To qualify as a terrorist, you must primarily target innocent civilians.
Well, that's reasonably close.
Terrorism is a specialized form of extortion. It's an attack on an indirect vector using otherwise uninvolved, but important-to-the-target, individuals and groups.
The concept is simple: you wish to harm or influence someone who is too large or powerful to attack directly; you discover whom it is that
a) he values and feels he must protect, or
b) is in a position to directly influence him (e.g. an electorate or customer base), or
c) he is expected to represent or protect; you then systematically attack the largely defenseless dependent or influential people whom he is now obliged to somehow act to protect or lose face/lose family/lose power/etc., and so on.
In it's simplest form, it's
"hand over the money, or the girl gets it."It's not a long stretch from there to
"comply with my wishes or I'll bomb more of your constituents/allies/family/students/whatever."From the extortionist's point of view, the best outcome is that the group that's attacked, itself prevails on the target authority to negotiate/capitulate/compromise. Also acceptable is that the target authority has an extreme attack of "conscience" and gives in rather than see more harm come to his [dependents].
The classic example is, of course, "targeting innocents" as mentioned, but innocence is not required, only "value-to-target" importance.
The "terror" label is one I didn't question until 2001. What I found was that "terror" wasn't what most of America felt, or even horror for that matter, but rather a
persistent anxiety about what was coming next. This persistent anxiety is exhausting, as I can attest from first-hand experience and from direct observation.
While the
objective may have been terror, what actually happens in a society like ours is even more ironic: in an effort to reduce this anxiety, those in charge impose draconian "protective" measures, doing more economic and social damage than the actual attack could ever have hoped to do.
If I were a "terror" strategist, my objective would no longer be to "frighten" the population, but instead to play a kind of "policy billiards" with the government, seeing if I couldn't do something minor-but-scary, and get them to impose a whole new layer of liberty-encroaching rules so as to be seen to "do something!" about this "terrorism."
In the end, the strategy of indirect-vector attacks is effective to the degree that you can produce enough "worry" to get authorities to impose restrictions on the very people whose liberty they're supposed to protect.
You won't ever achieve chronic "terror," but plain old "worry" will do just fine on a large enough scale.
In an interesting alternate universe, I wonder what would have happened if, without any fanfare at all, the response to 9/11 had been simply to
a) clear the site and rebuild, and
b) quickly and quietly locate those responsible and exterminate them.
If the "national drama" of it all had been set aside, the damage repaired, and a limited-but-harsh military response carried out, I would imagine the attractiveness of such an approach ("terror") would have been subject to some serious review.
Of course, really, this all predicates on the idea that the populace would be disinclined to buy into the dramatics. Sadly, in an era of "reality TV" and drama-for-its-own-sake, that was never going to happen.
Anyway.
I really shouldn't ramble like that.
