to deal with political enemies. Robespierre
exhorted his countrymen ‘[s]ubdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be
right … Is force made only to protect [from] crime? And is the thunderbolt not
destined to strike the heads of the proud? Show mercy to the Royalists … pardon the
villains! No! [M]ercy for the innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate,
mercy for humanity’ (Robespierre, 1794). Osama bin Laden similarly encourages the
use of violence to attack the enemies of Allah and his people, namely the USA and the
West. He incites Muslims and Arabs with the invocation of Allah saying, ‘We – with
God’s help – call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to
comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and
whenever they find it’ (bin Laden, 1996).

Terrorism: The Unity of Method

Although the modern use of terror dates back to Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobin
Party in the French regime de la terreur between May 1793 and July 1794 (Garrison, 2003),
it was the Russian revolutionaries and the anarchists of the 19th century that developed
the use of terror into a systematic tool to achieve specific social goals. Sergey Nechaev
in 1869 wrote Catechism of the Revolutionist, which sets forth 21 principles the
revolutionary or terrorist must be guided by (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 68).
Among these 21 principles is the description of the terrorist who is fully committed to
the revolution, who has no ties to civil order, whose only goal is destruction, who has
no friendships nor pity for anything in the world, and who views the target society itself
as foul and something that must be destroyed because the target society is evil per se and
there is nothing worthy in it.
Carlos Marighella, the leader of the Action for National Liberation in Brazil (Griset
and Mahan, 2003) a century later, wrote in Manual of the Urban Guerrilla (1970) that
the personal qualities of the urban guerrilla include bravery, decisiveness, a good marks-
man, one who is trained in arms and explosives, skilled in the tactics of guerrilla warfare
(assaults, bank robbery, raids, occupation, street combat, execution, kidnapping, sabo-
tage and the use of bombs – terrorism), educated in political thought, and one who is
not afraid of dismantling and destroying the political and social structure of society
(Cronin, 2002). The Catechism of the Revolutionist and the Manual of the Urban Guerrilla
are not dissimilar to the Al Qaeda Manual that was found in England after a police raid
on the home of an Al Qaeda member. The manual provides instruction on military oper-
ations, military organization, religious reasons and justifications for the use of terror,
instructions on counterfeiting, methods for communication, methods of organizational
security, overt and covert operations, and how to behave if captured and placed on trial.
Nechaev explained in Catechism of the Revolutionist (1869), the terrorist ‘has no
interest of his own, no affairs, no feelings, no attachments, no belongings, not even a
name. Everything in him is absorbed by a single exclusive interest, a single thought, a
single passion – the revolution’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 68). This idea of the
 Criminal Justice Studies 263
revolution being the sin qua non of the individual with no mercy or quarter to the
enemies of the revolution was taken to a new level only eighty years later when Mao
Tse-Tung instituted a reign of terror that lasted 22 years starting with the Red Terror,
which was the first wave of public trials (1949–1959), followed by the Great Leap
Forward (1958–1960), followed by the Cultural Revolution (1965–1969), and finally
the second wave of great public trials and executions (1969–1970); ‘[i]n all, the human
toll up to mid-1971 was 34,300,000 at least or 63,794,000 at the most’ (Parry, 1976,
p. 242).
As Mao commented, in July 1957, of those killed during the Red Terror, ‘it was the
demand of the people; it was done to free the masses from long years of oppression …
and all kinds of local tyrants’ (Parry, 1976, p. 225). During the Red Terror children
were encouraged to inform on their parents in mass governmental trials and executions
(Parry, 1976). As one son said of his father: ‘My father should have been killed long ago.
For the security of the people, for the permanent destruction of the old system, for
truth, for peace, I must firmly approve his execution’ (Parry, 1976, p. 235). Mao
explained that the terror was ‘absolutely necessary. … If we had not done so, the masses
would not have been able to lift their heads’ (Parry, 1976, p. 225). These thoughts are
very similar to those advocated by Robespierre more than a century and a half before,
who elucidated ‘[t]o punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is
cruelty’ (Robespierre, 1794).
What do these and other historical examples prove? They prove that terrorism is not
explained by the cause, because causes change. Terrorism is defined by the rationaliza-
tion, logic and perception of how to effect change. Robespierre, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin
and Mao all used terror to instill fear in the hearts of their countrymen in order to create
and build the society they wanted. Nechaev, Bakunin and Osama bin Laden, asserted
that terror must be used to instill fear in the target governments in order to bring down
the vileness of the government they despised and free the oppressed who suffer under
the hand of the government. Terrorists are different when viewed from the social
context of time, the target selection of the terror, the reason for the use of terror, the
justification of the use of terror, the evil that terrorists seek to address, and the goals
they have. These and other factors will always differentiate terrorists in history, time
and place. But the use of terror as a tool to achieve desired goals has not changed. The
tactics of terror, whether used to instill fear or to free the oppressed, do not change.
The universal view of terrorists that change occurs only through the use of violence,
and that the terrorist is the defender/liberator of the people or victimized segment of
society is also seen in ‘single issue’ terrorists. Craig Rosenbraugh, a spokesman for the
Earth Liberation Front (ELF), ended his testimony before Congress in February 2002
with the following exhortation:
All power to the people. Long live the Earth Liberation Front. Long live the Animal
Liberation Front. Long live all the sparks attempting to ignite the revolution. Sooner or
later the sparks will turn to flame. (Leader and Probst, 2003, p. 3)

Single-issue terrorists use the same tactics of terror as more broad issue terrorists. For
example, the ELF has been responsible for the bombing of factories, hotels, resorts,
264 A. H. Garrison
logging companies, car dealerships, urban development and other industries they
believe are destroying the environment. In their minds the environment is the entity
being abused and victimized. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) uses the same tactics
to defend animals (the abused and victimized group) which they assert are equal to
humans and thus are due equal protection from abuse, harm and exploitation. The
hunting, killing, eating and use of animals in medical research are evils that can only be
stopped through use of direct action. Animal rescues or ‘liberation’ as well as bombing
of research facilities are some of the activities of the ALF. As noted on their crest ‘deeds
not words’ will end animal exploitation. Although the level of violence and the use of
arson, sabotage, vandalism and bombings used by ALF and ELF surely does not rise to
the level of the bombings of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, the idea of using bombs to change
behavior in the society in which the target of the violence resides and their belief in the
utility and justification of such violence is not different.

