The only true definition of a terrorist:
A person or organized group of people working or thinking against political or economic interests of the glorious United States of America, may the God bless it!
Criminologically speaking, in both respects, Wikileaks as a whistleblowing media foundation is not a terrorist organisation, nor is Julian Assange as the effective lead of the organisation, a terrorist.
The vast majority of us are under the impression that women who detonate vests of explosives in busy market streets, or men who shoot students on a university campus are terrorists. A man in a coffee shop who shouts and scares an infant for no particular given reason, versus the killing of a family pet in retaliation for some neighbourhood dispute, might be argued otherwise.
If terrorism is widely accepted as premeditated, political violence targeting the innocent, one has to question who is defined as innocent, and how innocence is recorded, measured and perceived.
In this case, a Afghani suicide bombing of NATO forces compares equally and directly to a US drone attack where it kills militants but also a handful of non-combatant civilians. On the ground, the consequences are the same. Terrorism is action based, regardless of who commits it.
The label has become too easy, too indiscriminate and ultimately too vague. Not to mention, the term ‘terrorist’ already carries predetermined negative connotations. To call such collectives ’aggrieved groups’ would open them up to at least a fair hearing out.
While the world is aware that he is facing extradition from England to Sweden to face allegations of sexual misconduct and assault, we are not for one minute preempting the court in any way by labelling him ‘a rapist’. Can we therefore label him ‘a terrorist’?
