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Comment by eeky | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't agree more. The Syrian rebels are a loosely associated group with several elements who are radical Islamist and Al Qaeda. This could have easily been titled "DIY Terrorism".

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But is it really terrorism at this point? It's a civil war. Just because some groups that use terrorism to further their goals are participating doesn't make it any less of a war.

If the residents of New York City rebelled, and managed to take control of 2/3rds of the city, that would be a civil war (or at least I would classify it as such), even if Al Qaeda showed up to participate.

Yeah but you don't get to classify it, those in power do. And it'd likely be classified as terrorism.

Does the word "terrorism" have a solid definition, or is it "I'll know it when I see it"?

More like "I'll use the terrorism label when it's to my advantage"

> But is it really terrorism at this point? It's a civil war.

Civil war distinguishes context of conflict independent of methods, terrorism distinguishes methods of conflict indepedent of context; they aren't mutually exclusive categories.

But is it really terrorism at this point?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. History is written by the victors.

Language designed to engender support for one opinion or another; propaganda. That's all this crap is.

> One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. History is written by the victors.

So the Kurds in Northern Iraq that got gassed by Saddam were terrorists? The VC won in Vietnam. Were we the terrorists there? Chiang Kai-shek?

I'm not espousing this opinion, it's an (admittedly cynical) commentary on the use of the word terrorist in the media.

Equally inaccurately, though. Both "freedom fighters" and "terrorists" are marketing terms. "Rebel" is accurate since they're fighting the government; that's definitely a rebellion.

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