Terrorism is a Systematic Tool to Achieve a Desired End

Terrorism: A Systematic and Asymmetric Tool
‘The concept of systematic terrorism and its use in revolutionary strategy first appeared
between 1869 and 1881 in the writings of Russian revolutionaries’ (Laqueur and
Alexander, 1987, p. 48). The early modern (pre-World War II) use of systematic terror-
ism did not involve the use of indiscriminate violence to cause the most carnage. As
Russian anarchist Nikolai Morozov wrote in 1880, a ‘[t]erroristic struggle … strikes at
the weakest spot of the existing system’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 73) which are
its leaders. Nechaev explained in Catechism of the Revolutionist (1869), the ‘guiding
principle [in selecting targets for terror] must be the measure of service the person’s
death will necessarily render to the revolutionary cause. [The] sudden and violent
deaths [of those targeted] will inspire the greatest fear in the government and, by
depriving it of its cleverest and most energetic figures, will shatter its strength’ (Laqueur
and Alexander, 1987, p. 71). As American anarchist C. S. Griffin explained, ‘by assassi-
nating the head just as fast as a government head appeared, the government could be
destroyed, and, generally speaking all governments be kept out of existence’ (Cronin,
2002, p. 15). Thus was born the concept of individual terrorism. As explained by
Morozov in 1880:
All that the terroristic struggle really needs is a small number of people and large material
means. This presents really a new form of struggle. It replaces by a series of individual polit-
ical assassinations, which always hit their target [avoiding the errors of past] massive revo-
lutionary movements, where people often rise against each other … and where a nation
kills off its own children, while the enemy of the people watches from a secure shelter and
sees to it that the people of the organization are destroyed. (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987,
pp. 73–74, emphasis added)

Individual terrorism is target specific. The target is chosen with the purpose of causing
fear in the larger society in order to effect change. As Morozov explains, the ‘movement
punishes only those who are really responsible for the evil deed. Because of this the
 Criminal Justice Studies 265
terroristic revolution is the only just form of a revolution’ (Laqueur and Alexander,
1987, p. 74). As will be discussed below, individual terrorism became the vehicle for the
method of terrorism called Propaganda by Deed.
Terrorism is an asymmetric engagement of the enemy; that is why it does not require
large memberships and why it is difficult to fight. According to Morozov, the ‘revolu-
tionary group is not afraid of bayonets and the government’s army because it does not
have to clash, in its struggle, with this blind and insensible force’ because ‘it can act
unexpectedly and find means and ways which no one anticipates’ after which they
‘disappear without a trace and thus they are able to fight again against the enemy,
to live and work for the cause’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, pp. 73–75). It is only
when a terrorist group bases its operations in a known location, such as Al Qaeda in
Afghanistan, that conventional warfare can be used against them.

Terrorism: A Tool of Direct Action — Propaganda by Deed

Terrorism, in addition to being asymmetric, is an act of propaganda. The terrorist act,
in and of itself, communicates that change can occur and the violence of the act
commands the attention of the society. The propaganda effect is in the act of securing
the attention of the populous and then providing the message through the violence.
Three Italian anarchists (Errico Malatesta, Carlo Cafiero and Emilio Covelli) conceived
and developed the idea of Propaganda by Deed through a series of letters to each other
between July and October 1876 (Linse, 1982). Although over time Propaganda by Deed
evolved into a theory of assassination and bombings, Malatesta, Cafiero and Covelli
conceived Propaganda by Deed as a method of insurrection not political assassination
(Linse, 1982). The Italian Federation of the Anarchist International formally adopted
Propaganda by Deed as a strategy in December 1876 (Linse, 1982; Townshend, 2002).
On December 3, 1876 Malatesta published an article affirming that the ‘Italian Feder-
ation (of the International) believes that insurrection, reinforcing socialist principles
through deeds, is the most effective means of propaganda; … [and] is also the only
means of reaching … the lowest social classes and to involve these strongly alive forces
of mankind in the struggle of the International’ (Linse, 1982, p. 202).
In August 1877 anarchist Paul Brousse published an article entitled Propaganda by
the Deed in which he asserted that traditional forms of propaganda were inherently
limited in spreading the anarchist message to the masses and that the message had to
be supplemented by deeds and action (Fleming, 1980). Italian anarchist Carlo Pisacane,
explained that change occurs as a result of the use of violence and violence precedes
change, not the other way around:
The propaganda of the idea is a chimera. Ideas result from deeds, not the latter from the
former, and the people will not be free when they are educated, but educated when they
are free. (Hoffman, 1998, p. 16)

