the files of nukirk

The current U.S. national security strategy defines terrorism as simply “premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents.”12 This definition, however, begs the question of who is innocent and by what standards is innocence determined. The U.S. firebombing of Japanese cities in 1945 certainly terrified their inhabitants, many of whom were women and children who had nothing to do with Japan’s war effort. And what about threatened as opposed to actual violence? Is not the inducement of fear a major object of terrorism, and is not threatened action a way of inducing fear? Is not the very threat of terrorist attack terrorism?