Defining Terrorism

1. There are many definitions of terrorism. Some of them are: Brain Jenkins said that terrorism is the use or threatened use of force designed to bring about political change. While Walter Lacqueur said that terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve apolitical objective by targeting innocent people. Yet another definition comes from Edward Herman, who said that terrorism should be defined by terms of state repression, such as the corrupt Latin American governments. Still another view of terrorism comes from Alex Schmidt, who said that there is no true or correct definition, because terrorism is an abstract concept with no real presence. A single definition cannot possibly account for all potential uses of the term. The final definition that is covered here is the official definition of terrorism issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They state that it is the unlawful use of force to intimidate a government to further political or social goals. Though these are only a few of the definitions of terrorism, they provide a good cross-section of the term terrorism.

2. Martha Crenshaw said that terrorism means socially and politically unacceptable violence aimed at an innocent target to achieve a psychological effect. She also sited three criteria to make it a terrorist attack. The first is that there must be military methods used. Second there must be a military target involved, and finally there must be some chance of victory.

3. J. Bowyer Bell stated that there are six types of terrorism, and each part has a purpose. The six are; psychotic which attempts to achieve psychological gratification. The second is criminal witch attempts to profit the terrorist. Next there is the vigilantly type of terrorism witch attempts to achieve retaliation for some act, fourth there is endemic terrorism; witch is an internal struggle of some type. The fifth type of terrorism is authorized terrorism, which deals with state repression