‘Pisacane argued that the masses were too exhausted at the end of their long working
day to read leaflets and listen to speeches; only violent actions could catch their atten-
tion’ (Griset and Mahan, 2003, p. 6).
266 A. H. Garrison
By 1881 the concept of Propaganda by Deed was adopted by anarchist theoreticians
at the London International Congress (Fleming, 1980). German anarchist Johann Most
as well as other anarchists like Bakunin and Morozov advocated and explained the util-
ity of Propaganda by Deed. Johann Most wrote in his London and later New York based
anarchist newspaper Freiheit (November 15, 1884):
We provoke; we stroke the fire of revolution and incite people to revolt in any way we can.
The people have always been ‘ready’ for freedom; they have simply lacked the courage to
claim it for themselves. (Laqueur and Alexander 1987, p. 104)
In an article published on July 25, 1885 in Freiheit Most explained:
What is important is not solely these actions themselves but also the propagandistic effect
they are able to achieve. Hence, we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action
as propaganda. (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 105)
Why? As Bakunin wrote in 1869:
When the whole world of working peasants sleep what seems to be a sleep with no awak-
ening, crushed by the whole burden of the state, the world of bandits in the forests carries
on its desperate fight and battles on until at last the Russian villages awake. (Laqueur and
Alexander, 1987, p. 66)
And as Morozov explained in 1880:
Success of the terroristic movement will be inevitable if the future terroristic struggle will
become a deed of not only one separate group, but an idea, which cannot be destroyed by
people. (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 76)
Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin explained ‘actions which compel general attention
… in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets’ (Townshend,
2002, p. 56). More importantly, according to Kropotkin, an act of terror ‘awakens the
spirit of revolt; it breeds daring …. Soon it becomes apparent that the established order
does not have the strength often supposed … the monster is not so terrible …’
(Townshend, 2002, p. 56). As Fleming explains (1980, p. 4), for ‘some terrorists,
propaganda by the deed came to be accepted as a suitable means of “educating” the
masses (especially when many were not able or had no time or desire to read), to
stimulate them to action, and draw them into the movement’.
The concept of Propaganda by Deed requires that the act have a purpose and that
the purpose is made known to the populous. As Most explains in Freiheit (July 25,
1885):
The great thing about anarchist vengeance is that it proclaims loud and clear for everyone
to hear, that: this man or that man must die for this and this reason …. Once such action
has been carried out, the important thing is that the world learns of it from the revolutionar-
ies, so that everyone knows what the position is… . In order to achieve the desired success
… immediately after the action has been carried out, especially in the town where it took
place, posters should be put up setting out the reasons for the action in such a way as to draw
from them the best possible benefit. (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, pp. 105–106, emphasis
added)
As Laqueur explains, the tactic of bombing by the Russian anarchist group Narodnaya
Volya (‘the will of the people’) put into practice the concept of Propaganda by Deed:
 Criminal Justice Studies 267
… it was one of the best weapons of agitation. One had to strike at the center to shake the
whole system. The future belonged to mass movements but terrorism had to show the
masses the way. The program of the Narodnaya Volya Central Committee listed the liqui-
dation … of those who had committed the most glaring oppression as the main tasks of
the terrorist struggle. If ten or fifteen pillars of the establishment were killed at one and the
same time, the government would panic and would lose its freedom of action. At the same
time, the masses would wake up. (Laqueur, 2002, p. 34)

Half a century later, terrorism and Propaganda by Deed found fresh ground and
application on the other side of the world. Jewish terrorist groups (the ‘Stern Gang’
a.k.a. the Lehi, an acronym for Lohamei Herut Yisrael, ‘Fighters for the Freedom of
Israel’ and the Irgun Zvai Leumi) used terror to force the British out of Palestine. The
Stern Gang assassinated Lord Moyne, the British Administrator of Palestine, on
November 6, 1944. The Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22,
1946 killing 91 people and injuring another 45. On September 17, 1948 three members
of the Stern Gang assassinated Count Folk Bernadotte, the UN Mediator and Colonel
Andre P. Serot of the French Air Force in Jerusalem. On April 9, 1948, commandos of
the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin (a
village with an estimated population of 750 Palestinians, situated on a hill overlooking
the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as well as a number of Jerusalem’s
western neighborhoods), and killed 100 Palestinians. The hotly debated incident (as to
whether it was an act of terrorism, ethnic cleansing or an act of war, i.e., removing an
enemy from a location in order to further military operations) resulted in the removal
of the entire Palestinian population from the town.
In 1943 the Lehi published a publicity sheet, Hechazit, which advocated the utility of
terror in the tradition of Propaganda by Deed:
If the question is, is it possible to bring about liberation by means of terror? The answer is:
No! If the question is, do these actions help to bring liberation nearer? The answer is: Yes!
[Terror] is not aimed at persons, but at representatives and is therefore effective. And if it
also shakes the population out of its complacency, so much the better. (Townshend, 2002,
p. 89)

The terror implemented by the Stern Gang and the Irgun ‘played a central part in
bringing the majority of the Yishuv [the Jewish community living in Palestine who were
committed to reliance on Britain] around to their view [that British friendship was
irrelevant to the goal of securing Palestine as a Jewish state]. Here the classic terrorist
argument that government repression would drive the people on to the side of the
terrorists was borne out’ (Townshend, 2002, pp. 88–89). The British withdrew from
Palestine in 1948 and the UN partitioned Palestine into a state of Israel and a Palestin-
ian state. The resulting wars thereafter have formed the seed of modern late 20th
century terrorism (Garrison, 2002).

