I agree, but "we" (western media, etc.) tended to call attacks on the occupation forces terrorism, too. The pretense was the war was "over", so the occupation forces were there for law and order, not war, so attacks on them were criminal/terrorist/etc. vs. "legitimate warfare".
Pressure/etc. detonated IEDs are sort of a grey area, honestly, as are military landmines, cluster munitions where you know a large fraction will become UXO, especially in civilian areas, and inaccurate area attacks like WW2 airstrikes.
actually "we" called those attacking the coalition and Iraqi military "insurgents".
Plenty of actual, Iraqi civilian targets were killed by Al-Qa'ida in Iraq and other terrorists with car bombs, suicide bombers, hostage takings etc.
The distinction is pretty clear between the two, I think if you are accusing media of whitewashing all Iraqi insurgents under the banner of terrorism you should back it up.
I enter into evidence: Fox News 2001-2009, if not 2009-2014 too.
The actual terms used in Iraq by the US Military varied, too, from "insurgents", "Anti-Iraqi Forces" (irony, when it was Iraqis attacking the US..."), "foreign fighters", "former regime elements" (even when they were foreign and/or people Saddam had persecuted), Iranian-sponsored militias, etc.
I think the argument is that the semantics really only matter to who's making the definitions. If you're a civilian and you live in fear that you or a family member may be the casualty of an unprovoked bombing, be it by insurgents, terrorists, or drones, the distinction is irrelevant.
Terrorists often hit military targets as well (Khobar towers, Beirut Marine barracks, etc.). Throughout most of "the troubles" the IRA targeted the military or police, should they not have been considered terrorists?
The techniques of terrorists (say: car bombings) are shockingly little different in practice from drone strikes. Sure, certainly the intent is very different, but the result is nevertheless a disturbingly high death toll for innocents. And that should concern us a fuck of a lot more than it does today.
The IRA, INLA and their equivalents on the other side of the sectarian line such as the UVF were always considered terrorists here in the UK.
[NB That's not to say I can't understand the violent reaction of the members of the Nationalist community - even if I am appalled by what they often chose to do]
Pulling up some quick numbers, the IRA (more properly the Provisional IRA) killed roughly 1600 people over 3 decades of operation during the troubles, with about 60% of those deaths being of military/police and slightly more than 600 killings of civilians.
During Obama's administration alone (6 years) more than 2400 people have been killed by US drone strikes, nearly 300 of them civilians (89% "terrorists"/military). Certainly that is a better ratio than the IRA, but the fact that we are willingly waging such a devastating war with significant "collateral damage" (in another 6 years or so we will have killed as many civilians as the IRA did) with so little public debate or oversight should be chilling to anyone.
> Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
Source? Debating the definitions of words is often silly, but I think it's worth pointing out that 1) the definition of "terrorism" isn't broadly agreed upon, and 2) the definition you're using is more narrow than peoples'. The definition that searching google gives is "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims", which drone attacks certainly fit into.
More generally, it seems that condemning vague things like "torture" and "terrorism" accomplishes very little, because people will simply use different definitions of the terms to skirt the condemnation. So we have to condemn specific things that are wrong, like waterboarding and drone strikes.
The definition that searching google gives is "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims", which drone attacks certainly fit into.
I think the point is that drone strikes (targeting angry people with guns and bombs) are meaningfully different than someone blowing themselves up in a a crowded market or mosque (targeting people whose religion is slightly different from his or her own).
You can say they're the same because they're "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims", but there's something of a different quality to those political aims that warrants a distinction.
>2) the definition you're using is more narrow than peoples'.
Most people's definition of terrorism is "any violent act committed by a Muslim without clear monetary gain," so this definition is actually much more general.
>"the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims"
War, then?
As you said, though, debating definitions is a waste of time.
Whoops, missed a word: "more narrow than many peoples'".
I disagree with you that "most people" use the definition you claim, but of course neither of us have any data and we both think the debate is silly anyway.
Maybe you're right, but terrorism has really no clear cut definition. I am pretty sure I have never heard a suicide bomber detonating in a military base being described otherwise than "terrorist".
My father was in the RAF during WW2 (not in Bomber Command though) and I've often wondered about the morality of what our country did then - the best defense I've seen of the strategy was that unlike for the Nazis the indiscriminate killing of civilians was never a goal in itself for the Allies but something that was a means to the end of finishing the war.
Note that although that's probably the best argument, I'm still not completely satisfied with it.
"Civilian" targets can become valid military targets. For example, if an enemy force forms a line of resistance within an urban or suburban area, then it is legitimate to attack and destroy that area. A civilian area that is not occupied by an enemy force is not a legitimate target, and attacking it constitutes a war crime.
The Law of Armed Conflict exists because you can't stop war from happening, especially if you aren't willing to fight a war yourself to stop it.
It's also worth pointing out that war/conflict are not the same thing, the definition of who is protected during a conflict is much broader than members of the armed forces during a formal war.
Sure, but "war crime" is a phrase with a particular history and usage that means something more specific. Even opposing sides in war often agree on some boundaries.
If a group did attack a military convoy with a remote controlled IED, it wouldn't be an act of terrorism.
Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
A remote controlled IED isn't indiscriminate, and a military convoy isn't civilian.