- "Coercive and violent behaviour undertaken to achieve, or promote,
a particular political objective or cause, often involving the overthrow
of established order. Terrorist activity is designed to induce fear through
its indiscriminate, arbitrary, and unpredictable acts of violence, often
against members of the population at large."
- Terrorism may be "official" or "unofficial"; terrorism
is more often that not the action of opposition, or underground movements.
Such movements are usually minority groups, which feel there are no other
means available to them of achieving their objectives. Terrorism may be
confined to a specific territory, or may have an international dimension;
it also manifests itself in hijackings and hostage taking.
The same encyclopaedia defines war as follow:
- "A military conflict between two states, or, in the case of civil war, between different groups within a state. International war is subject to international law, and wars can be either lawful or unlawful. There have been a series of treaties since the 18th century covering the conduct of war, largely designed to prevent 'unnecessary suffering', or action that has no military advantage."
Today the main sources of international law on war, or the use of force, are the United Nations Charter and the so-called Geneva Conventions. Distinctions are also drawn between conventional warfare, which does not involve the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and unconventional warfare that does use them. A guerrilla war is conducted by non-regular forces, often avoiding direct engagement, designed to make a state ungovernable prior to a seizure of power.
International hostilities sometimes continue for long periods of time without being acknowledged as wars. For instance, the Korean War was regarded by the US government as a police action.
All the international laws, rules, and traditions dealing with war allow the country that has been attacked to retaliate. When a country is fighting another one, the conflict is generally described as war. This was not the case here. There is no doubt that the attacks on US soil were not the actions of another state. A terrorist organisation, known as al-Qaida, is responsible -as all American authorities and even the President acknowledge- for the attacks of September 11. As a result, its authors are terrorists, and the laws of war do not cover these people.
Al-Qaida was based in Afghanistan with the agreement of its legal government
at the time and, if only for this reason, this country bears a responsibility
for the consequences of the attacks on the USA. Let the lawyers decide if
this justified the invasion of Afghanistan by the US troops after a request
to the country to hand-over the terrorists was de facto rejected.