Terrorism: At First a Surgical Tool and Later a Blunt Instrument

In addition to the goal of government destruction, Russian revolutionaries and
European anarchists viewed terrorism as a tool to both protect and avenge the people.
268 A. H. Garrison
As Robespierre admonished, ‘[t]herfore let him beware who should dare to influence
the people by that terror which is made only for their enemies. … Death to the villain
who dares abuse the sacred name of liberty or the powerful arms intended for her
defense, to carry mourning or death on the patriotic heart’ (Robespierre, 1794). As
Morozov wrote in 1880, ‘only those who are really responsible for the evil deed’ are
targeted (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 74) because, as Most explains in Freiheit
(July 25, 1885), ‘no action carried out by anarchists can have its proper propagandist
affect if those organs whose responsibility it is’ to carry it out fail to make such actions
‘palatable to the people’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 106). The use of terror
should only be implemented to capture the attention of society in order to promulgate
their message (Propaganda by Deed) or to submit demands to the society (objective
driven terrorism) or to avenge an injustice or to prevent additional injustice (terror
driven terrorism) (Garrison, 2003).
This is not to say that the rule of individual targeting of ‘only those who are really
responsible for the evil deed’ was universal among anarchists and revolutionaries. In
1894 French anarchist Emile Henry ‘walked into the Café Terminus, a large establish-
ment near the St. Lazare railway station in Paris … reached into his overcoat pocket,
withdrew a small bomb, and threw it toward the orchestra’ (Liston, 1977, p. 27) killing
one person and injuring 20 people. At his trial he explained how he committed the act
and prepared for its completion (Liston, 1977). He stated that the attack was commit-
ted because of ‘his contempt for the musical tastes and cultural pretensions of the
white-collar workers who enjoyed the Café Terminus [and] he was punishing the bour-
geoisie for their collaborating with a hateful system’ (Liston, 1977, p. 28). He showed
no remorse for his actions. After being asked, what about the innocents in the Café, he
responded ‘Il n’y a pas d’innocents’ (Liston, 1977; Townshend, 2002).
The words there are no innocents ‘have echoed through the vacant corridors of a
terrorist’s mind ever since’ (Liston, 1977, p. 28). Since the end of World War II,
some ‘variation of the Emile Henry rationale is heard after every terrorist act’ (Liston,
1977, p. 28). On May 30, 1972, three terrorists from the Japanese Red Army took
semi-automatic machine guns out of violin cases and indiscriminately opened fire in
the Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel killing 26 people and injuring 78. The attack was
coordinated with the General Command of the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine. After the attack, ‘the Palestine Liberation Organization said, “There are no
innocent civilians in Israel since we consider every Israeli as either a soldier fighting us
or a colonist occupying our land”’ (Liston, 1977, p. 28, emphasis added).

Modern Terrorism: The End of Selectivity and the Rise of High Mortality Terror
As the 19th century came to a close and the 20th century began, selectivity in terrorist
targeting remained a significant aspect of terrorism. The Irish Rebellion (1919–1921)
instituted the concept of ‘selective terrorism, acts of terror against representatives of a
target class, to achieve political objectives. The use of terror was limited to members of
the selected class: representatives of the British government operating in Ireland’ such
as police officers, judges, government officials, and military personnel (Garrison, 2003,
 Criminal Justice Studies 269
p. 46, emphasis added). After World War II, Jewish terrorist groups used selective
terror to force the British to abandon their occupation of Palestine (Garrison, 2003).
The concept of the use of terror as a tool, selectively applied, to a specific class of indi-
viduals or specific individuals so as to limit collateral injury did not last into the second
half of the 20th century (Garrison, 2002). On September 11, 2001 10 of 19 Islamic
fundamentalists (Al Qaeda operatives) used two transcontinental planes as explosive
devices to destroy the World Trade Center and killed 2,829 people (US State Depart-
ment, 2002). On May 12, 2003, nine Al Qaeda operatives used 400 pounds of explosives
and destroyed three residential buildings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and killed at least 30
people. On April 19, 1995 two members of the American anti-government radical right
used an estimated 4,800 lbs. of fertilizer and fuel oil based explosives to blow up the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people and injuring
more than 500 people. During the 1990s, the members of the radical pro-life movement,
Army of God, were responsible for assassinations of abortion providers, the bombing
of abortion clinics and gay nightclubs as well as the bombing of the Centennial Olympic
Park in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996. The last two decades of the 20th century established
the new reality of terrorism: the use of terror to achieve high victim mortality rates and
the abandonment of selective/individual terror (Garrison, 2003).

