One could analyze peaceful political movements based on their stated original goals, ignore all results that only partially meet those goals, and conclude that the vast majority are hardly more effective than terrorism.
Not to mention the fact that "terrorism" itself is a propaganda term. No organisation calls itself "terrorist", and it is used to label a broad range of tactics. There are plenty of terrorist organisations that have never killed anyone or never targeted innocent civilians.
This focuses completely on the most extreme forms of terrorism, the islamic extremists with their suicide attacks. A form of terrorism that has been quite rare in the West, despite all of the publicity. And one could argue that those have been quite successful so far: with only a few successful attempts, they've gotten our full, almost daily, attention for over a decade now.
> One could analyze peaceful political movements based on their stated original goals, ignore all results that only partially meet those goals, and conclude that the vast majority are hardly more effective than terrorism.
Could you point to where in the studies they ignore the results? Go ahead, I'll wait.
> There are plenty of terrorist organisations that have never killed anyone or never targeted innocent civilians.
Name three.
> This focuses completely on the most extreme forms of terrorism, the islamic extremists with their suicide attacks. A form of terrorism that has been quite rare in the West, despite all of the publicity.
If you look, you'll find plenty of non-suicide attacks; and the suicide attacks are not all Islamic - the Tamil Tigers (1979-2009) are an excellent example of terrorist failure.
> And one could argue that those have been quite successful so far: with only a few successful attempts, they've gotten our full, almost daily, attention for over a decade now.
Well, I'm glad their ambitions were just to beat Snooki in ratings - like Osama bin Laden before his late demise, they can take consolation in watching Fox News.
I didn't say called terrorist, I said are terrorist; what laws apply to them? Are they on anyone's watch lists? Are they treated by anyone as terrorists? Greenpeace has disavowed its more violent early days; BTW, the citation in Wikipedia doesn't actually say what you think it says: http://web.archive.org/web/20080311231725/http://www.fbi.gov... C-f for 'Greenpeace':
> Since 1977, when disaffected members of the ecological preservation group Greenpeace formed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and attacked commercial fishing operations by cutting drift nets, acts of "eco-terrorism" have occurred around the globe. The FBI defines eco-terrorism as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.
So it was 'disaffected members' 40 years ago and the acts themselves only are 'eco-terrorism'. This is not a ringing endorsement of your claim that Greenpeace has been called a terrorist organization.
There is no citation for PETA.
And people have died in their Greenpeace activities and IHH's activities have led to even more deaths, so if you want to be a stickler about innocent civilians...
Not to mention the fact that "terrorism" itself is a propaganda term. No organisation calls itself "terrorist", and it is used to label a broad range of tactics. There are plenty of terrorist organisations that have never killed anyone or never targeted innocent civilians.
This focuses completely on the most extreme forms of terrorism, the islamic extremists with their suicide attacks. A form of terrorism that has been quite rare in the West, despite all of the publicity. And one could argue that those have been quite successful so far: with only a few successful attempts, they've gotten our full, almost daily, attention for over a decade now.