Since it’s historically never worked, and only convinced the invaders to be even more brutal toward your women and children, I’d call it counter-productive, and thus wrong.
Historically, nothing has worked in this situation. Thus, I am not sure you can call it “counter-productive” exactly.
I agree.
PJ O’Rourke wrote:
“But, as frightening as terrorism is, it’s the weapon of losers. The minute somebody sets off a suicide bomb, you can be sure that person doesn’t have ‘career prospects.’ And no matter how horrendous a terrorist attack is, it’s still conducted by losers. Winners don’t need to hijack airplanes. Winners have an Air Force.”
Counter-productive in that it would likely lead only to retaliation and a more brutal occupation, made all the easier by painting the locals as savage murderers of women and children.
My point was not so much that it would be an effective strategy as much as it was about understanding terrorism. I feel like in todays society any country or group should and in most cases does actually have a voice. In the case of some groups for whatever reason the majority of those charged with negotiating a settlement favor the larger more powerful opposition and the underdog feels his lifestyle is under extreme threat. In cases like this the underdog is likely to resort to terrorism. Should he be annilated or just use a war of attrition and beat them into submission.
I’m not understanding you as clearly as I would like, but I will take a stab at an answer anyway.
Since terrorism, historically, has been unsuccessful as a political tool, I would advise using other means.
Terrorism is not the same as irregular / guerrilla warfare, however. I think your scenarios are more about them than about terrorism per se.
“Treason doth ne’er prosper; what’s the reason?”
The difference is whether if the fighter is victorious whether there will be more freedom or less freedom. Thus islamists and communists can never be freedom fighters since they are fighting to impose tyranny and not expand freedom. Unless they are allied with others who will actually take power and expand freedom.
War is hell. So while I know many people like to equate U.S. soldiers throughout history as terrorists, war is war and that’s the way it goes. To paraphrase General Patton: No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his cause (country); he won the war by making some other poor bastard die for HIS. In other words, whatever it takes to get the enemy to surrender and realize that continued fighting is NOT worth the cause (similar to when Japan got hit at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII). To put it another way, it cannot be denied that the white man treated the Native Americans viciously and wickedly as this nation grew. However, because of what our ancestors did, some people are trying to say that the Islamofascist attacks on American interests were no different. However while I cannot justify much of the mistreatment of the American Indian over the years, do we honestly believe that if the jihadists win this fight that anybody who disagrees with them won’t be put to death (as opposed to put on reservations to run casinos?) Give me a break! The jihadists do not hate America for the same reasons that many who make that point of the original poster would hate America. (I am NOT saying that the OP hates America; I am saying that many America haters make that same point).
Not so. WW2 was a war of imperial expansion. While it had many motivations, one major one was to establish a Nazi empire in which the “master race” would rule over an enslaved population of Slavs (modeled somewhat on the Prussian feudal estates of a previous era).
It would be an oversimplification to claim that any war was fought for a single reason, but it would not be inaccurate to claim that a reason for WW2 was to enslave others.
Huh. A third-grade history textbook bot. Wonder whose idea it was to write *that *program.
Well, we thought with all of the mindless, content free snark that is polluting the internet some simplistic facts would be a nice change of pace.
Perhaps you should have actually posted facts then. Islamists, sure, but to say communists were fighting to “impose tyranny” is silly. Most of them were fighting to overthrow monarchial regimes that were more tyrannical than anything that followed - and the point of communist ideology was not to create a totalitarian state. It just turned out that way.
That’s far too facile a definition; every nation in WW2 deliberately and intentionally targeted and bombed enemy civilians. Throughout the Cold War the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals were pointed at each others cities, deliberately and explicitly targeting the others civilian population.
Who wins doesn’t really work very well for deciding who is a freedom fighter or a terrorist; far more important is the speaker. “Freedom fighter” or “terrorist” most often displays the political outlook of the speaker more than anything else. The Contras in Nicaragua were freedom fighters to Reagan and Ollie North, to the Sandinista government they were terrorists. The fact that the Contras would kill civilians both deliberately and accidentally didn’t factor into the distinction either way, nor did them being on the winning or losing side of the war.
They didn’t just target civilians; they targeted them with the express purpose of scaring them into pressing their government to end the war.
The problem with “terrorism” is that it is a term with a literal meaning that is also widely used as a mere perjorative.
Like other terms or approbation or reprobation, obviously people use the terms “terrorist” and “freedom fighter” depending on which side they support. That does not mean that these terms are in fact wholly subjective, though.
“Terrorism” is a technique of warfare - namely to use violence specifically to incite fear for some political end, usually (but not always) violence against civilians – but not everyone who uses this technique is a “terrorist”. That term means something more specific than a person who uses terrorism as a technique - it means someone whose whole method of fighting is characterized by that technique. So, in general, it isn’t a term used (except in the perjorative sense) to describe regular troops raised as part of the ordinary army of a state. Rather. it is reserved for irregulars, those who are characterized by their use of terrorism as a technique.
Thus, while no-one disputes that regular forces can and do inflict acts of terrorism, they are not thereby “terrorists”, since by and large the infliction of terror is not the primary purpose of regulars - though admittedly in some cases it comes close.
OTOH, “freedom fighter” is purely a value judgment concerning the motives of (again, usually irregular) fighters. This makes it more subjective than the term “terrorist”, but still not wholly so. I would also exclude regulars from this term, as regulars by and large, even if volunteers and even if the ultimate goal of a nation’s battles is “freedom”, fight under discipline.
A person can be at the same time a “terrorist” (because they are irregular fighters who use terrorism as a technique) and a “freedom fighter” (because they fight for is freedom).
Your choice of terms. 
Actually, I was trying to make a different point with the Carlin quote. Hitler would say I want the freedom for the Nazis to control Europe and live in a continent free of Jews. He would not say I am fighting a war so that Germany could be enslaved by other European countries. All I’m saying is virtually all the Axis countries thought they were “freedom fighters,” but the type of freedom they were fighting for was quite different than what the U.S. was fighting for.
Also, to leave no doubt, I am a loyal American. And one of the best things about being American is that I can have controversial views and not fear being arrested.
However, communists and islamists often think of themselves as “freedom fighters.” Islamists fight for the freedom to enjoy their religion and freedom from western oppression. Communists fight for freedom from oppression by the capitalist class.
Also, I don’t know of many terrorists who think of themselves as being terrorists.