Terrorism: The Use of the Bomb and the Philosophy of the Bomb
Terrorists, for the last three decades, have used explosives to destroy buildings, airplanes,
airports, military bases and government offices. Although the amount of destruction
and the scientific sophistication involved in making explosives have changed, the use
of explosives is neither new nor novel. As Most wrote in Freiheit (March 27, 1886), more
than a century ago, the use of dynamite should be ‘willingly accepted and emphatically
recommended from every quarter, with the single observation that rifles, revolvers, and
dynamite are better than dynamite alone’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 107). In his
famous pamphlet entitled, The Science of Revolutionary Warfare: A Handbook of
Instruction Regarding the Use and Manufacture of Nitroglycerine, Dynamite, Gun-Cotton,
Fulminating Mercury, Bombs, Arson, Poisons, etc. (1881), Most explained that ‘dynamite
… is a formidable weapon against any force of militia, police or detectives that may want
to stifle the cry for justice that goes forth from plundered slaves. It can be used against
persons and things. It is better to use it against the former than against bricks and
masonry … A pound of this stuff beats a bushel of ballots … and don’t you forget it’
(Cronin, 2002, p. 21). Nor is the advent of the suicide bomber a new phenomenon in
the history of the use of terror. As Hoffman recounts of the March 14, 1881 Narodnaya
Volya assassination of Czar Alexander II, ‘[f]our volunteers were given four bombs each
and employed along the alternate routes followed by the Tsar’s Cortege … the second
bomber emerged from the crowd and detonated his weapon, killing both himself and
his target’ (Hoffman, 1998, pp. 18–19).
The use of explosives as a tool to carry out terrorist acts has a long history, but the
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HRSA), in the 1929 manifesto the Philos-
ophy of the Bomb, was the first to explain that terrorism and the use of explosives has a
270 A. H. Garrison
positive social and psychological affect on the terrorist personally irrespective of effect
it has on the target of the terror. In 1929 the HSRA attempted to kill the viceroy of India
by blowing up his train. The act failed and was condemned by many Indian leaders
including Mahatma Gandhi (Garrison, 2003). To answer its critics, the HRSA
published the Philosophy of the Bomb.
HRSA explained that a people who are oppressed and humiliated in the eyes of the
world and themselves due to the oppression of another seek ways to address the
oppression in order to regain self-respect. The HRSA asserted that terror is birthed by
humiliation and desperation, concurrent with the presence of occupation, and drives
the desire to make the occupier take notice that the oppression will no longer be toler-
ated as well as to command the attention of the rest of the world in order to make it
take notice of the oppression. Thus terror, according to the Philosophy of the Bomb, can
be effective regardless of its short-term affect on the oppressor; for the terror lifts the
spirits of the youth of an oppressed people and terror is seen by those youth as an effec-
tive tool to defend and regain their honor in their own eyes as well as in the eyes of their
peers.
More than 70 years after the HRSA asserted that terror is birthed by humiliation and
desperation, the Philosophy of the Bomb is espoused by the oppressed youth in the
Middle East. As a Palestinian imprisoned terrorist explained, ‘Recruits were treated
with great respect, a youngster who belonged to Hamas or Fatah was regarded more
highly than one who didn’t belong to a group, and got better treatment than unaffili-
ated kids’ (Post, Sprinzak and Denny, 2003, p. 178). Another terrorist explained that
families who had sons killed, injured or arrested due to terrorist activity ‘enjoyed a
great deal of economic aid and attention. Perpetrators of armed attacks were seen as
heroes, their families got a great deal of material assistance, [the] entire family … won
great respect’ for its sacrifice for the Palestinian people (Post et al., 2003, p. 177).
More than half a century after the British occupation of India ended, the Philosophy
of the Bomb is espoused by the Palestinian youth of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The
Philosophy of the Bomb explains, in part, why the intefada has lasted for three years; the
use of rocks, stones and suicide bombs is as much about regaining Palestinian self-
respect by not accepting the occupation of the territories by Israel and keeping the
attention of the world as it is a tactic to force Israel out of the territories. In a recent
study conducted by Post et al. (2003), 35 Middle Eastern terrorists were interviewed in
order to understand their psychology and justifications for the use of terror. One of the
interviewed terrorists explained, reflecting the concept of the Philosophy of the Bomb,
why suicide bombers targeted Israel:

You destroyed homes and turned children into orphans. You prevented people from
making a living, you stole their property, you trampled on their honor. Given that kind of
conduct, there is no choice but to strike at you without mercy in every possible way. (Post et
al., 2003, p. 178, emphasis added)

The use of terror has always been an appealing option to the young and those who
espouse terror have always sought to recruit and use the young to implement terror.
Bakunin wrote in 1869, ‘the healthy, uncorrupted mind of youth must grasp the fact
 Criminal Justice Studies 271
that it is considerably more humane to stab and strangle dozens, nay hundreds, of
hated beings than to join with them to share in systematic legal acts of murder, in the
torture and martyrdom of millions of peasants’ (Laqueur and Alexander, 1987, p. 67).
More than a century later, bin Laden exhorts Arab youth to ‘know that their rewards
in fighting … the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting someone else not from
the people of the book’ (bin Laden, 1996). He praises these youth, proclaiming:
They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of
God like you …
…
Our youth believe in paradise after death. They believe that taking part in fighting will not
bring their day nearer; and staying behind will not postpone their day either.
…
These youths love death as you love life. They inherit dignity, pride, courage, generosity,
truthfulness and sacrifice from father to father. They are most delivering and steadfast at
war. (bin Laden, 1996)

Terrorism: Understanding its Nature

As the people of the USA were shocked by the act of terrorism on September 11, 2001,
an act of terrorism similarly shocked the people of the USA at the beginning of the 20th
century. On September 6, 1901 Leon Czolgosz, an American anarchist of Polish-
Russian descent and a follower of Erma Goodman, assassinated President William
McKinley. Czolgosz is reported to have said at his execution, ‘I killed the President
because he was an enemy of the good people! I did it for the help of the good people,
the working men of all countries!’ (Cronin, 2002, p. 31). At the beginning of two centu-
ries, terrorism was used to strike at the symbols of American democracy and political
power. Little has changed in two centuries.
Griset and Hahan observed:
From all corners of the earth, terrorism has been carried out by ideologues on the left and
the right, by wealthy aristocrats and poverty-stricken farmers, and by men and women. …
The ends sought by terrorists have varied enormously. Some terrorists hoped to overthrow
the government so they could assume power. … Liberating their country from colonial
rule has motivated some … and nationalist and separatist movements have [motivated
others]. Religion has been a driving force for some … whereas others have struck blows
against secular leaders or wealthy industrialists. (2003, p. 10)

President George W. Bush similarly observed:

