No, Terrorists Are Not Freedom Fighters: Isolating Definitional Flaw in a False Equivalence Argument

For many years within the homeland security enterprise, it has been a regular exercise in banality to intone that one person’s terrorist is merely another’s freedom fighter.[1] To a reflective practitioner taking the time to define terrorism with precision, however, this formulation collapses on contact with a key distinction of a feature that is de rigueur for terrorists as a default yet antithetical to freedom fighters as a rule. What is this distinguishing feature? 

Targeting of Noncombatants 

Terrorists do not hesitate to slaughter innocents. Indeed, this is often their primary tactic and stock in trade. There is a logic to this tactic, no matter how morally reprehensible it may be judged by a society intent on passing as civilized. The logic is in the terrorist attacker’s calculation that, in the face of material disadvantages in force, finance, and weaponry, the only apparently remaining options are those that confound defenders while supplying a disproportionately high yield and posing minimal risk. In essence, this is the cold logic of resorting to asymmetric attack vectors to even the odds in the eyes of the attacker, as illustrated here:

 

In practice, the greatest asymmetric value derives not from direct confrontation against a superior military or police force that is trained and equipped to fight back and kill or capture terrorist attackers. It is from attacking non-combatants who lack training and weapons and, even better, are caught unawares, hence unlikely to return fire. In this calculation, the slaughter of innocents begins to figure prominently in the terrorist playbook as not only an attractive but a default tactic to embrace to further the attackers’ ends. By contrast, freedom fighters do not target non-combatants or, if they do harm innocents, do so inadvertently or as a last resort – not as a first resort. After all, slaughtering one’s own offers no inducement for recruiting future freedom fighters. This, then, is a key distinction that undermines the terrorist as freedom fighter equivalency argument. 

The moral distinction recalls an illustration by William F. Buckley, a writer and magazine publisher who served in the military and, briefly, in the Central Intelligence Agency. Buckley highlighted the absurdity of morally equating the Soviet Union to the United States by noting that if one man pushes an old lady into an oncoming bus and another pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, one should not denounce both as men who push old ladies around.[2] 

Definitional Morass Fueling the Equivalency Argument 

Whether by inadvertence or calculation, government agencies do no favors for the public by defining terrorism in terms that omit this targeting of non-combatants. Indeed, terrorism definitions skew in line with a given agency’s predilections and likely concentrations in dealing with terrorist threats.[3] Thus, when government organizations converge on definitions that forget about this centrality of targeting non-combatants to the definition of terrorism and terrorists, they invite an otherwise specious airbrushing of terrorists as freedom fighters, especially by focusing that definition thus: 

 “Terrorism is a non-state actor’s threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence to attain a political, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation.” [4]

A better definition, as supported by other official sources [5], might take on this representation:

Another Flaw 

Closer examination of the foregoing, official definition, however, uncovers yet another unforced limitation. Specifically, this definition draws emphasis to terrorists as being necessarily non-state actors, when characterizing terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” [6] What of state-sponsored terrorists? This definition would appear to place such actors out of the purview of actions which have at their heart the disproportionate impact making their mark through the slaughter of innocents rather than through direct, force-on-force battle. 

Why the Omissions 

Omitting mention of the targeting of noncombatants allows any military to brand as terrorists what might otherwise be considered irregular troops or guerilla fighters. There is a public relations value to such branding. The irregulars, when defending against an invading force, may indeed qualify as freedom fighters if they are combating armed soldiers but not carrying out campaigns of slaughter targeting noncombatants. The price they pay may still be execution and denial of any of the international protections reserved by the Geneva Conventions for regular, uniformed combatants. Commandos take similar risks and pay the same price. 

Yet Another Definitional Flaw 

A final flaw deserving remark attends the predisposition of law enforcement agencies to define terrorism first and a foremost as a crime, with terrorists branded primarily as criminals, in consequence. This predilection creates another vulnerability for attackers to exploit. The administrative advantage of such a definition for police-oriented agencies is that branding a thing as a crime necessarily places that thing within law enforcement purview, which may justify a given agency’s claim of primacy in managing the response to all criminal matters. What could possibly backfire with such an approach? In practice, the law enforcement mindset puts a premium on apprehension and punishment of offenders, actions which arguably provide a necessary and valuable public service. However, if terrorism is instead defined as something categorically distinct from crime, then this opens the door to addressing terrorism and terrorists with an altogether different mindset. Under these circumstances, the policy door opens to according prime value to anticipating and preventing terrorist attack rather than avenging it. 

If a deep dive into the foregoing definitions teaches anything, it is that these details matter. Easy or partial definitions of terrorism and terrorists deserve to be scrubbed for institutional bias which may inhibit rather than advance defeating the terrorist threat.

Nick Catrantzos

NOTES:

[1] ^{B. M. Jenkins, (1990). The study of terrorism: Definitional problems. RAND. https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P6563.html}

[2] J. Goldberg, "When Push Comes to Torture," Sept. 27, 2006,National Review.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2006/09/when-push-comes-torture-jonah-goldberg/

[3] N. Catrantzos, Managing the Insider Threat: No Dark Corners and the Rising Tide Menace (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2023) pp. 178-179.

[4] National Consortium for the Study and Response to Terrorism, 2021.

[5] U. S. Code: Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section  2656 f (d)

[6] Ibid.