The History of Terrorism

[Griff]

Okay, I've done no research on this. But I was wondering if we could come up with a working definition of terrorism and then argue about the history of it.

MaggieL posted this "World War III will be a guerilla information war with no division between civilian and military participation." --Marshall McLuhan on another thread. It sort of implies that the phenomena is new or at least increasing, but I'd argue that terrorism is tactically as common as symetrical warfare...


First try: Terrorism- The use of asymetrical military tactics against civilians and military alike, with the purpose of instilling fear in a population and overthrowing an existing power structure.

A few examples:

Before Hitler gained power the Nazis successfully staged just such a campaign.
The Israelis successfully chased the Brits out of Palestine.
Palestinians vs Israelis
The Irish vs Britain
countless South American...
Unsuccessful American Indian campaigns v US
Successful US campaigns vs AmerIndians

Punch holes where you please because I get the idea that left, right, and center are not working with the same definition.