The terrorist who takes hostages, or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad is serving the
same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders
children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali, and cuts the throat of a
young reporter for being a Jew.
We’ve seen the same ideology of murder in the killing of 241 Marines in Beirut, the first
attack on the World Trade Center, in the destruction of two embassies in Africa, in the
attack on the USS Cole, and in the merciless horror inflicted upon thousands of innocent
men and women and children on September the 11th, 2001.
272 A. H. Garrison
None of these acts is the work of a religion; all are the work of a fanatical, political ideol-
ogy. The servants of this ideology seek tyranny in the Middle East and beyond. They seek
to oppress and persecute women. They seek the death of Jews and Christians, and every
Muslim who desires peace over theocratic terror. They seek to intimidate America into
panic and retreat, and to set free nations against each other. And they seek weapons of mass
destruction, to blackmail and murder on a massive scale. (Bush, 2004)

Terrorist groups have ranged in size, purpose, causes and have existed in various types
of governmental structures in various periods throughout human history. However,
the variety of terrorist activity and social contexts does not translate into the idea that
the ‘best way to understand terrorism is to examine the social, economic, political, and
religious conditions and philosophies existing at a particular time and place’ (Griset
and Mahan, 2003, p.10).
The use of terrorism as a tool to effect change has remained the same throughout
history. Although the causes asserted to justify terrorism have changed, the tool of
terrorism (and the value of its utility in the minds of those who use terror) has not
changed. Let me be clear about what I mean by the tool of terrorism. Terrorism is a tool
to cause change through the infliction of fear. The use of terrorism as a method to
achieve results remains constant regardless of the desired result. Thus all who use terror
to achieve a desired result, whether to build a society (Robespierre, Stalin or Moa), or
to bring down a societal structure (Most or Lenin), or resist occupation (HRSA, the
Irgun or the PLO), or in vengeance against a perceived indignity or injustice (bin Laden
and Al Qaeda), or to cause a specific single change in society (ALF or ELF), are
terrorists. The cause explains the terrorist but does not define him. The act of using terror
defines the terrorist.
It is not asserted that all terrorists are the same. There are significant differences
between Hamas and ALF; but both use terror as a tool to achieve their desired goals.
Both agree that the use of violence against a target within the larger society will
cause, or is hoped to cause, a change in that society. Both advocate the use of explo-
sives as a tool in their struggle to force their desired change. Although the bomb in
the days of Johann Most has advanced into the airplane of bin Laden today and the
explosive capacity of incendiaries has increased as technology has changed, the use
of explosives as tools of terror and the rationalization for using them has not
changed. Both bin Laden and the Army of God employ explosives to achieve their
respective goals. Both believe that an evil exists and both believe only the use of
violence will achieve their desired goals. Neither has hesitated to kill to achieve their
goals. The fact that the Army of God is a domestic single-issue terrorist group and
Al Qaeda is an international terrorist group does not change their agreement on how
change is made in society nor in their assessment of the value of the lives of those
they kill.
The techniques of terror today are much more destructive and numerous than
those 100 or 200 years ago, but the rationalization for the use of terror in the mind
of those who use terror and their belief in the utility of its implementation as a tool
for change has not changed. It is this fact that allows for an objective definition of
terror.
 Criminal Justice Studies 273
Terrorism: The Issue of Definition
Terrorism Defined
I define terrorism as the use of force or violence or the threat of force or violence to change
the behavior of society as a whole through the causation of fear and the targeting of specific
parts of society in order to affect the entire society. The key to this definition is that force
is used (1) against a specific part of society so as to (2) cause fear in the greater society
in order to (3) change the entire society. The key to defining terrorism does not rest in
the targeting of civilians. Terrorism is about the use of violence with the primary
purpose of change caused by fear. Terrorism is not about the victim of the terror. For
example, a Russian anarchist kills a Tsar because such action will cause fear and disrup-
tion in the government as a whole, which the terrorist hopes will lead to the destruction
of society. The Tsar is not significant per se, it is the result of his assassination that the
terrorist is interested in.
A terrorist group blows up a plane over the ocean. The plane is destroyed with all of
its passengers and crew. The terrorist group takes responsibility and asserts that, ‘as
long as the people of Palestine are without homes, Americans will not be safe in the
sky’. They further assert that they ‘will put bombs on planes and at airports at will until
the Palestinians have a homeland’. Can one say that the terrorists blew up the plane
because that particular plane and those particular passengers had a strategic value in
the struggle for a Palestinian homeland? No. The victims of the plane were of little
consequence. The goal was to cause fear about flying in the traveling public as a whole
in order to change the behavior of travelers and put pressure on the USA and the world
to, in turn, put pressure on Israel in regard to the occupied territories. It is the goal and
the intent of the act that separates terrorism from war or criminal activity. For example,
as Weinberg and Davis (1989, p.8) explain:
… a commercial airliner may be skyjacked by individuals seeking to escape from one
nation by having its pilot fly it to another. But another airliner may be taken over by indi-
viduals who demand that newspapers publish their political manifesto in exchange for the
lives of its passengers. The latter is an act of terrorism, while the former is not.

The defining aspect of terrorism is in the intention of the terrorists and the circum-
stances of the act, not in the violence or the level of destruction that occurs per se.

