Terrorists, Freedom Fighters, Paramilitaries, Insurgents, Rebels, Extemists, Guerilla

iDave wrote: »

Ok big question here and yes it is because of Mandela's death but what is the difference?
I've seen IRA/ETA/Hamas/Al-Qaeda labelled terrorists. ANC Freedom Fighters. UVF/UDA/UFF Paramilitaries. Suicide bombers in Iraq after 2003 invasion were Insurgents. In Libya the recent campaign against Gaddafi were rebels. In Columbia armed Marxist groups in the jungle are guerrillas.
They all have one thing in common in that they are non-state and use violence to achieve some sort of political objective. Normally their tactics are non-traditional in a military sense usually trying to avoid directly engaging a better funded and armed state military.
The different labels though seem to demonise some group while glorify others and others like paramilitary are ambiguous, while guerrilla just describes their tactics.

Ran out of space in the title but you can throw in dissident, revolutionary, insurrectionist etc in there.

They're all the same thing. It depends on your point of view.

I forget who said it initially but, as banjo string already quoted

"One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter"

It really does come down to the POV of the person concerned, look at Syria, those in the establishment would see the rebels as terrorists, those who support them reject that label but proudly embrace freedom fighter

EDIT: it was David Hannay apparently, a British diplomat

Often it's whatever's convenient for people at the time. Mandela for instance was widely denounced as a terrorist by most people in power throughout the course of the anti-apartheid struggle. Chief among the apartheid regime's backers were the British Conservatives and Israeli right, both of whom are out in force today lauding him as a great inspiration as well as a load of other nauseating b*llocks. These sort of people are typical politicians, they realise that public opinion would not favour them sticking to their right-wing sh*te on this matter so they lie through their teeth.

Another factor is people's lack of objective historical analysis. To again use Mandela as an example, he has been rewritten and recast as a cuddly old grandfather, a man who said lovely things and was a black version of Gandhi. And sure wasn't he fierce into rugby, God bless him. The reality is that he was a Marxist revolutionary who took a very pragmatic approach to armed struggle and had zero qualms with employing that against the power structure that he faced. However, many people have falsely bought into the former narrative and to this end we see right-wing, law-and-order types hailing him as a hero when he actually embodied everything they should be opposed to.

Does insurrectionist mean when you have a Stiffie ?

Terrorism

the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Usually terrorists have no democratic support and have an extremist ideology - religious fundamentalist, extreme left, extreme right, separatist - that has no popular support and are prepared to attack law enforcement, the military, politicians and murder civilians or take hostages to try and force an entire country to submit to their extremist demands.

Freedom Fighter

A freedom fighter might use the same tactics as a terrorist but is not seeking to create an undemocratic society and has popular support. The freedom fight is usually fighting on behalf of the democratic government which has been overthrown by a foreign invasion or else is fighting to overthrow a dictatorship in order to restore democratic government deposed by a coup or by a terrorist group.

Paramilitaries

A paramilitary group is a supplement to a regular military force.
For example when uniformed police need more firepower to deal with criminals they call up a SWAT team which is an elite unit of police officers who have limited military training and are armed with military weapons and operate as a military unit.
A civilian paramilitary unit is often an ad hoc group of civilians - some of them ex-military and others with no military experience who organize themselves into companies and battalions with officers and armed themselves with available small arms.
A paramilitary force could evolve into a terrorist group or a freedom fighting group or could be used by the state to supplement the regular police and military during a national emergency when law and order has broken down.
In the U.S. citizens have the right to form and maintain armed militias - paramilitary forces than are independent of the government and would fight against the government if it were to become tyrannical.
A paramilitary force often operate openly as police in their own areas, openly carrying weapons and openly training and publically drilling rather than as an underground hidden force.

Insurgent/rebel

a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, especially a person who engages in armed resistance to a government or to the execution of its laws; rebel

A rebel could be a faction of the army who maintain their regular conventional army structure e.g. platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, brigades and divisions wearing uniforms and fight a conventional war against the regular government forces.
They might also be a band of civilians of paramilitaries and they might use terror tactics - assassinations, bombings and sabotage. They could be democratic or they could undemocratic.

