Thankfully many international treaties have been made in the last few thousand years and civilized nations wage war differently now. I was expressly disputing the parent poster's claim that ISIS did not use terrorist tactics, which is a statement I find difficult for anyone to really take issue with.
While I think it's clear that ISIS was/is evil, I'm not sure that its as clear that those actions (or at least all of them) were terrorism.
I'd define terrorism as something along the lines of "using guerrilla tactics against civilian targets in order to achieve political ends". I would differentiate that from atrocities committed against a state's own people in order to keep them in line (for example Stalin's purges), human rights violations (e.g. witch trials or killing homosexuals), ethnic/religious cleansing, or guerrilla attacks against targets with legitimate strategic value.
My understanding, although I am definitely not super informed on this, is that ISIS's atrocities were mostly keeping people in line, human rights abuse, and religious cleansing. Therefore I would not consider those acts to be terrorism. However, that doesn't make them any less evil.
Whether a state uses terrorist tactics is orthogonal to the issue of it being a state. Was the Russian shooting down of MH-17 not a terrorist act undertaken by a state? How about the bombing of the Beirut barracks? How about any number of acts by Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, or Imperial Japan?
What they said was ISIS "were fighting a conventional land war using conventional (not terrorist/guerilla) tactics"
You are summarising that as "ISIS did not use terrorist tactics"
I think that is a misleading summary. I don't think the poster meant to dispute that ISIS was behind terrorist attacks, both in the Middle East and also in other parts of the world. What they were saying, is that ISIS was engaging in conventional (non-terrorist) military operations against the Syrian and Iraqi governments, other rebel groups, etc. Terrorism and conventional military tactics are not mutually exclusive, one can pursue both strategies at the same time. But the second strategy is a sign that one is dealing with something having de facto statehood, as opposed to a non-state terrorist group.
If you are getting heavily down-voted, a possible explanation is that people perceive you to be engaging in an uncharitable reading of the remarks you are responding to
> If you are getting heavily down-voted, a possible explanation is that people perceive you to be engaging in an uncharitable reading of the remarks you are responding to
If they wanted to say that ISIS was using conventional _AND_ terrorist tactics that would be one thing. They specifically said "not". You even quoted.
If my options are either to stay silent or charitably read someone's claim that ISIS' tactics don't meet their definition of the word terrorism, because they're a state, then honestly I don't want an account on this site anymore.
You're getting some negative reaction because you're missing the points OP was making.
1) At points, they were waging a war that did not rely on terrorist/guerrilla tactics. OP did not claim they don't do 'terrorist stuff' at all. Waging conventional war requires control of territory, which is why this is important.
2) Saying ISIS is/controls a state would have you labeled as a terrorist sympathizer in the media or in conversation. This demonstrates that calling something a 'state' has an implicit moral connotation in popular culture. OP is arguing this should not be true.
None of OPs points were a _moral_ judgement of ISIS. I think we can all agree ISIS is bad.
For instance, I strongly believe Palestine should be an independent, free state distinct from Israel. However, the UN _recognizing_ it as a state does not mean it magically becomes one. The UN is just making a political point, but sadly one that has little impact on the reality in Palestine.