Terrorism: One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Terrorist

Terrorism is not victim based, it is goal and objective based. When terrorism is under-
stood from this point of view, it is clear that one man’s terrorist is not another man’s
freedom fighter. Terrorism cannot be defined by attacks on ‘civilians’ or on ‘innocents,’
because these terms are subjective as the French Anarchist Henry and the PLO taught
us and as bin Laden has more recently reminded us. The post World War II era of
terrorism has adopted the concept ‘there are no innocents’, and the nature of terrorism
has changed from individual or selective targeting to indiscriminate targeting. But
whether targeted or indiscriminate, the goal of a terror incident is the fear that the act
274 A. H. Garrison
will produce and desired change in behavior that will occur due to the act. It is the
intent and the goal of violence that differentiates between terrorism and warfare.
The distinction between terrorism and warfare is an important one. As Gates
explains, ‘unlike war or revolution, terrorism is not an entity in and of itself. Instead it
is a tactic or a method that can and has been used by a variety of people in a variety of
contexts’ (Gates, 2002, 116). Weinberg and Davis (1989, p. 7) explains the difference
between the violence of guerrilla warfare and terrorism as follows:
… guerrilla organizations war against weakly deployed government forces, and either by
design or by accident inflict some civilian casualties along the way, terrorist groups usually
avoid attacking their armed opponents, preferring instead to commit acts of violence
against unarmed civilians. Indeed, this is what gives terrorism its shock value. Setting off a
bomb in a crowded department store, taking hostage children in an elementary school:
these are acts which usually generate much publicity.

Notice the difference. The target of guerrilla warfare has intrinsic value as a primary
purpose as opposed to the blowing up of a department store or kidnapping children
to generate fear and public attention. A terrorist will blow up a plane ‘in the hope of
deterring prospective passengers from flying to or from a particular nation.
Saboteurs, on the other hand, may blow up a bridge or railroad line in order to
prevent their enemies from resupplying their forces at a remote location’ (Weinberg
and Davis, 1989, p. 8). Ganor (1998) makes the same distinctions noting that rural
guerrilla warfare is ‘the use of violence against military personnel and security forces
in their area of deployment, activity and transport, in order to attain political aims’ as
supposed to indiscriminate terrorism which entails ‘using violence against a civilian
target, without regard to the specific identity of the victims – in order to spread fear in
a population larger than that actually affected – with the purpose of attaining political
aims’. Although the use of the word ‘civilian’ is problematic for reasons previously
discussed, the point is made.
In war, a target is selected because it has military value and will achieve a specific military
objective. In modern warfare, a specific target is attacked or destroyed because the action
serves a specific military necessity, achieves a specific result (utility) and leads to a specific
goal (objective) while limiting collateral damage (proportional use of force) to the civilian
population. In terrorism, the target is of little interest per se. What is important is that the
target will realize a certain reaction on the part of the greater society. (Garrison, 2003, p. 42)

Although in warfare ‘terror’ may have a tertiary result, the primary purpose is to
achieve a specific military objective. In modern warfare, discriminate targeting is
primary while in terrorism indiscriminate targeting is primary. The children and the
driver of a school bus blown up in the middle of a city are not the targets of the terrorist
nor was the purpose to kill the specific children on the bus. The purpose was to cause
terror in the rest of the city.

Terrorism: Why Words and Definitions Matter

The ability to define terrorism is not just an academic exercise. Note the:
 Criminal Justice Studies 275
following exchange [that] took place between Ned Walker, Assistant to the Undersecretary
for Middle East Affairs at the US State Department, and the Honorable Lee Hamilton,
[C]hairman of the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs [United States] House of Representatives:
Hamilton: Well, how do you define terrorism, do you define it in terms of non-
combatance?
Walker: The State Department definition which is included in the terrorism report
annually defines it in terms of politically motivated attacks on non-
combatant targets.
Hamilton: So an attack on a military unit in Israel will not be terrorism?
Walker: It does not necessarily mean that it would not have a very major impact on
whatever we were proposing to do with the PLO.
Hamilton: I understand that, but it would not be terrorism.
Walker: An attack on a military target. Not according to the definition. Now wait a
minute; that is not quite correct. You know, attacks can be made on
military targets which clearly are terrorism. It depends on the individual
circumstances.
Hamilton: Now wait a minute. I thought that you just gave me the State Department
definition.
Walker: Non-combatant is the terminology, not military or civilian.
Hamilton: All right. So any attack on a non-combatant could be terrorism?
Walker: That is right.
Hamilton: And a non-combatant could include military?
Walker: Of course.
Hamilton: It certainly would include civilian, right?
Walker: Right.
Hamilton: But an attack on a military unit would not be terrorism?
Walker: It depends on the circumstances.
Hamilton: And what are those circumstances?
Walker: I do not think it will be productive to get into a description of the various
terms and conditions under which we are going to define an act by the PLO
as terrorism. (Ganor, 1998)

