There has been much talk about “getting inside the terrorist’s mind” in order to better understand the rationale behind terrorist attacks. A typical comment has been, ‘“We may not agree with it, but in their minds, [the terrorists] have good reasons for what they’ve done.’” The idea is that perhaps we should be able to win the “war on terror” by simply using a compassionate approach, so as to understand the cause of grievances of those who seek to justify the deliberate taking of innocent lives.
This Article will discuss both political violence and terrorism and attempt to distinguish these two species of violence. The distinction is important, if it can be made, because the international community in general supports political violence as an adjunct to political reform movements of various types, while this same community generally condemns the species of violence that carries the label “terrorism.” In the end, one is hard-pressed to provide a clear demarcation between the two species of violence because both kinds of violence may involve indiscriminate targeting of noncombatants, and both kinds of violence are motivated in large part by a desire to effect political change. Even so, once the mode or scope of violence goes beyond a certain threshold, then even legitimate freedom fighters will be branded as terrorists by the international community.