# Distinction between a Terrorist and a Freedom Fighter **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2001, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/distinction-between-a-terrorist-and-a-freedom-fighter/93095 "2001-11-13T09:23:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![pennylane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pennylane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pennylane)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/distinction-between-a-terrorist-and-a-freedom-fighter/93095/61 "2001-11-15T09:50:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monty \* > \*\*I’ll help you out here: NONE. Therefore the United States was not at war and whatever actions bin Laden and his cohorts took were terrorism, not hostile military actions _ **between nations** _. \*\* Yes, that’s my view too - that acts of war can only be committed between nations. (I was afraid that, given the sentiment in the OP, some people might disagree.) Anything else is terrorism (but could also be considered freedom fighting according to my criteria, which bin Laden and his cohorts did not meet in this case). > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dave Stewart \* > \*\*How do you “turn terrorist”? \*\* Why is it not possible to “turn terrorist”? If you start resorting to terrorist acts when you previously didn’t? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/distinction-between-a-terrorist-and-a-freedom-fighter/93095/62 "2001-11-15T14:38:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nietzsche \* > Good question. I wondered the same thing myself. Or what would happen if the US government came across Israeli or Saudi Arabian terrorists. Wouldn’t that be a doozy of a dilemma. Not if they properly defined terrorism. ---
**Author:** ![JDM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@JDM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JDM)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2001, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/distinction-between-a-terrorist-and-a-freedom-fighter/93095/63 "2001-11-17T20:21:25Z")
Here is a link to an article about this subject, from the New York Review of Books: > **[Is There a Good Terrorist?](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/11/29/is-there-a-good-terrorist/)** > > Have you heard that Osama bin Laden is coming to Macedonia? No. Why? Because we've declared an amnesty for terrorists. This Macedonian joke, told to me I have not as yet read the article closely, so I won’t comment on it. The author: > [@](#): > > Timothy Garton Ash is Director of the European Studies Centre at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford has several articles in the archive, and they seem well thought out. On a related topic, here in the NYRB archive: > **[Kosovo: Was It Worth It?](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2000/09/21/kosovo-was-it-worth-it/)** > > 1. The Kosovo war was the last European war of the twentieth century, and NATO's first. What we do we know about it a year later? Let's start with a quick about the Kosovo NATO action, Ash quotes NATO’s commander of southern forces, Admiral James Ellis, as saying: “We called this one absolutely wrong. It’s one thing for politicians not to have told their publics that they privately judged this might be a long, difficult war. Politics means being economical with the truth. But what are we to conclude if they didn’t even tell their own military?” This is an area where I have to say that the Bush administration, and particularly Rumsfeld, has learned a good lesson from the past, albeit in circumstances where the possibility of a “long, difficult war” is considerably easier for the American populace to tolerate. JDM ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/distinction-between-a-terrorist-and-a-freedom-fighter/93095/64 "2001-11-18T23:10:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nietzsche \* > I don’t ever recall arguing that this point of view was any _less_ valid. I was merely trying to display how viewpoint can change what the attack is seen as. I think you just re-affirmed my original point. Did I miss your point here? You say that it changes what the attack is seen as. Do you also say that it changes what the attack _is_? > [@](#): > > And I was trying to show **december** that not all targets can be defined by who works there. But december was arguing _against_ that sort of idea. Remember, the way we got here was _your_ statement implying that the attack was justified because of what the WTC represented. december then replied with what it represented to _him_. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Sounds like in some strange way, a truck bomb going off at a Northrop Grumman plant could be seen as a “freedom fighter” attack and not a “terrorist” attack, correct? > > You have a good argument for why it wouldn’t be a terrorist attack. However, just because someone isn’t a terrorist, that doesn’t mean that he’s a freedom fighter. I never said it did. I said it depends on how you look at it. [/quote] So how would the bomber be seen as a freedom fighter? > [@](#): > > Actually, it does. Because now you’re calling into question the validity of their aims. No, I’m not callling into question the validity of their aims. I’m calling into question the validity of their methodfs. One needn’t have an opinion on whhether Northen Ireland should be part of the UK to say that putting bombs in churches is not justified. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/distinction-between-a-terrorist-and-a-freedom-fighter/93095.md?page=3)