This exchange shows the difficulties that arise when an act of terrorism is defined by
the victim rather than by the goal of the actor. To answer Congressman Hamilton’s
question – would an attack on a military unit in Israel be a terrorist act – the answer is
yes if the unit were targeted for the purpose of affecting the policy or the behavior of
Israel. If the destruction of the Israeli unit was secondary to the affect it would have on
Israel, the attack was terrorism. It would not be an act of terrorism if the PLO wanted
to remove the unit due to military necessity or strategy. If the unit held a position that
would prevent the implementation of PLO operations and the unit was attacked so as
to remove it from the position to allow PLO activity, then the attack would be an act of
war or guerrilla activity. In such a case, the destruction of the Israeli unit was the
primary purpose of the attack. If the attack produces a secondary effect on the policy
of Israel, such a result does not change the fact that the attack served a specific military
purpose, which is an act of war, not terrorism.
Scholars at the Rand Corporation and the International Policy Institute for Counter
Terrorism have similarly asserted that terrorism should be defined by the nature of the
act rather the nature of the victim (Drake, 1998; Ganor, 1998; Jenkins, 1980). Such an
276 A. H. Garrison
approach allows for a definition of terrorism that can be applied to state governmental
as well as non-governmental terrorism. Wardlaw (1982, p. 16) defined terrorism as
‘the use, or threat of use, of violence by an individual or a group, whether acting for or
in opposition to established authority, when such action is designed to create extreme
anxiety and/or fear inducing effects in a target group larger than the immediate
victims with the purpose of coercing that group into acceding to political demands of
the perpetrators’. Claridge similarly defines terrorism as the ‘systematic threat or use
of violence, whether for or in opposition to established authority, with the intention
of communicating a political message to a group larger than the victim group by
generating fear and so altering the behavior of the larger group’ (Claridge, 1998, 66).
Ezeldin (1987),1 Rosie (1987),2 Fontaine (1988),3 Wells (1996),4 Kushner (1998),5 the
United Nations (1999)6 and Schwartz (2002)7 have asserted similar definitions of
terrorism.
It is conceded that there are various definitions of terrorism (Schmid, 1983) and
that the definition asserted in this article is by no means universal. After 20 years of
teaching and studying terrorism and the use of terror, Cooper concluded that terror-
ism is simply ‘the intentional generation of massive fear by human beings for the
purpose of securing and maintaining control over other human beings’ (Cooper,
2002, p. 3). Researchers have sought to define every possible aspect of terrorism:
defining it from the terrorist’s point of view, from the view of the victim, from its
utility, to viewing terrorism as another side of war (Kushner, 1998). Terrorism has
been defined as a psychological response to oppression and an illegitimate use of
power and violence to make political, social and/or religious change. Although the
definitions in the literature range from the very short to the verbose, the use of
politically sensitive and subjective adjectives like ‘innocent’, ‘civilian’, ‘unarmed’,
‘illegal’, ‘merciless killing’ or ‘unjustified’, fail to provide a clear understanding of
terrorism. ‘[F]ocusing on the nature of the act rather than on the identity of the
perpetrators [,] the nature of their cause’ (Thackrath, 1987, p. 27) or the nature of
the victim, allows for a more objective analysis of the use of terror and the nature of
terrorism.

Conclusion
Terrorism is an old tactic that has been used by governments to suppress revolution as
well as by revolutionaries who have sought to achieve power over a government. It has
been employed by single-issue groups seeking to address a specific evil in society and
by revolutionary governments trying to maintain power. When reviewing the literature
on terrorism, written by the terrorists themselves it becomes evident that there is a
congruence of thought on the utility of terror. Mao taught, ‘hit one, teach a thousand’
and his example of revolutionary terror, Lenin explained, ‘the purpose of terror is to
terrorize’, and centuries before Sun Tzu determined, ‘kill one person, frighten ten
thousand’.
Terrorism has been used by individuals and by organizations. Terror has claimed
the lives of kings, presidents and leaders of all types. Terrorists have justified the use of
 Criminal Justice Studies 277
the bomb and the bullet as the only means to ‘free the people’ from oppression, for
never has a terrorist lived that has said terror was used for individual gain. All terrorists
assert that they are the defenders and liberators of oppressed people. Only the tactics
employed and the level of destruction achieved by terrorists have changed. The causes
change but the psychology and utility of terror, as a tool in the mind of the terrorist has
not. The name of the terrorist changes but the view that lives must be lost to achieve
freedom has not. In the end the terrorist, whether in possession of governmental
power or in want of governmental power, uses terror to achieve a political, social or
religious goal. Modern terrorism is at least two hundred years old and she has not aged
a day.

Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper, ‘Terrorism by Any Other Name is Still Terrorism’, was
presented at the Twentieth International Social Philosophy Conference: War and
Terrorism. Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, July 17–19, 2003.

Notes
[1] The ‘systematic and persistent strategy of violence practiced by a state or political group
1.

against another state or political group through a campaign of acts of violence … with the
intent of creating a state of terror and public intimidation to achieve political ends’ (Ezeldin,
1987, p. 40).
[2] The ‘use and/or threat of repeated violence in support of or in opposition to some authority,
2.

where violence is employed to induce fear of similar attack in as many non-immediate victims
as possible so that those so threatened accept and comply with the demands of the terrorist’
(Rosie, 1987, p. 7).
[3] Terrorism is ‘political action employing extraordinary violent means to achieve the largely
3.

psychological effect of intimidation and demoralization on the part of a nation’s regime and
its populace’ (Fontaine, 1988, p. 4).
[4] Terrorism is the ‘strategy of employing violence or the threat of violence to escalate peoples
4.

fears in order to achieve or keep political power. Terrorism consists of random violent acts on
persons or property in order to frighten or coerce a large number of people’ (Wells, 1996, p. 454).
[5] ‘Terrorism is the use of force (or violence) committed by individuals or groups against
5.

governments or civilian populations to create fear in order to bring about political (or social)
change’ (Kushner, 1998, p. 10).
[6] Terrorism is any ‘act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any
6.

other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when
the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a
government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act’ (United
Nations, 1999).
[7] ‘[T]errorism is defined as intentional actions (usually violent in word and deed) that are
7.

executed by individuals, groups, organizations and/or governments in order to produce a

sense of extreme fear (i.e. terror) in a large number of other people, including people in
the general “civilian” population beyond the immediate targets and victims. Political
terrorism, a sub-category, is terrorism that is intended to do these things in such a way as
to coerce political leaders to accede to the political demands of the perpetrators’ (Schwartz,
2002, pp. 24–25).
278 A. H. Garrison
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