Blog 4

        When any sort of mass violence happens anywhere in the world, people resort to refering to it as “terrorism”. As Daniel L Byman writes in his article, Who is a terrorist actually?, “not all violence is terrorism, either. In many instances, even those who do actively promote and use violence don’t merit the label ‘terrorist’. The State Department definition of terrorism as being “Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents” is too broad and invites people to use the label of terrorist in a much less stringent manner than it should be used. This can lead to many different secondary and tertiary effects, such as a diminishing of the power of the word and an invitation for government overreach. In my opinion, the definition of terrorism should become much more narrow than it currently is and the use of the term “terrorist” or “terrorism” should not be used as much as it is. 

Normally, when people refer to a terrorist or terroristic activity, they are refering to a non-state actor and somebody not affiliated with a state government. This assumption is clouded by the State Department’s inclusion of “clandestine agents” or state government employed operatives. Furthermore, this more inclusive definition of the term can, in some cases lead to real world consequences. For example, the US invaded Iraq in 2003, with one of the major reasons being its support of international terrorism and its agents being terrorists themselves. The invasion and subsequent occupation led to an even bigger destabalization of the region. We also see this with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps being labeled as a terrorist group. When their leader Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq, the Iranians responded by hitting US bases with ballistic missiles. While in the end, this did not lead to a wider conflict, it had the potential to drag the US into a war against Iran and its proxies. By marking state governments or state organizations as terrorist groups, the US government has a lot more power and options when it comes to how it wants to approach these governments. 

When people overuse a powerful and influential word, they can cause it to lose much of the significance that it has and in the case of the word terrorism, invite unnecessary scrutiny towards certain groups and individuals. When people begin to call every instance of violence they see terrorism, they can cause the reaction and response to legitimate terrorism to become diluted or the reaction and response to non terroristic individuals/acts to be overblown. One example of this is the reaction by some to the 2020 George Floyd protests and riots. While there was a number of violent and criminal actions that took place, they constituted a minority of the demonstrations that took place and were not representative of the vast majority of the individuals who took part in the demonstrations. However, when some people, including President Trump, began referring to these people as terrorists, they not only muddy the definition of terrorism and cause it to become much broader than it already was, but also lump the Black Lives Matter organization with actual terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. 

Terrorism is still a major issue in the world today. Just because the US has left Afghanistan does not mean the War on Terror has ended. However, just because terrorism is still a major issue, does not mean that every violent action is an act of terrorism. By narrowing the definition of terrorism and refraining from using it frequently, more effort can be made to combat legitimate terrorism. 



Works Cited

Byman, Daniel L. “Who Is a Terrorist, Actually?” Brookings, Brookings, 9 Mar. 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/09/22/who-is-a-terrorist-actually/.  

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