Extremists

An extremist is someone who holds extreme political opinions.
If I believed that only my race should be allowed to live in this country and that all other races should be killed or if I believed that only my religion should be the faith of all the citizens of this country whether they agree with me or not and I have the right to kill them if they resist then I would be an extremist.
An extremist could be a lone nut like the assassin of political leader or a member of a large organization with a political wing and a paramilitary wing involved in terrorism.

Guerrilla

the use of hit-and-run tactics by small, mobile groups of irregular forces operating in territory controlled by a hostile, regular force.

Guerrillas are usually led by serving military or ex-military with civilian recruits and operate in civilian clothes and masquerade as civilians. They could be organized as an open paramilitary force or as a hidden army and usually take part in hit and run attacks.
They ambush an enemy convoy and then disperse hide out and hide their weapons and then regroup to strike somewhere else.
Sometimes they use terror - no warning bombs or assassinations and intimidate civilians into co-operating with them while punishing those who co-operate with the government.

What marks them out as bad guys or good guys is what they are fighting for and how they go about it.

If a group is fighting for democracy, human rights and freedom and fighting against dictatorship then they are good guys.
If they deliberately target civilians or take part in massacres and human rights abuses of their opponents then they are not good guys and their claims to be fighting for a good cause is questionable at best.

If a group is fighting for an extremist cause - to create an Islamic state, to establish a communist dictatorship, to establish a fascist state and mass murder the Jews - then they are clearly the bad guys. If they also deliberately target civilians, take part in massacres and murder their opponents they cannot be supported.

Therefore there is no equivalence between Islamic extremists fighting against NATO troops in Afghanistan with the goal of restoring Taliban rule and the French Resistance who fought to liberate France from Nazi occupation and sought to restore French democracy.

There is no equivalence between the IRA in 1919-1921 who fought against the British - attacking the police and army - because a democratic majority was denied independence and the IRA in the Troubles who fought the British to overthrow democracy in Northern Ireland and force a United Ireland upon the Ulster Unionists and using indiscriminate bomb and gun attacks on civilians to try and bring it about.

For me terrorism is a set of tactics. Anyone who uses those tactics is a terrorist.

Then again, there's terrorism and there's terrorism.
Killing people indiscriminately is obviously terrorism. But is blowing up a building having sent in a bomb threat so that everyone gets out beforehand?
Probably still counts but is obviously not as bad.
Then again, attacking infrastructure which directly leads to starvation or people dying of thirst is as bad.

There were acts of terror on both sides in WW2, for example. The fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo are amongst the worst war crimes ever committed, making the nuclear bombs pale into insignificance by comparison.

When the enemy does it it's "heinous attacks against unarmed civilians", when you do it it's "striking at enemy morale" or something like that.
There really has been an awful lot of terrorism committed by the so called "good guys".


There's never any excuse for using terror tactics. At least not the kind that directly endanger the lives of non-combatants.

The parallels drawn to Mandela don't really work for me because, from my admittedly limited knowledge, I don't think he had any real part in the serious terror activities against civilians.
It'd be like blaming Thomas Jefferson for Obama's drone strikes.

Lawlesz wrote: »

You have pretty much undermined your point by claming Northern Ireland was a democracy pre 1969

I think most people will agree it wasn't fully democratic in pre-1969, but post-1974? And for the 25 years that followed?

I hate the phrase 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'.

My own position is that you can be both at the same time. I also think it's easier to distinguish between an individual terrorist act and a terrorist organisation. For instance, if I commit 1 selfish act then this doesn't make me a selfish person because every other act is not selfish and it would be rash to generalise.

In the same sense, if a minority of individuals within an organisation commit 1 terrorist act (i.e. unnecessary killing of children for example) then this by no means should overshadow the organisation as a 'terrorist organisation'. This is especially true with respect to organisations which are overwhelmingly actively avoiding such incidents.

So while there is a grey area between the concepts, I think this is a somewhat easier way to approach a better understanding of it. Using the quote above is usually used by people unwilling to think of a potential solution to how to politically and socially define such groups a.k.a lazy thinking.