Defining Terrorism

A coworker of mine attended a forum today on the issue of Kurdish separatism in Turkey. One of the speakers was an employee of Reuters news agency, which declines to use the term "terrorist" -- following the logic that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that a news agency can not place such judgments. This is relevant because of Turkey's problems with the Kurdish PKK group.

My coworker, however, pointed out that by refraining from calling them terrorists, an instead using terms such as "fighters" and "rebels" that Reuters is, wittingly or not, lending them credibility. He also asked the Reuters employee to provide her own definition of what a terrorist was, which she declined.

I find the argument the terrorist/freedom fighter argument to be rather absurd. There is a rather obvious difference between the two. A terrorist deliberately targets civilians. A freedom fighter only targets the country's security forces. A terrorist declines use of the ballot box when available, instead choosing to express political opinions through the barrel of a gun. A freedom fighter only engages in violence in countries that lack a democratic process and where peaceful opposition is prohibited.

There you go.